As hard as it may be for members of the Hate Group that is the progressive gay left to accept, it is possible to accommodate both the desire for people of religious conviction not to be forced to act against their beliefs, and for gays to be able to get married in the eyes of the State.
As a pluralistic society, we ought to respect others’ religious beliefs, and do what we can to make space for them to practice their values so long as it does not interfere with basic political requirements. America has a long and proud tradition of making such accommodations—Catholic churches were exempt from prohibition so they could serve wine as a part of the Eucharist, Quakers and other pacifist groups have historically been exempt from being drafted into the military in combat positions, and in the 1990s we further strengthened laws protecting peyote use by Native American religions in their ceremonies.
The reason this debate has boiled over is because gays are insisting that conscientious objectors to gay marriage must be compelled by the State under threat of imprisonment or financial ruin to participate in gay weddings. It’s not enough to have a piece of paper from the State that somehow is necessary to legitimize their relationships, they also have to force the defeated to acknowledge their power. (The Gul Dukat Definition of True Victory.)
It would be advantageous for gays to show more tolerance.
Pushing for gay rights will be easier if religious objectors can be secure in the knowledge that the state will not be used to compel them to violate their religious beliefs. This does not mean gay persons should be discriminated against, but it does mean we should provide the space for people to not participate in religiously objectionable acts. As a tolerant and pluralistic society, it is incumbent upon us to provide this option, even if we strongly disagree with the moral stance of religious objectors.
If people would just accept and tolerate the fact that other people will make different choices and have different opinions, we could do away with this tyrannical notion that the state should referee every dispute, every difference of opinion.
But such a situation would be intolerable to the Gay Left, which wants not merely to take their victory, but to shove it in the faces of the defeated. Over, and over, and over again.
Does anybody else think the bakery brouhaha may just be a smokescreen? Technically speaking, an RFRA would also, say, protect OB/GYN doctors and nurses from having to help in participating in an abortion. Of course, the Left will never try to strike down RFRAs to make doctors do abortions- but when it’s all about gay marriage and “twu wuv” and crap, the Left could quietly sweep that under the rug.
I noted this attitude back when Massachusetts was the only state to recognize gay marriage, and was done via judicial fiat.
I recall reading columns that said that civil unions were not equivalent to marriage, and every single argument they used was basically either forcing others to accept them (a foolish notion. It’s like trying to force someone to love you.) or shoving it in others’ faces (such as the argument that public officials are not required to perform civil unions).
Yeah, I want to smack some faces when I hear the argument “Love shouldn’t be illegal.” LOVE ISN’T ILLEGAL, YA MORONS!!! A parent can love a child as much as they want to! But if an adult wanted to marry an nine-year-old…
I think there is a difference between legal binding, and religion. I don’t think the government should have any say in coupling,marriage. None. It never should have, that’s not their job, however even straight couples have to get a government license to marry. I had to pass blood tests. What does any of that have to do with anything? Legally?
If a religious estebishment won’t perform a ceremony, does it make it any less valid? My husband is catholic, I’m his second wife. We weren’t married in the Catholic Church yet we’re both legally married. I’m not cAtholic yet I didn’t file a law suit to make them marry us, we realized and accepted their religious beliefs and a religious only cemeromy and went elsewhere.
I think these religious freedom laws are needed because of lefties. They ruin everything.
I’ll use my family as an example as what went right and wrong. I have an older brother and sister, she’s gay, to her it’s always been family stuff. She makes home made cheese,has a garden, had a few partners, dating, then found heart mate.Older brother that hates her for being gay, and oh yeah, he’s a HUGE liberal.
She just lives her life as she is, he’s if you don’t think what how I do I’ll attack you. She hates gay pride parades because she thinks it’s feaks, he tells her she’s wrong. She says I just want to be, he tells her ILL FIGHT FOR YOU!!
The gay community doesn’t need the lefties,they’re doing harm and they should say so
@ Tilly: The reason you had to get blood tests goes back to the early 20th century, when eugenics was the hot new science, and scientists and lawmakers across the country were eager to remove the “inferior stock” from the gene pool. While blood tests are used nowadays to make sure that the couple in question are not incestuous, they were originally implemented to make sure that people with “bad blood” were not contaminating the “good” blood supply. Coincidentally, it was American sterilization and racial hygiene laws that the Nazis modeled their nightmares off of.
Sean, Umm ok, loads of info there. I was told it was looking for hiv, at the time I did think ok, what if I was hiv positive and so was he, so what. But nazis weren’t mentioned even then, that’s really steaching. History is fascinating but it’s history, past.
Time moves fowards, as progesives always want to conveniently
deny. Blood tests are no longer required.
Since Sean brought up some incoherent nonsense about abortion, while also says he’s a gay male. Ok let’s talk science, the very same science that you claim GOP deny. Let’s talk sonogram and the science advances the left denies.
I’m an RN. Back in my begining the dr I worked with didnt abortions past three months. Now sonogram, science advancement, shows 4 months and beyond a baby, yet you libs deny science and call it cells. You can’t have it both ways, like everything. That’s a first thing I taught my children.
Sean Sean, beuller bueller.
Sorry, Tilly (or is it Lilly, I’m not sure), I was preoccupied.
I find it interesting that you seem to imply that, by my virtue of being homosexual, I am automatically liberal. See: your implication that I claim that the GOP denies science, and your presumed claim that I am a liberal. To which I can only say: XD
It’s Tilly. And you’ve proven the liberal intolerance girlfriend. You’ve also justified the childish. But you want equallity? Really? Grow the fuck up! You are no different than any other basement dweller and doing huge harm. People will not like you more if you’re unbearable.
@ Tilly: Really? Because you keep switching it between Tilly and Lilly.
Since you’re new here, I’ll set the record straight: I am staunchly conservative, and have made clear my conservative position on every issue from gay marriage, to abortion, to religion, and everything else. I would ask that, in the future, you refrain from impugning my conservative credentials or implying that I am a liberal.
Good night.
If the left wanted equality, they would have supported Ted Cruz when he argued that what the state does (Gay or straight) should be a ‘civil union’, and ‘marriage’ is what your church does.
But that definition protects churches too, so can’t have that.
Karen (#13), I didn’t know about the Ted Cruz angle, but I agree that governments should be in the civil union “business” (contract and tax laws and all that) while it should be up to the churches themselves which couples to marry as they follow what they believe to be God’s Will.
The “civil union” vs “marriage” business is a smoke screen. It’s potato vs spud. Progressive -> Liberal -> Progressive. Negro -> Coloured -> Afro-American -> Black -> African-American
The essential legal rights, privileges and responsibilities of the parties of a civil union are identical to those of the parties of a marriage. More importantly, legal obligations of third parties regarding the couple are the same. Calling the legal arrangement by a different name neither changes that, nor changes the social implications.
What is different is the fundamental characteristics of the parties. Note: “civil unions” were created solely for the purpose of obfuscation, as a means of smuggling same sex relationships into the institution of marriage. Now that the smuggling is essentially complete, the job is to completely conflate the terms themselves, then delegitamize the term “marriage” as an archaic term that only bigots use. Whether or not these fundamental differences in the characteristics of the parties matter is the question. The accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of human history, much of it captured in traditional religions, argues that it does.
We are embarked on a grand experiment, and to refuse to participate in it, or to even question the wisdom of it, now places one beyond the pale, at the mercy of the mob.