The whole issue of gay marriage has calmed down over the last few weeks, thanks to Richard Clark, Condi Rice, and Tom Kean's 9/11 commission. But the gay marriage issue won't go away.
One the one hand, there's the doctrine of equal rights and non-discrimination. On the other hand, there's the sanctity of marriage, and the slippery slope. Marriage has always been recognized as a holy union between a man and a woman, and allowing "alternative definitions" of marriage to be recognized, it's only a matter of time before group marriage and unions between a czarina and her noble steed attain the same recognition.
Opponents to gay marriage cite that homosexuality is an abomination before the lord. On that ground, it should be outlawed, and the mere idea of gay marriage doesn't even merit debate.
Fine. Then outlaw shrimp first. Public stonings of adulterers will then be regularly scheduled on alternating Tuesdays in front of the Washington Monument.
Oh? John Kerry is opposed to Gay Marriage, and I haven't seen him make this particular citation.
Nice strawman there. Shouldn't you have, perhaps, qualified your statement with "Some opponents...", or even, more accurately, "A very few extreme religious opponents...".
Actually, even extremely religious types generally don't say that something is an abomination before the lord and that's why it should be outlawed. They generally cite some other reasons first.
Re:Strawman alert
RobertX on 2004-03-29T15:43:48
John Kerry speaks with a forked tongue.Re:Strawman alert
jordan on 2004-03-30T14:59:59
I agree. I think Kerry supporters believe that he just takes that position to get votes. This is yet another way John Kerry can be on both sides of every issue.
Re:Mmm shrimp...
RobertX on 2004-03-29T15:26:43
You would be correct, on all counts.Re:Mmm shrimp...
delegatrix on 2004-03-29T16:22:27
I wonder why, then, people even bother using Torah quotes to make their point, when they're not even bound to follow them, as it seems.Re:Mmm shrimp...
RobertX on 2004-03-29T16:43:38
One of the great mysteries my friend...Re:Mmm shrimp...
yudel on 2004-03-29T19:53:47
As someone who does keeps kosher, I'm quite gratified to see this God-hates-shrimp meme enter the public fray.My real problem with the gay marriage "debate" is that the "religious" opponents are falling into the very convenient mode of condemning other people as sinners. This has the effect of increasing self-rightousness, which is of course the direct opposite of righteousness or holiness.
Re:Mmm shrimp...
Lunchy on 2004-03-29T21:20:45
Not really, we're not condemning anyone, the Bible is. If the Bible accepted homosexuality, so would I.
If you just plain disagree with the Bible or think it's old fashioned, well, there's not much else to say. We won't have a foundation on which to base our discussion, so anymore talk would be pointless.Re:Mmm shrimp...
yudel on 2004-03-29T23:07:13
The problem is this: The Torah condemns sex between men. It also condemns the eating of shrimp, and sex with a menstruating woman. I happen to follow the Torah's views of these three actions (which I've listed in order of increasing personal sacrifice/annoyance -- I find sex with men as attractive as eating porcupine; my wife, fortunately, disagrees).Now, you want to argue that, according to the New Testament, Jesus has freed me so I can now eat shellfish and even bacon. Mazel Tov! But somehow, my gay friends aren't fully included in this dispensation.
So what about divorce? From my understanding, the mainstream of Christian theology for more than a millenium opposed divorce (in opposition to most of Jesus' Jewish contemporaries).
Now, if you accept the Catholic understanding of your Scriptures, then, as Richard Daley said, divorce is what undermined the American sanctity of marriage. Do the math and you'll see there are far more adulterers such as myself (I'm married to a divorced woman) than there are gay relationships. So why worry about gay marriage now, if the Bible condemns divorce?
And if you're not coming from the Catholic tradition.... well, let me say that I find your view of the Bible rather idiosyncratic. The notion that a certain modern reading of the Bible (Jews consider any biblical commentaries in the past few centuries modern) should impact on the American legal system strikes me as silly, more than anything else.
Re:Mmm shrimp...
Lunchy on 2004-03-30T01:11:26
Hehe, nope, I'm not catholic, but my faith also condemns divorce except on the grounds that one of the persons commits adultry.
Not sure what 'idiosyncratic' means even after looking it up, but...you're probably right.:) The Bible is irrelevent
TeeJay on 2004-03-30T09:22:15
If the gay marriage doesn't happen in a church then what the Bible or Torah say is irrelevent.The church and state in the U.S. are supposed to be seperate so there is no legal reason not to have gay marriage.
In fact the treatment of people who are gay as different is against the country's oh-so-sacred constitution.
From what I saw, none of the gay couples married in a church so what x-tians think does not matter.
Re:The Bible is irrelevent
pudge on 2004-03-31T18:07:07
TeeJay, but we call both of these different things -- civil marriage and social marriage -- the same thing, and until recently, there was no significant distinction, because both defined it in the same way.
Now, we are looking at two things that will be defined differently, but *still called the same thing*.
Simply saying that these people were not married in a church (which isn't true, as some were, but it is beside the point anyway) is what is irrelevant. The church is not irrelevant, it is at the crux of the issue. When people say they are married, because the two things (civil and social marriage) are tightly interwoven in law and in our culture, most people do not and cannot distinguish between them.
The real solution is decoupling. They are different, so distinguish them clearly. Call them different things.
Civil unions for all, civil marriages for none. Civil marriage should go away, recognized as an anachronism. We should define what sorts of unions directly benefit society, and what unions reasonably should expect some rights and responsibilities conferred by their existence, and use those to define what civil unions are.
Re:The Bible is irrelevent
chaoticset on 2004-04-01T01:50:10
Absolutely. The quoted text is something I can agree with, which is fairly rare. Unfortunately, removing something that's agreed upon by large masses of people and is regarded as the general standard doesn't usually work well. (ref. Metric Adoption.)Civil unions for all, civil marriages for none. Civil marriage should go away, recognized as an anachronism.Re:The Bible is (still) irrelevent
TeeJay on 2004-04-01T09:06:59
Pudge, you seem to be assuming that the christian church has a monopoly on marriage. Other religions have had marriages before christianity existed, and others will have marriages in the future.A Marriage between two humanists would still be a marriage, ditto atheists. Perhaps in the U.S. this is unclear, but in the UK you can have non-secular marriages in a registry office, outdoors, (in any licensed location).
Re:The Bible is (still) irrelevent
pudge on 2004-04-01T13:59:24
Pudge, you seem to be assuming that the christian church has a monopoly on marriage.
Not at all. You certainly misunderstand what I wrote.
Re:The Bible is (still) irrelevent
TeeJay on 2004-04-01T15:09:31
So marriage (beyond the christian definition) is the union of two people, who takes vows and sign a legal agreement.Whether you call it a civil marriage or a civil union is irrelevent - both mean the same to most people.
Re:The Bible is (still) irrelevent
pudge on 2004-04-01T23:04:08
So marriage (beyond the christian definition) is the union of two people, who takes vows and sign a legal agreement.
That's exactly the point that you don't understand: the vows and the legal agreement are two distinct things. "Christian" has little to do with it; there are two distinct institutions: civil marriage (legal agreement), and social marriage (taking vows). I know many homosexuals who call themselves married, and none of them are Christians, and none of them have the legal agreement.
They are married socially, in the exact same way (but with different views about what it means) as a Christian religious marriage. Neither one is directly related to the civil marriage.
Don't worry about it, most people have a tough time seeing the distinction. But it is this very distinction (or, lack of it) that IS the problem. When you say you want to change marriage, other people like you who can't see the distinction between the two, but who have a different view than you about what social marriage is, get up in arms. And let me assure you: they are far stronger -- in numbers and political power -- than you are.
Your only hope for the near future is to work toward recognizing yourself, and helping others to see the same, that civil marriage and social marriage are different things, and that the easiest way to make people understand this is to *call them different things*.
Whether you call it a civil marriage or a civil union is irrelevent - both mean the same to most people.
That's not remotely accurate. The only court to rule on it says they are different, and while most Americans are strongly against homosexual marriages, the numbers are far different when it comes to civil unions.
However, if what I wish to happen happens, then you would be right, they would mean the same thing to most people, because only then would they *be* the same thing.
Re:Mmm shrimp...
jaybee on 2004-03-30T17:39:01
Of the six biblical passages which are commonly associated with homosexuality, most are misinterpreted or viewed out of context.
Genesis 19:5(Story of Sodom) The people were punished because of their inhospitable intentions toward their guests.
Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 These passages include the "shrimp ban" as well as personal grooming requirements (no shaving your sideburns or beard) and body modifications (no tattoos) (both 19:27-28ish).
Romans 1:26-27(Denounced acts against nature) The common argument against this section is that gay people aren't acting against their nature. Given that various animals, including birds, sheep, and apes (our closest relatives), are known to have bisexual and homosexual relationships, the people with this view argue that it is possible for people to be acting "naturally" while being homosexual. Plus, look at what Paul (the author of the Letters to the Romans) writes in that book about women, ethnic minorities, Jews, the mentally ill, slavery, and politicians--we (Westerners) have rejected all of these other negative views of Paul.
I Corinthians 6:9, I Timothy 1:9-10(Homosexuals and depraved people) The Greek word (arsenokoites I believe) which is commonly translated as "homosexual" or pre-1940s as "sexual pervert" is not found anywhere else in the Bible or in other Greek works of the period. Some historians believe the word refers to male prostitutes with female clients (which was common in the Roman world).
Re:Mmm shrimp...
Lunchy on 2004-03-31T14:23:30
Act 20:29,30
Chances are, we apply these scriptures to each other, therefore, we can go no further in the discussion. *shrug*Re:Mmm shrimp...
pudge on 2004-03-31T18:47:07
Romans 1:26-27
Paul clearly says that homosexuality is "indecent."
And your shallow glimpse at what "Westerners" view about Paul is rejected. Paul says nothing negative about ethnic minorities or the mentally ill, and he does not come out in favor of slavery. And Paul's words about women are not at all rejected in the West; indeed, they are one of the most controversial things about the New Testament (in America, anyway). And I personally believe Paul's statements about women being subservient to men were a nod to the fact that in that culture, it would cause too much division if they weren't (as this is the specific context, church division).
I Corinthians 6:9, I Timothy 1:9-10
he Greek word (arsenokoites I believe) which is commonly translated as "homosexual" or pre-1940s as "sexual pervert" is not found anywhere else in the Bible or in other Greek works of the period.
That is not true. arsenokoitai, while it only appears in those two places in the Bible, appears in extrabiblical texts too (Bardesanes (2d c.), Anthologia Palatina, Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum Iff, and also in Polycarp's letter to the Phillippians). Plus, there is the word arsenikos, which appears in other ancient writings, which apparently means to think of a woman as a male.
(My source is the second edition of Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, a translation of the fourth revised and augmented edition of Bauer's German tome (1958), which gives pretty much every word found in the Bible, as well as where it appears, not only in the New Testament, but elsewhere.)
You are correct that some people think it means something other than homosexual (although everything you could think it could mean instead falls into the trap of "we already have a word for that"), but most scholars agree with the common interpretation.
Not having access to all of the extrabiblical sources, I can't say; but reading the Greek of both passages in the New Testament, and comparing it to the description in Romans (which predated the other two, leading some to believe the word was invented shortly after Romans was written), the use and words are very similar.
Romans uses "arsenes en arsesin" (males sexually among males), where 1 Corinthians says "arsenokoitai". arsen is the word meaning male. koite means bed. Put it together, you get "male bed." The readers of this would have immediately thought of the passage in Leviticus which talks about "a man (arsenos) who lies with (koiten) a man". [Yes, Leviticus was in Hebrew, but those are the same words, and it is how they are translated in the Septuagint, which many of the early Christians would have been familiar with.]
Perhaps it is not conclusive (though the passage in Romans certainly is), but it is, by far, the best explanation.
I mean, I loved shrimp anyway, but now it's good Discordian practice, because it violates holy works of other religions.
