Don't like it? Get out!

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Pie

That solid red block scares me. I guess that's why the call it the bible belt.

After looking at the image, I'd call it an "irritating rash in the country's nether regions". Living in the middle of it, I assure you, is no picnic, either.

Long time/no see, OC! That's a lot of material to read and not enough coffee to go with it. Whoa.

[OnyxCougar]

source

76% of the population in the United States identifies themselves as "Christian".

If that 76% voted according to the candidate that stood on a platform of "Christian principles", and elected representatives and senators based on that platform, this would be a politically "Christian" nation, and laws regarding abortion, same sex marriage (which I concede is predicated on religious opinion, but deny it's an exclusively Christian viewpoint), etc would be passed overwhelmingly.

Think of the uproar when the Christian president said "If you don't like our 76% Christian nation and it's laws, get out." Would you be heralding him like you are the Aussie guy?

Just food for thought.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Long time/no see, OC! That's a lot of material to read and not enough coffee to go with it. Whoa.

I know it is, Kitsune. But I wanted to show the folks here that America was, indeed, founded on Christian principles and the separation of church and state was never a policy in the time of the founding fathers, and is not found in the Constitution. (As I'm sure you're aware.)

So Mr. Guy (or Ms. Girl, whichever the case may be) who says it's just a "coincidence" does not seem to have read much about American History.

Leave it to me to attempt to enlighten.

(By the way, James Madison was fiercely about leaving religion out of politics. He was outvoted alot. Democracy at work!)

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

I know it is, Kitsune. But I wanted to show the folks here that America was, indeed, founded on Christian principles and the separation of church and state was never a policy in the time of the founding fathers, and is not found in the Constitution. (As I'm sure you're aware.)

I'm not going to agree on the "not found in the Constituion" bit, but I will agree that you have an interesting analysis of the founding of this country and some good points. Still, I find the religious ideals that were erroroneously woven into our country's early laws to be just as invalid today as the then accepted "legal" concept of racial inequality, slavery, and the ownership of human beings. It is rare that I hear the suggestion that because the current majority of this country is white and the founders were white that the 13th amendment should be marked as invalid or that the United State's government should be recognized for the original interpretation of "all peoples" as white male land owners. There are plenty of laws that were written in to make the early governments of this country popular to the citizens that would be asked to adopt them, both federal and state, just as today laws are proposed to appeal to the masses. Neither excuse, however, makes them "correct" under the central idea that our government is a government of the people and representative of all.

I don't want the United States to ask those that demand religious-based laws, government sponsored religion, inequal rights based upon religious ideas, or a theocracy to "get out".

...but they sure as hell better get used to not getting what they want.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Insurance companies will cover anything they can make money on.....strictly business.

Right, I was using two meanings of "cover", as the incurance companies do. They'd love to cover1 gay marriages, but once they have they'll try and find ways that they aren't actually covered2. But that's no different from straight marriages, or hurricane or flood insurance for that matter.

1. Collect insurance fees from
2. Eligable to recieve money

[mrnoodle]

Gay relationships are notoriously unstable, even in a culture where straight relationships are about as reliable as a Colorado weather report (i.e., not so much). The additional load of drama upon society would be crippling: the divorce rate would quintuple, insurance companies would crumble under the weight of millions of claims due to hair-pulling and slapping.

And imagine the bridal magazines. Some things can't be unseen, remember that.




/kidding. <3

[Skunks]

OC: Some of those passages are unmistakably Christian, but it is my understanding that a significant portion of the religious language used by the founding fathers was in reference to Deism, not Christianity.

From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism">wikipedia</a>:

Historical and modern deism is defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject both organized and revealed religion and maintain that reason is the essential element in all knowledge.

Deism was championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are among the most well-known of the American founding deists. There is debate as to whether George Washington was a deist or not.Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that helped to popularize deism throughout America and Europe. Paine wrote that deism represented the application of reason to religion. Deists like Paine hoped to settle religious questions permanently and scientifically by reason alone, without revelation.

The first six and four later presidents of the United States had strong deistic or allied beliefs, even if they did not proclaim them.

[Elspode]

I know I'm going to be sorry for jumping into this, since OC's research is obviously more thorough than mine (which is to say, none), but...once we've made it illegal for queers to engage in a legally binding contract like marriage, what's to keep us from, say, revoking women's voting rights and anything else that isn't keeping with the fundamentalist notions of how everyone else ought to live?

I cannot conceive of any valid legal argument whereby any two people should not be allowed to unite their assets and obligations in a legal manner, cohabitate, and derive the same benefits as any other two people are entitled to simply by dint of their genders.

Anything else is discrimination. If it isn't, someone needs to tell me why, and the explanation can't include anything about family values (mine might not be yours, and if I'm not hurting anyone else, why should I have to live by yours), historical precedents (go far enough back in history and you'll find a great many alternative lifestyles that were quite acceptable in their time) or {insert your religion here} tenets.

Marriage is a contract. If Bob and Mary want to believe that their contract is sanctified by God, great, cool, I hope they hire me to play at the wedding. But if Bob and Joe just want to ensure that they have rights of property inheritance and insurability...why can't they? If they each married a woman, they'd be entitled to those things, so there wouldn't be any more burden on insurance companies, the government or anything else if Bob and Joe got hitched.

There's no rationale for prohibiting same sex marriage other than religious morality. By my way of thinking, if you can limit one thing on that basis, you can do anything else on that basis, and taken to that extreme, you have radical Islam, Right Wing Christianity, and so on.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's a slippery slope, Elspode. You let 'em get married and before you know it all those faggot/lezzie children will be bitching the their separate but equal schools ain't equal and they don't want to sit in the back of the bus anymore.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I know I'm going to be sorry for jumping into this, since OC's research is obviously more thorough than mine (which is to say, none), but...once we've made it illegal for queers to engage in a legally binding contract like marriage, what's to keep us from, say, revoking women's voting rights and anything else that isn't keeping with the fundamentalist notions of how everyone else ought to live?

I cannot conceive of any valid legal argument whereby any two people should not be allowed to unite their assets and obligations in a legal manner, cohabitate, and derive the same benefits as any other two people are entitled to simply by dint of their genders.

You know what? I agree. So why don't we just bring this down to one point: marriage is male/female, civil union is same sex. Make civil union just as legal and binding as marriage, give it the same rights and responsibilities?

I'm 100% happy with that. Semantics? Absolutely. But it goes a long way to pacify the majority of the people.

Anything else is discrimination. If it isn't, someone needs to tell me why, and the explanation can't include anything about family values (mine might not be yours, and if I'm not hurting anyone else, why should I have to live by yours), historical precedents (go far enough back in history and you'll find a great many alternative lifestyles that were quite acceptable in their time) or {insert your religion here} tenets.

Marriage is a contract. If Bob and Mary want to believe that their contract is sanctified by God, great, cool, I hope they hire me to play at the wedding. But if Bob and Joe just want to ensure that they have rights of property inheritance and insurability...why can't they? If they each married a woman, they'd be entitled to those things, so there wouldn't be any more burden on insurance companies, the government or anything else if Bob and Joe got hitched.

There's no rationale for prohibiting same sex marriage other than religious morality. By my way of thinking, if you can limit one thing on that basis, you can do anything else on that basis, and taken to that extreme, you have radical Islam, Right Wing Christianity, and so on.

Upon further reflection, I think I agree with you. Again, call marriage male/female and call saem sex civil union. Legalize civil union. I really dont' see the problem in that compromise, but then I'm actually pretty moderate in my views.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

You know what? I agree. So why don't we just bring this down to one point: marriage is male/female, civil union is same sex. Make civil union just as legal and binding as marriage, give it the same rights and responsibilities?

Even better: Call it all civil union from a governmental point of view, and let individuals and/or their churches decide whether to call their unions marriages. No double standard, religious people still can put whatever restrictions they want on what they call marriage, and nonreligious people can ignore those restrictions and call themselves married anyway.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They call it marriage because civil union would be an oxymoron in many cases.

[Ibby]

I can see the merit to OC's plan, but I, for one, think that marriage should be allowed between same-sex couples. Like Elspode said, there is no valid legal argument for prohibiting it. Being bisexual, I could definitely live with OC's plan of Civil Union = Marriage by a different name, but I wouldn't like it. Especially knowing what happened to seperate but equal in the south.

[Ibby]

I can see the merit to OC's plan, but I, for one, think that marriage should be allowed between same-sex couples. Like Elspode said, there is no valid legal argument for prohibiting it. Being bisexual, I could definitely live with OC's plan of Civil Union = Marriage by a different name, but I wouldn't like it. Especially knowing what happened to seperate but equal in the south.

[Hagar]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Aussie Gov't Ministers have stated their position on Muslim extremism. This is pretty amazing stuff:...

There are a couple of interesting points that the Snopes articles didn't mention.

1/ There were serious and violent (Youth of "middle-Eastern-apperance" vs "Australian") riots in the Cronulla region of Sydney, late last year. There was substantial fault on both sides, massive and often divisive media coverage, followed by no real resolution.

2/ A enormously popular right wing radio talkback personality has been running an "Australia - Love it or Leave it" campaign, intermittantly for several months. Speaking very generally, the main demographic of this radio personality's audience foverlaps substantially with a big part of the Howard government's voter base.

I think these comments from the Australian govermnent are simply political rhetoric aimed at answering the question "What's the goverment doing about all this Muslim violence at home?"

I am a proud Australian, and while I personally agree with the stated basic sentiments, I doubt they will change anything of consequence one iota.