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March 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm (This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm by Lek.)
(March 1, 2015 at 12:27 am)Pizz-atheist Wrote: http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pages/marr...rships-etc
Civil union and domestic partnerships are a second-class status, and when people take on all the commitments and responsibilities of marriage they should not be treated like second-class citizens. While these legal mechanisms provide a measure of protections to same-sex couples and their families, they are no substitute for the full measure of respect, clarity, security and responsibilities of marriage itself. They exclude people from marriage and create an unfair system that often does not work in emergency situations when people need it most......
CIVIL UNION: Civil union exists in three states: New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii. Civil union was first created in Vermont, in 2000, to provide some legal protections and responsibilities to gay and lesbian couples at the state level, but in 2009 the state legislature ended gay couples exclusion from marriage after realizing civil union created a second class citizenship.
Cobbled together as both the state and the nation were just beginning to engage in a conversation about the inherent unfairness of legal discrimination in marriage, civil unions have since proven to be ineffective, a separate but unequal status (pdf) that often heightens the need for access to both the tangible and intangible protections that only marriage can afford. The protections and responsibilities do not extend beyond the border of the states in which the civil union was entered, offer murky access to separation laws, and no federal protections are included with a civil union.
DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP: Domestic partnerships are a form of union under which gay (and sometimes non-gay) couples in some states or regions can formalize their partnerships. Oregon's domestic partnership law went into effect in February 2008. However, as with civil union the status remains a separate and unequal legal compromise which does not apply when a couple travels out of state, and offers no federal protections. Aside from Oregon, a hodge-podge of domestic partnership laws (statewide/district-wide in Nevada) and registries offer a wildly varying selection of protections and responsibilities which can change from zip code to zip code. Many domestic partnership registries offer no rights or protections at all and simply serve as a written acknowledgment of a couple's commitment to each other.
If the government was out of the marriage business, then everyone would have the same status under the law. We could all enter into the same civil contract. We've made marriage into a legal contract, but that wasn't so in the beginning. To a christian, marriage isn't making a legal contract, but rather committing ourselves to each other, which needs no sanctioning from a civil authority. The legal contract isn't the marriage, but I also understand the need for a legal contract to protect the interests of the couple and children involved.
March 1, 2015 at 2:05 pm (This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 2:08 pm by Jenny A.)
(March 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm)Lek Wrote: If the government was out of the marriage business, then everyone would have the same status under the law. We could all enter into the same civil contract. We've made marriage into a legal contract, but that wasn't so in the beginning. To a christian, marriage isn't making a legal contract, but rather committing ourselves to each other, which needs no sanctioning from a civil authority. The legal contract isn't the marriage, but I also understand the need for a legal contract to protect the interests of the couple and children involved.
emphasis mine
Marriage existed long, long before there were Christians. And it exists in non-Christian societies. Christians have no right to a monopoly on the word marriage. I am married, and it is a commitment to each other as well as a set of legal rights and obligations. But it has nothing to do with god.
Call yours "holy" matrimony to distinguish it from civil matrimony if you like. Holy is a fine religious work. Or call it marriage before god. Or any other religious appellation you like. But marriage is not a religious word.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
March 1, 2015 at 2:45 pm (This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 4:07 pm by Mudhammam.)
(March 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm)Lek Wrote: To a christian, marriage isn't making a legal contract, but rather committing ourselves to each other, which needs no sanctioning from a civil authority.
*Bullshit buzzer, bullshit buzzer, reet reet*
The biblical conception of marriage is about one thing and one thing only: childbirth.
Additionally, marriage in Hebrew culture, sanctioned by your Three Gods Who Are One Person and Three Persons Who Are One God Because Both Nonsensical Statements Amount To The Same Thing, involved the selling and trading of daughters between fathers to establish property contracts and other treaties.
The idea of marriage as a pubic declaration of love sprung from European Romanticism and evolved into what it is today so that any two adults can decide to share their lives with one another, including a family, and the government clearly has an interest that this union is preserved.
Marriage changes. Christians in history emulate societal norms, just like the progressive ones do now and the rest will eventually less in a few more centuries they wish to end up looking like our current Muslim nations.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
(March 1, 2015 at 1:20 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: These are the scientific facts. And, unlike the case of Jesus’s virgin birth and resurrection, we can dismiss a physical Adam and Eve with near scientific certainty.
I wasn't disagreeing with your science on this issue. I made it clear in my post that the difference between humans and all the other creatures on earth is that humans are made in the image and likeness of God, and this is contained in our souls, which are a special creation. My thoughts in this regard are that prior to Adam and Eve humans were simply the most highly evolved of the animal kingdom. Since they had no souls, they were no more able to sin than any other creature on the planet. At a certain point God decided to infuse two humans with souls, thus making them in his image and able to possess eternal life. At that point they became able to sin and eventually disobeyed God and did sin. After Adam and Eve God has given a soul to every human being. It seems not unreasonable to me that this event could have happened 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Human's progress had been extremely slow up to that point and then just seemed to take off. While all the other animals are still going on pretty much as always, scratching around for food, mankind has changed and progressed in leaps and bounds. Though our bodies have evolved physically, I believe that because we are spiritual beings, we are not just more highly evolved animals, but are in a class by ourselves - separate from the animal kingdom.
Lek, please re read the link I posted. Modern humans are not the descendents of just two humans. Doesn't work that way.
Also, in evolution, there is no such concept as highly evolved. Only fitness for the existing environment.
The rest of your post is just naked assertions without scientific or biblical support.
Our progress took off after God did this alleged south infusion and we disobeyed? And what of all the humans existing at the time of this infusion? They didn't get infused?
March 1, 2015 at 8:12 pm (This post was last modified: March 1, 2015 at 8:14 pm by Lek.)
(March 1, 2015 at 6:33 pm)pocaracas Wrote: To sum things up, Lek, you're now a catholic.
How in the world did you come to that conclusion?
(March 1, 2015 at 6:41 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: Lek, please re read the link I posted. Modern humans are not the descendents of just two humans. Doesn't work that way.
Also, in evolution, there is no such concept as highly evolved. Only fitness for the existing environment.
The rest of your post is just naked assertions without scientific or biblical support.
Our progress took off after God did this alleged south infusion and we disobeyed? And what of all the humans existing at the time of this infusion? They didn't get infused?
(February 28, 2015 at 4:45 pm)Lek Wrote: I believe that if a person is truly searching for God and he is of a non-christian religion, but has not had the opportunity to know of Christ, then God will judge him based on his heart. But if anyone knows of Christ and rejects him for the "god" of another faith, then he doesn't have salvation.
Why, then, do you proselityze? Don't you feel bad endangering the souls of others because they cannot surrender their own lifetime of programming in a different religion?
Leave them alone and don't tell them about your faith, and then your god will judge them on merit. That is the fairest solution.
http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pages/marriage-versus-civil-unions-domestic-partnerships-etc
Civil union and domestic partnerships are a second-class status, and when people take on all the commitments and responsibilities of marriage they should not be treated like second-class citizens. While these legal mechanisms provide a measure of protections to same-sex couples and their families, they are no substitute for the full measure of respect, clarity, security and responsibilities of marriage itself. They exclude people from marriage and create an unfair system that often does not work in emergency situations when people need it most......
CIVIL UNION: Civil union exists in three states: New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii. Civil union was first created in Vermont, in 2000, to provide some legal protections and responsibilities to gay and lesbian couples at the state level, but in 2009 the state legislature ended gay couples exclusion from marriage after realizing civil union created a second class citizenship.
Cobbled together as both the state and the nation were just beginning to engage in a conversation about the inherent unfairness of legal discrimination in marriage, civil unions have since proven to be ineffective, a separate but unequal status (pdf) that often heightens the need for access to both the tangible and intangible protections that only marriage can afford. The protections and responsibilities do not extend beyond the border of the states in which the civil union was entered, offer murky access to separation laws, and no federal protections are included with a civil union.
DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP: Domestic partnerships are a form of union under which gay (and sometimes non-gay) couples in some states or regions can formalize their partnerships. Oregon's domestic partnership law went into effect in February 2008. However, as with civil union the status remains a separate and unequal legal compromise which does not apply when a couple travels out of state, and offers no federal protections. Aside from Oregon, a hodge-podge of domestic partnership laws (statewide/district-wide in Nevada) and registries offer a wildly varying selection of protections and responsibilities which can change from zip code to zip code. Many domestic partnership registries offer no rights or protections at all and simply serve as a written acknowledgment of a couple's commitment to each other.
If the government was out of the marriage business, then everyone would have the same status under the law. We could all enter into the same civil contract. We've made marriage into a legal contract, but that wasn't so in the beginning. To a christian, marriage isn't making a legal contract, but rather committing ourselves to each other, which needs no sanctioning from a civil authority. The legal contract isn't the marriage, but I also understand the need for a legal contract to protect the interests of the couple and children involved.
How is that even relevant to how things are now in this word at this period in time and not some idealized world?
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot
We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
(March 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm)Lek Wrote: If the government was out of the marriage business, then everyone would have the same status under the law. We could all enter into the same civil contract. We've made marriage into a legal contract, but that wasn't so in the beginning. To a christian, marriage isn't making a legal contract, but rather committing ourselves to each other, which needs no sanctioning from a civil authority. The legal contract isn't the marriage, but I also understand the need for a legal contract to protect the interests of the couple and children involved.
How is that even relevant to how things are now in this word at this period in time and not some idealized world?
Lek's saying that Christians should redefine the definition of marriage....? 0_o
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
