Some Of My Best Friends Are Gay (A Traditional Exegesis On Homosexuality And Same Sex Marriage)

Toward Tradition.org ^ | March 2004 | Samuel Silver

[goldstategop]

This is the best traditional understanding of homosexuality and same sex marriage I've come across on The Web. Its long and footnoted, covering four pages, so Freepers who are interested may want to bookmark it. Once you've read it, you'll never see faith, homosexuality and same sex marriage in the same light again.

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[WhiteyAppleseed]

[4] For a detailed analysis of the Founders’ intent in writing the 1st Amendment, see the dissent that Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the 1985 Supreme Court case (Wallace v, Jaffree). Available online at: http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Wallace/Rehnquist.html.

Wallace v. Jaffree, 1984: A bill becomes unconstitutional even though the wording may be constitutionally acceptable, if the legislator who introduced the bill had a religious activity in his mind when he authored it.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

As historian David Barton explains, the Founders were all religious Christians, but they did not oppose pluralism, “as long as the beliefs of other religions did not threaten the stability of civil society.[44] In fact, the Founders believed that pluralism survived only within the concept of religious liberty espoused by American Christianity,”[45] uniquely different from European Christianity and based on what we now term the Judeo-Christian Ethic.[46]

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in a speech to a Philadelphia conference on religion in public life, in May of 1991: “Protecting religious freedoms may be more important in the late twentieth century than it was when the Bill of Rights was ratified. We live in a pluralistic society, with people of widely divergent religious backgrounds or with none at all. Government cannot endorse beliefs of one group without sending a clear message to non-adherents that they are outsiders.”

[RhoTheta]

Bump.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

The government, as defined in the First Amendment and explained by its author James Madison, must remain neutral between various sects of religion, but is not required to remain neutral between religion and irreligion.

No?

"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease to be free for religion--except for the sect that can win political power." (Justice Robert H. Jackson, dissenting opinion, U. S. Supreme Court, Zorach v. Clausor, April 7, 1952. From Daniel B. Baker, ed., Political Quotations, Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1990, p. 190.)

"Jefferson wrote voluminously to prove that Christianity was not part of the law of the land and that religion or irreligion was purely a private matter, not cognizable by the state. "(Leonard W. Levy, Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy, New York: Schocken Books, 1981, p. 335.)

[WhiteyAppleseed]

To discuss the religious view of human nature is not to ignore science, which also informs the opinions of Americans.

Informs and rules the opinions of Americans, and the Evangelists of Science are quick to appeal to the lord of the universe, public opinion, every and anytime they desire to use government to coerce the individual or the group.

Science, one could argue, has replaced the priests of tribal culture who climbed the pyramid and returned to forecase the eclipse and demand the sacrifice of humans to appease the gods and to reap a harvest of food.

Science still sacrifices humans with the sanctioned killing of humans not yet born.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

The very first commandment in the Bible comes immediately following God’s creation of human beings, male and female

I'm still waiting for evolution to explain that one! A male and a female of just about everything; I'd say everything but neuters probably exist.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

A proper understanding of the religious position is necessary if a real debate is to take place prior to the destruction of a 5,000-year-old institution by a minority of citizens, against the will of the majority.

And that would be impossible without Paul's letter to the Romans. For example, Paul explains his view on the evolution/creation debate in the first chapter of Romans: 1:18-20

He then admonishes man for violating the 1st (commandment). 1:21-22

And because of that, Paul says "God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie...Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another...he gave them over to a depraved mine to do what ought not to be done." 1:24-28

Paul then described the USA as it exists today. If Paul's words applied to the Romans and the USA fits his description in the 1st century, then one could make the flippant argument that homosexuality will cause global warming.

The 1st Amendment is there to protect the will of the majority, but it is not there so that the majority can impose their will on the minority. Nor can the minority impose their views on the majority.

[hellinahandcart]

Bookmarked for later, thank you.

[hellinahandcart]

ping

[Just mythoughts]

"The 1st Amendment is there to protect the will of the majority, but it is not there so that the majority can impose their will on the minority.

"Nor can the minority impose their views on the majority."


This religious battle is about replacing the "giver" of "RIGHTS" from the Creator to the "STATE". Secularism is a religion, and their "gods" are they themselves, they believe they are "gods".

That foundation that "Rights given by the Creator no man/state can take or give" is what separates this nation from all other nations.

This is the foundation that secularist are in the process of destroying.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

That foundation that "Rights given by the Creator no man/state can take or give" is what separates this nation from all other nations.

Exactly. The 1st Amendment makes clear that government can neither ban nor legalize homosexual marriage. An elected official marrying homosexuals is an even greater affront to the 1st Amendment.

[Just mythoughts]

"Exactly. The 1st Amendment makes clear that government can neither ban nor legalize homosexual marriage. An elected official marrying homosexuals is an even greater affront to the 1st Amendment."


Somehow along the way what has been ignored is that this is a "war" of two religions.

Secularism is never portrayed as a religion, thus the motivation of replacing the Creator with the State (themselves) never appears as the debate.

[NYer]

If society elects not to say anything about it and abandons the primacy of the traditional family, with its focus on children and future generations, we also abandon our connections to past generations, traditions, and history. All we will be left with is a “present” filled with hedonistic irresponsibility.

Excellent article!! Bookmarked for future reference.

[NYer]

As the sages explain, “A wife is neither man’s shadow nor his servant, but his other self, a ‘helper’ in a dimension beyond the capability of any other creature.”[12]

The official position of the Catholic Church on Gay Unions.
CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[netmilsmom]

bttt

[ahadams2]

Ping.

[r9etb]

This is an interesting and informative read, but it's really much too long. It strikes me that he could have summed the problem up in a few words. To whit:

The problem is not about sex, it's about whether "because God said so" is a valid response. The Founders -- along with most of the rest of the American population of the time -- believed that it was.

The devil is very subtle and he can make himself look very attractive. He knows better than we do the ways to pervert our best traits. If he can convince us that our own rationalizations are more valid than "because God said so," he can lead us astray. What's worse, we typically want to be led astray -- it seems easier, and more fun. (Until it's too late, of course....)

[VOA]

bump