Originally posted by: drpootums
Originally posted by: OrByte
Originally posted by: drpootums
Originally posted by: polm
Originally posted by: hysperion
Originally posted by: Snagle
I am opposed to denying gays the same rights as heterosexuals have.
I (seriously) would LOVE to hear some rational arguments for why gay marriages should not be allowed. And by rational I dont mean
1. In the bible it says....
2. Well if we let gays get married, next people will want to marry there dog!
3. It's not natural!
4. It's not for reproduction!
etc etc
anyone, please?
How bout the fact that marriage means man and woman? Isn't that an oxymoron with gays getting married? IMO they should take away marriages from government period and leave it up to religion...civil unions for everyone....IMO gay's can't be married because it's against the definition.
well that would be where you are wrong, they can't get married because there is a CONSTITUTIONAL BAN AGAINST IT ! Wake up people ! This is not about your own rediculous opinions anymore, this is about CIVIL RIGHTS !!
this is no different from denying rights to African Americans, or banning interracial marriages, or any form of descrimination for that matter.
You don't have to like gay people, or gay marriage, but you have NO RIGHT to deny them basic rights.
GET IT ?
Heh...you didnt see the thing on the news (a while back i guess) where some queers said "i was born this way" and compared themselves to black people, and the black people hated it. Pretty much the response was (summerized of course) "Stop ur whining u bunch of queers, we were born black, we didnt have a choice! Shut up, u chose to be gay, we didnt choose to be black"
I hate people saying "its discrimination" and "they were born that way"....what was so messed up at their birth that they decided to like their own gender. I know u all think the bible is a bunch of BS, but being the gays have to have their rights as queers, then i
will have my rights as a christian. Im Romans 1:26, the first part of the verse starts out: "That is why God abandoned them (homosexuals) to their shameful desires."
So much for a "NATION FOUNDED UNDER GOD"!!!
so lets hypothetically say that the bible is now outlawed because it incites civil unrest. Your right to read it has been taken away. how would that make you feel?
how is that different than a gay couple in love wish to be married and recognized as a couple YET the state they live in deems such behavior as unacceptable and has deemed it DEVIANT. how is it different?
let them live thier life as they let you live yours.
And last I checked, the verdict was still out in determining whether or not homosexuality is a learned behavior or not. I could be wrong though...
Marrying someone of your same gender and following you religion is a bit difference. There is something in the constitution about "FREEDOM OF RELIGION", but there is nothing about "LET THE QUEERS GET MARRIED". One reason is that this nation was founded under God, and over the past 225 years most of us have forgot that. If the queers wanna get married, then let them move to Canada, while there they will not be made fun of, because last time i heard speaking out against gays in Canada is worthy of arrest or fine.
Under God? Not before 1956. A good bit of the founding fathers were, at most, Deists. They may not have seen this specific issue coming, but they were in the middle of issues of religion and moral issues between the people and state. The result was that EVERY PERSON should have the rights and privileges of the majority, as their creed sees it, unless it directly caused physical risk to members of the majority (being legally blind and driving, FI).
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"--John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legaends, hae been blended with both Jewish and Chiistian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.--John Adams in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_, John A. Haught
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity." --John Adams
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it." -- Benjamin Franklin, _Articles_Of_Belief_and_Acts_of_Religion_, Nov.20, 1728
"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity." -- Benjamin Franklin , _Works_ Vol.VII, p.75
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects of Christianity, we shall find few that have not in turns been persecutors and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution on the Roman church, but preactied i on the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice both here (England) and in New England"--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758
"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." -- Benjamin Franklin, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught
"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."--Benjamin Franklin
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."--Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802, _The_Writings_of_Thomas_Jefferson_Memorial_Edition_, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1903-04, 16:281
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."--Thomas Jefferson, _Notes_on_Virginia_, _Jefferson_the_President:_First_Term_1801-1805_, Dumas Malon, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191
"...our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opnions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry"--Thomas Jefferson, _Statute_for_Religious_Freedom_, 1779, _The_Papers_of_Thomas_Jefferson_, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950, 2:545
"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799, _The_Writings_of_Thomas_Jefferson_Memorial_Edition_, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1903-04, 10:78
"I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace no forgiveness from them."--Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802, _The_Writings_of_Thomas_Jefferson_Memorial_Edition_, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 10:305
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination."--Thomas Jefferson, Elementary school Act, 1817, _The_Writings_of_Thomas_Jefferson_Memorial_Edition_, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 10:305
"(When) the (Virginia) bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protections of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantel of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."--Thomas Jefferson, from his autobiography, 1821, _The_Writings_of_Thomas_Jefferson_Memorial_Edition_, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1:67
quill pen in inkwell
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must approve the homage of Reason rather than that of blindfolded Fear." -- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught
"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and imposters led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus." --Thomas Jefferson, _Six_Historic_Americans_ by John E. Remsberg
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors. -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?" -- James Madison, _A_Memorial_ and_Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of VA, 1795
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -- James Madison,_A_Memorial_ and_Remonstrance, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and all of which facilitates the execution of mischievous projects. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded project."--James Madison, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_ by James A. Haught
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."--James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822
"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."--James Madison, "James Madison on Religious Liberty", edited by Robert S. Alley, ISBN pp 237-238
"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE."--James Madison
"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)." -- Thomas Paine
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize [hu]mankind." -- Thomas Paine, _The_Age_of_Reason_
"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."--Thomas Paine
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."--Thomas Paine, _Excerpts_from_The_Age_of_Reason:_Selected_Writings_of_Thomas_ Paine_, edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co, 1945, p.342
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."--Thomas Paine, _The_Age_of_Reason
"The adulterous connection between church and state."--Thomas Paine, from _The_Age_of_Reason_
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law."--Thomas Paine, _The_Rights_of_Man_, 1791, ed P.S. Foner, 1945
"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests."--Thomas Paine, _Of_The_Religion_of_Deism_Compared_With_the_Christian_Religion_
"As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin."--Thomas Paine, _Of_The_Religion_of_Deism_Compared_With_the_Christian_Religion_
"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."--Thomas Paine, _2000_Years_of_Disbelief_, James A. Haught
to myself)
