Don’t these pinheads know that if you say it in public, particularly in front of a camera or recording device of any kind, that it will be found? People like Rick Warren must really think the public is stupid.
Larry King says Rick Warren is “An Extraordinary Guy” – I say he’s an extraordinary douchebag and represents all that is evil about organized religion. They can’t even keep their lies straight. Don’t believe me? Watch Rick below.
Pre-Election Prop 8 Rick Warren – writing letters and leaving no doubt of his bigotry
Post-Election Prop 8 Rick Warren – the one who’s words were taken out of context
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Extraordinary can mean a lot of things, esp coming from Larry King.
Warren is an influential pastor who’s climbed to the top of his mountain. Now he’s looking at other nearby peaks, and that political one seems to look good. He’s clearly, however, not adept at understanding how words live forever. Most politicians aren’t, so I’m not surprised.
Christians react very strongly to attacks on the fundamental basis of Christianity, same with Jews and (um, clearly) Muslims. I would imagine that the intentions of the Christian would be truer if most chose to actually live the central value of Christianity (Love, if you’re not up on theology today) as opposed to injecting their human failure into the equation.
I’m not going to ask if we can’t all just get along, because we can’t on some issues. As more efforts to define and re-define marriage hit the ballots, I would expect that the noise level will grow a lot more, and likely will swamp out any reasonable signal from either side.
Jim, it’s the last para of your comment that captures me. Marriage, fundamentally, is a legal contract that dictates the rights of couples and effectively creates a “mini-corporation.” Were it simply a religious outpost, I’d be less concerned about it saying “if you don’t like the rules, don’t join the club.” But since it is the basis for access to equal treatment of people, it’s hard to see this issue as anything less than discrimination.
I don’t think this is a religious issue, it’s an equality issue.
Finally, the thing that truly puzzles me about all of this is, why do religious people even care? It’s not as though any other person’s marriage has one bit of impact upon my own. If a woman wants to marry a tree, it has zero impact upon my relationship or anyone else’s for that matter. Other than an argument about tradition (throwing salt over one’s shoulder is a tradition too and I don’t see that being an issue) – what’s the basis for even caring about the definition of a legal contract between two adults?
I’ve yet to hear an explanation that has a shred of logic showing how granting equal rights to all people is harmful. It’s not so much about this particular issue, it’s base equality and the right to pursuit of happiness. Perhaps you can shed some light on this as I know you to be a very intelligent, thoughtful, and good human being.
I would argue that marriage is a non-legal religious contract first, one that has been co-opted by law in many countries to provide legal benefits. I would make some comment about writing it in stone while your ancestors were still throwing rocks, but you could come back with something about us then sacrificing your ancestors on the stones… 🙂
Actually, there are statistical studies from European countries that treat marriage purely as a legal contract between consenting adults. Most of these countries have a lower rate of marriage (people choose to live together, avoiding any contractual obligations). They also show greater crime rates — in part due to out-of-wedlock births — but also show a much lower overall birthrate which could cause long-term economic trouble. Since I hate people who site “random studies” w/o actually producing them, count this as a promise that I’ll be back in a couple days…
I have relatives that are on both sides of this issue, and I’ve confronted a fair amount of conflict as a result. I claim neither to be judge or expert, but I do know my opinion and I’m willing to reasonably defend it. feel free to tell me if I start shouting.
I prefer civil discourse, so you’re in good company here even though I vehemently disagree with you on this particular subject.
Getting to the meat of your comment, I guess religion pre-dated law (?) Can’t seem to find a reference on that. But ultimately, again, in this country, at this time, in all fifty states to my knowledge, marriage is a legal contract (try the IRS on this if you doubt the veracity of my claim!)
What I can’t get my arms around is why granting equal rights to the entire population is a problem? Going back to your examples (and taking your promise to bring citations back as necessary) – presumably these European countries show reduced birthrates because more of the couples are same-sex? On the relationship between out-of-wedlock births and crime rates, that doesn’t seem related to this topic, what am I missing? After all, the right at stake isn’t divorce or the right to be a single parent…
Since you’re graciously offering to have a dialogue about this subject, how does the decision of any couple have a bearing on a) your faith b) your relationship and/or c) your life? I’m not asking to be argumentative, I really don’t understand…
Quick search shows point/counterpoint on the Scandanavian studies.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200407210936.asp
http://www.slate.com/id/2100884/
It’s pretty clear you can argue points either way. By they way, Iceland is one of the more progressive in terms of definition of marriage, and it has the highest birthrate, so clearly there’s a weakness to the argument. The reduced birthrate argument, though, tends to be linked to couple not getting “married” or not valuing marriage in a way that produces children. Counterpoint to that would be anecdotal, since I don’t have any kids, and I’m married for life…
The faith argument is actually very simple. I believe same-sex marriage is a sinful practice, and I’m doing a disservice to anyone by enabling their sinful behavior, since this is not the life that matters. This is Judeo-Christian in origin (one example is found in Ezekiel, there are also New Testament ones), essentially saying that it is our responsibility to point out sinful errors to our brothers in a loving way that encourages repentance and return to righteous behavior. And it is on our heads if we do not do so. I would agree with you that alienating a populace and/or practicing ritual burnings is not a loving practice…
One final thought: I’m not opposed to a redefinition of legal partnership that opens up rights for multi-party relationships and a passing of religious unions back to the churches. Many churches will happily offer that union to same-sex couples, so it’s not even exclusionary in that way. I believe there would be unintended consequences that we haven’t thought through. It would have to be done federally, though, which actually redefines the role of government in marriage, since marriage is a reciprocal state institution from a legal standpoint in the US. Now we’ll get into why I don’t believe in centralized power and I do believe in states’ rights…
Not sure where you want to take this from a blog perspective. I enjoy the dialog, and encourage others to participate as well.
Hi Jim, thanks for the comment, I do understand a bit more, but it’s so antithetical to my view point it’s hard to reconcile. Re others engaging, we have three flavors of reader here at MftC, shy and smart, smart and sharing, and mentally ill (see Marc’s comments for an example.)
Getting to the meat of your last comment, one other aspect is curious. If you are your brother’s keeper, where’s the line? I mean, technically, gambling isn’t really good for people, yet it’s legal – does this mean you would work to repeal the state lottery? How about smoking, there is a direct link between a person’s well being and their decision to smoke, does this mean that you would work to ban smoking? Drinking? Riding in cars (sorry, tongue in cheek since that’s the most dangerous activity we engage in daily without a thought.)
Moving right along, I am with you on less central authority, more local autonomy. I’d really like to see the US move away from the Federal model toward more distribution of power and influence to the locality. There are some things that I’d like the Feds to broker, but less is more in my opinion. It’s pretty clear that regardless of the ‘party’ that is in power at the moment, these folks could screw up a two car parade.
From a blogging perspective, I think it’s time to move on to other ground. Given your world view, I’m surprised you’re a reader and I’ll warn you, you probably won’t agree with much of what I have to say! Thanks for the dialogue and thoughtful comments.