Answered Questions Re: Miss California

[Flyndaran]

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I would like to make clear that I don't want there to be laws prohibiting homosexuality itself. That would be against democratic principles. I don't want to legislate morality in the sense of forcing everyone to conform to my moral standards. I would like to keep the government from openly condoning immoral things though. That's a fine distinction perhaps but one that I think is important, because when the government does something, it is in part representing me as well as those other people.

I'm sorry but that sounds too much like the old separate but equal nonsense told by those who don't hate blacks, but simply don't want to condone things like interracial marriage.
Again, religiously defined morality has no place in law.

[Rubystars]

I've got to admit I'm with Blas on this - I admire the fact that you're sticking to your guns. I admre this for two reasons.

Thank you.

I don't like pick'n'mix religions where people choose bits from established religions that they like and discard the ones they dislike.

You're creating more atheists, for which I am truly grateful

I'm probably not completely innocent of the first one. I do try to not go off on a limb too much though. As for the second one, I do believe in free choice and free will. I'm not going to force people to follow my religion.

Ever worn cloth made from more than one fabric? Husband ever cut his hair? Eaten pork or shrimp? The laws that Jesus came to fulfill the law include those aspects (I may be paraphrasing).

I think what most Christians believe is that Jesus himself fulfills it for us. Most Christians that I've heard say that because it's very difficult for people to follow all the commands of the Bible (I think there are around 613), that Jesus fulfilled most of those for us. Some Christians disagree with this (Messianics) but the majority don't follow the law letter for letter anymore.

Galatians 3:13-14


Gal 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree:

Gal 3:14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Who says it's a moral situation? Ah, a bronze-age tribal history translated many times and adhered to by people in another country as if it's fact. In short, the religious say that only they can define morals, that only their morals are correct, and therefore that they are the only authorities.

As you said, this should be a wider democratic issue, but it's also a civil rights issue. I don't believe that a religious text should be used to deny a segment of the population the same rights as everyone else.

Rapscallion

I would like to make clear that I don't want there to be laws prohibiting homosexuality itself. That would be against democratic principles. I don't want to legislate morality in the sense of forcing everyone to conform to my moral standards. I would like to keep the government from openly condoning immoral things though. That's a fine distinction perhaps but one that I think is important, because when the government does something, it is in part representing me as well as those other people.

[the_std]

I don't know why Jesus or any kind of religion was brought up here. Your religion has no place in the law. Period. It doesn't matter what Jesus did or did not say. If your religion is your motivation for your feelings against gays, it has no place in the law whatsoever.

[linguist]

What about those of us that don't even believe your Jesus guy even existed? He was most likely a compilation of several people with miracle retroactively attributed to him in the style that was quite common at the time to give to famous figures.

or those of us who may accept his existence, even believing that he was a great teacher with a lot of important things to say, a man of love and of peace, but still just a man.

to quote a song, "what a man was 2000 years ago means nothing at all to me today."

[Flyndaran]

What about those of us that don't even believe your Jesus guy even existed? He was most likely a compilation of several people with miracle retroactively attributed to him in the style that was quite common at the time to give to famous figures.

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I didn't know about gays until I was around 13 and some silly kid used "lesbian" as an insult toward me. I had to go find out what that meant. They called me that because I didn't have a boyfriend at that time. Nowadays you'd have to teach kids younger because they would hear about it elsewhere. There would be no choice. It's all over tv. I think it's important for kids to understand how things normally are before they learn about the variations, if at all possible. It's not ignorance I'm promoting but just a chance for them to get an understanding of hetero couples first. Thus the prince and princess stories, etc..

Since gays are born that way you are espousing ignorance for them as well as about them. Why can't they hear about others like themselves early?
Since most kids come from hetero couples I would say that they learned about hetero couples from birth.

...I'm not offended because I know it seems like bigotry from your viewpoint. I hope you know that I don't want to hurt anybody though, but I can't change my viewpoint on this either. ....

You do want to hurt them by denying them rights that we enjoy. Bigotry isn't always direct violence. It is also about refusals to accept others as deserving to be different.

[Peppergirl]

Have I ever said I hated gays?

No, you didn't but (all due respect) much of what you say about them and their actions are intolerant, so I can understand why people would assume you hate them. Intolerance is just a hairs-breath from hatred, IMO.

[Flyndaran]

If I think homosexuality is something bad, then you probably do consider that to just be bigotry. If so, then fair enough.
....

You have yet to give a real reason religious or otherwise why homosexuality is anything other than a non-issue.
You seem to imply religion as your motiviation for hating gays.
And however you phrase it, you are hating them by denying them rights you enjoy.

[Pedersen]

That is interesting but even though we don't have Jesus' direct words on the matter, both the OT and NT have scriptures against it.

The examples that I have seen brought forth from the NT come from Paul, who was formerly Saul, of Tarsus. A Mithra worshipper who brought many Mithraic traditions into Christianity. Quite frankly, when you learn a little bit about Paul/Saul, his whole testimony becomes suspect, and it begins to look like he was trying to subvert Christianity by turning it into Mithra worship.

Look into it, it's quite disturbing. I'd advise against using him as a source, since the people who have learned about him will tend to discount your arguments.

We don't have a gospel according to Jesus, but we do have a lot of information about his life and many of the things he said as written by others.

Quite frankly, that's a laughable statement. We don't even have 1% of what he said and taught in a written form. For my proof, I invite you to read the NT aloud. You will finish in less than a week (going slow, too). That's 7 days. Considering that the accepted age of Jesus at the time of his "Ascension" is about 32 years old, that would mean that he lived for 11688 days. Drop all time before he was 13 (since that was when he supposedly received his gifts from Dad), and we find he was teaching for 6939.75 days (with each year being 365.25 days long, according to our modern calendar).

In other words, you can read aloud everything that was written about Jesus's life in less then 0.1% of the time that he was teaching. You may not like it, but you might as well have zero information about what Jesus said.

Which brings us back to my original statement / question: What were the authors of the Bible hiding by refusing to mention any of what Jesus said about homosexuality?

[Rubystars]

They are normal in every sense of the word.
Marriage has changed defintions throughout the english language history. There is no reason other than bigotry to stop it now.

If I think homosexuality is something bad, then you probably do consider that to just be bigotry. If so, then fair enough.

I'm not sure you know what normal means. It occurs in every adult human population and harms no one. That sounds normal to me. Please debate against that defintion.

A lot of disorders happen in every population. As for "harms no one", that may not be true if you're talking about the participants themselves. Of course a lot of what I might consider to be harmful you wouldn't consider to be harmful. I think it's harmful for things like homosexuality to be accepted as normal even if it doesn't cause other problems.

I would herald the giving back of human rights to any group as a victory.. yes even to those horrible sinners, oops you don't disagree with them because of religion, or do you.

People aren't horrible because they commit a sin. I don't consider homosexual marriage to be an undeniable human right, but you know that.

I don't know if you've ever come up with a non-religious reason to hate gays... that stands up to rational scrutiny that is.

Have I ever said I hated gays? I disagree with what they're involved in, and their lifestyle, and I do think it's sinful. Homosexuality itself is abnormal. I don't hate the people involved though or think that's their entire makeup as a person. I just think they have a problem (of course they won't see it that way, and will probably think I am the one who has a problem).

Why is ignorance about reality automatically good?
How about teach them at the age many will ask about it?

I didn't know about gays until I was around 13 and some silly kid used "lesbian" as an insult toward me. I had to go find out what that meant. They called me that because I didn't have a boyfriend at that time. Nowadays you'd have to teach kids younger because they would hear about it elsewhere. There would be no choice. It's all over tv. I think it's important for kids to understand how things normally are before they learn about the variations, if at all possible. It's not ignorance I'm promoting but just a chance for them to get an understanding of hetero couples first. Thus the prince and princess stories, etc.

Also I hope no one, even you takes offense at my other posts of this thread.
I just can't think of your opinions without coming back to bigotry. Please tell me your views and how they don't mean that.

I'm not offended because I know it seems like bigotry from your viewpoint. I hope you know that I don't want to hurt anybody though, but I can't change my viewpoint on this either. I don't really think that I'm a bigot because I have worked with homosexuals at my jobs and I would help someone I knew was homosexual if they were hurt, etc. I just disagree with the behavior they're involved in. I know that in itself is enough to get me labeled a bigot, but if that's how you feel about it, then I really can't change your mind.

Perversion is a religious view and as such has not right to be in laws.
It is far to indivual of an opinion to serve any function.

I'm not looking for laws that target homosxuality for punishment. I think that would be wrong in a democratic society. All I want to prevent is the government giving the nod of approval to homosexuality.

I find some of your views perverse. See did that solve anything?

I understand why you do. If you think so then you have the same right I do to fight for your views. Saying something is perverse doesn't solve anything, but advocating for your viewpoint does.

No, only rational evidence based beliefs should be enshrined in law.

You can't legislate morality, but you can hold back from openly condoning immorality. That's the distinction that I make, but I'm having a hard time explaining it.

[linguist]

Turning it around, I think you'd have a real stretch trying to say that Jesus was pro-gay though.

i never said he was pro-gay. just that he never claimed to be anti-gay. it seems he didn't care one way or another.

Jesus does talk about marriage but never mentions homosexuality. If he was so pro-homosexual it seems like he would have mentioned it at some point.

covered above

Christians aren't required to follow every letter of the law. I think the only Christians who do that are Messianics. Most Christians believe that following Jesus and accepting him as Savior covers a lot of that. I think it's important to understand the Jewish parts of the Bible but I don't think every rule in that applies to Christians. I'm not a theologian so it would be difficult for me to get into a lot of details about it.

covered by broomjockey. although i will add that if you're going to insist on a literal interpretation, you really should go all or nothing. picking and choosing invalidates the whole system.

I would love to learn the original languages. Unfortunately I haven't been able to read it in those languages because I haven't learned those languages.

It's interesting you bring this up though. That happens to be one of my pet peeves when it comes to preachers. You see when I was growing up, I thought all pastors of churches knew those languages. When I realized they didn't, I was angry, because they were basically making it their career to teach something they had never read in the original language. I think the majority of information was translated accurately, but some of the more finessed arguments need the original text to understand. I can't imagine why seminaries don't require those languages as part of their criteria for passing.

some do study it. many of those i've met who've been through catholic seminary were required to study greek and hebrew in addition to latin. not too many required to study aramaic, though, oddly enough, since that was most likely the language jesus spoke.

i can't claim to have read the whole thing, but i have read bits in the original languages, and there is a fair amount of ambiguity that was capitalized on by later translators.

most modern english translations (at least the ones i've read) are based on the king james version, which while very pretty and poetic, is a horrible translation.

[Flyndaran]

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Legitimate in the sense of marriage would foremost mean that both partners are adults, and of opposite genders. Other factors play in as you pointed out, but those are the two most important.

But why is it important? If all you say is because god said so, then why do you keep trying to argue anything else?

[Rubystars]

Actually, something to point out: The books of the bible are titled "The Gospel According To Mark" (for example). Every single book in there was written by someone. What's interesting to me is the lack of a book entitled "The Gospel According To Jesus".

Something else to consider: We have no idea if Jesus ever actually said anything about homosexuality. What we do know is that no one ever wrote down that he said anything about it. To me, that's a curious omission.

What were the authors of the Bible hiding by refusing to write down what Jesus said? He spent about two decades talking about the love of his father, telling everybody to listen, arguing against the rulers of the time, etc. And never once did he address this question? I find that hard to believe.

I have to wonder if, maybe, the people who actually wrote the Bible were hiding something.

That is interesting but even though we don't have Jesus' direct words on the matter, both the OT and NT have scriptures against it. We don't have a gospel according to Jesus, but we do have a lot of information about his life and many of the things he said as written by others.

[Rubystars]

How do you define legitimate?
Two people decide to form a semi-permanent bond seems like a legitimate marriage to me.
How is two women wanting to get married for love less legitimate than my brother that initially married to help finance a house?
If you say it isn't, then why do you want only the first to not be legal?

I don't think it's right to get married for selfish reasons only. Both people should want to get married because they want to have a life-long bond with the other person.

So to answer your question (which is the point of this thread after all), I would consider both of those situations to be wrong.

Of course the second one has the potential to become a better marriage, because they could develop a stronger bond with one another after getting married. In societies with arranged marriages (which I don't think are fair, but that's a topic for another board), the people often say that they get married first and then fall in love with one another. Maybe the same thing could happen for your brother.

Legitimate in the sense of marriage would foremost mean that both partners are adults, and of opposite genders. Other factors play in as you pointed out, but those are the two most important.

[Pedersen]

Jesus does talk about marriage but never mentions homosexuality. If he was so pro-homosexual it seems like he would have mentioned it at some point.

Actually, something to point out: The books of the bible are titled "The Gospel According To Mark" (for example). Every single book in there was written by someone. What's interesting to me is the lack of a book entitled "The Gospel According To Jesus".

Something else to consider: We have no idea if Jesus ever actually said anything about homosexuality. What we do know is that no one ever wrote down that he said anything about it. To me, that's a curious omission.

What were the authors of the Bible hiding by refusing to write down what Jesus said? He spent about two decades talking about the love of his father, telling everybody to listen, arguing against the rulers of the time, etc. And never once did he address this question? I find that hard to believe.

I have to wonder if, maybe, the people who actually wrote the Bible were hiding something.

[BroomJockey]

Christians aren't required to follow every letter of the law.

So... you get... to pick and choose which to follow? So you've picked the parts which appeal to you, and discarded that which doesn't, since you don't need to follow every letter?