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Try and keep it on the political/societal/cultural end of the discussion. This deals not only with gay rights but also the larger issue of looking at the interaction of religious groups within secular society, their rights and their influence, in contrast with the privileges of other groups. Which religion, if any, is right is irrelevant and arguments of that nature will be moderated. |
On December 12 2012 04:52 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:49 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. I'm not sure I am fine with that test. Do we protect the beliefs of cults? The KKK? A belief in Santa? Simply having a belief is not grounds for protecting it. The "religious" adjective doesn't really change anything. I guess I'm saying that if a belief is going to be a protected, it should also be justified. I want SOME rigor in the legislature. You're still free to believe whatever you want, but if you can't justify or lay out some argument for holding it, it doesn't deserve to be protected. then you just open it up to abuse. questioning whether they have a belief prevents pretext, but does not infringe religious beliefs. forcing them to justify their beliefs, which in effect allows you to say their beliefs are unjustified, infringes religious beliefs.
I'm not talking about a thesis. Just making sure there aren't egregious errors in logic. Positive assertions always have a burden of proof. Take something even opinion based: "I believe chocolate ice cream is more delicious than vanilla ice cream." Why? "Because chocolate tastes more savory to me and I generally prefer savory tastes." DONE! You have justified your opinion that chocolate ice cream is more delicious than vanilla ice cream.
Here is how I imagine a catholic justification would go before the UK legislature: "I believe gay marriage is a sin." Why? "Because it says so in my religious text." But you don't really believe that religious text... "Yes we do!" There are many many sins in that religious text that you ignore, why should we (a secular legislature) protect your definition of only ONE of those things as a sin? Do you have any rationale for why that one is worse or more sinful? "..."
Especially in America, religion has sorta gotten a free pass for a long time. It's never been pressured to justify itself because it's always been presumed that it's ok to have religious belief. Why aren't we actually allowed to call people to justify their beliefs? If we're going to protect a belief WITH SECULAR LAW, surely we should have some rationale for doing so.
And in general, think about the beliefs that have to rely on that sort of protection...it's always logically unsound ones. Science has never required the law to protect it's beliefs. History, math, even softer sciences like Economics and Sociology...all of the worldviews provided by those disciplines can lay out arguments for what they believe, they don't need laws to protect them. The worldviews that need laws to protect them always seem to be religious, cult driven, or satire.
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Marriage isn't a purely religious institution but another social contract. You may get married in a church but it isn't official, no matter what the priest may say. Until you register the marriage with your local government you're not legally married.
This is a fantastic point, and probably the are in which State and church must necessarily be most inline but not overlap. Marriage has permeated or bled through into the secular social fabric and in doing so is subject to socials pressures.
There is simply no monopoly on marriage for anyone.
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United States41958 Posts
On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =)
The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains.
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On December 12 2012 04:40 Lonyo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties... thought that should probably happen either way though.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. The main issue is that you won't be legally allowed to marry gays if you are a member of a group which does not allow it. It's not allowing refusal, it's making acceptance illegal on an individual basis if you are part of a group that does not accept it.
I assume you mean a priest can't marry if his group doesn't believe in it?
I would assume that any Catholic priest who married two gays would also be quickly kicked out of his congregation, so it is kind of moot.
I guess my question would be if, as a catholic priest, you felt strongly enough to marry two gay people despite it being against the rules of your religion... why the fuck are you a member of a church that discrimates in such a fashion>
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On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains.
i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
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On December 12 2012 05:09 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains. i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
Was about to point this out as well.
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This seems really well thought out. Bottom line is this in theology there is no advocate for homosexuality. This is not about God hating Gays...like some may say. The act itself is forbidden.
So it's perfectly reasonable for Religion to discriminate against gay marriage. I don't see what the issue is.
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On December 12 2012 05:08 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:40 Lonyo wrote:On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties... thought that should probably happen either way though.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. The main issue is that you won't be legally allowed to marry gays if you are a member of a group which does not allow it. It's not allowing refusal, it's making acceptance illegal on an individual basis if you are part of a group that does not accept it. I assume you mean a priest can't marry if his group doesn't believe in it? I would assume that any Catholic priest who married two gays would also be quickly kicked out of his congregation, so it is kind of moot. I guess my question would be if, as a catholic priest, you felt strongly enough to marry two gay people despite it being against the rules of your religion... why the fuck are you a member of a church that discrimates in such a fashion>
If enough catholic priests support gay marriage, the catholic church as an institution will eventually change its views. I for one support the presence of more enlightened clergy in the largest religious institution in the world.
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United States41958 Posts
On December 12 2012 05:09 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains. i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
An awful lot of those are infringed upon, if not outright disregarded, by pretty much all of the modern, western world. There's a reason nobody cares about those. The fact that some people 60 years ago pandered to the religious groups is not exactly surprising and should not in any way be viewed as the last word on the matter. The right to ones opinions is one thing but special rights given to opinions of a religious nature and then the right to discriminate because of those opinions is quite another. I strongly believe that if the out group in question wasn't gays then arguments like "but you can't make them stop discriminating, it's religion" wouldn't be voiced.
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On December 12 2012 05:12 KingAce wrote:
This seems really well thought out. Bottom line is this in theology there is no advocate for homosexuality. This is not about God hating Gays...like some may say. The act itself is forbidden.
So it's perfectly reasonable for Religion to discriminate against gay marriage. I don't see what the issue is.
If you don't understand the issue you are simply poorly educated. You may hold conservative views, but to not understand the opposing viewpoint is extreme intellectual laziness.
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On December 12 2012 05:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:09 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains. i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml An awful lot of those are infringed upon, if not outright disregarded, by pretty much all of the modern, western world. There's a reason nobody cares about those. The fact that some people 60 years ago pandered to the religious groups is not exactly surprising and should not in any way be viewed as the last word on the matter. The right to ones opinions is one thing but special rights given to opinions of a religious nature and then the right to discriminate because of those opinions is quite another.
so, you dont think that religion should be a fundamental right? why exactly?
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On December 12 2012 04:45 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties, much in the same way that I believe that the state should revoke federal funding for hospitals that want to opt out of abortions and contraception for religious purposes.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. Wouldn't putting a tax on churches like you said be punishing churches for expressing their religion? Punishing a religion for the exercise thereof is apart of the first amendment.
They shouldn't receive any special benefits (tax exemption) if they're not benefiting society as a whole
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On December 12 2012 05:08 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 04:40 Lonyo wrote:On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties... thought that should probably happen either way though.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. The main issue is that you won't be legally allowed to marry gays if you are a member of a group which does not allow it. It's not allowing refusal, it's making acceptance illegal on an individual basis if you are part of a group that does not accept it. I assume you mean a priest can't marry if his group doesn't believe in it? I would assume that any Catholic priest who married two gays would also be quickly kicked out of his congregation, so it is kind of moot. I guess my question would be if, as a catholic priest, you felt strongly enough to marry two gay people despite it being against the rules of your religion... why the fuck are you a member of a church that discrimates in such a fashion>
It's not really a catholic issue at the moment, but there are other denominations which do not support gay marriage on the whole, but for whom some groups/etc may be more progressive and not have a problem with it.
For those people, it would be illegal.
Catholics are generally going to be on the anti gay marriage side, but there are other groups which are much more divided, and the ruling parties will be able to make the decision, and individuals at lower levels won't be able to go against that.
An easy example is what happened recently with regards to women bishops in the Church of England.
There was a majority vote at all levels in favour, but because of the way their system works, it needed 2/3rd or 75% or something majority in all three levels of whatever structure they have, and it failed at one of the levels, and therefore no women bishops.
If the same sort of vote was done regarding gay marriage, you would have the majority in support, but it would be ILLEGAL to perform gay marriage.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20423664
While 324 synod members voted for women bishops, Church voting rules mean 122 votes against were enough to block it.
122 votes against gay marriage would make it ILLEGAL to perform for Church of England members.
This is relevant because the CofE is one of the groups who would not allow gay marriage.
If the MAJORITY ever did want to through changes in attitudes, they would need a vast majority to get that changed, under current rules.
Basically, it's NOT majority rules in the church, and that means a minority can screw over the rest through their beliefs, which leads to it being illegal to do something which people who aren't members of that church can do.
What does that mean? That means the CofE is probably screwed by this even more in the long run than just by the women bishops vote they rejected.
That can be solved by changing the voting rules to have more of a majority vote rule, this will add to that, but mean that a significant minority are seriously restricted BY LAW, and they could potentially decide to break away if they feel strongly enough.
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I've gotten to the point where I'm ok with religions being ass-backwards on this issue. They are just making it more likely they will die out and we will eventually be free of religion. Let them have the right to discriminate against gays, they are just driving young people away in droves. The only way a religion can survive is if they have a continuous supply of young, easily malleable minds to mold in to their belief system. Every time they take a position against an issue as widely accepted as gay rights is in the UK, they are whacking another nail in to their own coffin... so let them.
The law basically says that gay couples are no different in legal terms than straight ones and that is all that matters. The distinction we have currently have may be minor but still there is a difference between gay "married" couples and straight married couples, it's disgusting that I have to put the quotation marks around it but thats how it currently stands. After this law, there will no longer be anyone who can deny gay couples their rights or use the "married" thing as an insult or quip against gay couples as less than equal legal standing with straight couples.
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On December 12 2012 05:15 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:12 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 05:09 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains. i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml An awful lot of those are infringed upon, if not outright disregarded, by pretty much all of the modern, western world. There's a reason nobody cares about those. The fact that some people 60 years ago pandered to the religious groups is not exactly surprising and should not in any way be viewed as the last word on the matter. The right to ones opinions is one thing but special rights given to opinions of a religious nature and then the right to discriminate because of those opinions is quite another. so, you dont think that religion should be a fundamental right? why exactly?
Religion should be a fundamental human right. What should not be allowed is for law to be defined in ways that satisfy the individual beliefs of some, but discriminate against the rights of human beings. Whether it be on the grounds of gender, sexuality, race.
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United States41958 Posts
On December 12 2012 05:15 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:12 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 05:09 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 05:06 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:54 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:47 KwarK wrote:On December 12 2012 04:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:36 Klondikebar wrote:On December 12 2012 04:17 dAPhREAk wrote:
debated whether to even get into this, but here is where i stand: the right to marriage (gay or not) and the right to practice religion are both fundamental rights that should not be infringed lightly. if you force a church to allow gay marriage (by forcing their priests (or whatever they call themselves) to be subject to discrimination lawsuits because they wont violate their religious principals) you are infringing their right to practice their religion as long as its an actual belief of the church. so, i am opposed to that. you may not like that result, but thats why we have fundamental rights--to prevent others from forcing their beliefs on others.
people who want to get married (gay or not) have options, they do not need to infringe believer's fundamental rights to do so.
by the way, freedom from discrimination is not a fundamental right, and never has been.
edit: by the way, i support gay marriage. But at some point, are we allowed to ask for some sort of evidence or justification for their beliefs? ESPECIALLY if we're going to be protecting those beliefs with laws. "It's in my religious text!" won't work because religions ignore TONS of stuff in their texts. The legislature needs to get them into a hearing where they say "we will protect your beliefs if you can provide some sort of evidence or coherent logic for them." Why do we just accept religious belief as something to be protected? If beliefs can't be even remotely justified, why do we treat them any differently than a belief in santa? the supreme court has a test for this. you cant question the facts of their beliefs; you can only question whether they actually have the belief. i am fine with this test. we accept religious beliefs as something to be protected because its a fundamental right. The issue secularists like myself have with this statement is the "because it is a fundamental right". In the UK it is currently against the law to discriminate against gays on the basis of their sexuality, even if you have really strongly held homophobic convictions and a load of subjective experience that validated them. This law will grant an exemption to the anti discrimination laws for churches which can't even agree amongst themselves most of the time whether or not they oppose gay marriage. Religious people do not have a monopoly on strength of conviction and yet they seem to have inherited a fundamental right to have their convictions protected. I'd like to see it justified. history and society has determined that it is a fundamental right, and in america it is written into our constitution. the justification for that is something that would take a lot of research and time to write a thoughtful piece, which i am not willing to do. =) The title says UK, if you cannot or are unwilling to justify the statement "because it is a fundamental right" then it should not be assumed to be a fundamental right in the UK. The question of why you get an exemption if a burning bush says to oppose the gays but not if a regular bush says to oppose the gays remains. i am pretty sure its considered a fundamental right through most of the modern, western world. its in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after all. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml An awful lot of those are infringed upon, if not outright disregarded, by pretty much all of the modern, western world. There's a reason nobody cares about those. The fact that some people 60 years ago pandered to the religious groups is not exactly surprising and should not in any way be viewed as the last word on the matter. The right to ones opinions is one thing but special rights given to opinions of a religious nature and then the right to discriminate because of those opinions is quite another. so, you dont think that religion should be a fundamental right? why exactly?
I think that in order for a fair society to operate there has to be limits upon our freedoms regarding the treatment of each other. While you can believe what you like, as that only impacts yourself, there have to be rules imposed upon your conduct with others. One of these is anti-discrimination legislation and in every case except religion it is seen as being necessary. I see no compelling case why religious opinions such as "marriage is between a man and a woman because God" should be protected but secular opinions such as "marriage is between two people of the same skin colour because dog" should not. With neither protected they both fall victim to my belief that society has the right to intervene in our conduct towards each other, sacrificing one but protecting the other as a fundamental right is contradictory, hypocritical and nonsensical.
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here, the marriage is a pure religious thing. the state doesn't even recognize you as legally married, untill you get the civil union.
the priest can't even marry you without some papers from city hall that allows him(in a way), to marry you but the public, still sees the religious marriage as the right of passage into a family life.
religion can discriminate against what ever they want imo.
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On December 12 2012 05:15 Lonyo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:08 QuanticHawk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:40 Lonyo wrote:On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties... thought that should probably happen either way though.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. The main issue is that you won't be legally allowed to marry gays if you are a member of a group which does not allow it. It's not allowing refusal, it's making acceptance illegal on an individual basis if you are part of a group that does not accept it. I assume you mean a priest can't marry if his group doesn't believe in it? I would assume that any Catholic priest who married two gays would also be quickly kicked out of his congregation, so it is kind of moot. I guess my question would be if, as a catholic priest, you felt strongly enough to marry two gay people despite it being against the rules of your religion... why the fuck are you a member of a church that discrimates in such a fashion> It's not really a catholic issue at the moment, but there are other denominations which do not support gay marriage on the whole, but for whom some groups/etc may be more progressive and not have a problem with it. For those people, it would be illegal. Catholics are generally going to be on the anti gay marriage side, but there are other groups which are much more divided, and the ruling parties will be able to make the decision, and individuals at lower levels won't be able to go against that. An easy example is what happened recently with regards to women bishops in the Church of England. There was a majority vote at all levels in favour, but because of the way their system works, it needed 2/3rd majority in all three levels of whatever structure they have, and it failed at one of the levels, and therefore no women bishops. If the same sort of vote was done regarding gay marriage, you would have the majority in support, but it would be ILLEGAL to perform gay marriage.
Do you mean the various branches and offshoots in the Catholic church (or whatever institution)?
I guess it comes down to how the law is written in exact terms. I first thought it meant it would be illegal to force the church to do it, which i am ok with. But if a priest wishes to defy the church and do it, he could be arrested? That's nutty.
On December 12 2012 05:12 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 05:08 QuanticHawk wrote:On December 12 2012 04:40 Lonyo wrote:On December 12 2012 04:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
I think that this is pretty awesome and fair. Pro marriage, but I don't think that the state should be able to force religious institutions to marry people.
However, if a church wants to place itself on that list, I think the state should start charging religious institutions tax on their properties... thought that should probably happen either way though.
I still don't think that it is the place of the state to intervene on religious matters like this. There will also be churches that will happily marry gays. The main issue is that you won't be legally allowed to marry gays if you are a member of a group which does not allow it. It's not allowing refusal, it's making acceptance illegal on an individual basis if you are part of a group that does not accept it. I assume you mean a priest can't marry if his group doesn't believe in it? I would assume that any Catholic priest who married two gays would also be quickly kicked out of his congregation, so it is kind of moot. I guess my question would be if, as a catholic priest, you felt strongly enough to marry two gay people despite it being against the rules of your religion... why the fuck are you a member of a church that discrimates in such a fashion> If enough catholic priests support gay marriage, the catholic church as an institution will eventually change its views. I for one support the presence of more enlightened clergy in the largest religious institution in the world.
Yeah, I would hope so, but if you were to perform a gay marriage as a catholic priest at this time, wouldn't you not be a priest much longer?
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Gays shouldn't marry.
I mean, obviously they should be allowed to, but I don't get why they want to subscribe to a an institution that has discriminated against them for two thousand years straight, no pun intended. The civil partnerships offer all benefits that traditional marriages do and have much fewer religious connotations and are far less derogatory towards gays.
I mean, have you read the bible? Have you read anything any pope during the past 200 years has ever said?
If I were gay or bi, I would steer clear of that narrow-minded, backwards biggot-club.
That's like jews wanting to join the Nazi party.
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