I disagree with this. Just looking at the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, I get the feeling that any government based on a particular belief system will inevitably end up persecuting someone. Moral values can be derived through reason and logic, and I see no reason why there must be a God-like figure to have a moral code. Certain values are common across culture, geography, and time (compassion, empathy, etc.).
I don't understand the first part of your first sentence, so I'm not certain how to respond to it. Within your first sentence you claim that marriage itself is inherently religious. I don't agree. Humans have paired up for a long time. There are also animals that pair up and mate with a single other animal for their lifetimes. Human society has become quite complex. Marriages were performed in numerous cultures and in many different religions. That many religions choose to frame marriage within certain parameters and expectations, and to create rituals surrounding marriage does not mean that everybody else suddenly needs to stop engaging in the practice of marriage. In our society, marriage has many tangible benefits and in many ways is convenient and makes a lot of things easier. Not everyone chooses to be married, and that is fine. It is easier to manage finances, to afford a home, and to raise children within a family. Children are a lot of work and it is much easier for two people to raise them than it is for one. The fact that many folks take on the job alone, and therefore carry a greater burden and have more work does not take away from the fact that it is a lot easier for two people to do it. Things such as making healthcare or financial decisions when one person is somehow incapacitated makes a lot of things run more smoothly as well. These things benefit society as a whole, and it is perfectly appropriate for the government to recognize them. I'm not sure what you mean by, "In simpleminded terms, marriage is neither a civil nor secular union." This seems to say that those who are simpleminded, marriage is a religious union. That is an insult to people who believe it does have a religious imprimatur and don't believe that those who are married in some way other than their own religion is not valid or perhaps different, or wouldn't be recognized by their particular religion. I can understand how people might believe this, but I wouldn't call them simpleminded. But I'm puzzled, because you seem to be insulting the very people who would agree with your proposition. Whatever the case, I don't see the need for the insult at all. To answer your question, I see it as always desirable to separate church and state. In other words, I see no situation where I would view their entanglement as desirable. I'm not sure whether in your eyes, that makes me better or worse than JJ.
Two people pairing up does not equate even to necessarily a union, even less to a marriage. The same benefits that can instead be given to/as/for a civil union. No, actually. The phrase "in simpleminded terms..." is another way of telling those that fail to understand the former statement. But you would not support it if you found it undesirable? Yes, I generally find pragmatists worse than JJ or any other ideological group (same true with Populists). Whether you are or not a pragmatist - that is your decision to make, not mine.
As far as the Founding Fathers and religion, there is a disturbing revisionist history campaign underway by elements of the Right Wing to claim that the U.S. was founded to be a religiously-governed nation. There are numerous problems with this, but a large practical issue is that, similar to arguing about the bible, people can find various quotes to support whatever particular claim they want to make. We could go back and forth with different quotes, but ultimately, that would just be a lot of words that would end up useless and would just make readers' eyes glaze over. Religion was not quite the same as it was back in the late 1700s. Theories of government and societal norms were different. It's easy to take words out of context or to apply them to situations that just didn't exist during that time. There isn't even universal agreement as to who exactly the "Founding Fathers" were, and they had some pretty diverse beliefs and did not agree with each other on everything. It's not easy to say who's view should be taken as "definitive." If you really want some quotes, I'll rustle some up.
Washington's letters are liberally dosed with recognition of his god beliefs. I've heard it argued Jefferson was indeed a Deist. But none of that matters. If you go back 5,000 years people believed in completely different gods. (Or maybe I should use the Young Earth Creationists date, 6,000 yrs. ) Does the Protestant Church or the Monarchy still rule Britannia? Obviously they are still officially part of the government and have some role to play. Christianity was the norm of the times and one cannot just declare that because the US Founding Fathers were avid god believers ergo they wanted Christian law to dominate the land. Principles of Christianity just like English Common law refer to justice, democracy, things like that. This exemplifies the problem, there is no such thing as one single set of Christian beliefs. They, like Muslims and any other very large religious group simply use the same name for thousands of different versions of their respective religions. The same problem exists with how the Bible is interpreted and how these Founding Father quotes, references to God in legal documents, on money, and so on are interpreted. JJ, like a lot of fundamentalists be they religious or political, is big on cherry picking supporting evidence. It's like interpreting Nostradamus, astrology predictions, and the way John Edward appears to talk to the dead, you can make the Bible and historical documents support your conclusions. Trouble is, so can that guy and those gals, and this person over here, and all of them can still have different conclusions they are finding supporting evidence for. In order to avoid supporting a false belief, against what our brains are inclined to do, you've got to look at the evidence as a whole, not cherry pick what appears to support your belief. Despite quotes and references to God, the principles this government were founded on were not the Evangelical Christian principles where the Bible dictates laws against 'sins'. Rather the Christian principles referred to were those of governing, again, democracy and principles of English Common Law. If you applied the claims of Christian law being the basis of the US government, women should still be property and unable to vote. Children should be executed for badmouthing their parents. Men can take a slave to father children if the wife is barren and, well, slavery should be legal. As you can see, those Old Testament laws are conveniently ignored while individuals proclaim they know what the Bible meant, they know which Christian laws matter, they know which Christian laws the Founding Fathers intended to include and exclude, yadda yadda yadda. Separation of church and state may have been formalized by SCOTUS with a specific ruling, but I give more credence and weight to their 'they' than to JJ's and the band of Evangelicals who have a different version of these issues, which BTW, started even later than 1947.
So start with taking one religious group's specific definition of 'sin' out of the law which legal marriage union refers to. We don't disagree on principles here.
So, your entire objection is semantic? You want the government to call it a "civil union" for everyone? The commonly accepted definition of marriage now essentially means a legal union. Words change and subtle meanings (as well as overt meanings) often change over time. You'd prefer to go through all the laws and references to "marriage" and simply replace it with another term? That seems like a tremendous waste of resources. No. "Simpleminded" means lacking in intelligence or mental sophistication. I think the word you want is "simple." I'm not certain what you mean. I don't generally support things I find undesirable. It depends on what it is I find undesirable -- I might be neutral, or I might be actively against. Also, depending on the situation, I can be a pragmatist. I don't see why that would always be undesirable, as a philosophy. I have no desire to "officially" label myself a "pragmatist," because I don't see how that would encompass most of my personal philosophies. It would vary on the situation. If you find "pragmatists" objectionable because you see them as compromising their principles, then okay, if that works for you. It seems to me that would be problematic, because sometimes compromise is necessary and we do need to account for how the world works in most of our activities.
It's clearly not a semantics argument to a lot of people. What I have given is the least hostile & most tolerant path. Either take it or don't. Pragmatism is not merely to compromise, but a principle of compromising and even that is not just its only problem. At its logical endpoint, pragmatism would support absolute tyranny if found to be more effective than one thing or another.
I'm not sure who you mean by "to a lot of people." If you mean gay people who wanted marriage instead of civil unions, it was more than semantic. It was because those two designations meant different things, because particular statutes defined them that way. It were the underlying rights and benefits that come with marriage that were desired. I don't agree you've proposed the "least hostile" or "most tolerant path." We can differ on that. With your choice of take it or leave it, I'll leave it. Yes, in some theoretical situation pragmatism could support tyranny, but I don't see how that's relevant. I don't know of anyone who embraces "pragmatism" in and of itself as an overriding personal philosophy.
Exactly, all the GLBT community want were the benefits that came with marriage. But when push comes to shove, as you're showing, it's going to become clear that they want more than the benefits - they want to redefine it and force everyone into accepting that definition. Really? How is your idea, to further define marriage, which not only is defiant & against the interest of the religious but also an insult to them, any more tolerant or less hostile?
No reasonable person accepts this lie anymore. Intelligent people who are atheists even admit to an understanding of the Bible more than you do. You are either ignorant of the New Covenant fuliflling the law, in which case you shouldn't be discussing a book or religion of which you have no understanding of, or you fully understand that the Bible prohibits those things you mentioned, and are purposefully misleading people to further your own ends. Because I feel you are intelligent, I can only assume that you carry such malice for Christianity, that you resort to lies in order to bolster your argument. I applaud Lemex for being open to evidence-based, logical theories. His humility and common respect is one of the reasons I consider him a good friend of mine, even if he is an atheist and I am a Christian.
Religious and political squabbling aside, I'm thrilled that this discriminatory federal law has been seriously wounded. I hope that it's fatal.
They don't so much want to redefine it as to be included in it. Yes, you're right, technically, they want it "re-defined" to exclude the requirement that the unions be opposite sex. But otherwise, the definition would simply be the same for everyone. I thought what you were saying earlier was that this redefined marriage should be called something else for everyone. I guess I don't understand your argument at all. I just don't see equal recognition and extension of benefits as hostile or insulting to religious folk. I don't see how it affects them in the least. Their benefits are not changing. Their marriage is no less valid. No one is preventing them from marrying the person they want to marry. No one is forcing them to marry someone they don't want to marry.
On a different note, I feel that my position needs to be reiterated, as people are using my name to define certain viewpoint and I don't wish to be mislabeled or misrepresented. I accept laws that make same-sex marriage legal. Given the opportunity, I would not pass a law that makes homosexuality illegal or punishes people for being homosexual. Everyone has the freedom to do whatever they wish in the context of the laws. I firmly believe in the freedom for everyone to make their own individual choices in life. I believe in the government staying as far away from our homes and families as possible. Just had to clarify.
I know what GLBT want, hence my position to begin with. If people want "legal marital benefits", it should be as a civil union. Marriage simply should have no place in the government's legal dictionary. But if we continue down the current path, and here's where the last part of that paragraph I said comes down - the religious and spiritual will not give two shits about what the GLBT really wants, they will as they are now going to continue the battle. You don't see that for the same logic they don't see your reason, you're not one of them. It is blasphemous to them in a manner that can be easily changed by simply abolishing the gov't recognition of marriage. They are being forced to pay taxes to support a system that they cannot agree with. Nothing is more immoral than forcing one to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he doesn't believe, and the best way to stop it is by slowly ending that which one considers immoral.
I have not followed the argument - your post above is the only one that I've read, so forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick. But I must ask, if it is "immoral", and there is "nothing more immoral" than forcing the religious to fund ideas (in this case, issues of marriage equality) that they don't believe in... Then is it moral to ask the LGBT community, and thousands upon thousands of religious as well as non-religious people to fund a system that they don't believe in (in this case, that there should be no marriage equality)? You say it is immoral to force the religious to accept gay marriage. How is it *not* immoral to force the religious and non-religious to continue to fund a system that actively discriminates minority groups by rejecting gay marriage, and is not in line with what they believe in? Whether we deny gay marriage or accept gay marriage - there will always be a group of people who're "forced to fund a system they don't believe in".
If I owe a debt, I am obligated to pay that debt, regardless of what the individual or organization is going to do with that money. I know that I must be submissive to my government, without exception. Paul teaches that in the book of Romans: "Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor." Even Jesus told us on multiple occasions to pay taxes. This makes sense, because what use does God have with money? He's not interested in padding his bank accounts. lol. So, as a Christian, my duty is to pay taxes, regardless of how I feel they may use the money.
For the first part of your argument, we're going in circles. You apparently want "marriage" to go by another name. I don't see what benefit would derive from that, which I've stated earlier. I don't see the point in going further. I can follow the logic of positions and philosophies I don't agree with. That's just not the case here. The idea that a federal government allowing gay couples to file a joint tax return is blasphemous is ridiculous. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their religion. If their church doesn't want to marry gay people in their own religious ceremony, they don't have to. Lastly, everybody is forced to pay taxes for things the government does that they don't agree with. I don't agree with corn or oil subsidies. Paying taxes is the price of living in society. The libertarian Ayn Randian dystopia where no one would pay taxes and the government would be so small as to be worthless would be pretty scary. That's really a different discussion, though.
Judging from your tone, I'm not gonna, because I know it'll just be a waste of my time. Have a good day.
There is a large population of people in the US that believe eating meat is immoral, and yet the government pays large subsidies to meat producers. Everything is immoral to someone, but we all contribute to the pot anyways.
Ayn Rand was no libertarian, and she certainly did not support limited government. The idea that you even remotely believe such fiction just tells me you have no grasp about either Ayn Rand, her "Objectivism", "limited government", or Libertarianism. Ayn Rand despised libertarianism, supported both a police state & the Military-Industrial Complex, and much more - as she also supported corporate-owned government, AKA Corporatism.
Ayn Rand may have despised the libertarian movement of her day, but the modern libertarian movement relies heavily on her philosophies and many who call themselves Libertarians cite her approvingly.
Which libertarian movement? Aside from Ron Paul's conservative-minarchist movement and maybe the "Libertarian Party", libertarians tend to quote Ayn Rand no more than anyone else. I know there are those that quote her, when her quotes agree with them - but who the hell doesn't only quote those of a previous time when the quote is found to be in agreement?
