Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 02/07/2015 1:54:18 PM PST by darrellmaurina
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Greg McNeilly occupies the chasm dividing gay rights activists and conservative Republicans.
The GOP strategist unabashedly claims membership in the two groups that have been on opposite sides of the battle over legalizing gay marriage.
McNeilly's marriage to Lansing attorney Doug Meeks is one of 300 that will now be recognized by the state following a federal court injunction, and Gov. Rick Snyder's decision not to appeal the decision.
Savoring the legal victory is difficult for McNeilly when thousands of same sex couples can not be married or have their marriages recognized in this state.
The legal recognition for those same-sex couples comes as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear challenges to gay marriage bans in Michigan and other states.
(SNIP)
The Grand Rapids resident is a longtime employee of Dick and Betsy DeVos, whose families have funded campaigns opposing legalizing same-sex marriages.
In addition to serving as chief operating officer of The Windquest Group, the couple's holding company, McNeilly previously served as executive director of the Michigan Republican Party when Betsy DeVos was chairwoman. He was the campaign manager for Dick DeVos' 2006 run for governor.
(Excerpt) Read more at mlive.com ...
Please ping the gay agenda and Michigan lists.
Note that we have multiple issues here. This man is the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party and he was the campaign manager for Dick DeVos’ 2006 run for governor. The DeVos family isn't perfect, but it's a well-known Republican political family which in the past has been staunchly opposed to homosexuality.
This is secular politics, not a church, and we can't be absolutely opposed to working with people who share some but not all of our positions. Otherwise we will find it very difficult to get to 50 percent in many districts and states. Down here in the Bible Belt where most Democrats I know are still opposed to homosexuality, it's possible to win elections while pushing pro-gay people not only out of the Republican Party but out of the political mainstream entirely, making them unelectable.
But this case shows clear dangerous. Coalitions and compromises, while necessary, carry risks and it looks like the risk just blew up in the face of Michigan Republicans.
And by the way, I'm a native Michigander. I was active in politics before I became a Christian and I am very much aware that the “good old days” were not very good at all when it came to moral values.
The GOPe, the Democrats, and media are colluding to surrender the moral basis of the country.
I think there’s precious little support for ‘gay marriage’ in western Bichigan.
there IS support for just letting people live (more or less) as they wish, so long as they do it quietly and in a non-threatening fashion
this “basic libertarianism” should not be confused with support for State=sponsored, State-endorsed, State-licensed, or State-approved ‘gay marriage.”
Leaving people alone is a lot different than providing them with some sort of secular Imprimitur for behavior most Michiganders see as immoral
IMHO.
I think that one man sticking his penis into another man’s anal canal is the height of intellectual achievement.
Another reason I do not identify with the GOP any more
There isnt any support. We just dont care as long as they keep it out of our faces. The number of gays in GR is far less than the amount of noise they make pretending that we are supposedly oppressing them.
In fact one lesbian at GVSU had to make up a “hate crime” because we weren’t fulfilling the expected quota.
” Greg McNeilly occupies the chasm”
That he does.
” This is secular politics, not a church, and we can’t be absolutely opposed to working with people who share some but not all of our positions.”
We must give back the Rhineland and allow annexion of Austria.
That was “working with” others, turned out so well back then too.
I still haven’t heard any more about the April first hate crime attack on the lesbian in Yipsi last year.
It happened in broad daylight in a parking lot surrounded by apartments on the first 60 degree day after a brutal winter and there were no witnesses.
I think it is more fatigue than anything else - people are getting tired of hearing about this “oh, just let them get married and shut up about it!” The problem is that will only be the beginning - as the movement is not about expanding “rights” but about taking them away and destroying people who don’t want to participate - such as bakery owners or photographers who do not want to participate in same-sex weddings - they must, or be destroyed for who they are and what they believe.
If we get to 50 state homosexual marriage, that will not be the end of it. If that happens, then the activists who.push the homosexual issues will move the goal posts and move.on to other issues in which there is alleged discrimination.
Among the new issues to be pushed will be legalizing polygamy, legalizing group marriages of any number of partners and any sex of partners, suing churches which decline to perform homosexual weddings, and suing to force homosexual adoptions in places which up until now have discouraged or disallowed same.
Not to mention,,all of the transsexual bathroom and transsexual rights business we are hearing more and more about will be pushed.
Getting to 50 state homosexual marriage is just one step. The goal posts get moved when they achieve that goal. Then they will bitch about other issues such as I have noted here, and the bitching about discrimination will continue for the rest of our lives about some issue or another affecting homosexual and trans whatever peoples.
14 posted on 2/7/2015, 6:06:37 PM by Republican Wildcat: “I think it is more fatigue than anything else - people are getting tired of hearing about this “oh, just let them get married and shut up about it!” The problem is that will only be the beginning - as the movement is not about expanding “rights” but about taking them away and destroying people who don’t want to participate - such as bakery owners or photographers who do not want to participate in same-sex weddings - they must, or be destroyed for who they are and what they believe.”
I agree. That is precisely the problem.
I believe in following the Constitution and its original intent, unless amended by formal process. It is patently obvious that homosexuality was not just socially unacceptable but also a criminal offense when the Constitution was written. Even Thomas Jefferson, probably correctly regarded as one of the most “liberal” of the Founding Fathers on social and moral issues, didn't object to criminalizing of homosexuality in Virginia. (At most, the argument could be made that he didn't think it was worthy of the death penalty.)
That means if we want to argue that it is Constitutional for a state to criminalize homosexual conduct in private between two consenting adults, there can't be any serious doubt that the original intent of the Constitution would have allowed it. And I don't think anyone can seriously argue that the 14th Amendment was intended to apply to homosexuality.
While it would be Constitutionally permitted, I'm not at all convinced that the government — given the utter lack of moral consensus in modern America — ought to be prosecuting homosexuals as criminals for private conduct on private property.
If all homosexuals wanted was to be left alone, the current state of the law would allow that. I can live with that. I don't want the government regulating people's private conduct on private property unless there is a commonly accepted moral framework to do that, and we no longer have that level of moral consensus.
The problem is that the radicals in the homosexual movement aren't interested in toleration. They demand nothing short of full acceptance and applause for their “gay pride.”
That's what the gay marriage debate is about. Not tolerance, but normalization for now, and down the road, penalizing those who disagree with the “new normal.”
The DeVos family invited a viper into their house when they brought this man into their private circle of advisers and supporters. Those are strong words, but the words are warranted by the severe condemnation of Romans 1:26-28.
We need to look carefully at the results of that compromise. Maybe they did the right thing years ago. Maybe not. I don't know.
What I do know is they gave this homosexual activist a platform not only within the libertarian or “economic conservative” wing of the Republican Party, but a platform in a family which was once among the strongest advocates of social conservative views in Michigan.
Compromise has consequences.
Those consequences may be necessary — to use Darksheare’s Nazi appeasement example, it's hard for me to see how we could have won World War II without some sort of alliance with Joseph Stalin, once Hitler broke his word and invaded the Soviet Union — but they are always risky at best.
I think this is a clear lesson on why we need to be careful before inviting homosexuals to work with us. They may be conservative on some issues, but they have a radically different set of core values, and at the absolute minimum we need to understand the dangers and risks of cooperation with people when we are in fundamental disagreement.
Since things on Free Republic have a tendency to get back to the people about whom comments are made, I'm going to add something in the event that the DeVos family sees this.
It has been decades, but you once knew me. Your family has known my family dating back to the days when "Gov. Romney" referred to a man in Michigan, not Massachusetts.
There are some serious ironies about a man with the name of Maurina calling the DeVos family to reconsider the Christian principles underlying political actions.
You are the heirs of the theological tradition of Abraham Kuyper, not of gay activism. Please reconsider your roots.
Your family has confessed for generations of covenantal faithfulness these words: "This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects."
A little later, the Belgic Confession says this: "this holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or certain people."
God cannot be a king without subjects. You know that, or should know it, from generations upon generations of covenantal catechesis. If you will not do what God requires in political faithfulness, he can and will raise up others to do what you refuse to do.
I'm not "calling out" the DeVoses here. I don't know their hearts.
What I do know is they have taken a bad step, and probably several bad steps, down a very bad road.
For generations, the DeVos family sang psalms such as this one:
"That man is blessed who fearing God / From sin restrains his feet / Who will not stand with wicked men / Who shuns the scorners seat."
There is something seriously wrong when a convert from outside the Reformed world has to be writing things like this to a covenantal family known for generations as warriors for Christian activism in the sphere of the civil magistrate.
Please reconsider your actions, look at the temptations of Psalm 1 to walk, stand, and then sit with wicked men, and turn to Psalm 2 to find the ultimate fate of those who "vainly dream that in triumph they can wage war against the Lord Supreme." Your family has sung those words for generations. Take them to heart before it is too late.
yes, did you read the end of the article? The fight now is between the homosexuals who respect those religious people who do not want to do business with them and the homosexuals who want to force people to do business with them.
The Amway DeVos family.
I know. And I know it all too well.
I hope my citation of the Belgic Confession's warning that "this holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or certain people" still carries some weight with the current generation of a family which is justly proud of generations of covenantal faithfulness.
God will not be mocked, and he has a habit of raising up weak people to shame the strong when they have become proud of themselves instead of submissive to a sovereign God.
There was a day when the Dutch ancestors of the DeVos family were a tiny group of persecuted people who sung things like this after the "Sea Beggars" defeated the military of one of the most powerful nations on earth: "Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining / Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine / So from the beginning the fight we were winning / Thou, Lord, wast at our side, all glory be thine."
The DeVos family is justly proud of generations of covenantal faithfulness. For the last several generations, their work has been a positive influence in many ways.
But walking, standing, and sitting with homosexual activists carries great dangers of compromise. Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 tell how that story begins and how it ends. It does not end well for those who compromise.
(I am copying this to the GRPL list because of the historic role of the DeVos family in the Reformed world and their current choices. It's really an issue of Christian politics, not Reformed theology, but this is our problem due to the people involved.)
Amway.
I expect we will see the CRCNA cave on homosexuality in the not too distant future.
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