Gay marriage

[ghaverkamp]

That's fine, Greg. I'll stop right here. Anyone who calls Brown (which is obviously one of the landmark decisions in Civil Rights history) "poorly reasoned" is, to me, not worth arguing with, and neither is someone who has problems with "redefining" terms which should have never been so strictly defined in the first place. That's your stance, and that's OK, but it's beyond the realm of what I would consider to be a reasonable person I would have a conversation with, because there is nothing for me to learn here. Nothing at all.

 

Heh. I imagine you're correct.

[Couchrocket]

I couldn't care any less about the government/legal definition of marriage. But it must have "some" boundaries in order to have meaning. Do you agree? E.g. One of the boundary conditions might be that the term marriage is limited to some sort of relationship between human beings. Then we might want to ask if the number of participants is relevant. Things like that. If you agree, what other boundary conditions would you suggest, and what justification for them can you offer?

 

Scott, it looks as though we're on the same page if we can rationally and reasonably agree on langauge, definitions, and boundaries. People can wrap their heads around these concepts in a civil way.

 

However I don't think the vast majority of the opposition to gay marriage is rooted in these types of disagreements. I think that it is primarily driven by outright discrimination with a heavy emphasis on theology as the backbone of the argument. And it is that argument which I reject, not so much what you bring up. I do not disagree with what you said directly above.

 

-MKL

 

Excellent! So, let me reiterate, what boundaries would you recommend for the definition of marriage, and what justification for them would you proffer? I've made one suggestion, that the definition be specific to human beings. Others?

[moshe_levy]

Scott-

 

If I think ahead a step or two, I think I can see your point emerging. As soon as we get past a few basic generalities, like perhaps making marriage between humans (I hope we can agree on that!) we're going to get tangled up in definitions. Maybe not you and I, but certainly segments of modern society will surely differ on what constitutes marriage, which for hundreds of years in our majority Western culture has had a pretty clearly understood definition of one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship. Am I on track?

 

-MKL

[Peter Parts]

The word "marriage" can have a lot of meanings, like most words - "sanction" is my favorite because it can also meant its opposite.

 

The problem is that a definition used in law is pretty specific but in this case, the law appropriates the common parlance term "marriage" which people think has their own meaning.

 

A way out of that Alice-in-Wonderland definitional mess is for the government to get out of the "marriage" business and be only into "civil unions" and without entitlements for unionized couples (or groups) or pay-for-babies versus the singles. Or for people to accept that the term "marriage" as used in law has its own special legal meaning.

 

People who want their unions blessed, can get married by their favorite church, mosque, synagogue, coven, or even klaven (God forbid)...

 

Today's legal fun word: "adverse possession" which means "squatter's rights"

 

One of the big problems with people who hold a fervent belief in the Christian foundations of the US is that they don't know the founders were pretty much 18th century rationalists and Deists and not conventionally religious people (maybe not quite agnostics, but close), despite their perfunctory gestures.

 

Ben

[tallman]

Marriage legal definitions, IMO, less about the relationship and more about the rights.

Right to own property and dispose of it.

Right to bequeath property and have orderly, lawful, tranistion when relationship ends or one dies.

 

"Civil Unions"?

Some participating in a marriage want a religious ceremony

to contrast with a "civil" one.

Both should be treated equally, but to limit choice to only one?

Not for me.

 

 

[Peter Parts]

Marriage legal definitions, IMO, less about the relationship and more about the rights.

Right to own property and dispose of it.

Right to bequeath property and have orderly, lawful, tranistion when relationship ends or one dies.

 

"Civil Unions"?

Some participating in a marriage want a religious ceremony

to contrast with a "civil" one.

Both should be treated equally, but to limit choice to only one?

Not for me.

 

 

Good points.

 

I think we should do away with those property and other rights that come with marriage or union. For example, you can have a joint ownership of your house with anybody you want, bequeath legacy, etc.

 

You are welcome to have a marriage blessed (or sanctioned) by a church. Just not the role for government. But I think government doesn't need to supply the blessings, only the legal union.

 

Ben

[Bruce (Bedford)]

I think that marriage needs to be recognised by society, - hence everyone knows what the partners new status is, and therfore needs to be sanctioned by society so that only qualifying people are involved.

IF people want of need their marriage to be 'sanctified' in the eyes of their God or particular community then they should be free to do so as a separate act. I'm not sure but I think this is what happens in France - & as a Brit it pains me to agree with them!!!

Every marriage should be accompanied by a party & bun fight!!!

Bruce

[Couchrocket]

Scott-

 

If I think ahead a step or two, I think I can see your point emerging. As soon as we get past a few basic generalities, like perhaps making marriage between humans (I hope we can agree on that!) we're going to get tangled up in definitions. Maybe not you and I, but certainly segments of modern society will surely differ on what constitutes marriage, which for hundreds of years in our majority Western culture has had a pretty clearly understood definition of one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship. Am I on track?

 

-MKL

 

Yes, and no. (Not trying to be clever for clever’s sake with that comment.) What I do intend to highlight is that definitions are directly connected to meaning and that they come from “someplace” and that “someplace” is not always evil, or suspect. I also hope to point out the lack of critical thinking that is typically applied to issues like this one wherein we make direct ties to other issues that have nothing reality-based in common. They have a legitimate emotional component in common, i.e. the desire for egalitarianism, but nothing else with which to make meaningful application. And I believe that inappropriate application actually makes things worse for society, not better, because it introduces and legitimizes irrationality in decision making.

 

Mostly, my intent was to shed some light upon the impact of post-modern thinking on issues such as this. Without saying it out loud (or perhaps even being conscious of it) we are using post-modern “competition between two meta-narratives” arguments in discussions like the definition of marriage. The post-modern frame of reference is that “all meta-narratives” are only, and always have been only, to allow one group to exert power over another group.

 

If one holds that position consciously, and honestly, then there’s not much else to talk about. But often today we’re using these post-modern arguments (because we’ve been sautéed in them without knowing it) and not understanding where they ultimately lead.

 

For the unaware it sanctifies the irrational and imbues it with a sense of “social righteousness.” For the true adherents of post-modern thinking it is a powerful tool to their ends. The ratio between the two is 999:1 out of a thousand, probably, (and perhaps thankfully) but that doesn’t reduce the impact of the effect of post-modern philosophy being applied to the resolution of issues like the definition of marriage vis-à-vis American culture and the LGBT community.

 

On a more surface level, your response very accurately points out the difficulty we encounter when we take a term / concept and desire to expand its traditional meaning. How far do we go, and once we’ve opened the door to expansion of the meaning how easy it is to lose any real meaning for the concept at all. It also rightly raises the question of “who and how” we set any limits on any definition in order to keep the definition meaningful.

 

[leikam]

It is, in fact, the clear understanding of definitions (even evil ones such as some of those you mention) that allows relevant discussion about their merits, or lack thereof. My point is merely that moving in the direction of having terms / concepts having no limits to what they represent inevitably leads to increased inability to have communication about them.

 

I couldn't care any less about the government/legal definition of marriage. But it must have "some" boundaries in order to have meaning. Do you agree?

 

"Increasing inability" to communicate isn't a problem until it's a problem. In fact, we deal gracefully with ambiguous meanings and inappropriate word choice every day. When it's a problem, the conversation doesn't stop dead; it circles back until meaning is clarified enough to continue or the decision is made to ignore it. A prior shared word=object correspondence isn't necessary for communication to happen.

 

Literate native speakers all agree on how to spell most words -- as we agree on what most words mean. And yet, we can tolerate the following and reach a common understanding of what it means despite the rule violoations:

 

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

 

In the case of marriage, if a man introduces you to his husband it's clear enough what he means. It would be quite different if he introduced the same man as his "gavagai."

[marcopolo]

Speaking of definitions, Canada's Civil Marriage Act of 2005, which made same-sex marriage legal, defines civil marriage as simply, “the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.” Interestingly, up until that point, marriage had never been defined in federal law, though there were laws setting out who could not marry (banjos anyone?). The 2005 law also allows religious officials to refuse to perform marriages that are at odds with their religious beliefs.

[Dave McReynolds]

As far as defining terms is concerned, I'm sure that would be low on the agenda of anyone promoting gay marriage. The reason gay marriage will probably get to the point of being generally accepted is because the majority of people are beginning to accept it, because the image being promoted by the media is generally favorable. Society is also being prodded along by court decisions in favor of it. The court decisions initially cause resentment among people because they don't like being dictated to by the courts, but they establish gay marriage as a reality much sooner than would be the case if it had to wait for societal norms to catch up, and that reality will no doubt cause more people to accept gay marriage after the initial resentment simmers down.

 

But in order to make this all happen, there has to be a message, and the message is that it is unfair to gays and violates their civil rights to deny them the right to marry. The fact is that the message might be true as applied to gay marriage (or might not, but the tide of public opinion is moving in the direction of "true."). But if it is true for gay marriage, it should also be true for group marriage, marriage between children and adults, and marriage between closely related people, all of whom are allowed to marry in other cultures. One could also think of other areas of society outside the realm of marriage where the same fairness and civil rights doctrine could be equally applicable, such as the prohibition of women in combat and a number of other things. This may or may not be the reason Greg felt that some court decisions were poorly reasoned, since the law is supposed to be based on principles, and if a principle applies to one group, it should apply equally to another.

 

Legalization of gay marriage is unlikely to result in the legalization of other forms of marriage or other activities in society where the same principle might be applied, not due to any logical distinction that could be made in terms of civil rights or fairness, but simply because an overwhelming force has gathered behind gay marriage that is absent from the other things I mentioned. That's fine with me; I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago, and don't need to be fed a story. I'm willing to accept it as a change whose time has come, and I doubt that I'll live long enough to see whether or not it turns out to be a good thing for society as a whole.

[Couchrocket]

Legalization of gay marriage is unlikely to result in the legalization of other forms of marriage or other activities in society where the same principle might be applied, not due to any logical distinction that could be made in terms of civil rights or fairness, but simply because an overwhelming force has gathered behind gay marriage that is absent from the other things I mentioned.

 

I mean this kindly, but I think this is quite naive thinking. What seems absurd today becomes tomorrow's cause celeb. And in a time when the conflation of concepts occurs that equates quite different concepts within the boundary conditions of civil rights, I'd not bet on anything being outside the realm of real possibility. I think the fundamental nature of human beings further drives this tendency. For many, this may be completely acceptable, in the same way that anything that can garner 51% of the votes is acceptable. And it is important to note that this applies to all sorts of things other than relationship / gender issues. In fact, relationship / gender issues are of least concern to me. Perhaps my last statement makes this a hi-jack of the original intent of the thread, but I think the issue raised is more than its surface impacts would lead us to conclude.

[Couchrocket]

"Increasing inability" to communicate isn't a problem until it's a problem. In fact, we deal gracefully with ambiguous meanings and inappropriate word choice every day. When it's a problem, the conversation doesn't stop dead; it circles back until meaning is clarified enough to continue or the decision is made to ignore it. A prior shared word=object correspondence isn't necessary for communication to happen.

 

I quite agree "when" the intent is to understand. When the intent is to conflate issues, that's a whole other thang, me thinks. Effective communication about concepts includes an ability to differentiate on the specifics. When the ability to differentiate is intentionally reduced we begin to be at sea in terms of real communication. So, while I certainly agree with your statement above, it isn't the topic of my original comment on "increasing inability."

[ratfink]

Scott-

 

If I think ahead a step or two, I think I can see your point emerging. As soon as we get past a few basic generalities, like perhaps making marriage between humans (I hope we can agree on that!) we're going to get tangled up in definitions. Maybe not you and I, but certainly segments of modern society will surely differ on what constitutes marriage, which for hundreds of years in our majority Western culture has had a pretty clearly understood definition of one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship. Am I on track?

 

-MKL

 

Yes, and no. (Not trying to be clever for clever’s sake with that comment.) What I do intend to highlight is that definitions are directly connected to meaning and that they come from “someplace” and that “someplace” is not always evil, or suspect. I also hope to point out the lack of critical thinking that is typically applied to issues like this one wherein we make direct ties to other issues that have nothing reality-based in common. They have a legitimate emotional component in common, i.e. the desire for egalitarianism, but nothing else with which to make meaningful application. And I believe that inappropriate application actually makes things worse for society, not better, because it introduces and legitimizes irrationality in decision making.

 

Mostly, my intent was to shed some light upon the impact of post-modern thinking on issues such as this. Without saying it out loud (or perhaps even being conscious of it) we are using post-modern “competition between two meta-narratives” arguments in discussions like the definition of marriage. The post-modern frame of reference is that “all meta-narratives” are only, and always have been only, to allow one group to exert power over another group.

 

If one holds that position consciously, and honestly, then there’s not much else to talk about. But often today we’re using these post-modern arguments (because we’ve been sautéed in them without knowing it) and not understanding where they ultimately lead.

 

For the unaware it sanctifies the irrational and imbues it with a sense of “social righteousness.” For the true adherents of post-modern thinking it is a powerful tool to their ends. The ratio between the two is 999:1 out of a thousand, probably, (and perhaps thankfully) but that doesn’t reduce the impact of the effect of post-modern philosophy being applied to the resolution of issues like the definition of marriage vis-à-vis American culture and the LGBT community.

 

On a more surface level, your response very accurately points out the difficulty we encounter when we take a term / concept and desire to expand its traditional meaning. How far do we go, and once we’ve opened the door to expansion of the meaning how easy it is to lose any real meaning for the concept at all. It also rightly raises the question of “who and how” we set any limits on any definition in order to keep the definition meaningful.

 

I'm a bit of a bonehead. I flunked out of first term philosophy! I did read and reread your post and it left me confused. I can say though, that definitions do change over time. The word gay does not usually carry the same meaning that it did when I was a child. If I failed to recognize this I daresay that it could put me it in a situation that could challenge my level of comfort.

[Dave McReynolds]

Legalization of gay marriage is unlikely to result in the legalization of other forms of marriage or other activities in society where the same principle might be applied, not due to any logical distinction that could be made in terms of civil rights or fairness, but simply because an overwhelming force has gathered behind gay marriage that is absent from the other things I mentioned.

 

I mean this kindly, but I think this is quite naive thinking. What seems absurd today becomes tomorrow's cause celeb. And in a time when the conflation of concepts occurs that equates quite different concepts within the boundary conditions of civil rights, I'd not bet on anything being outside the realm of real possibility. I think the fundamental nature of human beings further drives this tendency. For many, this may be completely acceptable, in the same way that anything that can garner 51% of the votes is acceptable. And it is important to note that this applies to all sorts of things other than relationship / gender issues. In fact, relationship / gender issues are of least concern to me. Perhaps my last statement makes this a hi-jack of the original intent of the thread, but I think the issue raised is more than its surface impacts would lead us to conclude.

 

You could be right, of course. I daresay that if the issue of gay marriage had been raised in 1950, the first reaction you would have gotten would have been a blank stare, since nobody would have understood the concept, and once you explained the concept to them, nobody would have believed it could ever happen. It would be similar today if someone were to promote the civil rights of an adult and a child to marry. To the extent someone wasn't outraged by the concept, they would explain to you that a child simply does not have the capacity to enter into such an agreement, and any adult who wants to do that is perverted. Similar to the reaction you might expect from someone in 1950 toward gay marriage. Or, for that matter, about the same reaction you might expect in 1990 toward facial tattoos.

 

I can't imagine that American society is going to change its view about marriages between adults and children, although they are accepted elsewhere in the world. The few people who might feel differently about it aren't likely to make much headway in the courts or with public opinion. People would just tell them to wait until the child grows up, and marry then if they still both want to, like they used to tell the gays to just get a civil union.

 

However, let's assume that some years from now, things do change and for some reason hard to imagine now, people become more sympathetic toward the idea of adult child marriages. While that may never happen, its a sure thing that some things will change that we couldn't imagine would ever change now. When that happens, and after a period of disbelief and upheaval, people will just have to come to terms with it, as has always been the case throughout history.

[beemerman2k]

However, let's assume that some years from now, things do change and for some reason hard to imagine now, people become more sympathetic toward the idea of adult child marriages. While that may never happen, its a sure thing that some things will change that we couldn't imagine would ever change now. When that happens, and after a period of disbelief and upheaval, people will just have to come to terms with it, as has always been the case throughout history.

 

To me, there is but one question that matters: are we doing into others as we would have them do unto us? Is it right -- not from a religious point of view, for this nation is not a theocracy, but from a moral point of view -- to deny free, responsible, tax paying adults their civil rights simply because the majority, usually led by their religion, does not agree with something that really is none of their business anyhow?

 

Yes, with every change made, unforeseen things can happen. But I say we have the courage to do what is right and worry about the implications as they arise. So long as we can articulate our standard, "That all men (and women) are created equal and have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". So long as we can hold to our nations values, I think we will be alright.

[Roadwolf]

"That all men (and women) are created equal and have certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". So long as we can hold to our nations values, I think we will be alright.

 

Leave the myths out and you have a recipe for success. Those "values" are why LGBT persons are in their current predicament. Drop the ancient views of humanity in that regard, embrace modernity and we will get along just fine.

[Huzband]

"That all men (and women) are created equal and have certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". So long as we can hold to our nations values, I think we will be alright.

 

Leave the myths out and you have a recipe for success. Those "values" are why LGBT persons are in their current predicament. Drop the ancient views of humanity in that regard, embrace modernity and we will get along just fine.

 

What myths? And since when are the Bill of Rights ancient?

[moshe_levy]

Danny,

 

I think you misunderstood his post. I read "myths" as the bigotry fueled by religion against gay people, and by "ancient views of humanity," the same religious bigotry. I do not think anyone was referring to the BOR, and certainly James' post was in praise of it, not against it.

 

-MKL

[Roadwolf]

Danny,

 

I think you misunderstood his post. I read "myths" as the bigotry fueled by religion against gay people, and by "ancient views of humanity," the same religious bigotry. I do not think anyone was referring to the BOR, and certainly James' post was in praise of it, not against it.

 

-MKL

 

Correct. I was referring to the larger view of injecting the supernatural into humanity, and more specifically, the archaic "morality" that puts one's piousness above another person's basic right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The justification to withhold from someone full equal rights due to an ancient series of texts that wither under reason and logic is nonsensical. The Bill of Rights gets along just fine without any help from the "divine."

[beemerman2k]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

[ghaverkamp]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

 

Whose Bill of Rights are you reading?

[beemerman2k]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

 

Whose Bill of Rights are you reading?

 

The one that says, "...and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

 

Why, which one do you read

[ghaverkamp]

This may or may not be the reason Greg felt that some court decisions were poorly reasoned, since the law is supposed to be based on principles, and if a principle applies to one group, it should apply equally to another.

 

Actually, I think some are poorly reasoned because, instead of being based on the law -- or even some semblance of it -- they're based on the personal aims of the judges. And Brown, in particular, comes across as pretty conclusory. It's not unusual in civil rights cases, and it cuts both ways. Sometimes it's the Court wanting to desegregate schools, and sometimes the Court bending over backwards to permit cops to violate the sanctity of a person's home. And so, you end up with twisted pile of law that can go either way. (And apparently people so closed-minded that they find it reprehensible to even address the topic.)

 

So, we end up twisting (federal) civil rights laws all the time, because the protections we want aren't there in the Constitution. We can fix those issues in two ways: we can pass laws that are stronger in their protections than what the Constitution argues (e.g., compare wiretapping laws against the protections the Court has actually offered against wiretapping), or we can amend the Constitution (beyond the Bill of Rights, e.g., the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty Sixth).

 

Otherwise, we're supposed to look at most laws to see if there is simply a rational basis for their passage, and that standard is pretty low, and it certainly fits within the realm of incentivizing one sort of things over another. But instead, in many cases -- in California, at least -- we're looking to the courts to solve this problem, to find something in the Constitution which doesn't really exist. The result is a massive distortion of rational basis testing, IMO. That may be a win for this particular issue, but it's a loss to the law overall. And it keeps happening again and again.

[ghaverkamp]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

 

Whose Bill of Rights are you reading?

 

The one that says, "...and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

 

Why, which one do you read

 

I tend to read the one that is actually the Bill of Rights.

[beemerman2k]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

 

Whose Bill of Rights are you reading?

 

The one that says, "...and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

 

Why, which one do you read

 

I tend to read the one that is actually the Bill of Rights.

 

Oh right, I am thinking Bill of Rights, but quoting the Constitution. May I now refer you to a thread I created entitled, "I am losing my mind"

[DaveTheAffable]

.... So long as we can articulate our standard, "That all men (and women) are created equal and have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". So long as we can hold to our nations values, I think we will be alright.

 

Sorry. I cry foul. In this thread others have made it clear that religion should NOT have anything to do with Americas laws or societal guidelines!

Some who have referenced religion or God have not been warmly recieved. Values? Nope. Can't have those either. It's all based on interpretation, what will the words mean today. Why is "gay" used, because the bible calls it homosexuality and condemns it. BUT when I want marriage, That I want called marriage, like in the bible, 'cause I don't want God telling me what I can or can't do!

 

And then... You refer to rights endowed (given..not earned) to us by their (ours, YOURS) creator (GOD)...

 

You need to know what that creator, the one whom was refered to by our founders, had to say on that topic:

 

Rev 3:15-16 (God says)"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! And you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am going to vomit you from my mouth."

 

If you choose to ride the fence, choose carefully.

 

You can't tell us that we should be a nation of religious values and rights from our creator, and in the next breath tell us that religion should be left out.

 

Hot? Cold? In? Out?

 

hmmmmm....

 

 

 

[beemerman2k]

Dave, you make a world of assumptions:

 

- its your version of the faith, or it's all out atheism

 

- the founders understood God in the same way you do

 

- anyone here is saying we don't honor Godly values (well, some might say that)

 

The highest value I honor is the free will God gave to each person to decide what values they will live by, therefore it is not the role of law or of govt to enforce or to mandate that a person hold to Dave's version of faith. Let each person learn, discover, and grow of their own free wills. If some come to faith, great! If some do not, that's fine, too. This is the freedom God gives to each person, and no one and no government has the authority to take that freedom away.

 

Even the founders of our nation sought to restrain the influence religion would have on government. Did they do this because of a lack of respect for Gods values, or out of respect for Gods values?

[DaveTheAffable]

Dave, you make a world of assumptions:

 

- its your version of the faith, or it's all out atheism

 

Nope. I've said nothing of my faith in this context, and in fact, supported giving up my marriage rights as being unfair.

 

 

- the founders understood God in the same way you do

They had the same Bible. They read from it, they quoted in places. They prayed. Don't blame me

 

 

The highest value I honor is the free will God gave to each person to decide what values they will live by, therefore it is not the role of law or of govt to enforce or to mandate that a person hold to Dave's version of faith. Let each person learn, discover, and grow of their own free wills. If some come to faith, great! If some do not, that's fine, too. This is the freedom God gives to each person, and no one and no government has the authority to take that freedom away.

 

Agreed that the government should not be reducing religious freedoms.

 

 

 

 

 

Even the founders of our nation sought to restrain the influence religion would have on government.

Not true. They were trying to prevent the government from influencing religion. Like the governmment across the pond had done. If anything, they wanted MORE religion that was controlled by the people, not government mandated/controlled.

 

 

 

Oh... I agree that the governmant is WAY too involved in religious issues.

 

If you believe in multi-theism (many God's), the only thing you need to decide is which God gave you these rights, and was his purpose in giving you the rights, was to empower you to ignore everything else that God desires for your life.

 

Yes... I believe that everyone has the right... the freedom... to choose to follow God or not. There WILL be a result.

 

Please, don't elevate me! It is not about MY faith. The founders wanted to be able to exercise their faith, and not be FORCED into the governmants religion. They did not intend that religion should be removed from all things. If it were so, then the founders writings would not be full of it.

[Roadwolf]

Of course, the Bill of Rights derives its respect for the freedom and dignity of every person from a respect and acknowledgement of the nature of our Creator.

 

Just sayin'

 

Oh, and by the way... nowhere in the U.S. Constitution (including the Bill of Rights) does it refer to a Creator or any "God". You are confusing the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution.

 

Just sayin'

[moshe_levy]

Some who have referenced religion or God have not been warmly recieved. Values? Nope. Can't have those either. It's all based on interpretation, what will the words mean today.

 

Dave, just to be clear, are you saying that all values stem from religion? Is it not possible to have values without religion?

 

Re your case of the founders' faith, you are correct in that **some** were devout. You have, however, no doubt seen numerous quotes from others that indicated a less than enthusiastic reception to formal organized religion:

 

Jefferson: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

 

Interestingly re Jefferson, his original words were "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights."

 

Adams: "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

 

Franklin: "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."

 

Paine: "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

 

Madison: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

 

Now, of course, there were religious founders, faithful people. But a good number if not an outright majority can be terms "Deists," which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that He does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. One wonders further, if Darwin had lives during their time, if indeed these founders would have used Darwin's work as a foundation for being even more detached from formal religious teachings than they already were. Context is important - in their time they had seen the King pervert Christianity into an agent of the state - a bloody one, at that.

 

-MKL

 

[DaveTheAffable]

Some who have referenced religion or God have not been warmly recieved. Values? Nope. Can't have those either. It's all based on interpretation, what will the words mean today.

 

Dave, just to be clear, are you saying that all values stem from religion? Is it not possible to have values without religion?

 

-MKL

 

- No. I am saying all values come from somewhere.

- Yes. Devout Aetheists have values. They are not thought of as religious.

- Some here on the board religiously change their oil. Are they religious?

- The government recognizes satan worshippers as a religion. Are we talking about them?

 

Couchrocket (MUCH more elequently than I) eluded to it earlier when he talked about definitions. It makes it really hard to have meaningful conversations without agreement on definitions.

 

He was talking about defining "marriage". Same problem here. What is religion? And concepts like "creator", devoid of who that is? Really hard to invoke the concept, then throw it out if it doesn't meet my definitions of the moment.

 

I think we are WAY off OP's topic/intent here. Probably my fault for crying "foul" to Beemerman. Let me bow out here so it doesn't dilute the thread further.

 

[moshe_levy]

I agree, Couchrocket did make an excellent point. It is also true, though, that by definition progress sometimes involves revising age-old definitions of certain things. Ayn Rand herself once said "tradition for tradition's sake is stagnation." I don't know if I'd agree with that in every case, but surely in some it is true.

 

-MKL

[Couchrocket]

I can say though, that definitions do change over time. The word gay does not usually carry the same meaning that it did when I was a child. If I failed to recognize this I daresay that it could put me it in a situation that could challenge my level of comfort.

 

Yes, of course. Meanings to terms and concepts do change over time. That is an entirely different thing than losing meaning for terms and concepts because we've intentionally conflated them with other terms and concepts.

 

Over time some words even completely invert. A good example is the word "let" in English. At one time let meant "prevent" not "allow" as we have it today, hence a "let ball" in tennis is one that was "prevented" from its normal course of flight by the net. Those sorts of changes happen gradually in the flow of culture and history. It is a much different thing than the intentional conflation of terminology and concepts.

 

Slang is another category. Some slang succeeds in becoming part of the lexicon permanently, but often slang is temporary and does not survive its generational use. For instance, you'll hardly ever hear anyone use 23 skidoo these days, but the word "hot" has survivied generationally to be a superlative as well as a description of relative temperature. "Groovy" is on the fence! :-)

 

 

[Couchrocket]

I agree, Couchrocket did make an excellent point. It is also true, though, that by definition progress sometimes involves revising age-old definitions of certain things. Ayn Rand herself once said "tradition for tradition's sake is stagnation." I don't know if I'd agree with that in every case, but surely in some it is true.

 

-MKL

 

Thanks, and I completely agree with what you've said above. The danger lies when we're given the impression (or worse yet "told") that the one is the same as the ohter.

[Couchrocket]

Whose Bill of Rights are you reading?

 

The one that says, "...and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

 

Why, which one do you read

 

I tend to read the one that is actually the Bill of Rights.

 

Oh right, I am thinking Bill of Rights, but quoting the Constitution. May I now refer you to a thread I created entitled, "I am losing my mind"

 

James,

 

Hardly losing your mind. Innocent mistake. And the thrust of the response to you is, "It doesn't count because it isn't in the Constitution." On the face of it, that seems true enough. But there's more to the story than the revisionist history that typically gets thrown at one when quoting from the Declaration. If one thinks logically, the Constitution is derived from those very things enumerated in the Declaration. The Declaration set forth why a new nation, and therefore, a new Constitution is warranted. It did so in a way that the world had never seen. And it was done in the full light of the Judeo-Christian perspective on the nature of God and the nature of man. I would go further and make a direction connection between the phrase “secure the blessings of liberty” that are in the preamble to the Constitution and your recitation of the language in the Declaration. What are those “blessings of liberty” and where do they come from? And “securing the blessings of liberty” is stated as not merely for those establishing the new nation, but also for “our Posterity.”

 

It is precisely because the founders believed that mankind has been endowed by the creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the founders went on to enumerate them in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

What secularists would have you believe is that because the Constitution does not reiterate this it somehow removes the overarching and foundational truth that the founders believed justified creating the Constitution in the first instance. They cite, “Not all the founders were Christians” as proof-text from which we are supposed to conclude that they did not believe in God, or that the Judeo-Christian ethic is somehow not the absolutely monolithic consensus which they felt was the very foundation of the new nation. It was, without a doubt. In fact, I happen to think that they were so convinced of this, and of its “apparentness” to everyone that they did not enumerate any sense of what “civil responsibility” citizens should have within the Constitution. I’m reasonably sure they’d be appalled to see “God” (the Judeo-Christian concept of God) so aggressively expunged from public life.

 

Let’s take Thomas Jefferson as one example (since he’s so often used as the poster-boy). Revisionists are quick to point out that Jefferson, “Was not a Christian, he was some sort of Deist.” EXACTLY. Jefferson was not a “Bible Believing Christian” as the term is commonly understood today. We all know that because of his expressed doubt about the possibility of the miraculous, and other doctrinal issues. Jefferson was bold enough to cut-and-paste his own version of the Bible because of this! And so we’re told that this is evidence that God has no place in the public square. This is just muddled thinking. Jefferson was not stupid. He believed there is a God, and that God is the Judeo-Christian God, with all the ethical norms and understanding of the nature of man and God that includes. He accepted that as the appropriate consensus upon which to build a just society.

 

What the founders “did do” was to proscribe any one “brand” of the Judeo-Christian “religion” from becoming the state religion of the new nation, because that had been a terrible idea in England (and in history in general). But the foundation upon which the country was established was indeed what we now call the Judeo-Christian ethic. I’ll even venture a guess that had the founders had any idea that the country would eventually move in the direction of abandoning the Judeo-Christian ethic as the consensus they’d have been more likely to include references like those in the Declaration within the body of the Constitution itself, enumerating where our rights derive as the foundation upon which the new society is built. Let me say this another way, for clarity’s sake, because it is very important. No one in the new society would be compelled to be a particular brand of Christian, or even a Christian at all. That’s directly part of what it was all about in rejecting England’s State Church model and all its ills. But that is an immensely different thing than saying that the founders thought that God had nothing to do with what they were about, or that He had no place in the public square.

 

I believe that those who try to tell us that the founders envisioned a “Judeo-Christian-free” consensus, and that is why we have separation of church and state as we have it today, are either misinformed, or dishonest.

 

Let me quickly add that since this nation is a democracy (I know it is technically a republic, but it is rapidly becoming merely a democracy – electoral college going out the window, etc.) and that a theoretical 51% is all that is needed to change things – that it is fully (if foolishly) acceptable on Constitutional grounds to come to a new consensus “in law” that does say that God has no place in the public square, or even that those who believe in God (and especially the Judeo-Christian God) are to now be considered suspect and perhaps even hate-speakers (there are early signs that we may be headed in that direction). That’s because all it takes is 51% at any point along the path of our slide into a completely relativistic world-view where there is no creator, and therefore no one to guarantee humans anything at all, rights or responsibilities. Ergo, any rights we have come from ourselves (as long as we’re in the 51% - which is just a fancy way of saying “those in power”) and that as society changes so also do our rights change. That’s what makes me very pessimistic about the long term future of the United States of America, at least insofar as individual freedom to pursue happiness, and enjoy individual liberty are concerned. Our right to life itself, may not be very far behind – as absurd as that may sound in 2012.

 

So, James, your post was more profound than you may realize, and the response you received was “technically accurate” but wholly wrong-headed in my view.

 

[Roadwolf]

Scott, I know your reply was directed at James, but in response to your post, there are numerous fallacies I see in it (especially regarding the foundational nature of the United States and the Founding Fathers)... but I think your phrase below is about as inaccurate as I have read regarding a non-theist's view of morality:

 

"That’s because all it takes is 51% at any point along the path of our slide into a completely relativistic world-view where there is no creator, and therefore no one to guarantee humans anything at all, rights or responsibilities. Ergo, any rights we have come from ourselves (as long as we’re in the 51% - which is just a fancy way of saying “those in power”) and that as society changes so also do our rights change. That’s what makes me very pessimistic about the long term future of the United States of America, at least insofar as individual freedom to pursue happiness, and enjoy individual liberty are concerned. Our right to life itself, may not be very far behind – as absurd as that may sound in 2012."

 

Rather than debate here, I challenge you to some research in this area by reading either of Sam Harris' books, Letter to a Christian Nation or The Moral Landscape. Either of those will be a primer on morality separated from any dogma that a religious persons may hold onto... it has helped me tremendously as a recovering Christian who spent 26 years in the wilderness. He has a way of putting into context the notion of moral absolutes being tied down to a omniscient being.

[moshe_levy]

I never read either of those. Have to put them on the list!

 

-MKL

[beemerman2k]

Much of my own views on the Declaration of Independence were shaped by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. He once gave a speech entitled, "The American Dream". What a powerful speech that was! In summary, Scott pretty much revealed that speech for us with his post on the subject, though not in quite as flamboyant a fashion as Dr King did, as you might expect.

 

King argues that we are the result of a dream as envisioned by our natio s founders. Therefore, each of us has a responsibility to labor to make their dream become a reality. King basically says that this is his life's work--to carry on with the vision these enlightened men had.

 

I fail to do this speech justice in my summary, so listen to it if you ever get the chance. A powerful speech that I highly recommend

[ghaverkamp]

Hardly losing your mind. Innocent mistake. And the thrust of the response to you is, "It doesn't count because it isn't in the Constitution." On the face of it, that seems true enough. But there's more to the story than the revisionist history that typically gets thrown at one when quoting from the Declaration. If one thinks logically, the Constitution is derived from those very things enumerated in the Declaration. The Declaration set forth why a new nation, and therefore, a new Constitution is warranted. It did so in a way that the world had never seen. And it was done in the full light of the Judeo-Christian perspective on the nature of God and the nature of man. I would go further and make a direction connection between the phrase “secure the blessings of liberty” that are in the preamble to the Constitution and your recitation of the language in the Declaration. What are those “blessings of liberty” and where do they come from? And “securing the blessings of liberty” is stated as not merely for those establishing the new nation, but also for “our Posterity.”

 

It is precisely because the founders believed that mankind has been endowed by the creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the founders went on to enumerate them in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Frankly, I think you're the one being revisionist, Scott. The Bill of Rights spent most of its early history having little impact in the daily lives of anyone, and it certainly did little to promote civil rights among the People. After all, even after the passage of the first ten amendments, we still had slaves, women still couldn't vote, and the states could and did discriminate against groups they so pleased. The states were allowed to practice religion however they pleased, and that was largely how the Founders wanted it. It wasn't a federal government "under God", because the states tended to take their own positions on much of that. Trying to insist that the "blessings of liberty" was somehow a religious assertion insists too much. The Constitution never would have been ratified had it tried to encode religion.

 

To a large degree -- and this is where I'll aggravate the lovers of the Founders -- it doesn't really matter what the Founders thought, because the Fourteenth Amendment completely changed the game. Suddenly, rather than a detached federal government, we had a federal government that could now meddle in the affairs of the states. That significantly changed the playing field from that which the Founders put together. The federal government wasn't created with the intention that it would be influential at all, much less in areas like religion. But once the Fourteenth imposed the First Amendment upon the states, that non-intrusive federal government found itself intruding further. Regardless of what the Founders did or did not intend originally -- and my contention, again, is that they intended the federal government to be distant enough that it didn't really factor into religion at all -- that changed after 1868.

[DaveTheAffable]

Frankly, I think you're the one being revisionist, Scott. The Bill of Rights spent most of its early history having little impact in the daily lives of anyone, and it certainly did little to promote civil rights among the People. After all, even after the passage of the first ten amendments, we still had slaves, women still couldn't vote, and the states could and did discriminate against groups they so pleased. The states were allowed to practice religion however they pleased, and that was largely how the Founders wanted it. It wasn't a federal government "under God", because the states tended to take their own positions on much of that. Trying to insist that the "blessings of liberty" was somehow a religious assertion insists too much. The Constitution never would have been ratified had it tried to encode religion.

 

The sucess or failure independant of intent, does not disprove intent.

 

The California Bar intends that there will be no dishonest lawyers. How much impact it has had may be questioned by some. The behavior is the responsibility of the individual. The fact that there are dishonest lawyers does not mean the Bar had no such intent.

 

 

(darn... I said I was bowing out...lol)

[ghaverkamp]

The sucess or failure independant of intent, does not disprove intent.

 

No, though the intent is also quite clear by simply reading what rights are protected in the first ten amendments. Those civil rights were intended to protect against a tyrannical central government.

 

The California Bar intends that there will be no dishonest lawyers. How much impact it has had may be questioned by some. The behavior is the responsibility of the individual. The fact that there are dishonest lawyers does not mean the Bar had no such intent.

 

Just as the Bill of Rights fails to address but a few of those "inalienable rights", neither the California Business and Professions Code nor the Rules of Professional Conduct indicate any intention to prevent the admission or continued practice of dishonest attorneys, unless that dishonesty in some way is likely to or does lead to violation of one of those rules.

[DaveTheAffable]

Just as the Bill of Rights fails to address but a few of those "inalienable rights", neither the California Business and Professions Code nor the Rules of Professional Conduct indicate any intention to prevent the admission or continued practice of dishonest attorneys, unless that dishonesty in some way is likely to or does lead to violation of one of those rules.

 

Of course not... they had no intent. They were bored, and thought those rules of conduct would entertain and amuse.

 

Perfect!

 

When my boss says. "Can you have that report done by Thursday, it will benefit the company..." as long as he doesn't specifically add "and my INTENTION in asking is to see it gets done", I can ignore him!

 

 

[Couchrocket]

Scott, I know your reply was directed at James, but in response to your post, there are numerous fallacies I see in it (especially regarding the foundational nature of the United States and the Founding Fathers)... but I think your phrase below is about as inaccurate as I have read regarding a non-theist's view of morality:

 

"That’s because all it takes is 51% at any point along the path of our slide into a completely relativistic world-view where there is no creator, and therefore no one to guarantee humans anything at all, rights or responsibilities. Ergo, any rights we have come from ourselves (as long as we’re in the 51% - which is just a fancy way of saying “those in power”) and that as society changes so also do our rights change. That’s what makes me very pessimistic about the long term future of the United States of America, at least insofar as individual freedom to pursue happiness, and enjoy individual liberty are concerned. Our right to life itself, may not be very far behind – as absurd as that may sound in 2012."

 

Rather than debate here, I challenge you to some research in this area by reading either of Sam Harris' books, Letter to a Christian Nation or The Moral Landscape. Either of those will be a primer on morality separated from any dogma that a religious persons may hold onto... it has helped me tremendously as a recovering Christian who spent 26 years in the wilderness. He has a way of putting into context the notion of moral absolutes being tied down to a omniscient being.

 

Hi Chris,

 

You use the term "inaccurate" to describe the quoted paragraph of mine. And, I'm presupposing that what you mean by "regarding a non-theist's view" is that it conditions your statement about my words being "inaccurate?" I'll proceed upon that premise. Our system of democracy makes possible any change at all as long as the change is made through the democratic process. In that sense my statment is absolutely accurate. Where I think we clearly disagree is in our confidence that this will lead in a positive direction as the nation becomes more and more secular. If this is the case, then we’ll just agree to disagree on that, and frankly I’d prefer to be wrong on that score. I think history demonstrates otherwise, and one of the things that makes the US perhaps more vulnerable than other societies from the past is that our view of American exceptionalism seems to extend to a sort of perceived immunity to the lessons of history and their applicability to our democracy.

 

As to Sam Harris’ work, I am familiar with it and unimpressed. As one of his reviewers puts it, “It is merely rehashed utilitarianism with the volume turned up…” He’s roughly in the same category with Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens as far as I’m concerned, perhaps with a tad more vitriol. One could hope, of course, that somehow the scientific method could yield a transcendental definition for something like the “wellbeing” espoused by Harris. But I think history (again) teaches us otherwise.

 

I agree with you that debate about these matters here is probably not going to edify anyone, and certainly wouldn’t change either of our minds. It really is a demonstration of two polar-opposite world-views. Clarity is good for its own sake though, and I thank you for your response to my post.

 

[Couchrocket]

Trying to insist that the "blessings of liberty" was somehow a religious assertion insists too much. The Constitution never would have been ratified had it tried to encode religion.

 

Hi Greg,

 

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say, and perhaps I could have been clearer. While I think that in one sense "blessings of liberty" was, in fact, a religious assertion, my point is actually different than that. My point is that this sense of where the "blessings of liberty" are derived was a monolithic consensus among the founders (and society at large at the time) regardless of the specifics of any one individual's religious beliefs. And so I believe with you that the phrase was not intended to be taken as an overtly "religious assertion" (they were being careful about that for the reasons previously stated) because of the proscription regarding the establishment of a state church, it is none-the-less "religious" in nature when examined within the context of the extant dominant consensus.

 

And that really is my main point. I'm not one who argues that, "This nation was founded as a Christian nation." I don't believe that's true at all. What I do believe is that the Judeo-Christian ethic was an accepted consensus at the time and so the extension of that ethic into the founding documents is a natural course of events.

 

I don't dispute what you also said about the amazing disconnect between the lofty ideals in the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights versus "reality" at the time vis-à-vis slavery, etc. BUT I think that points to the "vision" being transcendent and based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and not based merely in secular expedience which could have nicely accommodated the status quo.

 

[beemerman2k]

I don't dispute what you also said about the amazing disconnect between the lofty ideals in the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights versus "reality" at the time vis-à-vis slavery, etc. BUT I think that points to the "vision" being transcendent and based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and not based merely in secular expedience which could have nicely accommodated the status quo.

 

If you could ask Dr King about the matter, he'd say this "vision" made all the difference in the world with respect to the disenfranchised being able to brIng their grievances before government and society. It would be difficult to overstate the degree of gratitude King had for these founders and the vision and the values they expressed. That was, in itself, enough for countless Amercans to come to leverage for the changes they sought in our country.

 

And, closer to the topic at hand, this is ultimately the reason society is listening to and considering the grievances of our gay brothers and sisters.

 

[philbytx]

Quote

However, let's assume that some years from now, things do change and for some reason hard to imagine now, people become more sympathetic toward the idea of adult child marriages. While that may never happen, its a sure thing that some things will change that we couldn't imagine would ever change now. When that happens, and after a period of disbelief and upheaval, people will just have to come to terms with it, as has always been the case throughout history.

 

Unquote

 

Sorry to tell you but it is here. Not only sympathetic but legal !!

 

Middle East and North Africa

and Globally

[beemerman2k]

Although this is pretty far afield of the topic of this thread, I have heard some say that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in all likelihood significantly younger than her husband Joseph. I'm no historian, but I have long been under the impression that this type of thing being taboo is a modern ethic not found in biblical times.

 

Not that we should allow it, thats not my point at all. But some of our most admired people practiced this form of family making -- I suppose that's my point.

[Quinn]

Okay, all I've gotten out of the last few pages is that we can change the defination of words if we want to. And a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo. So a marriage can be defined to include gay couples. And I guess it could also be enlarged for related persons, group families or most anything else. Yes, I'm applying the slippery slope argument because I see it as one. I have read no compelling argument that would permenently stop the defination at two unrelated people forming a union. Even James' use of civil rights doesn't do it for me. To me, he's using civil rights as a synonym for "common sense legislation."

 

I also don't care what per cent of the population is in favor or against it. The majority shouldn't have the right to wrong the minority.

 

-----

 

 

[beemerman2k]

Even James' use of civil rights doesn't do it for me. To me, he's using civil rights as a synonym for "common sense legislation."

 

I don't think I follow you here. Do you feel that I am using a civil rights argument to oppose or to support the idea of gay marriage (or civil unions, whatever you want to call it)? And, if you feel I am for, or opposed, do you agree or disagree with me?

 

Or is it none of the above: for or opposed, you've not heard a convincing argument one way or another?