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[wil]

So do you think she has read her electorate correctly?

Will this stance be one that encourages the majority to rally behind her? or run screaming away?

All pure democracies fail, eventually the people vote all the money to themselves...

evil shrub? Andrew...you of all people, what we resist persists....we must hold all in the light...to increase better decision making.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by kenod

An anti-discrimination law here could make it illegal for a minister in a church to refuse to marry a couple solely on the basis of their gender. By protecting the rights of one group, you can take away the rights of another.

Wouldn't that amount to the State compelling someone to participate in and/or perform a religious practice against their will? No minister is compelled to administer a marriage service to anyone.

[kenod]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Wouldn't that amount to the State compelling someone to participate in and/or perform a religious practice against their will? No minister is compelled to administer a marriage service to anyone.

The law being proposed is that a minister cannot refuse to marry a couple SOLELY on the grounds of their gender, just as I cannot refuse to employ anyone SOLELY on his/her declared sexual preference.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by kenod

The law being proposed is that a minister cannot refuse to marry a couple SOLELY on the grounds of their gender, just as I cannot refuse to employ anyone SOLELY on his/her declared sexual preference.

Religious practice is an act of intimacy {between the person and God.} The State has no business there, IMHO. {That would be like the State ordering a person to work as a prostitute!}

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by kenod

The law being proposed is that a minister cannot refuse to marry a couple SOLELY on the grounds of their gender, just as I cannot refuse to employ anyone SOLELY on his/her declared sexual preference.

The minister does not act on their sexual preference. They are to act on the laws of the scripture they adhere to. And to compell a minister to perform a religious ceremony by secular decree, is in direct violation of the First Amendment (and renders Thomas Jefferson's letter of assurance to religious elders, null and void). This would TRULY become the blending of church and state, with the state superceding the church.

v/r

Q

edit: Try getting a Muslim Imam or Mullah to perform a wedding ceremony that goes against the Qu'ran, see how far that gets you...

[kenod]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Religious practice is an act of intimacy {between the person and God.} The State has no business there, IMHO. {That would be like the State ordering a person to work as a prostitute!}

I agree, but the argument is persuasive: Should a person be refused any service such as medical or dental treatment because they are gay ... of course not!

So, when a church regularly performs weddings for a variety of people, including those who are not members of its congregation, why should it refuse the same service to a gay couple, especially if the church has historical or scenic qualities that attract people to use it?

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by kenod

I agree, but the argument is persuasive: Should a person be refused any service such as medical or dental treatment because they are gay ... of course not!

So, when a church regularly performs weddings for a variety of people, including those who are not members of its congregation, why should it refuse the same service to a gay couple, especially if the church has historical or scenic qualities that attract people to use it?

Getting married is not like medical or dental treatment! If a church has no tradition, ritual, or other religious means of lending spiritual support to a specific situation, what do you want them to do? Are you going to compel them to make something up that they have no traditional basis for?

[Karimarie]

Originally Posted by kenod

So, when a church regularly performs weddings for a variety of people, including those who are not members of its congregation, why should it refuse the same service to a gay couple, especially if the church has historical or scenic qualities that attract people to use it?

Here's a more relevant question: Would a gay couple want to get married in a church that does not want them? Would a gay couple want to get married by a priest or minister who is performing the ceremony under duress and actually feels that both of them are going to hell?

I may not be a Christian, but I certainly wouldn't want to be married under such conditions.

[The Lord]

Originally Posted by kenod

Everyone has the right to lobby the government to bring about policy change - there is the business lobby, the union lobby, the environmental lobby, the gay lobby ... so why not a Christian lobby.

The rights of minorities are extremely well protected in Western countries. Most of the laws that limit the rights of minorities are there to protect the vulnerable, and to prevent exploitation of public resources.

The business lobby, the union lobby, the environmental lobby, and the gay lobby, all of these examples are of non-exclusionary groupings. You can be whatever ethnicity and yet be a businessman/woman, belong to a union, care about the environment, or have whatever sexual inclinations. Further, a person can belong to many of these groups at the same time without conflict.

Being Christian, Jewish or Hindu is ethnic and you cannot be one and the other. Further, society can and tends to pressure minority ethnicities in order to capitulate to the majority ethnicity. This is human nature and cannot be alleviated except by the power of law.

It is also quite obvious that the majority Christian population would elect a majority of Christian representatives, who would in turn appoint a majority of Christian officials from among the majority Christian population. It is thus futile to allow religious lobbying. As for Christians, they are already well represented in government and enjoy what many say is the tyranny of the majority. As for other religions, if we allow religious lobbying, then we are extending an opportunity for legitimacy and influence to the minority religion—something no one in the leadership would agree with. Thus we have no direct religious lobbying in the American system.

As for other minority rights, criminal rights are well protected now, in the sense that you are not allowed to kill a black person for sports anymore. However, if you happen to do that, then we’ll send to jail for a couple of years (only if you get caught, of course). On the other hand, a black person would be fried for killing a white person. This is the actual practice in real life. You (assuming you are white) and I do not see it because we are white and enjoy the privileges of the white majority: so to us is it good. You need to look at the US, and the West, from the point of view of a minority (from all kinds, racial, religious, ethnic, you name it) in order to know how unjust it is.

[China Cat Sunflower]

I just read this thread. Katherine Harris is a certifiable nut, and I wouldn't read too much into any of her desperate ramblings. The GOP has told her it won't support her because she can't win. Smack!

Chris

[The Lord]

Originally Posted by kenod

The law being proposed is that a minister cannot refuse to marry a couple SOLELY on the grounds of their gender, just as I cannot refuse to employ anyone SOLELY on his/her declared sexual preference.

There is no basis for comparison as you make it. An employer selects his/her employees based on merit, and the employee has to fulfill the employer’s qualifications for the job in order to be accepted. You cannot go to a doctor’s office and ask for a job as a doctor while you are a mechanical engineer, even if you have a Ph.D. in engineering. Why, because you do not qualify for the internal requirements for that job.

Similarly, individually or as a society, we can say that same sex couples can form legally accepted unions, but you have no right to force the church, the synagogue, or whatever to change their own internal requirements for a union between a man and a woman in order to join the same sex couples. If same sex couples want to marry they can do that in a civil court, or they can form their own religion. The same is true of anyone who disagrees with any of the fundamental rules of any religion: if you do not like what it teaches then find or establish another one, but don’t ask them all to change.

Otherwise, how about this as a proposition: I want the church to accept me as a Christian and baptize me but modify their dogma to accommodate my belief that Jesus did not exist. This would be utter nonsense, right?

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by The Lord

The business lobby, the union lobby, the environmental lobby, and the gay lobby, all of these examples are of non-exclusionary groupings. You can be whatever ethnicity and yet be a businessman/woman, belong to a union, care about the environment, or have whatever sexual inclinations. Further, a person can belong to many of these groups at the same time without conflict.

Being Christian, Jewish or Hindu is ethnic and you cannot be one and the other. Further, society can and tends to pressure minority ethnicities in order to capitulate to the majority ethnicity. This is human nature and cannot be alleviated except by the power of law.

It is also quite obvious that the majority Christian population would elect a majority of Christian representatives, who would in turn appoint a majority of Christian officials from among the majority Christian population. It is thus futile to allow religious lobbying. As for Christians, they are already well represented in government and enjoy what many say is the tyranny of the majority. As for other religions, if we allow religious lobbying, then we are extending an opportunity for legitimacy and influence to the minority religion—something no one in the leadership would agree with. Thus we have no direct religious lobbying in the American system.

As for other minority rights, criminal rights are well protected now, in the sense that you are not allowed to kill a black person for sports anymore. However, if you happen to do that, then we’ll send to jail for a couple of years (only if you get caught, of course). On the other hand, a black person would be fried for killing a white person. This is the actual practice in real life. You (assuming you are white) and I do not see it because we are white and enjoy the privileges of the white majority: so to us is it good. You need to look at the US, and the West, from the point of view of a minority (from all kinds, racial, religious, ethnic, you name it) in order to know how unjust it is.

I presume you have recent evidence to back up this rather strong series of statements and overall disgust for the western side of civilization...?

[The Lord]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

I presume you have recent evidence to back up this rather strong series of statements and overall disgust for the western side of civilization...?

Define western.

[kenod]

Originally Posted by the lord

Thus we have no direct religious lobbying in the American system.

There's no Jewish lobby, right?

I am using "lobbying" in a very general sense - more as it operates in this country where electors have more direct and personal access to their representatives.

Tne religious right is more powerful in your country than here, as well. In our last federal election, a Christian party had one member elected to the upper house. In a crucial vote on the rights of refugees, he held the balance of power because the numbers were split down the middle (there is no veto here). Thankfully, this Christian man voted according to his conscience, and the full legal rights of uninvited refugees have been retained.

We are facing many moral dilemmas at the present time - just today I heard it suggested that an egg from an animal may be injected with a human cell for the purposes of harvesting the stem cells.

As a parent as well as a Christian, I support the push to legislate Christian values ... and yes, impose them on the whole of society! Of course there are limits to which that should be taken, and I believe that needs to be fought out issue by issue.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by The Lord

Define western.

Several Definitions of the Western world ██ Developed countries of North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, always considered Western ██ Developed countries in east asia and Oceania, sometimes considered western ██ Latin America, settled by European countries (Spain and others) which have ties to European culture. ██ Eastern Europe, Russia, Caucasus Region and European ex-Soviet states, excluding Baltics ██ Other states sometimes considered western ██ Not usually considered western