A black minister asks the right question. The Democrats, except for Kucinich, answer it the wrong way.
There is no difference. That's why I call some Christians "vile".
I totally don't buy Edwards "I'm deeply conflicted" bullshit. He knows there is no difference, but because they have to get elected, they can't appear to completely reject the bigotry that still exists in this country.
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Obama makes a convincing arguement for civil unions.
As we so often point out, the wall between church and state is 2 ways. Therefore, being that marriage is a religious institution, the federal government has no right to tell churches who they can marry, who the can't or, in this case, who they must.
I if and only if civil unions are equal to marriage in every way do they then satisfy both the requirements of being non-discriminatory and secular.
PS: Being honest, I think all things done legally should be termed "civil union" whether it is traditional marriage or not, so that is perhaps why this comes across as the best solution.
Are you saying that if state governments changed their marriage laws, and the federal government changed their marriages laws, ending the requirement that participants be of opposite sex, that churchs would be required to provide ceremonies to same-sex couples?
No, because the federal government can't require the church to do anything. It's that 2 way wall thing.
What I am saying is this. Congress is dealing strictly with the LEGAL definition of marriage. Right now, 2 people of the same gender can go into a church and, provided the pastor is willing, get a marriage ceremony. The dispute is the legal recognition of that ceremony.
I beleive that in order to be secular, we can't tell churches what they can and can't do.
I think what we ought to do is simply replace all instance of the term "marriage" with "civil union" and broaden the laws to include same-sex unions. I think doing that would create a distinct boundry between the legal and religous definitions of marriage.
I've heard that argument made before. It's debating the definition of "marriage", as if the word is religious. I really don't know if that's the case, so I checked the wiki and found;
Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends or religious beliefs concerning the origins of marriage.
Regardless, if the government changes their civil laws, that has nothing to do with religion so the easiest way to be fair is to simply drop the gender requirements from the laws.
By the way.. the Establishment Clause is not what allows any particular church to marry whoever they want, or not marry who they don't. Church's are private institutions and the government has no authority to force a church to provide services to anyone they don't want to. It's the same reason why private clubs can deny membership to anybody they want for any reason.
The original point, was the question of how same-sex marriage differs with inter-racial marriage. Obama completely ducked that part of the question. In fact, that was the entire question. He simply explained his point of view on the issue of same-sex marriage, and didn't address the hypocrisy that was central to the question itself.
I've made this point more times than I can count.. but the same arguments that Christians used to oppose inter-racial marriage up through the 1960's is being used to oppose same-sex marriage today. There were some 70%+ of the American public that opposed it.. quite a bit more than oppose same-sex marriage today.
Of course, being gay.. this is one of my central reasons why I think Christians are vile. I'm not the sort that will sit at the "black" lunch counter and be content to get the same meal as the white people. I'll kick the white man in the balls and sit where I want. Fuck them.
So are you angry that you can't get married in a church? Or that you don't have the same rights? Or that you arn't called "married" but "civil union."
In case number 1, and I don't sense that that's the case, but there is dick anyone can do about it.
In case number 2, which I think is the bulk of the arguement, then how does changing it all to "civil union" not solve that? Why not eliminate the term "marriage" in government altogether?
In case number 3, although I word it as a language issue I can see a seperate but equal arguement to be made, I think standardizing the lingo to be one secular term is the only real solution.
8 comments:
Obama makes a convincing arguement for civil unions.
As we so often point out, the wall between church and state is 2 ways. Therefore, being that marriage is a religious institution, the federal government has no right to tell churches who they can marry, who the can't or, in this case, who they must.
I if and only if civil unions are equal to marriage in every way do they then satisfy both the requirements of being non-discriminatory and secular.
PS: Being honest, I think all things done legally should be termed "civil union" whether it is traditional marriage or not, so that is perhaps why this comes across as the best solution.
Are you saying that if state governments changed their marriage laws, and the federal government changed their marriages laws, ending the requirement that participants be of opposite sex, that churchs would be required to provide ceremonies to same-sex couples?
No, because the federal government can't require the church to do anything. It's that 2 way wall thing.
What I am saying is this. Congress is dealing strictly with the LEGAL definition of marriage. Right now, 2 people of the same gender can go into a church and, provided the pastor is willing, get a marriage ceremony. The dispute is the legal recognition of that ceremony.
I beleive that in order to be secular, we can't tell churches what they can and can't do.
I think what we ought to do is simply replace all instance of the term "marriage" with "civil union" and broaden the laws to include same-sex unions. I think doing that would create a distinct boundry between the legal and religous definitions of marriage.
I've heard that argument made before. It's debating the definition of "marriage", as if the word is religious. I really don't know if that's the case, so I checked the wiki and found;
Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends or religious beliefs concerning the origins of marriage.
Regardless, if the government changes their civil laws, that has nothing to do with religion so the easiest way to be fair is to simply drop the gender requirements from the laws.
By the way.. the Establishment Clause is not what allows any particular church to marry whoever they want, or not marry who they don't. Church's are private institutions and the government has no authority to force a church to provide services to anyone they don't want to. It's the same reason why private clubs can deny membership to anybody they want for any reason.
The original point, was the question of how same-sex marriage differs with inter-racial marriage. Obama completely ducked that part of the question. In fact, that was the entire question. He simply explained his point of view on the issue of same-sex marriage, and didn't address the hypocrisy that was central to the question itself.
I've made this point more times than I can count.. but the same arguments that Christians used to oppose inter-racial marriage up through the 1960's is being used to oppose same-sex marriage today. There were some 70%+ of the American public that opposed it.. quite a bit more than oppose same-sex marriage today.
Of course, being gay.. this is one of my central reasons why I think Christians are vile. I'm not the sort that will sit at the "black" lunch counter and be content to get the same meal as the white people. I'll kick the white man in the balls and sit where I want. Fuck them.
So are you angry that you can't get married in a church? Or that you don't have the same rights? Or that you arn't called "married" but "civil union."
In case number 1, and I don't sense that that's the case, but there is dick anyone can do about it.
In case number 2, which I think is the bulk of the arguement, then how does changing it all to "civil union" not solve that? Why not eliminate the term "marriage" in government altogether?
In case number 3, although I word it as a language issue I can see a seperate but equal arguement to be made, I think standardizing the lingo to be one secular term is the only real solution.
Simply doing what Massechusettes did is the real solution. Seems to be working out fine for them.
But how can you claim to be a secular government when you have marriage laws? Marriage is a religous institution.
It's just a label.. and as I pointed out, the idea that it's origin is "religious" is debatable.
I really don't give a shit if they do a word search on the laws and change the word "marriage" to anything they want.
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