London Daily Mail Laura Clark March 15, 2007
Schools are teaching children as young as four about same-sex relationships to comply with new gay rights laws, it emerged yesterday.
They are introducing youngsters to homosexuality using a series of story books in preparation for controversial regulations coming into force next month.
Fourteen primary schools are already taking part in a £600,000 Government-funded study aimed at familiarising children with gay and lesbian relationships.
The research team behind the project intends to post the findings on national websites to help all schools use the books in their literacy lessons.
It also revealed it is leading workshops for local councils across the country which are asking how to implement new laws banning discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
The academics working on the study say showing children that homosexuality is part of everyday life helps reduce homophobic bullying in the playground.
They claim schools need to ensure they are serving the needs of gay pupils and parents to comply with the Equality Act.
However the scheme sparked alarm among Christian groups who fear the legislation could leave schools open to lawsuits if they refuse to use books with gay characters.
. . . more
Well, spoken, Michael. Humility is very important, and how can we possibly look down on others if we see ourselves as the “chief of sinners”.
RE #47: Regretfully Father, I have to disagree with you on the “incest lobby”. It is out there. NAMBLA feeds right into the incest perpatrated on children by parents. I could argue that the current spate of teacher/student sexual activity is a form of incest laying the foundation for the real thing bubbling up from the porn world.
One of my best friends has over the last two years had to begin the process of reconstructing herself and her children’s lives after discovering that her now ex-husband had been raping his own daughters for years. It only came to light after she threw him out for other reasons. Most people refuse to admit such an activity exists, come up with all kinds of excuses blaming everybody but the perpatrator. Law enforcement treats the children as liars and seducers. My friend had been a faithful Catholic all of her life (as supposedly had her ex-husband). Her parish and the RC hierarchy sided with her sleaze of an ex-husband agreeing with his allegations that she made up the stories and induced her children to lie.
My friend is now Orthodox yet she has not escaped the same treatment entirely. The Wichita district attorney, Nola Foulston, refuses to prosectute incest unless the perpatrator confesses because it will reduce her conviction rate. When the former AG of Kansas, Phil Kline attempted to get records from the abortionist Tiller in order to uncover incest and rape related pregnancies, it cost him his position. The abortionists willfully protect incestous fathers and step-fathers as well as rapists. It is all part of the drive to “normalize” all types of sexual behavior and kill the by-products.
To answer Jim, not all sin can or should be made illegal, that does not make it any less sin or any less harmful. Coercion overt or implied is one key to making an act of any type illegal.
It sounds like what you’re saying, Michael, is that Buddhists are punished every day because they are forced to endure people like me? What’s the best way for me to stop punishing them–to convert to Orthodox Christianity, or to convert to Buddhism?
Jacobse, in Note 36, you wrote:
Earlier, you said,
Aren’t you guilty here of the same elimination of distinctions? You act as if we can’t draw any lines, because adulterers fit into the same category as pedophiles.
You seem to be equating all sexual relationships outside of Christian marriage with incest and pedophilia. But surely there’s a moral difference between a masturbator and a necromaniac murder-fetishist.
You make a distinction between incest and homosexual behavior in Note 47, and I think it’s an important one–“coercion and abuse” of a child is different from consenting adult behavior.
Dean, the humility towards God leads to a boldness toward man that results in the Prophetic stance that the Church herself is called to. Without the humility and repentance the prophetic utterance of the Church is reduced to mean-spirited judgementalism or becomes political diatribe in theological language. Without allowing the humility toward God to blossom into Prophetic witness (word and deed), we are in danger of lapsing into a selfish gnosticism that is without salvific power or authority.
Phil. Psalm 1
Michael writes: “When the former AG of Kansas, Phil Kline attempted to get records from the abortionist Tiller in order to uncover incest and rape related pregnancies, it cost him his position.”
Michael, a person’s medical records are probably the most private of all documents that ever exist. When I worked as a data analyst at a hospital, I had access to all medical data. We went to great lengths to protect patient privacy. Individual medical cases were NEVER discussed unless it was absolutely necessary to do so. When any report that contained patient names was no longer needed, it went into the shredder. Without confidentiality of medical records people’s willingness to seek necessary medical treatment would be destroyed.
Michael: “The abortionists willfully protect incestous fathers and step-fathers as well as rapists. It is all part of the drive to ‘normalize’ all types of sexual behavior and kill the by-products.”
Hang on there big guy! Kline was defeated in an election in Kansas, a Red state if there ever was one. I think that the citizens of Kansas understood that granting the State unfettered access to medical records, however noble the stated intention, was a monumentally bad idea.
Note 54. Phil writes:
Keep things in context Phil. I argue that your concept of “lifestyle choice” eliminates distinctions. Certainly lines need to be drawn, but “lifestyle choice” is a very fluid — distinctionless? — category. What “choices” fits into this box? Homosexual marriage? Pedophilia? Polygamy?
Did you really mean by “life style choice” to say homosexual marriage? If so, just say so. But then we get back to the original point: make me an argument why, if gay marriage is sanctioned, polygamy should not be sanctioned. Or maybe you believe polygamy is just fine and should be sanctioned as well, in which case my point about collapsing distinctions holds.
Jim, Kansas is not as “Red State” as you think especially on abortion. It is not an accident that Tiller flourishes here and that he has extensive political power. Sam Brownback is the only unapologetic pro-life politician who has significant power in the state.
Kline wanted the redacted medical records to see if a crime had been commited. Tiller not only flouts moral law by the very nature of his operation, he continually and willfully disobey’s what reporting laws there are on the books in the state. It is mandatory in the state for medical practioners to report suspected child abuse. Tiller does not. For $5000 he is willing to and has done multiple abortions on young girls under 14 without any reports. Are not pregnancices in 12 and 14 year old girls at least worthy of consideration as child abuse, especially when there are other indicators to suspect rape and/or incest? Cannot law inforcement officers get access to records when there is suspicion of a crime? Certainly the folks in Florida got ahold of Rush Limbaugh’s unredacted records for a suspected crime that is far less serious than what Kline was attempting to investigate and with just about as much probable cause from what I’ve seen.
The election campaign against Kline was largely financed by an organization with close ties to Tiller, and was highly misleading. A Republican prosecuter in the Kansas City area with a record of sexual harrasment complaints switched parties to run against Kline. Kline did not have the support of the Republican Party in Kansas because they have tacitly agreed not to make abortion an issue. However, the real issue is that abortionists don’t care about whether children are being raped and abused or who is doing it, they care about being able to kill as many babies as they can when ever they want. The abortion lobby is a stealth lobby for incest in this country.
Jim: You say,
“Without confidentiality of medical records people’s willingness to seek necessary medical treatment would be destroyed”
I stongly dispute the idea that an abortion in a 12 year old girl promoted and paid for by a step-father not only once, but twice is necessary medical treatmet when the only “treatment” is the crushing, poisoning and dismemberment of the child she carries.
Note 58–
My use of the phrase “lifestyle choices” in Note 37 was actually referring to people who choose to commit religious acts. The idea of the argument was that whether you can change is immaterial if you needn’t be expected to change. Thus, while many Orthodox Christians might feel that practitioners of other religions are following the wrong path, it does not follow that our society should provide constant condemnation to members of those religions simply because they could change if they wanted to.
I did not conflate homosexuals with pedophiles, just as I do not conflate Orthodox Christians with Branch Davidians. There’s a difference between rapists and murderers on the one hand, and people who simply don’t share the same worldview on the other.
Although I wasn’t talking about homosexual marriage, here’s an argument that supports gay marriage but not polygamy:
I’ve copied and pasted this argument from a post on this blog at the following URL:
https://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2006/12/23/when-will-bisexuals-drag-homosexuals-out-of-polygamy-closet/
Well, this might sound radical, but I think it is time for the “Byzantine synthesis”. Civil marriage will no longer exist. It is time for a nation that promotes virtue.
As for wanting to keep medical records secret, yes, they should be as private as possible, but the endangering of people’s lives in the name of privacy (just as endangering people’s lives in the name of transparency) is not honorable.
As for a difference between rapists and murderers, yes, there may be a difference in the sins they choose, but they are still sinners. We should not look down on them, for we sin as well, and all sins are sins. We should pray for them as we pray for everyone (especially ourselves).
Michael writes: “I strongly dispute the idea that an abortion in a 12 year old girl promoted and paid for by a step-father not only once, but twice is necessary medical treatment when the only “treatment” is the crushing, poisoning and dismemberment of the child she carries.”
Well, if you know about that, you should report it to the police and they can interview the girl. I just think the State shouldn’t go on a fishing expedition through people’s medical records in order to get that information.
Look, there are all sorts of crimes that might show up in medical records. If the State can browse through the records of an abortion clinic, then they can browse through any medical records, looking for evidence of any crime.
Why just abortion? Why not venereal diseases? Why not contraception for minors? Why not psychological and psychiatric records too? Why not demand the medical records of anyone who ever tested positive in a hospital for any illegal drug? Every week the local police can paw through the records of your family physician just to make sure that you and your family are on the straight-and-narrow.
If you like living in a police state, this would be a good start. But my guess is that if the case under discussion involved anything other than abortion, you’d be opposed to State inspection of medical records.
Jim you say nothing of the mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse which is law in Kansas. It is also a reporting requirement that all cases of STD’s be reported by physicians to the health department, a law my father got passed at least it was law until HIV came along. Other clinics and physicians and health care providers are subject to these laws in Kansas, only abortion clinics are not.
The fact remains, not only does Tiller cover for incest perpatrators and rapists of children, so do other abortion apologists. The “right” to abortion trumps everything. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it is the abortionists who have created the stiuation in which there can be nothing but warfare when it comes to abortion. Fine, they want to kill babies all day everyday, there is little legally that I can do but do not expect me to countenace what they do or why they do it. It is not medical treatment.
But again, abortion is not the issue, you made it the issue, it is the willful protection of incest perpertrators and rapists of children. Fr. Hans said there was no incest lobby but there is within the context of the abortionists unwillingness to submit to the reporting laws that every other medical provider in the state has to. It is there in the political clout of the abortionists to not allow ANY restrictions for any reason on their murder even in the case of raped and abused children.
In this case there was sufficient evidence of a crime, the non-reporting, to warrant the obtaining of the redacted medical records. The election put a stop to the AG’s office pursuing the cases.
For the record I thought the right decision was made by the courts in ruling against Ashcroft on his request for medical records.
Note 63.
Yes, this is true. The abortion lobby has been revictimizing children for years, especially young girls raped by family members. What sordid business. But I don’t think it is just the political clout of the abortion lobby. People know that once you lift the lid off of this box, the ugliness will be revealed and the wrath of abortion ideologues will spew forth like a volcano. Few have the courage to confront it.
Sacrificing Our Daughters: Abortion and sexual predation
The Ex-abortionists: Why they quit
Michael writes: “Jim you say nothing of the mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse which is law in Kansas. It is also a reporting requirement that all cases of STD’s be reported by physicians to the health department, a law my father got passed at least it was law until HIV came along.”
Sure, there are instances in which information is released to a health department because of public health concerns. In Oregon HIV/AIDS cases are also reported. That’s different from having a prosecutor go through medical records looking for evidence of a crime.
Michael: “The fact remains, not only does Tiller cover for incest perpatrators and rapists of children, so do other abortion apologists.”
But there were all sorts of other sources of information that Kline didn’t go after. For example, why not go through hospital birth records for teenage mothers? How about prescriptions for contraceptives for teens? If the attorney general wants information on who is having teen sex, there are many sources of information.
Michael: “But again, abortion is not the issue, you made it the issue, it is the willful protection of incest perpertrators and rapists of children.”
It is about abortion. Kline was a very public and vocal opponent of abortion. He targets abortion clinics, but leaves hospitals, pharmacies, and other medical facilities and practices alone. If Kline wants to target abortion clinics, great, but let’s not pretend that there is some other motivation.
Given that by their 17th year a significant number of girls have had consensual sex with young boyfriends, it appears that Kline would be in favor of prosecuting and incarcerating perhaps 20 to 30 percent of Kansas teenage males for felony sex crimes. In addition, since under Kansas law most any kind of sexual contact at that age is illegal (“any lewd fondling or touching of the person of either the child or the offender, done or submitted to with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires”), probably teens could also be prosecuted for serious necking. So I figure probably 40 to 50 percent of Kansas teenage males have committed felony sex crimes.
Given such an epidemic of sex crimes in Kansas, does Kline implement massive sting operations, arresting thousands of teenage boys lured by the possibility of getting to second base with a pretty girl? Does he infiltrate the high schools with young-looking undercover law enforcement officers? Does he arrange for night-vision surveillance of teenage hangouts where felony necking occurs? Nope, nothing like that. He just wants medical records from an abortion clinic.
Now if you believe that this is not about abortion, well . . . .
Note 66. Jim writes:
So what? The law mandates that all child abuse be reported including incest and rape. Hospitals comply. Why shouldn’t abortuaries?
So what? The loudest protests against compliance comes from the abortion lobby. Like you say, it is all about abortion.
Note 61. Phil writes:
Commit religious acts? That’s new one. So is the application of the euphemism “lifestyle choices” to religion. In almost all cases it applies to homosexual acts after the first one “alternative lifestyles” proved incapable of lifting the moral onus against them.
In any case, regarding the argument for homosexual marriage but against polygamy…
The logic is tortured because the assumptions are reductionist. For example:
This reads as if marriage has no more cultural importance (or cultural antecedents) than counting jelly beans. It draws from the tradition in maintaining that marriage is only between two persons, but then jettisons the part that the persons are a single man and woman. Androgyny enters -when? -how? — the case is never made.
You can’t have it both ways, that is, appropriating the authority of the cultural tradition on one hand, and then throwing it off on the other. You want to invoke that authority to restrict polygamy, but jettison it to allow homosexual marriage.
Sorry Phil. It’s not persuasive.
Are you suggesting that religion is not a lifestyle choice? I thought free will was important in Christian doctrine, and I can’t imagine you support state-imposed religion.
The point remains; even though you can change your religion, it does not follow that you should be expected to do so.
You present a false dichotomy here, Jacobse. Based on your reasoning, either all laws remain exactly as they are, or we must have total anarchy by rejecting every aspect of every law. In truth, we can change the aspect of a law that is discriminatory, and keep the aspect that is not. Or we can improve a law without jettisoning it entirely.
If I propose to my school board that students be given the option of having a fish sandwich at lunch on Fridays, it does not follow that I must therefore advocate that all students be allowed 2, 3, or seventeen sandwiches at their lunch on Friday. But according to your logic, it does.
Are you saying that you, personally, could be persuaded by the right argument? I somehow suspect that isn’t what you mean.
Note 69. Phil writes:
No. I am stating (not suggesting) that “lifestyle choice”, because it is a euphemism, is functionally meaningless.
Not at all. That’s why I said the argument is reductionist. Laws have consequences in the culture because laws draw from cultural values, including the traditions that shape those values. Further, the law has degrees of importance because, again, the consequences have different effects. That’s why we distinguish between misdemeanors, felonies, etc.
Thus, to equate changing laws prohibiting homosexual marriage with allowing how many sandwiches a student is allowed doesn’t really work. IOW, the question of homosexual marriage is of much more cultural importance than say, jaywalking, even though ordinances regulate both. Reductionism is merely another way of collapsing distinctions.
No. I am saying that this argument fails at showing why polygamous marriages should not be allowed if homosexual marriages are.
Fr. Hans writes: “The law mandates that all child abuse be reported including incest and rape. Hospitals comply. Why shouldn’t abortuaries?”
I went on the web and looked at several anti-abortion web site. According to what I read most females who get pregnant through rape or incest choose not to have abortions, and pregnancies in such cases are rare anyway. This is what your side of issue is saying. So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that such pregnancies and rare and most women in those situation don’t want to abort, and then wonder why an abortion clinic doesn’t report any instances of rape or incest.
Fr. Hans: “The loudest protests against compliance comes from the abortion lobby. Like you say, it is all about abortion.”
Look, I don’t care what Phil Kline or the rest of the anti-abortion industry is saying, agencies in Kansas are NOT reporting consensual sex between teens to the police. They just aren’t.
Run the numbers:
Kansas teenage pregnancies age 10 – 16, 2004: 1,850 (my best estimate using Kansas Vital Statistics report and adjusting for different age cohorts.
Kansas juveniles arrested for sex crimes in 2004: 142 (100 of these were for “forcible fondling.”) Kansas DOJ 2004 crime statistics report. Many of the other 42 arrests were for things that wouldn’t get anyone pregnant.
If only half of teenage girls were getting pregnant from other teens and those pregnancies were being faithfully reported by all medical facilities, we’d see literally hundreds of juvenile sex crime arrests. But they aren’t there. That has to mean that other agencies are not reporting this stuff either.
This whole outrage about the “abortuaries” promoting a culture of incest, while all the other facilities are reporting everything is absolutely ludicrous. It’s not happening. The abortion clinics were complaining because they were being targeted by Kline, whereas the other facilities weren’t — not because they were already complying, but because they weren’t targeted.
Jim, only abortuaries (nice word, that) don’t comply with the requirement to report suspected rapes and abuse. Hospitals do. Schools do. Private physicians do. Abortuaries don’t. That’s the issue.
This has nothing to do with consensual sex.
Jacobse, you misunderstand the use of analogy here. I never equated marriage to sandwiches. I took the logic you were using to critique my arguments regarding gay marriage and polygamy and applied it to a simpler, less emotionally loaded policy issue.
It’s not your cultural values, your traditions, or your morals that I’m pointing out flaws in; it’s your logic.
Fr. Hans writes: “This has nothing to do with consensual sex.”
It has everything to do with it. In Kansas a girl under 16 cannot consent to sex, or even to almost any kind of sexual contact. By definition, under Kansas law pregnancy for a girl under the age of consent would automatically be a sign that a crime had been committed. Whether she consented or even initiated the contact would be irrelevant, because legally she could not consent. (So in the strictly legal sense, you’re right; it has nothing to do with consent, because she can’t consent.) When a 15 year old boy is making out with his 15 year old girlfriend, he may be engaging in criminal activity.
That’s why I’m saying that if the attorney general wants to discover which young teens are having sex, there are all sorts of ways of doing that other than focusing solely on abortion clinics.
Note 73. Phil writes:
Yes, I am aware of that. My point is that the analogy is flawed because homosexual marriage, because of a host of cultural ramifications, cannot be reduced to something as simple as your example provides. Put another way, the questions surrounding homosexual marriage are more than legal.
Let me try it from the other direction. The reason that the law defines marriage as monogamous and heterosexual is due to the cultural tradition, not the other way around.
Note 74. Well, sure, but abortuaries are not even required to report forcible rape by a family member. That’s the problem.
Then why did you say, earlier,
“Offer me an argument why polygamy should not be allowed if gay marriage is allowed.”…?
You bundle polygamy with gay marriage, but when you’re provided with an argument that unbundles them, you reject it not on the basis of the argument itself, but because the issue is too important for a legal argument (“more than legal” are your words there.) What kind of argument were you asking to be offered, if not a legal argument? An emotional argument?
I’m not suggesting that you personally should change your views on the appropriateness of same-sex marriage, but it would be honest for you to acknowledge that there exist arguments in favor of same-sex marriage that do not also support polygamy.
Note 77. You haven’t unbundled them. All you have done is reduced marriage to a legal construct and ignored completely the cultural dimension. You’ve created self contained and self-limiting syllogisms.
Don’t you ever wonder why homosexual marriage gets overwhelmingly rejected whenever the question is given to voters?
Yes, because I’m simply arguing that the legal construct of marriage can change. Your personal cultural views about marriage need not change to accomodate it.
But there is the rub. Marriage cannot be reduced to a legal construct irrespective of the cultural heritage. Remember what I said upstream: laws against polygamy, homosexual marriage, incestual marriages, etc. draw from cultural values, not vice versa.
Your notion of cultural values is highly relativistic, as if the cultural ramifications of sanctioning homosexual marriage have no bearing on the discussion. (It is also why you think a legal argument is sufficient to settle the question.) But as I said upstream, homosexual activists themselves prove your notion false. As soon as they catch a glimmer here and there that homosexual marriage might become legal, they feverishly set out to make it a cultural norm. They use the legal system to subvert the cultural tradition.
And you still don’t think this is a culture war?
Let’s add to that list: laws against mixed-race marriage, against business on Sunday, and against women’s suffrage also stemmed from cultural values. An appeal to cultural values does not automatically justify a law. It does, however, introduce an undefinable concept into the debate, which helps to suppress argument.
A suffragist might well have argued that, once women can vote, traditionalist women will still have the option to refrain from voting. But a conservative man might have argued that that wasn’t enough for him, that he wanted all women to be forced to stay in their place, because his values differed from theirs, and his values were superior.
That’s your role in this debate. You’re relying on your own cultural values, but arguing about other people’s rights, instead of your own. Or, if you want to enage in metadebate, you’re also arguing about your right to suppress other people’s rights.
It’s disingenuous to pretend that others are brining a culture war to you. By insisting that your value system be used to subjugate others, you’re the one on the offensive.
Note 81. Phil writes:
Not really. What it does is show restricting an appeal to legal categories alone is insufficient for discussing matters that both draw on values that transcend those categories and shape the culture in which a legal decision would be practiced. In fact, instead of suppressing argument, the argument expands although, clearly in this case, not in your favor.
Yes, in fact, take it a step further. The Supreme Court ruled that blacks had only a three-fifths vote in the Dredd Scott decision. This ruling, although settled in a civil war, left a legacy of discrimination that would last for another hundred years.
Now, ask yourself, why did this change? If you know anything about the Civil Rights Movement, you would understand that the Civil Rights Act was the result of a broad appeal to cultural values — yes, even in a culture that was confused about the humanity of the black man. If you think the law changed the dominant cultural attitude, you’ve got it backwards. The dominant cultural changed, and it changed by an appeal to cultural values — actually the religious underpinning of those values — that led to the roll-back of the laws sanctioning discrimination.
Homosexual marriage, on the other hand, would fail this test. That’s why advocates such as yourself insist that the issue be discussed only in legal terms. So you see, cultural values (not cultural practices necessarily) proved the anti-suffragette was wrong, the bigot was wrong, just as it will prove you wrong.
See: Gay Marriage Far Removed From Civil Rights Movement
Subjugate others? Are you against polgamy? How about incestual marriage? Is the polygamist or incestual actor subjugated as well? Or, since you hold to such a truncated notion of personal rights, do you think the polygamist has the same rights that you claim a homosexual marriage advocate has?
This is not a rhetorical question. Polygamists, NAMBLA, and others make exactly the same argument you do.
Actually, blacks had no vote in 1857. The Dred Scott decision established that blacks could not be granted citizenship by a state.
The U.S. Constitution’s text defined black persons as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation and representation.
But your example is enlightening. It seems like you are saying that the justices, in writing the Dredd Scott decision, were keeping with the dominant cultural attitude, and it wasn’t until more than a century later that the dominant culture changed enough to recognize the humanity of black men and allow them civil rights.
Isn’t that relativism at its worst? Weren’t the bigots and anti-suffragettes wrong even when the majority of the culture agreed with them?
That is perhaps the twelfth time you’ve said that on this page. Even though you found my argument unpersuasive, perhaps you can admit that I wasn’t making exactly the same argument?
This argument in relating race/ethnicity to homosexuality is rather pointless. Homosexuality is not a race, it’s not defined by physical characteristics. It’s defined by action or rather behavior. Arguing a homosexual ethnicity is like arguing there’s an ethnicity of adultery.
Note 83. Phil writes:
No. I am saying that the cultural values you are all too quick to dismiss led to the final emancipation of the black man. Did you read the article?
Your effort to sanction homosexual marriage works in the reverse. Rather than appeal to the values that direct and shape the culture, you truncate the question into legal categories refusing to consider the social and moral consequences of homosexual marriage, the natural biological barriers against same-sex “parenthood”. etc. etc.
Remember, these same values also prohibit certain arrangements and rightfully so. Just because Dredd Scott was a legal travesty does not mean that all moral prohibitions codified into law should be jetissoned. We are not antinomians or nihilists.
Yes, you are not arguing for polygamy or pedastery. However, advocates for both make the same argument that you do — same rationale, same claims of discrimination, same dubious comparisons to the Civil Rights movement, etc. You get stuck because on the one hand you want the broader values ignored to justify homosexual marriage, while on the other you appeal to them to distinguish your argument from your philosophical compatriots.
One of the appeals the Martin Luther King made early in his leadership was for everyone to recognized that discrimination against black people was a sin that effected white people just as much as it did black people just in different ways. He was calling for repentance. His language and approach became more overtly politcal as time went on, but I do not believe he ever lost the foundation for his actions.
I do not nor have I ever thought that homosexuals are less than human, I’ve known far too many to hold that stupid attitude. In fact, what I and other Christians are saying is that homosexuals are damaging their humanity by engaging in homosexual behaviour and ideation. We are consistent in our call to all of those who engage in sinful behavior to repent and be healed, be the person you were created to be.
What raises my ire is the attacks by those who wish not only to persist in their sin, but wish to force everyone to recognize their behavior and ideation as “right”. Truly Orwellian
Michael writes: “What raises my ire is the attacks by those who wish not only to persist in their sin, but wish to force everyone to recognize their behavior and ideation as ‘right’.”
I don’t think that marriage between any two people automatically implies that the union is “right.” In the hetero world a 20 year old woman can marry a 90 year old man in order to get his money. Two drug addicts can marry. A woman can marry an imprisoned serial killer. People can marry five times, ten times. None of these unions is even normal, much less right, but all of them are potentially legal, and all confer all the financial, legal, and other benefits of marriage.
Jim #87 your examples as a source of an argument is rather specious. There was a time that the examples you’ve given were not acceptable to society.
Right. And many religious persons argued earlier in this century that couples who engaged in miscegenation were sinning. (Interracial coupling is an action, thus it is a choice.)
What you’re saying is that their theology was wrong, and that yours is right, and that everyone should accept that.
My grandfather, may he rest in peace, firmly believed that it was a sin for a white man to marry a black woman, and vice versa. I believe he was wrong. We could still have Thanksgiving dinner together, because he had no say in whom I married, and I still loved him because he was my grandfather.
Now, Jacobse is arguing that, instead of simply changing the law to meet the needs of consenting adult couples, we must first attack your religion and establish that it is wrong. We can’t change the laws until we change the culture. If you hold that belief, and it bothers you that devout Christians are becoming increasingly marginalized, you’ve got to accept that you’re bringing it on yourself. You’re asking people like me to marginalize your beliefs. I’d be content to “agree to disagree.”
But if you’re wrong, and they’re right, and it’s not a sin, then how is it Orwellian to proclaim that it’s not a sin?
What are you talking about? In notes 68, 70, 75, etc., you criticized me for not appealing to cultural values? What happened?
Note 89. Phil writes:
I made it clear in note 85 and elsewhere:
It’s relatively easy to grasp. You argue on the one hand that the cultural tradition prohibiting homosexual marriage should be ignored (the prohibition replicates miscegenation, etc.), but then appeal to the tradition to differentiate your appeal from the polygamist or pederast who uses the exact same logic you do.
Well, I don’t really think you would “agree to disagree.” You want homosexual marriage, enough at least to keep arguing for it here. But again, as the recent elections proved, most people don’t want it. The arguments are not persuasive.
Legal homosexual marriage is agreeing to disagree on this issue. You can, in good conscience, vote to permit same-sex couples to marry whether you accept my reasoning or not, because you’d still be free to communicate your appeal to values to anyone who would listen. It’s a moderate, compromise position, as opposed to the complete elimination of civil marriage.
As you brought up with Dredd Scott, the fact that a majority may oppose legal change does not automatically make it wrong. Sometimes people need time to realize that what they fear isn’t really so bad.
Note 92.
Ah, but Phil, this holds true of any moral prohibition. The same could be said polygamy, incestual relationships, and, once the distinction between adulthood and childhood is erased, pedophilia or pederasty. Remember, your logic mirrors theirs. You have not been able to distinguish yourself from them except to argue that homosexual monogamy replicates the heterosexual norm, but then you run into the contradiction of appealing to the tradition that you say is wrong. This internal contradiction in your argument is something you never address.
Again, these prohibitions are more than legal. They are rooted deeply in the culture, and just because some cultural prohibitions were moderated, miscegenation for example, none crossed the gender divide. What you propose is actually quite radical, thus the overwhelming refusal when regular people are given their voice.
And why would this be a compromise position? Frankly, I think the compromise is already there. You can have all the benefits of marriage through other legal means, wills, power of attorney, etc. No real problem there from my perspective since I see the definition of marriage transcending these legal categories. More tolerance is needed from the homosexual side.
You missed the point. Dredd Scott proves that judges can be wrong. Your exclusive reliance on a sympathetic judiciary (in places) over plebecites IOW, does not prove your case right.
All? Really? So, if I can find a single benefit of marriage that cannot be obtained through other legal means, you’ll concede the debate?
Note 94. No. Given that no inherent right for same-sex marriage exists, the legal remedies serve as a compromise, but not as tacit admission such a right should exist. There is no moral problem with this.
Taking a cue from note 9…
Don’t you think it’s unfair that people who have not attended medical school are denied their right to receive a license to practice medicine? In this age of fairness for everyone, regardless of the consequences, surely we can recognize the right of anyone and everyone to receive a medical license.
Certainly there are behaviors associated with practicing medicine without training that Christianity must condemn, just as their are behaviors associated with trained medical practice that it condemns. However as Christians we have a higher obligation to treat our fellow human beings, whatever their level of medical education, with love, respect and dignity. We do the devils work when we forget this and focus instead on the aspects of our moral teaching that can be used as an excuse to be hateful, intolerant and mean-spirited.
Note 96. Augie, could you rephrase your point above in plain English? It beats around the bush a bit and it is difficult to know exactly what you are trying to say.
I’ll try to be clearer.
Note 9 reinforces the proposition that people who openly disapprove of homosexual conduct — for example, by advocating against homosexual marriage — are “hateful, intolerant, and mean-spirited.” This proposition has a lot of well-tended currency these days. If this reinforcement was not the intent of the note, then what was the reason for including the stock “hateful, etc.” language? What is the relevance? In any case, I reject this proposition, and I encourage others to reject it too.
It is easy to replace “love the sinner, hate the sin” with “love the sinner, ignore the sin.” It is especially easy to do this when we have been conditioned to feel guilt at saying anything that is politically incorrect.
Note # 98,
You are correct Augie, the left in particular believes that if you rightly condemn something that is clearly anti-Christian, then you must have no small amount of “mean spiritedness” and the like. The fact that Dean so easily slips into this is one of the reasons I openly question his Orthodoxy and Christianity. In other words, his occasional pious pronouncement is probably just left wing/secular morality dressed up with pious sounding language. At bottom, his is the voice of a modernist.
As far as political correctness, it’s simply a matter of paying attention to your Christianity. This is the best remedy for this type of nonsense…
Christopher writes: “You are correct Augie, the left in particular believes that if you rightly condemn something that is clearly anti-Christian, then you must have no small amount of ‘mean spiritedness’ and the like.”
I don’t think that’s the case at all. There are all sorts of Christian values that are widely accepted across the political spectrum. Nobody on the left advocates slavery. No one on the left says that compassion and love are wrong. No one on the left believes that helping the poor and healing the sick are wrong.
People in the religious right are very selective in their condemnations. In particular, homosexuals bear the brunt of condemnation. But for many ordinary people, homosexuals are their coworkers, neighbors, friends, and relatives. So when you condemn homosexuals, you’re condemning Jason, and Scott, and Hugo, and Jenny, and they are my friends, and it becomes personal, not business. You want to tear them a new orifice, great, I’ll tear you a new orifice. Not because I’m a “leftist,” but because Jason, Scott, Hugo, and Jenny are great people, and when you attack them, I take it personal. You want a culture war? I’ll give you a culture war.
Meanwhile, as the religious right attacks homosexuals, they ignore the sins of their fellow rightists, religious and otherwise. They are virtually silent on divorce, gluttony, gambling, materialism, greed, gossip, bearing false witness, etc. And in the midst of their hypocrisy, they get upset when the rest of us don’t take them seriously.