i'd be pretty damn disgusted with any school or hospital that refused to treat/teach anyone just because they were gay. And with the amount of retards who can knock out 300 chavvy children and then neglect them willy nilly, i think objecting to a loving gay/lesbian couple is just insane. and what the hells a photographers problem, its like they have to do anything but take a few pictures, you dont have to agree with someone's lifestyle choice to photograph them this is just my opinion but religion=fail on many many grounds, this just being one i'm annoyed at.
Damn those gingers!! Seriously though, **** the church! God is forgiveness and all that, yeah right!! He's only forgiving so long as you're straight and white and not a homosexual! Its things like this that are the reason why they will be no church in the next 50 years, their inability to adapt will be be their downfall!
I couldn't care less what religion you choose, just don't confuse fundamentalist dogma with God. -monkey
I still find it difficult to understand why marriage holds a legal status. If two people wish to betroth themselves to each other then go ahead in whatever ceremony that pleases you. Remove the legal status of marriage and you remove the problem.
Ah fair point, what I ment wasnt that god himself isnt forgiving but people like these clerks and ministers around the country, essentially the spokespeople for this religion, are saying he isnt. And thats whats wrong with most religions, they're using fear as a weapon.
actually, i think you'll find that most people believe that god is forgiving, it's our choice to live by his rules or not. i don't think it's really the church's job to adapt. the thing is, the rules were written to be followed, not broken to suit whoever it feels like suiting (though it may seem like that at times) in fact, if the church did change it's rules every 50 years to suit then it certainly wouldn't be the same church that was established 2000 years ago.
Y'know, you'd think the Church and the Gay crowd would be natural friends. After all, the church is STRONGLY against abortion - and who has less abortions than gay couples?! On a more serious note, I think it's time for a little better look into the core concepts here meshing with reality. Divorce rates in America are pretty much 50%. So half of all marriages fail. We're already utterly wrecking the "til death do us part" concept (myself included), so shouldn't the church be promoting healthy relationships, wherever they may be and whoever with? You can only really be in love if your relationship is capable of producing offspring? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. To be honest, I never understood the whole hatred of the Gay cause, except to further reduce the role of women in society to that of a State brood mare. The whole "sanctity of life" debate really revolves around women being pretty much a vessel for men's pleasure and babies. I'd like to think we're more cultured than that now...but maybe not.
That's my favored solution. Marriage as it exists now is both a legal and religious institution. I say seperate them. In short, civil unions for everyone and if you want to go to a preacher and get officially married (in the religious sense) then that's a seperate deal. Believe me, I envy you
He doesn't. Mainstream churches do. No, remove the religious status of marriage. Marriage is not a religious invention, so I don't see how they can lay claim to the patent/copyright. We discussed this topic before in this thread, so allow me to quote my post (#34) from there: QED. And that is the whole crux (haha) of the matter. Religious institutions have delusions of relevance in a society that has moved beyond them. Before we had alternative, scientific explanations for the World, the Universe and Everything the Church was the authority on What Is, and What Should Be. Needless to say, the principle of "as above, so below" applied: a hierarchy of rule by ordination in which the huddled masses served the priviliged elite, slaves their master and women their men. More than half of the Bible, for instance, concerns the management of property and wealth (including slaves), not spiritual matters. Marriage was for economical reasons: to consolidate and pool family resources. Women were part of this family property and marriage bartering material, their function to produce the heirs that would inherit this wealth. Pure blood lines were vital --no interlopers to stake claims on the inheritance, so it was important to control womens' sexuality tightly. Religious institutions colluded with all this --in fact, it was their cultural function. So religious insitutions have always seen marriage as between man and woman, for the purpose of offspring, and have always disparaged sex (and, yes, even love) as an unwelcome distraction at best and a harmful sin at worst. There's only room for one object of love and devotion in this town, and that is the Big Guy in the sky and by extention, His worldly representative down here.
Further to Nexxo's post, I'd like to add that there is a book that many of you would enjoy reading. It is called "The Rape of the A*P*E* by Allan Sherman. A*P*E* stands for American Puritan Ethic. Some of you may recognize Allan Sherman as the composer of the song, Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! Sherman's book is an essay on life, sex education and religion, at once both hilarious and quite profound. Unfortunately the book is long out of print, but used paperbacks are out there and quite reasonable. Here's a link to the information on Amazon about it: http://www.amazon.com/Rape-P-E-Allan-Sherman/dp/0872164535 Needless to say, this book had quite an effect on me when I read it in my late teens. It echoed much of what I had been thinking, being quite uncomfortable with my strict Catholic upbringing. It also challenged and got me thinking about life in general, our societal constraints and their purpose, the role of religion in civilization and its long-reaching effects and other matters. The cool thing is, it does this all while making you snicker and laugh with the not-so-subtle humor and pokes at these institutions. I cannot recommend this book enough if you can find it! (Especially you, Nexxo!) Anyway, more to the topic at hand: I think what really bothers me about gay marriage and stories in the news recently are the instances where people who serve in public capacities (such as county clerks issuing marriage licenses) object to changes in the law and refuse to do their jobs on the basis of religious beliefs. It is fine with me that they hold these beliefs. However, if they are going to have these particular jobs, they should not be able to refuse something that is deemed legal. I think the same way about pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control or "morning after pills" and muslim cab drivers who refuse to carry passengers with liquor in their possession, such as just purchased, sealed bottles from a liquor store.
Nexxo, with that scientific mind of yours I bet it must be hard to believe in that Big Guy in the sky, right ? I know that for me it is sometimes hard to understand how an intelligent person can believe in any of these things and it's even harder for me to contain myself and not make any comments about it
It's not that hard to understand at all. Believing in God, or having faith in any religion, does not make a person unintelligent. Plenty of great scientists and thinkers throughout history have been religious. The problem comes when religious people try to use their religion to explain science, or when scientists try to use science to refute faith. When kept in balance, and in their respective places, both of them serve a valuable function to a person, and by extension, society. -monkey
