Gay rights within the template of religion proves flaws in "religion"

[One Above All]

My 2 cents - we should ease up on C4RM5. This is what happens when Christianity meets morality. On one hand, he knows that there is no actual moral justification for condemning gays or denying them rights. On the other hand, saying or even thinking of supporting gay-rights puts him at odds with his adopted faith. So, he remains "undecided".

My questions can be as helpful to me as they can be to him, assuming he manages to pull his head out of the sand and say what he actually thinks; why he's undecided.
Without a new perspective, no position can change. Perspective is gained through knowledge. Knowledge is gained through interaction.

[Cato]

"The forms of fucking do not require my endorsement." - Lillian Hellman

[genkaus]

My questions can be as helpful to me as they can be to him, assuming he manages to pull his head out of the sand and say what he actually thinks; why he's undecided.
Without a new perspective, no position can change. Perspective is gained through knowledge. Knowledge is gained through interaction.

Agreed - but you have already presented your questions and your perspective. The things he needs to change his perspective are all there. Repeating them won't make much of a difference - hence my suggestion to ease up.

[One Above All]

Agreed - but you have already presented your questions and your perspective.

Not really. I've just been asking him a lot of questions about his.

[CristW]

To the OP's poll: there are no natural rights in a nation, anyway. Rights are abstractions, and granted (or seized) by people. Nature grants no rights at all, not even the right to breathe.

Well, actually my last option would allow the right of "gay" expression outside of the current and modern definition of "natural rights".

---

Yes, gays should be allowed to get married and have (adopted) children. The churches, or any religious center, have all the right to NOT accept them in their churches nor marry them. Of course, these rights do not originate from "nature" but the changes within the social environment and social interactions (Progressive trend). It seems the idea from Thomas Jefferson is true when he says the SEPARATION of Church and State:

“...legitimate 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. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

Observation:

1. Thomas Jefferson did not say the rights of conscience derives from nature like other legal writers of his time because of the extension of "social duties". The reason is because being gay is part of the "rights of conscience" because it does not derive from nature. There is a distinguishing characteristic within thinking and evolved sentient beings to make a decision. Parts of the many decisions is to be gay or straight or follow "a belief system or none at all"(which he has expressed in another statement).

2. The separation of Church(religion) and state(government) is needed for any functioning democratic society. If not then it could be defined as a theocracy.

[Alex K]

It's not a decision to be gay or straight. Why do you keep saying that?

[Esquilax]

I don't ignore anything in the bible

Are you against slavery? I know you took a stance against rape victims not being able to get abortions, but are you also in favor of forcibly marrying them to their rapist?

If the answer to either of those questions is no, then you do ignore things in the bible. If the answer is yes, then none of us give a damn about the abhorrent moral positions the bible makes you take.

[genkaus]

It's not a decision to be gay or straight. Why do you keep saying that?

Don't tell me what I can or cannnot do. I can be gay if I want to be.

[C4RM5]

Even the stoning and the burning

Don't ignore that either.

---

Plainy One of the above I am undecided so just stop questioning me.

First, it's One Above All. Second, are you trying to say you don't know why you're undecided?

Yes I am undecided on why I am undecided about gay marriage.

---

I think the main reason I am undecided is because recently a friend admitted to me that he was gay and to be honest it was a shock. I didn't know what to say and nearly a year later I am still trying to work out what to say.

---

I don't ignore anything in the bible

Are you against slavery? I know you took a stance against rape victims not being able to get abortions, but are you also in favor of forcibly marrying them to their rapist?

If the answer to either of those questions is no, then you do ignore things in the bible. If the answer is yes, then none of us give a damn about the abhorrent moral positions the bible makes you take.

I am against modern day slavery and rape.

[Alex K]

It's not a decision to be gay or straight. Why do you keep saying that?

Don't tell me what I can or cannnot do. I can be gay if I want to be.

I think you're confused what the pro choice thing is all about

---

@C4RM5

You don't seem to quite get our point: the bible demands that people be stoned to death for all kinds of absurd or trivial things. I'm pretty certain that you choose to ignore these instructions.