Gay marriage

[Mori Chu]

We didn't have a thread about this yet; I was kind of surprised. Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage in all 50 states by 5-4 vote. Thoughts?

I personally think it's time for it. Yes, it isn't as "traditional" for two men/women to get married, but I don't see what harm it does. It makes the two people happy and gives them a more stable and committed union. It's much better for gay couples who have children or who choose to adopt. And it helps them out with lots of little legal matters like hospital visitation.

Most of my Facebook feed has been positive about it, except for the occasional post that quotes bible passages and calls this an abomination and seen as an attack on the church.

[carey]

That bible passage in Leviticus calling homosexuality an abomination is a mistranslation from the original Greek. The word used originally means something akin to taboo and it was back then. It always seemed to me ridiculous that people trot out that line as proof of anything at all.

Yes it was way past time. I'm also ashamed to live in one of 2 states that refused to issue licenses until the district court made their own ruling. As if federal doesn't trump state law here.

[Ghost]

I thought about posting, but didn't because I really don't have much to say besides "Good! About time!"

I do think we are still far from the end of the debate about LGBT equality, and we will likely have many threads on that topic in the future. But I think pretty much everyone here agrees, so there isn't actually much to talk about.

[Ghost]

Leviticus was originally written in ancient Hebrew, not Greek. And while it may be a mistranslation, it doesn't matter. As far as the modern world goes, The Bible, both OT and NT, are clearly anti-homosexuality. But yeah, even the most devout Christians certainly cherry pick the passages they choose to follow, and as long as the trend in cherry picking continues to make the world a more moral and less hateful place, I don't mind their hypocrisy.

But I digress. Why they latch onto that passage over all the others does boggle the mind.

[Indy]

It's not that mind-boggling. I think it is all about numbers and the minorities (of all kinds) are an easy target. And one thing most religions like are easy targets. It gets the congregation energized. That helps the coffers.

[carey]

Leviticus was originally written in ancient Hebrew, not Greek. And while it may be a mistranslation, it doesn't matter. As far as the modern world goes, The Bible, both OT and NT, are clearly anti-homosexuality. But yeah, even the most devout Christians certainly cherry pick the passages they choose to follow, and as long as the trend in cherry picking continues to make the world a more moral and less hateful place, I don't mind their hypocrisy.

But I digress. Why they latch onto that passage over all the others does boggle the mind.

That's my bad on that one. New Testament is all Greek. Old is Hebrew and some Aramaic. But it was translated into Greek during the time of Jesus since that was the language of scholarship at the time and most of the modern translations come from those I believe. I'm Catholic and I am pretty wishy washy about my own faith sadly. The hypocrisy of the church is a big reason why. I do like the new Pope. He definitely seems all about spreading peace and love.

[Ghost]

My problem with the new Pope is that while he definitely says all the right things in public (which alone is quite good and will do a lot to further social acceptance for minority groups), he has made no effort to actually move the line or change church policy. So, I like him more than the old Pope, but the church is clearly not changing under his watch, which needs to happen before I can feel any respect for it as an organization.

[Shabazz]

I've never understood why the biblical definition of "marriage" mattered in a country that separates Church and State.

[Mori Chu]

My favorite is when religious folks say that "separation of church and state" is meant only to keep government from harming the church, and not the other way around. It goes both ways.

[OE32]

One reason I strongly prefer to keep religion out of politics is - you're supposed to argue about politics, but you can't really argue about religion. If someone's position on an issue is based on their religious belief, then, to truly and fully debate the issue, you'd have to be able to argue on the floor of the House or the Senate the veracity of the religion - which of course is bonkers. Religious belief has been third rail for a long time, but slowly the voltage is decreasing. At some point, so many young people will be familiar with the arguments for and against the truth of various religions that open questioning will no longer be taboo.

We can sidestep this issue by questioning whether this or that religion really says this or that terrible thing, and that's a valuable step. I think it's all part of the same secularization process, though. Slowly, one removes all the particulars about one's religion, until it's just a general belief. At some point, it becomes pretty easy to recognize that you're living your life completely independently of any religious dogma, that your conception of the universe is the same scientific consensus everyone understands, and God becomes more and more an impotent vestige. At some point you realize you can cut the last thread - the belief itself - with no practical consequence to your lifestyle or viewpoint. Of course, it's harder to do this the older you get -- basic psychology, the more you invest in a thing or idea, the more painful it is to give it up. There's also a pretty costly social dynamic for most people who grow up religious, as family members and friends will hate you or push you out of their lives, but usually this is temporary. There's also the existential element - the question of the meaning of life takes on new urgency and requires a mental reorientation of sorts, and it can be quite traumatic. But the people I've met who, unlike myself, grew up without religion entirely seem to be remarkably mentally and emotionally healthy, comparatively. One day we'll all be so lucky.

...

What were we talking about, again?

[Nodack]

lol

I am without religion and feel mentally and emotionally healthy. I think when some people get older they start to worry about dying and what that means. They hear about an afterlife that religion promises and I think they start to cover their bases by turning to religion later in life. My mother and aunt are good examples.

I still call myself agnostic because I know I don't know everything and always leave room for things I don't understand. I don't believe in the god Christians and Muslims pray to. A god that forces you to worship him or suffer eternal damnation isn't a god I can believe in. He sounds like a total self centered ego maniac and won't lift a finger to help mankind that he created. Jane recovered from cancer. It was because we all prayed to god and he answered our prayers. Jane died from cancer. It must have been gods will. He must have had bigger plans for Jane.

An honest question about religion. I always hear that Jesus died for our sins on the cross. It's the one thing I have heard more times than any other religious quote. I don't understand what that means. Millions of people die for no good reason. Jesus died on the cross for our sins along with a bunch of other people that day on crosses that didn't die for our sins for some reason. What did they die for? Why was Jesus's life so much more important than them? He died for my sins that won't occur for thousands of years? All the rest of those people died and were just dead. Jesus was supposedly resurrected so, he really did't even die. I don't mean to be mean, I just don't get it. He was a man that was murdered like millions of others without fanfare. Where does the he died for our sins part come in?

...

The topic was gays. My viewpoint is that people create all the rules in life. In an alternate universe being straight is taboo and religion doesn't exist according to the majority of people from that universe. What is ultimately accepted is what we as humans decide to accept, not what a book written by men claiming to speak for god 2000 years ago or a document written by a bunch of Americans in 1776 that had no idea what the world would be like in 2015. I accept gays. I am not gay, but if I wanted to be I would without caring what the Bible, people or the Constitution said. We are free to decide our own paths and that I accept.

[Ghost]

We can sidestep this issue by questioning whether this or that religion really says this or that terrible thing, and that's a valuable step. I think it's all part of the same secularization process, though. Slowly, one removes all the particulars about one's religion, until it's just a general belief. At some point, it becomes pretty easy to recognize that you're living your life completely independently of any religious dogma, that your conception of the universe is the same scientific consensus everyone understands, and God becomes more and more an impotent vestige. At some point you realize you can cut the last thread - the belief itself - with no practical consequence to your lifestyle or viewpoint.

This is basically exactly how it happened for me. I actually went through some pretty amazing mental gymnastics in order to make sense of religion, including some impressive logical stretches that may not have made sense to most people, but were at least internally consistent. It felt nice, it all made sense, and kept all the good values while discarding the abhorrent ones. I even managed to rationalize how people with diametrically opposed views could hold them without at least one necessarily being wrong...this was important, because as I got older, I was forced to realize that there was absolutely no more proof for my faith being correct than for anyone else's, and if I were to say that someone else was definitively wrong, then it meant that I was equally likely to be wrong. The rationalization didn't make much sense, but it worked for me for a long time, until one day I was reading something and asked myself what, exactly, was the difference between my ridiculously complex, homemade philosophy, and just admitting that I didn't believe in any of it? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

[Indy]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html

I really don't get how this employee keeps his job.

[Nodack]

Keeps her job.

[Indy]

Yeah, my bad. Either way.

[Nodack]

You are right though. How does she keep her job? She is hired to hand our documents, not make and enforce her own policies.

[Ghost]

Well, she can't just be fired. Which is crazy.

Sent from my Nexus 6 to annoy Superbone using Tapatalk

[Dan H]

Too bad the court just didn't get government out of marriage entirely, they could have just eliminated his position. Now we're going to have to pay out more in a few years to make more forms with more lines:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... amy-119469

[Mori Chu]

Being able to fire one stubborn employee pales in comparison to having the right to marriage. I'm sure gay folks are much happier as it is now than if the government stayed out of marriage entirely. If it were left to the states, red/southern states would just block it and do much worse things than this one person has done.

[Indy]

Being able to fire one stubborn employee pales in comparison to having the right to marriage. I'm sure gay folks are much happier as it is now than if the government stayed out of marriage entirely. If it were left to the states, red/southern states would just block it and do much worse things than this one person has done.

It is not just one *stubborn employee. She is directly infringing on the rights of the citizens there, as a member of the government.

*I think it is crazy to call this person stubborn. She is deciding the morals for others, and determining a certain group of citizens shouldn't get equal rights. A bigot, in the purest definition of the word, seems much more apropos. And if you change your sentence to include "bigoted" I don't think anyone would argue for her keeping her job.