Gay Marriage Should it be legal

What else would the government base laws on? All laws should be based on morality. The government, though, has no place saying if something is moral.

And sheeze, Hardcore, I thought I was a homophobe. And betting on your sister going to hell is just wrong.
 
The problem with that, Spuds, is whose morals do you use? One man's will different from another's You could go with the average morality, but that changes and shifts. The truth is, our founding fathers based the laws they passed and the government they founded on Biblical teachings. Morals based on God's word, not man's. IMO, when we move away from that completely, our country will fail crumble.
 
Yes, a number of the concepts of liberty the Founding Father's had were based on their own personal views on religion, but they were all foresighted enough to create a binding Consitution that would be somewhat malleable over time to protect the rights of individuals and to avoid the sectarian violence that plagued Europe for centuries.

The very First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Religious temperament, they realized, would also change, and with the diverse number of Christians already inhabiting the Colonies, the nation would only become more complex and difficult to govern should the Government actually establish a faith outside of the accordance of the Constitution.

In fact, things change so much, in the original Articles (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, to be exact) the Constitution initially stated that a 'Slave' (i.e. a Black person) was considered 3/5 of a person. This was a compromise worked out so that the South would ratify the Consitution being that they were outnumbered by their slaves, and would lose voting powers in the House of Representatives should they only consider landed, white men as citizens in their states.

Being that one side believed in the bondage of human beings as a religious duty, and the other side believed that freeing human beings from bondage to be equally divine in nature, who's to say who is right? The Bible can be contradictory on this matter ("Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" vs. "Let my people go"). We can only use Reason at that point. Religion is a grand basis for the binding of societies together, to create a starting point for codified morality, but our ability to think and reason allowed human beings to create Consitutions and codified regulations that does not exist purely to gratify the spiritual. We continue to reason out that genocide is wrong, slavery is immoral, and that women should not be treated as inferiors to men...all of these things can be found in the Bible, the Koran, etc. However, only the most conservative of literalists this day and age agree with those repugnant belieft structures.

So where am I going with this? The basis for morality always shifts. The Bible is constantly reinterpreted. New religions and philosophies continually appear and rise. What makes this country great is that we have a Consitution, based loosely on Christian religious text, Roman legislative structure and the reasoning minds of some of the most impressive Intellectuals of the 18th to 19th Centuries. It is our guiding document that is not set in stone, but does not change with the whims of fractious and short-sighted humanity. Our laws come from it.
 
It's extremely easy to confuse law with morality. Law deals with ethics (though not in totality; there are many breaches of ethics which are not illegal, for example), not morality, and the difference between ethics and morality often seems semantic.

For example, murder. Murder is illegal because it is "wrong". Why is it "wrong"? It is not wrong beacuse it is morally objectionable; it is wrong because it is a violation of the murdered's right to live, an ethical proposition.

Law is not and should not be based on morality. Law is not necessarily based on ethics either. But introducing morality into law turns it into a flawed system. If you'd like to experience an example, you can go live under the Taliban for a while.
 
"Oy. Woah. God doesn't have ANYTHING against gay people. He has something against what they DO. That is a very important distinction.

And BC, if morality shouldn't instruct law, what should?"

Thankyou that is what i was going to say. And i attacked the way gay people show there relation, not gay people just cuz there gay. And in a sense, It isnt a choice, I will agree. But you arent born being gay. It has something to do with your brain and there is no choice to not accept it if that makes sense. General WEISE bye the way. I mispelled it because i was going to fast and I explained that in the christian forum. It means Wise in German and no I didnt put it on there in purpose its my original gamertag and my last name. But yes if it were white we all know white people are the racist nazi sonofabitches so I can see where yu were going.

O and my problem with them is the fact there doing stuff with the same gender. Yeah, it does make people uncumfortable becuase its wrong. I feel sorry for them sometimes. But if they choose to express there feelngs God will judge them, mercifully or not.
 
Personally I don't care either way. I don't see what the big deal is. If two dudes or two girls want to get married, its none of our business. Life is short for people to make a big deal out of what ultimatly does not concern anyone other than the ones being wed.
 
scribe999 said:
Being that one side believed in the bondage of human beings as a religious duty, and the other side believed that freeing human beings from bondage to be equally divine in nature, who's to say who is right? The Bible can be contradictory on this matter ("Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" vs. "Let my people go"). We can only use Reason at that point. Religion is a grand basis for the binding of societies together, to create a starting point for codified morality, but our ability to think and reason allowed human beings to create Consitutions and codified regulations that does not exist purely to gratify the spiritual. We continue to reason out that genocide is wrong, slavery is immoral, and that women should not be treated as inferiors to men...all of these things can be found in the Bible, the Koran, etc. However, only the most conservative of literalists this day and age agree with those repugnant belieft structures.

So where am I going with this? The basis for morality always shifts. The Bible is constantly reinterpreted. New religions and philosophies continually appear and rise. What makes this country great is that we have a Consitution, based loosely on Christian religious text, Roman legislative structure and the reasoning minds of some of the most impressive Intellectuals of the 18th to 19th Centuries. It is our guiding document that is not set in stone, but does not change with the whims of fractious and short-sighted humanity. Our laws come from it.
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I've got to call you out on a couple of things, Scribe.

1)You're taking your Bible quotes completely out of context. I can take a one-liner and make it mean anything, like you did. The "let my people go" quote comes from when the Israelites were in captivity and God wanted pharoah to let them go into the desert to worship. God also allowed them to be taken as slaves more than once to bring them back to Him. It is specifically forbidden in Leviticus to own slaves.

2)The quote from Paul "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward" was directed to people that were already slaves, not to people owning them. Some were twisting Christianity to be a call for revolution, to rebel and kill the oppressors. Neither Peter, Paul, or Jesus Himself led a revolt against the Roman government that persecuted the church or the Jewish leaders who had crucified the Lord. Paul was instructing to serve humbly and let their lives be a witness to glorify God. After all, Christians are called to be like Christ, and He went humbly to his death on a cross.

3)People will always try to twist what the Bible means, but that doesn't change the message of it. Never has. Never will. Martin Luther realized that the truth had been deviated from and how long ago was that? Some of our forefathers did the same to justify slavery. Spain twisted it for the Spanish Inquisition. From the very beginning of Christianity, the Gnostics and others tried to alter and change what the scriptures were. It never worked. The scripture is the scripture for a reason and reinterpretation only leads to lies and half-truths that always fail. Even today.
 
Hey Darth,

You've kinda bolstered my point that the Bible brings up many contradictory viewpoints, and that despite the fact that I did take quotes out of context, it shows that some people will view the Bible as a series of quotes instead a singular entity of incredible complexity. However, I have read a number of Bibles, Catholic, NIV and King James, and though something like slavery is never outright supported, it is regulated and described without moral comment frequently in both the New and Old Testaments. Some people my take that to mean that slavery could be condoned.

Now, please don't take this as an attack on Christianity. I don't doubt the spiritual truth the various Bibles provide for Christians. I'm sure you're incredibly well-versed with the details of the particular version of the Bible you read, but considering that this is an English translation of Greek documents based on events that occurred in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew, to say that scripture has never been altered is simply untrue. With my own eyes I have viewed the Latin texts of 14th Century bibles. Now, I'm no Latin scholar, but certainly a number of my colleagues knew enough to explain the shifts of nuances and meanings between two separate hand-written books. Since these were pre-printing press manuscripts, you can see how minor changes over time would magnify with each copy created by imperfect clerics with imperfect tools.

The Bible is a fantastic set of rituals, codes and words to live by, but always to be studied, tested and interpreted by the heart of the reader. Martin Luther was a genius, an impressive intellectual, but even he could only work with the documents he was given. Since there is no real standardization of this religious text with the myriad of 'versions' that were created, I can only argue that faith lies in the heart, not in the book, and reason and logic make human beings what we are as opposed to mere grunting animals.

I cannot emphasize this enough: I will not argue about Faith, because Faith is unassailable. Facts, however, are what I work with, and that is what the law must work with as well in order to assure all people of differing faiths that they are treated as equitably as possible under the law. One man's truth is another man's falsehood, so to avoid the sectarian confusion and violence that afflicted Europe in the past and the Middle East now, we need to remember why this country is what it is...to give all humanity a chance to be free and equal under the protection of the law.
 
::cough::

To lower the brow and level of seriousness in this topic, let it be said that all men support lesbian marriage! However, before they are given their marriage licenses, tapes must be sent in and approved!
 
spudlyff8fan said:
::cough::

To lower the brow and level of seriousness in this topic, let it be said that all men support lesbian marriage! However, before they are given their marriage licenses, tapes must be sent in and approved!
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How about DVDs instead of tapes...or the new Blu-Ray format? Anyway, as long as there are bonus features.
 
BTW, if anyone thinks my posts have been overly stuffy, pedantic or just irritating, I ask that you keep in mind that I'm currently going through nicotine withdrawals (as I posted in another thread), and I am feelin' the shakes. Forgive my insanity! I'm tryin' me best.
 
Yup...kickin' the habit...avoiding the Lung Cancer Express if'n I can help it. Peter Jennings kinda scared me...playing basketball while feeling like an asthmatic scared me even more.
 
Darth_Jonas said:
Congrats on kickin the habit, Scribe. Just put on some heavy metal, get on a game and kill some baddies.
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Thank you! Now to frag some demons / terrorists / drug dealers / pikmin...er...aliens!
 
Super Mario said:
Because America has freedom of religion, yet a lot of issues get dictated by Christianity, like this one.
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I agree. We American's do this all the time. And thats why there are some ppl trying to change our pledge of allegiance.


And congrats Scribe kick the habbit. That way you will live longer to be able to play more games.
 
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