"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled today. No rational reason? How about the fact that a majority of California voters decided to uphold traditional marriage in 1996? Does the irrationality of making sin sacrament count? Is it rational for the state to encourage unhealthy behavior? What of the irrationality of referring to "x" as "y," when "x" is "x" and not "y"? And then there's that bit regarding consummation? How, again, do gays consummate their "marriages"?

Marriage has always been a religious institution, and in some faiths (Catholicism) a sacrament, established and ordained by God, for a man and a woman. There is no debate on the fact that marriage is meant for a man and a woman, by definition.

However, the State also sanctions this institution, which is where I believe we are wrong. Why is the State sanctioning a religious institution? This is why we have this whole debate now, and why we have the problems that are now occuring.

As a society, we should encourage monogamy. Whether it be between a man or a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Consenting adults should have the right under the State to be united, but this right does not usurp the right for religions to sanction marriage as they see it. If our Constitution is not based on the Bible, and we do not strictly follow its laws for the State, then we should not take the Bible's principles and institutions and place them under the State.

Try as we may, we will not succeed in changing homosexuals, converting them, or condemning them any longer in our society. This lifestyle, albeit unhealthy (and what I consider, morally wrong), is not going away. It's been around for thousands of years, and it will exist for another thousand. The only way we can control it is by giving civil unions under the State to all consenting couples, and let the church also issue a marriage certificate or blessing to whom they feel qualifies. IT IS NOT FOR THE STATE TO DECIDE THIS!

If we promote monogamy between consenting adults, it will decrease the spread of disease, and protect the rights of all individuals under our Constitution. The State got itself in trouble by bringing religion into the picture, now it must get itself out by correcting the problem

What is needed here is to remove judges who will not uphold the will of the people. What good is a democratic system where people vote on the laws they want when a judge can simply override the will of the people. This sounds like tyrany to me.

"What is needed here is to remove judges who will not uphold the will of the people."

Well, not quite. We want judges who will uphold the law and not go miles beyond it. It is not court's job to make rational decisions, or democratic decisions. It is suppossed to make legal decisions.

In my opinion, the best thing that could happen politically is for the state supreme court to upold the lower court's decision. I believe 'W' won the election largely due to this issue (11 ballot measures in battle-ground states), and nothing but good can come from it in the future. Let the liberals be, well, liberals, and the Republicans will govern for the next decade.

Dan,

Your on the verge of using heteronormative language here. Watch it!

Brad

Maybe I mis-wrote when I wrote that we need judges who will uphold the will of the people. What I am saying is we simply can't have judges who, at their own discretion, can over ride the laws passed by the legislatures or congress.

Rob

Actually you want justices who will throw out laws when they are in conflict with the state constitution. Of course, that is not the case here. This decision reflects the judge's private political choice, not the constitution of the state of California.

It is depressing how few people have a basic understanding of the constitution's (state or federal) function. It is equally depressing how few care of those who do know. Come on, Bush. You're the President, stand up for America here when you appoint the next Supe.

I guess the only question that could be raised is, if two people are allowed to marry if they are gay, why shouldn't a grandpa and a grand-daughter be allowed to marry, or a mother and a son? I'd like someone on the pro-gay marriage side, of which I am a mild supporter, to answer that question.

My main reason for supporting gay marriage is that it does absolutely nothing to damage the institution. Would you like to know what does damage the institution of marriage? Divorce. I don't give a damn if two men or two women were to marry, as long as my parents had stayed together. I think cultural conservatives need to choose their battles a bit more wisely. Let's focus on encouraging people to stay in already existing marriages. The 50% divorce rate, needless to say, is not adequate to sustain a healthy society.

Is it safe to say that marriage is basically the union of a man and woman?

Is it safe to say that a gay couple are allowed the same rights as a married couple(man and woman)?

Is it safe to say then we should support civil unions?

Is it safe to say that gay marriage is viewed as an erosion of a sacred institution?

Where am I going with this you may ask yourself... I guess this is a hot-button issue and one I feel is best served through compromise and not an activist judge imposing his belief that gays should be allowed to marry based solely on rights. They can get rights through civil unions if they so please. Gay marriage may undermine the sanctity of the institution itself.

There's a little-remarked, obvious fact to be mentioned here - as the law now stands, nothing forbids a gay man from marrying. He just needs to find a really understanding woman. If he's not looking for one, then he is the one who doesn't want to get married. The government is not infringing his rights by holding him to his free choice.

The State recognized marriage because they had a vested interest in stable family units and their salutory effect on society. Nobody could have predicted the current kerfuffle over homogamy (to use the excellent word coined by a John Derbyshire reader).

Polemical, I have a good deal of sympathy for your argument (and I'm sorry to hear about your folks) but allowing more problems is not the way to put right a troubled institution. At least people who marry six times are trying, each time, to fulfill the design of marriage. They're bad at it, but we won't help anyone else be better husbands and wives if we suddenly decide that androgynous parents are a worthy substitute for an actual father and mother.

Civil unions might well be the way for the State to go. It would still be a societal ill, but it wouldn't involve the State and the Church trampling each other's turf, so to speak, and it wouldn't force the Church to violate its own teachings to recognize homosexual unions (he said, naively).

How about letting two men marry is just bad public policy and simply not affordable for our society? Just as giving social security benefits to those reaching the age of 37 would be poor policy. The impending litigation and probate for Massachusetts and other states is going to be a bonanza for shifty lawyers and a financial hangover for the taxpayers.

"How about letting two men marry is just bad public policy and simply not affordable for our society? Just as giving social security benefits to those reaching the age of 37 would be poor policy. The impending litigation and probate for Massachusetts and other states is going to be a bonanza for shifty lawyers and a financial hangover for the taxpayers."

Giving civil unions to two consenting adults in a permanent monogamous relationship will, in the long run, decrease disease in our society, which will make healthcare more affordable for all. Even though a gay man or woman will be a dependant for his/her partner, the overall effects will be more positive than negative.

Please explain further why gay marriage (or civil unions) is bad public policy.

And please ryun, just what exactly is "affordable to our society"? What you deem to be worthy? Please be considerate of everyone's views instead of just your own. If our government can give $4.5 billion in foreign aid every year, than they can also fix social security, help out healthcare a bit, and limit frivolous law suits with that money (not what we should do this, but i'm just giving examples).

Also, gay men and women have the Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law. By excluding them from forming a union with their partner, we are taking away their economic stability, which I believe is a violation of their rights.

"I guess the only question that could be raised is, if two people are allowed to marry if they are gay, why shouldn't a grandpa and a grand-daughter be allowed to marry, or a mother and a son? I'd like someone on the pro-gay marriage side, of which I am a mild supporter, to answer that question."

Polemical,

I am not for gay marriage, but for civil unions for everyone under the state. As far as your mother-son argument, do you really think this is a legitimate argument? How many cases are we going to get regarding this kind of bi*arre behavior. This kind of argument is rediculous and really isn't worth debating. It's kind of like saying, "so is a man allowed to marry a goat if he wants to"?

"My main reason for supporting gay marriage is that it does absolutely nothing to damage the institution. Would you like to know what does damage the institution of marriage? Divorce. I don't give a damn if two men or two women were to marry, as long as my parents had stayed together. I think cultural conservatives need to choose their battles a bit more wisely. Let's focus on encouraging people to stay in already existing marriages. The 50% divorce rate, needless to say, is not adequate to sustain a healthy society."

I am saddened by your parents failed marriage, but I think your argument here is insensitive. You must understand, that letting a man marry a man does nothing to damage the institution FOR YOU, but that does not mean it doesn't affect me. I am a person of faith, and Marriage, for me, is an institution given by God for a man and a woman. It's a religios institution. For the state to let a man marry another man, the only significance is a marriage liscense and approval by the government. But for me, marriage is a relationship, recorded in the Bible, and blessed by God. I do not want homosexuals to corrupt this relatinship given by my God. If they want to be united in a common law union by the state, fine. But letting them marry each other, by definition, damages the institution I have with God (not personally, but as a whole in society).

Christopher is for civil unions because gays are being denied equal rights, but "Gay men and women have the Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law." As Nightfly points out, gays, straights, beastiophiles, and incestuous pervs all have _exactly the same rights_ to marry.

Polemical points out that Christopher's arguments apply to incestuous unions (as well as to polygamous unions). This is a fact. His response to Polemical's slippery slope argument ("This kind of argument is rediculous and really isn't worth debating. ") is just to admit that the pro-homogamy people have no rational way of answering Polemical's point.

Chris-- Why don't you settle down and offer a reasoned position?

Chris,

I agree with most of what you said. I have often said that encouraging monogamy among gays has a positive effect on society. As such I support some form of civil union which would allow financial burdens to be shared by any two people who chose to enact such a union.

Still, to me, the equal protection issue is hard to reconcile. If I walk on the sidewalk, I, as a pedestrian, have the right of way. It is hard to say that if I am not inclined to walk on the sidewalk that I deserve the same protection that I am rejecting. Thus, were we to blur the lines between sidewalk-walkers and jay-walkers (I mean what is the difference, really? What can you say is the difference that will not result immediately in my attack on your insensitivity to the issue or whether or not you really want to be a jaywalker but are afraid?) jaywalkers probably suffer a greater traffic fatality rate, and thus are not getting equal protection.

To answer your question, marriage became legal because actuaries started noticing a decreased risk in people who fit into the marriage category. Thus, marriage (and homeownership) have become a symbol of stable risk in many, many systems. What the current courts would then do is pry a pair of people into a profile that is built up with tons of empirical data, on the claim by members of the group that it is "just the same thing". This is a dogmatic approach to adhere to a principle that is still very much in doubt.

But it is precisely the type of issue leveraging that the progressives do. It's funny but if you look at the history a generation ago, the "gay" (carefree) subculture branded us "straight" "breeders". 20-30 years later, they want the right to imitate that lifestyle--but they want more than that, they want to state that it is wrong to resist their redefinition.

This is yet another example of social re-engineering by a minority.

One more thing,

Should the laws remain as they are, gays are no more deprived of financial stability than are commitment-phobic guys. Why do we just assume that they can change? Why do we deny them financial stability of the choice they do not take, just because they do not take that choice? And perhaps the state needs to run a lonely old bachelor program because it's not fair that guys who spend their lives running away from commitment, have no one to grow old with.

Do you really think that there are many monogomous homosexual men, Chris. I don't. And I think the statistics regarding various venereal diseases among gay men is some proof to that effect. What about the rights for unmarried men and women who co habit together?College room mates? Don't you have a heart? Couples are cheaper at keg parties. One does not get protection under the law because one chooses to have sex with someone of the same gender. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Sea king has it right; this is social engineering at its worst. Wrong is right. Down is up.Sexual Marxism.You argue well chris, but I am not buying it.

The homosexual issue and political frenzy is nothing but a DIVERSION from other ulterior motives that the Bush administration is up to. It was Karl Roves' evil genious which, in part, helped to get GWB elected by putting such nonsense on the platform. Bush refers to Rove as his "architect" respectively. So they could win the "hearts and minds" of all those bible belt thumpers and those who pride themselves in conservative values. People, there are greater things to be investigated and assessed. How about the average 5,000 anthropogenic chemicals that can be identified in our bodies on any given day? Or the energy crisis?

It's funny, Truth: leftists love to tell cons that there are better things to argue about than gay marriage, so why don't we focus on Iraq? etc etc. But then leftists keep pushing on gay marriage. It sounds more like Leftists are trying to pull a fast one.

If leftists really thought there are better things to worry about, then you all would agree to keep the status quo regarding marriage so that we can address these other things.

Chris,

I think it's funny that you claim that homosexual marriage affects your beloved union, but you're more incensed by my so-called insensitivity. That was good for a laugh.

Truth is the funniest thing on this blog. Geez, what a Johnny One-Note.

Sea King - nice an-alogy about the sidewalk/jaywalk; bonus points because it sounds like a college fight song.

Chris - in fact, on average homosexuals enjoy a much better standard of living precisely because nearly none of them have children to pay for. Even if not, I don't think there's anything at all in the Constitution to guarantee 'economic stability' beyond the right to own property, and copyright to inventions and discoveries. Saying that two men or two women can't get married to each other is no violation of anyone's rights or economic opportunities.

Polemical - I'm not sure why you're laughing at Chris. He makes a valid point about marriage itself. It is not a legal construct, but merely one that is legally recognized. Really, it's not a homosexual couple's business to redefine that concept for Chris, me, you, or anyone and everyone else; any more than I, after marriage, could walk into my vocations office and demand ordination. Is that fair to me? I might make a great priest. The answer is, No it isn't fair, but I already have a vocation, so tough.

As cruel as that sounds, there's no other way to be sensible about it. Any believer (both Christian and otherwise) has every right to protest the proposed veto of doctrine and thousands of years of nearly universal practice. Once you change the thing, it is no longer itself. It becomes harder to teach what marriage is and what the union of man and woman means in such an atmosphere, in the same way that the teaching about the sanctity of life has eroded post-Roe, and teaching about the dignity of chastity has practically disintegrated in our promiscuous times. (Already we see that many of the churches themselves aren't nearly as strong on homosexual behavior as they ought to be.)

Indeed Ryan,

We don't have to look much further than "conservative" Andrew Sullivan, who broke with the pubs over this same issue, doing what sounds a lot to me like advertising for his "life partner"? What serious lifepartner won't want to know the quality of sex in print before they meet you?

This of is conclusive of nothing--it is quite ironic, though. But observe, in the 60s-70s, sex within and sex outside of marriage got to be "just sex". Marriage became sex with a "piece of paper". Now gay and straight marriages are just "the same thing". Soon will be asked to reconcile our "double standard" and say that promiscous homosex is no different from a monogamous union when you get right down to it. What is our hangup with sex, anyway?!?!?!

Oh and Truth,

I had no idea that Karl Rove had masterminded for all these judges to override voters and start granting homosexual marriages. That kind of power scares me!

Nightfly: "any more than I, after marriage, could walk into my vocations office and demand ordination."

Good point, Nightfly. Marriage and priesthood are roughly the same vis-a-vis chastity. One practices it, the other doesn't. An almost symmetrical difference.

Truth,

This post is all about concerning ourselves with "anthropogenic" threats. The threat is the subversive ideas coming from the catamites and progressives, an anthropogenic threat far more destructive of our society than anything released into the air from a factory.

Sea King: I liked Nightfly's amalogy. BTW, You're confusing "chastity" with "celibacy." All people are called to chastity; nonmarried people are called to celibacy.

Don't mean to be a pain, but when cultures lose words they often lose the things they name, too.

Nightfly,

I simply don't appreciate condescending remarks about what I write. I felt Chris was being condescending, and I thought his anger towards me was misplaced. I wasn't being insensitive, or rIdiculous (it's spelled with two i's, people, not an e). I'm not really disagreeing with you here, I just don't think it's something worth fighting for. Individuals need to take responsibility for their actions. If we worried more about ourselves and less about others this wouldn't even be an issue. If you get married, fulfill the committment. If you want to marry someone of the same sex, go for it.

Oh, and Chris, by the way, simply dismissing an argument doesn't mean you've won the argument. Why would it be any different for a grand-father to marry his grand-daughter, than for two men to marry? You cannot answer this very simple question, because it boils down to two very similar concepts. If an 18 yr. old woman wants to marry her 70 yr. old granfather, and vice versa, it's between two consenting adults, in the same way that two men may desire to bond through marriage. The only difference between the two is that you find one situation distasteful. You can't win arguments using emotion. You have to use logic.

The Defense of Marriage Act (Proposition 22) and outlawing prostitution might be beyond sleazy lawyers like Richard Kramer, and that's unfortunate; If there is no truth there is only power.

Theft, murder, and fraud are sins. Because they are sins should not disqualify them from law. This is only common sense. The Bibe is the best guide that any society can have to establish law. Moral relativism doesn't cut it, so society and law may affirm some values over others.

The Defense of Marriage Act passed in accordance with Article II, Section 8, of the CA Constitution by a very wide margin. Society tolerates but does not accept homosexuality, that the Judge says that society accepts homosexuality - when clearly the people have expressed that it does not.

The ACLU trying to remove the Cross in San Diego, Four degenerates removing the cross from the Seal of "Los Angeles," the 9th Circuit trying to remove God from the Pledge - and this. These attacks are concerted, and American citizens don't have to accept this crap. We won't.

This judge wants to condone Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender nonsense and he may, but he crossed the line by perverting the law to impose his honor of barbarism on our society. Dennis Prager pointed out that homosexual prostitution was practiced in temples in antiquity. These were the days when oligarchy reigned supreme, rule by the pagan view "even when I'm wrong I'm right." Back to the cave, if we allow the trousered ape to take over our country and don't wake up to the corruption of academia that this corrupt judge is a product of.

American Law is undergirded by Judeo-Christian values. These are the values that are the bulwark of the institutions of marriage, of capitalism and the American government. Law is not made in an amoral vacuum. To imply the contrary, as this judge has done, is immoral. That is the corruption of American law and to subject humanity to the whims of oligarchs.

Sirc,

I agree with a large portion of what you wrote, except I don't view homosexuality as a crime similar to theft, murder, lying/purgery, etc. Homosexuality, if it can be called a crime, is a crime against the individual, but not others (assuming it's consensual). Alcoholism is a crime in my opinion, but we don't prohibit it as long as people are not endangering others. That is why I don't think there really is a substantive argument against gay marriage, other than the slippery-slope argument, which I've detailed.

If people had the same reverence for the founding of our laws the way you do Sirc, and its roots in the Judeo-Christian ethic, this country wouldn't be on the verge of collapse. As it stands now, with the weakening dollar, the rise of China as the world's leading consumer-nation, automation and robotics, our obsession with sex and sports, and chiefly, an utter lack of patriotism and a contempt of absolute morality and self-sacrifice, it's only a matter of time unless the pendulum swings in the other direction. If it were up to Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) or Christopher J. Doyle, the military would cease to function efficaciously, but a crippled military is irrelevant if the country it protects is already rotting from within. The fact that we're having this legal/civil rights argument in itself is an indicator that society has irrevocably changed. Let's just hope the common human faculty of reason can triumph over the impending psychic upheaval that will ensue.

Polemical - I misunderstood your objection, and I'm sorry for sticking my oar in. =) I still think I have a point about the marriage being beyond the power of the state to define. In fact I think that judges and other non-clergy should not be allowed to officiate marriages at all, for anyone. A Civil Union should be just that - something easily distinguishable from marriage, legally. There are easily-foreseen problems with that approach, but 'the man was born for trouble.' We've already got problems. I prefer a different set, perhaps, because I really worry about the solution brewing in the courts (the New Clergy, as has been amply observed).

I also think that getting a marriage license should be slightly more difficult than getting a fishing license. Marriage is too easy to get into and out of. I mean really, not having syphillis is the only hurdle one must overcome to get a license. Most of the people on this board could easily junp that hurdle on the fourth or fifth attempt. Slainte!

Why shoudnt Gays be allowed to marry? It seems like discrmination to me..not allowing one group of people to partake in the same events as another group of people based on their group status. How about gays have seperate water fountains too! What is it about homosexuality that gets straight conservative men in such a hissy? Because its "unnatural" and it "does not pro-create"? Well, i hope everyone who believes that is against safe sex too because that is unnatural and does not procreate. Oh no the Holy Bible says that Gays are bad people...Leviticus even justifies stoning them to death. Is that why it is wrong? because an old book says so? thats not a good reason for me. Do you all think gays really want all the unnecessary oppression they deal with. i have to say no, people cannot control who they fall in love with, and whats the difference of who they marry...How much does it hurt you personally for two men or two women to get married, how much does a gay marriage that you will never know anything about effect your personal life? none. not one bit. Whats the big deal then? Ohhhh noooo precious tradition ahhhhh the evil gay leftwingers are taking over the world and their first goal is to destroy beloved religous tradition ahhhhh run for the hills..women and children first!! get overselves and be acceptive..gay marriages will not hurt you in any way shape or form...unless you just dont like them.

love & rage

@

"gay marriages will not hurt you in any way shape or form...unless you just dont like them."

Gee, I'd say that the same thing goes the other way for you. Allowing voters to determine their own standards won't hurt you a bit either.

"thats not a good reason for me."

Gee. And we were so hoping that it was. Imagine how crestfallen we are, hoping that we'd pass the inspection of a passing liberal.

"people cannot control who they fall in love with"

Wow. I've never heard such a powerful argument for marriage. What an understanding of the moral commitment that marriage is!

Well, that's my part. Head for the hills guys, it's Night of the Living Strawmen out here!

Polemical,

Excuse my late response, I haven't been able to blog for a couple days.

To address your argument regarding an 18 year old woman marrying her 70 year old grandpa, I would say the following:

Yes, you are right as far as these two people being consenting adults. Therefore, If I hold my original argument, that two consenting adults should be allowed to unite, then I am contradicting myself if I do not approve of this incestuous relationship.

-point well taken-

However, I do not approve of incestuous bahavior just as I do not approve of homosexuality. I think both are morally wrong. But I am looking at this union with an economic view. First of all, it's not healthy for grandaughter and grandpa to have unprotected sex together and procreate (for genetic reasons), just the same as it's not healthy for gay men to have unprotected sex with each other. But let's create a straw man here, and say that both X and Y do have protected sex, and in X's case, do not procreate. Where Y, we know it is impossible for them to procreate. So both X and Y are living morally wrong lifestyles (according to me), but yet, are protecting themselves in sex.

Even though I find a grand daugher having sex with a grandpa more disgusting than two gay men having sex, I have to pose the question: why does my morality apply to either X or Y? And further, why is the government enacting laws to say this is wrong?

To protect ourselves?

To protect the many possible incestuous relationships that may conceive a child with genetic disfunctions?

But Polemical, isn't the United States of America built on individual rights and not the rights of groups of people?

Isn't protecting someone's individual choice to do something that affects only himself, even though we consider it morally wrong, more important?

Perhaps we should debate physician assisted suicide next?

Sea King,

Great response to "A". There are some people who simple do not know how to argue logically, and when they are bombarded with facts and anaysis, they throw a fit and start to cry. This is very common behavior for liberals. Did you see how John Kerry acted on the floor of the Senate today before the body passed a bill allowing us to drill in the ANWR?

Now to answer your arguments you pose above:

"Still, to me, the equal protection issue is hard to reconcile. If I walk on the sidewalk, I, as a pedestrian, have the right of way. It is hard to say that if I am not inclined to walk on the sidewalk that I deserve the same protection that I am rejecting. Thus, were we to blur the lines between sidewalk-walkers and jay-walkers (I mean what is the difference, really? What can you say is the difference that will not result immediately in my attack on your insensitivity to the issue or whether or not you really want to be a jaywalker but are afraid?) jaywalkers probably suffer a greater traffic fatality rate, and thus are not getting equal protection."

This argument, although cleverly constructed, is flawed.

You equate jaywalkers to homosexuals and those who walk on the side walk as heteros. Isn't the sidewalk a society constructed mechanism to decrease the likelihood of accidents? Because most people who walk on sidewalks do not get hit by cars. But do most people who jay walk get hit by cars? No. It just depends on how smart, fast, and independent thinking they are. They are choosing to take their lives in their own hands by engaging in risky behavior, and we have laws against jay walking, right?

But we do not have laws against homosexuality anymore. We just have laws against the legal union of those who engage in risky behavior. So what it comes down to, is that our government won't tell a jaywalker (homo) that he is wrong by walking in the middle of road, but instead forbid him from bringing a fellow jaywalker with him for security and protection. We'd rather that jaywalker eventually get hit and die, rather than help protect him.

If we can't change the jaywalker, or even tell him he's wrong, then how can we take away his right to protect himself economically, with security from another person?

Therefore, we are violating this person's equal protection under the law.

In addition, you automatically assume that being straight is walking on the sidewalk, because it is less risky behavior. But society really does program us to be straight, and walk on the sidewalk. I'm sorry man, but i've met gay people who from their early childhood were always attracted to the same sex, and as far as they told me, didn't suffer from sexual abuse or anything else of the like. Some of this stuff just doesn't add up. Even though almost all of us are programmed to walk on the sidewalk, some of us feel naturally inclined to be a jaywalker. How do we argue with someone who feels they were born gay?

You also comment on actuaries, but fail to address the fact the nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. If there is more "stable risk" in marriage, for home ownership reasons and so forth, then what's the difference if two gay people own a home together? Aren't they also more likely to stay together for economic reasons, just as the married couple is? Isn't this the same "stable risk"?

"Should the laws remain as they are, gays are no more deprived of financial stability than are commitment-phobic guys. Why do we just assume that they can change? Why do we deny them financial stability of the choice they do not take, just because they do not take that choice? And perhaps the state needs to run a lonely old bachelor program because it's not fair that guys who spend their lives running away from commitment, have no one to grow old with."

For this argument, I would simply say that commitment-phobic guys and homosexuals that want to be monogamous are different things. These gays want to commit, while the latter just does not. Commitment-phobic men have the option and right to commit in marriage, if they want to. Gays do not have the option or right to commit to each other in a civil union.

"Do you really think that there are many monogomous homosexual men, Chris. I don't. And I think the statistics regarding various venereal diseases among gay men is some proof to that effect. What about the rights for unmarried men and women who co habit together?College room mates? Don't you have a heart? Couples are cheaper at keg parties. One does not get protection under the law because one chooses to have sex with someone of the same gender. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Sea king has it right; this is social engineering at its worst. Wrong is right. Down is up.Sexual Marxism.You argue well chris, but I am not buying it."

Ryun,

Perhaps you have not read my previous posts. I do not approve of gay marriage, I believe that all consenting adults should be able to be unified for economic reasons, regardless of sexuality. If sexuality happens to enter the picture, fine. But two consenting adults that want to make a commitment to support each other should be able to be unified under the state.

And also, just because you do not know any monogamous homosexual men doesn't mean that they do not exist. I do know homosexuals who have been in relationships together for years.

Further, I just made this point to Polemical. Our country is based on individual rights, not group rights. Just because homosexuals as a whole tend not to be monogamous doesn't mean that we should ban all of them from being in legal, committed relationships. Also, since nearly half (or more than half) of all marriages now end in divorce, can't we also say that most straight people are not monogamous as well?

I have strong feelings against homosexuality and incestuous relationships, but I do not let my personal morality dictate someone else's lifestyle choice. It is not for me to tell someone he is wrong or right. I can state my opinion, but I will not enact laws that violate a person's equal protection under the law. As long as we forbid homosexuals from civilly uniting, we are violating their equal protection rights of economic security and stability.

Chris,

My ana-logy is not about the reason why people take the actions they do. It's not about why sidewalks were built. It is about demanding the right to the benefits that another group receives by defining two actions as "equal". It's also about being asked to not observe any differences in order to grant the equality of the two actions. All that you mentioned is based on your refusal to understand that they are just both "walking". Why should cars not avoid me the same as you just because I chose to walk in a different location?

Marriage has been all sorts of things. At times it has been a purchase of a wife-property. You seem to think that there is a "sanctity" of marriage, but that sanctity isn't held up under some traditional practices. Surely a cultural gay marriage is better than cultural wife-purchasing. Therefore, since a member of one set is better than a member of another set, gay marriage might even be more justifiable that traditional marriage. But, we don't have to claim that, we'll call it morally equivalent.

Some traditional couples spank their children. We can trust some gay couples not to spank their children. Thus, some traditional couples seem meaner than some gay couples. We could argue superiority, but instead we'll argue equivalency in raising children.

Because humans are flawed and we can't raise the traditional model (from all viewpoints) higher than the revisionist model, let's claim equivalence. Because we can't really say that they are not equivalent. But not only that, because we value equality, let's make it a rule that you cannot treat something unequally if someone else can make a case that two things are equal.

"Aren't they also more likely to stay together for economic reasons, just as the married couple is? Isn't this the same 'stable risk'?"

And there of course, I am asked to treat the union the same. We can't be agnostic to whether or not this is the same "risk" involved, instead I must justify why I am "withholding" the "same" rights to other people, or I must assent that it is the "same" risk. I must equate man with woman and any combination of them equal to any other combination. Because it just seems that two gays who love each other "just as much" as any other couple, are taking the "same" risk.

It may be. It may not be. I would let the underwriting companies decide for themselves whether it is. As I said before, before AIDS, fidelity itself was thought to be an inferior neurosis by a certain sector of our culture. Nobody promised gays that if they started calling themselves married, and started wearing rings, and started calling each other "hubby" (all of which was done throughtout the 90s) that society would someday recognize it as the "same thing". We are having this argument because one small sector of our society has decided that it would try to imitate the larger sector of society. Now after about 15-20 years of doing this they are upset and don't think it's fair that we aren't convinced.

As for risks involved, well home ownership is one of the keys to financial stability. Thus, in that gays are willing to own a home together, they are not restricted from that benefit of financial stability. If they will share their financial burdens, they again have that benefit as well. As a result, you've weakened your argument that said that they were denied this "same" benefit.

Both arguments are essentially circular. We don't think it's normal, and we want to keep our reservations on that type of behavior. Other people inherit benefits from behavior that society finds "normal" and we think it is a normal part of our wanting to keep reservations.

The gays think that there behavior is no different from normal behavior. And in some cases they want to settle down and raise kids. If they do not inherit the same advantages as what society finds normal, they think that society is unfairly denying them equal treatment because it's "roughly" the same thing.

Gay advocates properly point out the circularity of the traditional argument. But they ignore the circularity of their own arguments. It is just so. A gay relationship and a straight relationship are the same thing. Men and women are equal, completely interchangeable entities! To not think so is primitive, narrow-minded and ignorant. People ought to have the freedom to do as they please. And if they please to mimic a behavior they have otherwise shunned the door of, then they have a right to call it the same thing. And lacking proof that it is not the same thing, the judiciary needs to step in and call it the same thing under the equal protection clause.

When two sides do not agree to terms, we put it to a vote. Having the Constitution step in, and grant one side of the conflict its redefinition, is ridiculous. Having to say that everything must be counted as equal unless you can prove that it is unequal, means that more and more things will be counted equal. A certain segment of the gay community already champions pederasty as a discriminated lifestyle.

James Taranto, on Best of the Web, recently ran a piece about how the argument of traditionalists that the ERA would usher in gay marriages was an absurd mischaracterization to hear the backers speak of it. To that I will add that libs wanted an amendment because they felt that the Constitution didn't completely recognize an equivalance between male and female. How absurd to argue that 30 years ago neither the Constitution or the potential amendment to the constitution would condone gay marriage. But 30 years later, we have an "unconstitutional" inequality, simply because for 10+ years, gays have been playing house.

What is the liberal/progressive argument worth, if they repeatedly cannot get their story straight. And yet, we are being asked to take their word for it because their case can be made to sound reasonable. We aren't talking about a freedom to act like a traditional family. Many gays have taken it upon themselves to act that way. What we are talking about is taking away the freedom of a unit of society to act on their suspicion that it isn't just the same thing.

But what we are essentially ignoring is that marriage is socially sanctioned institution and has a legal definition from its social incorporation. Society has not chosen to sanction homosexuality as a normal behavior. Saying "who cares what society thinks, because if they don't think like me they are a bunch of knuckle-dragging, hairy-belly-itching rubes if they don't agree!" cuts at the original origination of marriage as a social institution, implemented by a culture which did not have an ideological manifesto to do so, but did so out of an empirical or behavioral tendency.

Now, I believe as you probably do, that marriage was "instituted of God". But if we must restrain mention of God's definition in our debate--if we argue just on the basis of culture, marriage gains a cultural flavor.

Bill Maher, who gets upset that gays cannot marry, thinks that since this whole setup was itself a mistake, we should not restrain gays from being able to make the same mistake and partake of the same misery as other couples. But Maher is not the only one. I frequently hear slurs against marriage as a reason for which gays should marry. After all, if Britany Spears and Jenifer Lopez can marry, why can't two guys? Some people have no respect for marriage, and as long as the concept is messed up as it is now, there is no reason not to mess it up some more.

Thus counting everything the same, everybody has an equal right to partake in a bi-zzare, unexplainable ritual, if that is what they want to do. Everybody has the right to "mess up their life" with kids, if that's what they want to do. Everybody has a right to do whatever bi-zzare unexplainable thing that they want to do, unless they hold a bi-zzare and unexplainable idea that it isn't as bi-zzare and unexplainable or outmoded as some other people do. Then holding back people from trying to hold the line on dilution of the original idea needs an explanation. Urinating on marriage is our freedom. Stopping people from urinating on marriage is just a denial of their freedom--after all you let people relieve themselves over other objects.

Thus we level societal observations. And ultimately why? So that a group of people who are not accepted by society can find acceptance in society in the forms sanctioned by society. We just have to tear down the forms as society defines them to do this, though. It won't hurt a bit.

"Marriage has been all sorts of things. At times it has been a purchase of a wife-property. You seem to think that there is a "sanctity" of marriage, but that sanctity isn't held up under some traditional practices. Surely a cultural gay marriage is better than cultural wife-purchasing. Therefore, since a member of one set is better than a member of another set, gay marriage might even be more justifiable that traditional marriage. But, we don't have to claim that, we'll call it morally equivalent."

First, you are still refusing to respect that fact that marriage, by definition, is an institution between a man and a woman, blessed by God. I have never said that there hasn't been abuse in marriage. If you look at the old testament scriptures, many biblical figures practiced polygamy. So indeed, if our American culture is based on Judeo-Christian Biblical principles, than we should not condone this, right? Wrong. I concede that not everything in the Bible applies to today's society. Cultural differences exist, but one thing that I refuse to concede is the sanctity of marriage.

If cultural differences exist in regard to marriage, then it is up to each individual society's people to decide whether or not they want to make marriage inclusive or not. Because our values are predominantly Christian in America, the vast majority of people would like to see marriage stay the same. However, that doesn't mean that common law marriages (civil unions) can be ruled out for homosexual couples for economic purposes.

"Some traditional couples spank their children. We can trust some gay couples not to spank their children. Thus, some traditional couples seem meaner than some gay couples. We could argue superiority, but instead we'll argue equivalency in raising children."

How does spanking your children make you mean? I was spanked when I did wrong things as a child, and I understand it was done out of love. You inflict minor physical pain on a child before he knows right from wrong. This is done because a child does not have the mental capacity of reason before the age of 5 or 6, but they do remember that when we steal a cookie that mommy said not to eat, we get hit on the but for disobeying. Your argument here has nothing to do with heterosexual-homosexual parenting.

"As for risks involved, well home ownership is one of the keys to financial stability. Thus, in that gays are willing to own a home together, they are not restricted from that benefit of financial stability. If they will share their financial burdens, they again have that benefit as well. As a result, you've weakened your argument that said that they were denied this "same" benefit."

Ok, they can own a home together and share the financial burden. But what happens when the partner of a gay man gets cancer, and he happens to be unemployed? Because he not united under the state, he has no healthcare rights in his partner's occupation. So this couple is screwed because their unity is not recognized.

"Both arguments are essentially circular. We don't think it's normal, and we want to keep our reservations on that type of behavior. Other people inherit benefits from behavior that society finds "normal" and we think it is a normal part of our wanting to keep reservations."

This is your best thought/argument yet. Think of it in this light. If you and I were raised in a place where the majority of couples were homosexual and the minorty was heterosexual, would things be perhaps, a bit different? Wouldn't there be a higher proportion of gays just because children are raised in homosexual norms and culture?

"But what we are essentially ignoring is that marriage is socially sanctioned institution and has a legal definition from its social incorporation. Society has not chosen to sanction homosexuality as a normal behavior. Saying "who cares what society thinks, because if they don't think like me they are a bunch of knuckle-dragging, hairy-belly-itching rubes if they don't agree!" cuts at the original origination of marriage as a social institution, implemented by a culture which did not have an ideological manifesto to do so, but did so out of an empirical or behavioral tendency."

This is a great thought here. The more I read your argument that better it gets. You are absolutely right. Society, from its earliest beginnings, has a natural inclination for men to be attracted to women. So homosexuality isn't normal behavior, per se, it is merely deviant behavior. This has been the case from early biblical times when there were "homosexual offenders" to, let's say, the 1990s.

Now we merely have accepted that deviant behavior as more normal (or as you would say, more equal). I guess the question we have to ask ourselves here, is our culture changing? Is homosexuality really a latent characteristic in men and women, that just hasn't manifested as much in the past because of the societal consequences? Now that we accept this deviant behavior as a legitimate alternative lifesylte (at least in some regions and parts of our cultures), are more and more people coming out because they feel they won't be persecuted?

"Thus we level societal observations. And ultimately why? So that a group of people who are not accepted by society can find acceptance in society in the forms sanctioned by society. We just have to tear down the forms as society defines them to do this, though. It won't hurt a bit."

This is exactly why I think we need to tear down marriage under the state, make everything civil unions (man w. woman, woman w. woman, and man w. man).

Now that a relationship between two consenting adults would be recognized under the state, Religions, as private entitites, would be entitled to sanction what they deemed to be a marriage. And 99% of them would probably deem it to be a man w. woman. Then, this would truly, be sanctioned by God, and not by...Ceasar?

Chris,

I might add more later, but let me just say that we agree on most things---esp. God and marriage. This statement is the one that I've had the problem with:

"gay men and women have the Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law. By excluding them from forming a union with their partner, we are taking away their economic stability, which I believe is a violation of their rights."

Which means that they can sue to strike down laws of people who don't agree with them, and we have the courts deciding whose rights to trample on. The people to set societal goals, or gays to be treated equally by a society that doesn't see interchangeable gender. Very few, if any, are saying they shouldn't vote or should not get the benefit of habeus corpus or not have a trial of their peers or be searched indiscriminantly. And yet as I said, some people still think that when the Cons. or ERA did not speak on this subject 30 years ago, we still need to see their argument as they phrase it. It's not about rights, its suddenly about benefits. It's not about violation of basic human rights, but more about whether or not a group that defines itself as equivalent gets an equal value placed on that union.

Civil unions already have a popular appeal. In the last election, some people could not get behind the gay marriage proposals because they went too far and some of them wanted to ban "anything like" marriage.

I would rather put my hope in the goodwill of the voters. Especially when it involves a dispute over the distribution of benefits society wants to hand out more than it does any denial of basic human rights. I would rather have that than the Men in Black Robes coming in and deciding (once again) that supposed "equality" is the most important goal. And that nothing is seen as any better than any alternative, so nobody feels bad about their situation, is more important than voters deciding community direction.

Incidently, this one recurring financial catastrophe that seems to plague gay men and wipe out their savings is the reason that we are talking about this in the first place. Something made them not so gay after all, and they realized they needed a little more security and stability. So now it is up to us to widen risk pools to support their lifestyle and their tragedies. It is also the reason, I suspect, that we have moved into a period of decrying the FDA for not granting access to drugs fast enough. This, despite the normal reliance on safety and regulation among progressives. Drugs, suddenly, are not something to trust the wise and well-meaning government about.

Sea King,

I think we do agree on almost everything. We are probably philosphically similar in our views, although you probably have more knowledge about Constitutional matters than I do.

I too, would rather see voters of individuals states have a referendum on whether or not they want gays to be married or have civil unions. As I am a big proponent of Federalism, I see no problem with this. But i'll tell you this: I would not be a citizen of any state that allows gays to have the same definition of marriage. Civil unions, yes. But marriage, no.

I couldn't agree with you more in the fact that I would rather have voters decide this issue than the tyranny of the robe, especially when we have justices like Kennedy on our high court, who blatantly ignore the Constitution and cite international law in opinions. What a farce.

Sea king- were you saying that being in love with someone is not a good argument for getting married to someone? Isnt that what marriage is about? I think thats a fine argument for marriage..i dont know any other reason to get married, but i may have over looked something? People voting on it wont hurt me in any way, and i do think its good, but you know there was a time when pubic support was for segregation based on race too. Now, dont we all think that that was bad? How is this not discrimination? Allowing certian rights to one group of people but not too another based on the status of these groups. So maybe if someone could answer my questions that sea king ignored, hat would be great.

@

A,

I think your comments are still what makes me think that denying rights to homosexuals is a violation of their equal protection under the law. However, I am a big proponenet of Federalism, and think that racial segregation is a little different than denying marriage or civil union rights. We are not separating gays, we're basically just telling them they will not be officially recognized under the state as a couple.

I don't think that after Lincoln freed the slaves, that there was ever a time that black couples were not recognized under the state (heterosexual, that is, although i'm sure there were a few Uncle Tom's that got together, if you know what I mean). So segregation too, really does not compare to this situation. You're comparing apples with oranges here.

What I dont understand is how Homosexuaity is wrong? Its pretty clear that homosexuality is natural, and people choose it based on who they are attracted to. There is homosexuality everywhere..its not just a human thing. It cant be "morally wrong" it doesnt make sense. Do you all think that safe sex is wrong too? that does not procreate and is seemingly unnatural. I think you all should be carefull about saying something like homosexuality is morally wrong, because that is a spit in the face to a lot of very good people. I honestly do not think gay marriage will cause a huge uproar of antitraditon and wreck the concept of marriage..that is just my opinion though.

@

There is no good and no bad... but thinking makes it so.

A,

I respect your belief that homosexuality is not wrong. You have your own value system, and as long as you can lay your head down every night and feel that you are doing the right thing, than who am I to judge you?

However, my value system relies on the Bible. When it comes to spiritual or biblical matters, the scriptures say that homosexuality is wrong and unnatural. However, I don't think the state has any business putting biblical standards on a people who may not adhere to that religion. That is why I think marriage should be replaced with civil unions for all consenting adults.

Sea King,

Do you have a blog? I'd like to bookmark it if you do. Of course, Flynnfiles would come first! =o)

Hey Chris Doyle. I just wanted to suggest that you might want to NOT limit your drawing of values soley from bible. There are many, many sources and foundations of spiritual guidance out there. Have a looksee, test em' and pick em'. You just can never strictly rely on something without trying it for yourself. Plus, nobody knows who wrote the bible. Maybe its been tweaked over the years eh?

"Hey Chris Doyle. I just wanted to suggest that you might want to NOT limit your drawing of values soley from bible. There are many, many sources and foundations of spiritual guidance out there. Have a looksee, test em' and pick em'. You just can never strictly rely on something without trying it for yourself. Plus, nobody knows who wrote the bible. Maybe its been tweaked over the years eh?"

Thank you for the suggestion. I have indeed tried many other things in this world, placed my trust in men, put my values in things other than Christianity, and I have always come back to the realization that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the Bible's words are true and historically accurate, and that the God of Abraham is alive, omnicient, and working in living through my life.

So why do I place my values in a book that is thousands of years old? I offer you the following:

1) 36 out of 36 prophetic words from the Old Testament were realized and confirmed to be true in the New Testament's recordings. This is not a farce, because many of the prophetic words and recordings from Old Testament were not even available to the saints and apostles who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they did in their account of Jesus' life and other experiences after Christ died and rose again.

2) The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in the 20th century confirm the validity of parts of the Bible that are now recorded. Comparing the scrolls to current manuscripts of the Bible, the words from the scrolls translated exactly into the modern version's words. The scrolls were estimated to be AT LEAST from 30 B.C.

3) Other facts continue to be unveiled every year. For example, a people named the Gideonites were regarded by sceptics as a ficticious clan in the old testament, because no record of them has ever existed. A few years ago, archaelogists discovered the remains of a civilization near Turkey, and found the tomb and remains of a king that was recorded in the Old Testament to be that of the Gideonites. Thus confirming their existance.

4)The Bible has been put to the most scrutiny and pressure of any other book in history. Even the New York Times has said in an article, that the Bible has "stood the test of time". The historical accuracy of the Bible's recordings serve as proof to sceptics that it is not a document full of error and fiction.

Further, it says in 2 Timothy 3:16 that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

I could go on and give you more examples of how I know God is sovereign. The miracles i've seen in my life and my family's life. What i've seen God do in my life. But it all comes down to the fact that I would not be where I am today if I didn't place my values in Jesus and the Bible. These are the only sources that have never failed, have never let me down, and continue to inspire and renew me.

Other religions such as Islam, Buhddism, Hinduism, Seikism, Judaism, and many others worship dead gods. My God came to earth because he loved us so much, died a horrible death, and rose from the dead, with many many witnesses to record it. The accuracy and validity of this event has yet to be disproved by any scholar, and remains completely true. You can worship a dead god if you want, but I will put my faith in Jesus Christ, the only human who ever conquered death.

Doyle, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the teachings of the bible as well. I just don't limit my entire belief systems to it as such. In terms of culture and philosophy, The Apaches (Native Americans), I deeply appreciate. Respect for the land and all life. Regarding the various Eastern religions you have mentioned, I think that the "dead god's" are often refered to in a symbolic sense, and in this respect, are still viable. And the statement, "to conquer death" is a subjective one indeed. There are many contexts in which one may conquer death; Surrendering, letting go of all fear, having epiphanial enlightenments, etc.. are all fair game. Are you saying that everyone who has died before and after Christ has failed death? Ludicrous. Death is an integral part of existence and by no means a "negative" component. Anthropology of Death 101. Now to me, yes I believe Christ probably did exist. However, even if he didn't and is only a tale, it wouldn't matter because the truth in the teachings remain the same. This is the symbology that so many overlook in there religions, by being blinded with literal interpretation. The magic word, interpretation...
Anybody ever research Toltec sorcery here? i.e. The Teachings of Don Juan? just curious...

Truth,

I understand and respect your points of view here. When I say "conquer death" I mean it literally. No other prophet, god, etc. has died and then rose from the dead, like Christ did. And there were multiple, multiple witnesses to this. I also critically look at the accuracy of the Bible's history, and am convinced that it has stood the test of time.

If you want to debate about the afterlife of Hinduism or Nirvana and what not, that's fine. But none of these religions offer proof that their gods did anything near to what Christ did.

As far as placing my values on the Bible, I can't see what is wrong with this. Of course I don't take every single thing in the Bible literally, such as how Corinthians speaks our against men having long hair. There are cultural things in the Bible that don't neccessarily apply to modern society. But overall, I have found that the Bible is a very good road map for living.

I do however, admit that some other religions are based on good principles. But good principles don't lead to salvation.

Polemical, I blog at http://www.christian-philosopher.com/blogwp/. Not a lot of frequency, but a lot of content, plopped all at once, once I deem that a piece has passed my "smell test".

A, I did not question the value of love as a basis of marriage. But marital love is a commitment and not a passion or predilection (as it is argued mostly in the case of gays). Saying that you cannot control whom you love, makes "love" a passion. And in saying that though you may marry your boyfriend today based on today's passions, you can never tell if you will feel that way tomorrow, because, as a passion it is out of your control; You have basically made null a central concept of marriage in defense of "gay marriage".

If gays, in general, understand marriage in no better light, it is highly doubtful that they are not changing the definition. But I doubt they can internalize more than this. Their life seems to be about who they are attracted to.

"Love" is a cipher in today's world. It needs a lot of decoding. We might be talking about Robert Plant's version of "Lo-o-wo-o-wo-o-wove" or we might be talking about an intellectual assent to a societal "greater good" or a selfless devotion to the "source of all good".

The marital pact is a practice, observed over and over again. It has been refined through the sifting process. There may be theories abstracted from it, but the societal process continues on, confirming those theories or ignoring them, but unobservant of them. Darwinistically, that has a greater chance of survival than this Frankenstein of "gay marriage".

Now homosexuals gain benefits from monogamy, no doubt. If they restrict themselves to one partner they avoid STDs. If they pool their fortunes, they invite financial increase---all of which requires that they rein in their passions directed elsewhere.

Thus, were gays as rationally minimalist as they demand society to be, they would understand that under any name, they benefit through a type of monogamy. They may not benefit to the same extent as traditional couples, but nonetheless it is in their interest to restrain their passions. As it is in their best interest, the case that Chris gives---that society ought to encourage it---means that the group that we hope to entice reacts more out of passion than reason.

It is the identification with the direction of passion which creates the "homosexual individual", thus I have little confidence that it will ever congeal into a more stable form in a majority of cases. Such a development is historically unknown. I have a right to vote based on my skepticism of that conjecture, especially when I argue that the central argument muddies the ground, and I can point to a case where your argument "for" this conjecture does so in spades.

Marraige of course is a bi-product of formailized religion. A religion involving the man know as Jesus Christ. Many in political office today consider themseves dedicated followers of this great religion. But if Jesus returned in the flesh today, would he approve??? The following article www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2005/1096 delves into these issues.

Harvey Wasserman

If Jesus returns, Karl Rove will kill him
March 21, 2005

As we enter another Easter Season, it's become all too obvious that if Christ returns, those who hate in Jesus's name will have him slimed, then killed.

Christ was a long-haired peace activist who would have hated the war in Iraq. "Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said in his defining Sermon on the Mount. "Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor."

Such hippie-radical ideals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. The GOP would never tolerate an upstart like Jesus gathering a following in the face of their corporate-fundamentalist crusade. These are Christians who love power but would despise the actual Christ, just as they love a Zionist Israel but can't tolerate actual Jews.

In the wake of Jesus's exemplary life of non-violent rebellion, a perverse liturgy weighted by twenty centuries of intolerant bloodthirsty bigotry has erupted in his name. Attacks on people of color, on nations with oil, on humans of the same gender who love each other, on youth who enjoy sex….all have become enemies of a new fundamentalist crusade doing in Christ's name things that would have left him sickened and horrified.

In large part through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God.

Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and their ilk believe George Bush and his corporate-fundamentalist minions speak to and for a very different kind of God, one with characteristics at war with those described by Christ.

Bush-Rove's Divinity is a nasty dictator, defined by hate and greed, intolerance and hypocrisy.

Christ kicked the moneychangers out of the temple. Rove-DeLay's Republicans have enshrined them.

Christ spoke of a God of compassion and joy.

Today's so-called Christian fundamentalists worship one of greed-driven warmongering totalitarianism. The only way to salvation, they say is THEIR way, through a spiteful God that hates all Jesus preached.

As Tecumseh, the great Shawnee warrior, shouted at William Henry Harrison in the early 1800s, "You killed the son of your God, then you worshipped him when he was dead, and now you kill those who choose not to follow him."

If Christ came back today to resume preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Karl Rove would slime him in the media, then kill him outright, then turn his words into right wing hatespeak, then kill those who refuse to follow in his name.

If Christ came back to organize against Bush's war, Rove's pet bloviators would shriek about Mary Magdalene. Isn't that her seated next to Christ in DaVinci's "Last Supper"? Wasn't she unmarried, pregnant with Christ's bastard child, catching his blood dripping from the cross?

Rush Limbaugh would demand to know what right did the self-proclaimed "Son of God" had to a relationship out of wedlock? Who was he to feed those loaves and fishes to the undeserving poor, prolonging the existence of inferior racial stock? Who was he to attack those moneychangers who are the Elect of God and the sponsors of Rush's air time?

Then O'Reilly would slime the Easter thing. A self-anointed "peace prophet" rising from the tomb? Poppycock, he'd say. Just another pinko hippie terrorist conspiracy theory.

But if Christ persisted, and built a following like, say, Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez or Nelson Mandela…well….they'd kill him.

They'd set it up to blame someone else, like, say the Jews, or the terrorists, or the Willie Hortons. They'd find some patsy to take the fall for the assassination.

Rove would cloud his death in shadowy scandal. Stories would surface unconfirmed debts. Or tainted investments. Maybe something about hashish, no stranger to the region.

Hannity would feature some lovers he jilted. There'd be rumors he was gay. Talk of a love triangle. Ugly gossip about Mary and Judas. False leads about Jews wanting him dead. New doubts about that "virgin birth."

Whatever it would take to rub the sheen off an anti-war "Son of God" and to turn his death tawdry, Rove would do.

But would Jesus stand for the slaughter of 100,000 Iraqis in his name merely because of oil and dubious Biblical prophecy? How would Christ view a president in love with the gas chamber and electric chair? What would Jesus, who hated hypocrisy above all, say about a Bush who scampers back to prolong the life of a brain-dead woman who wanted to die, but who gleefully executes 150 people as governor and as many more as president as he can get his hands on? How would Jesus cope with a self-proclaimed Divinity demanding the death penalty for children?

What would Jesus think of the torture in American prisons, where much the same is being done to innocent inmates as was done to Christ himself? Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" stands as a documentary of the daily torture and slaughter of too many of the 2.2 million prisoners held in the US military and civilian gulag, a barbaric prison system that makes the Romans' look benign by comparison.

Systematic sexual abuse by both prison guards and Catholic priests? The wholesale slaughter of Iraqi children? The debasement by corporate money of both church and state?

Christ would lead the non-violent charge against these cornerstones of GOP rule---until Rove killed him.

What would Jesus do about gay marriage? "Love they neighbor," he'd say.

What business is it of those who use his name, he would ask, to prolong bigotry and intolerance just as 50 years ago those same cynical haters claimed Biblical sanction for laws preventing people of color from marrying the white people they loved.

Christ would never stand for such a hate campaign. So Karl Rove would have him killed.

Hitler claimed Christ was an Aryan supremacist. Now Rove, DeLay & company use him to justify dictatorial, greed-approving, gay-hating, war loving, torture-is-fine bigotry.

Easter says otherwise. It should remind us that if Jesus returned to preach the Gandhian love-thy-neighbor subversion with which he challenged the Romans, Karl Rove would do what Pilate did.

But Rove would be better at the spin.

Free speech, eh?

"How would Christ view a president in love with the gas chamber and electric chair?"

Well, how would Jesus view that summary judgment that Bush is "in love" apart from any statement Bush has made? On the contrary Jesus recognized Pilate's right to put him to death, so I doubt that he would be for releasing and re-releasing proven criminals simply because someone argues that at the root of it all society is to blame. So I think that Jesus would not take somebody's use of executions as "love" for executions.

Jesus is definitely more radical than what makes conservatives comfortable. But to call him a "hippie"-like is groundless. That would also make him discontinuous with Ghandi, which this person incorporates. Ghandi believed, like many Buddhists, that the cessation of desire was the path to peace. One avoided war, because they were inflamed by the passions, not because they were a buzzkill downer, man. He neither advocated war or freelove.

To straighten out some of the mashed potatoes: Jesus' return comes to us through the Bible and apostolic tradition. Dan Brown's (and others) sire of Mary Magdalene's bastard son is not divine. Therefore, there is on claim that this Jesus comes back.

It is theoretically possible that he could come back having sired a son. But to argue that is just to indescriminately mix representations to meet one's needs.

Karl Rove may do that. He may not. However I doubt that Jesus gives it to Harvey Wasserman to sum Mr. Rove's motive and action in such a bi-zzare scenario and extreme caricature. Jesus is pretty clear about defaming each other.

Most of this "argument" is based on similar summary judgments. Such as concluding that this amounts to a latter day crusade of some sort. Such that the "essayist" asks how Jesus could condone that villains that he asserts they are. It is one slur stacked on top of another slur and at the base of it seems to be an apoplectic liberal fit.

I have deeply considered how US actions differ from "turn the other cheek" theme. I decided this: "cheeks" aren't made of the flesh of 3,000 people packed in glass and steel. I can turn my cheek. I can't decide to turn yours. Deciding to turn my country's cheek on the basis of religious conviction is precisely the sort of theocratic justification that the liberals say that I am otherwise to avoid.

Ben-T, Jesus never preached war. It is principles and values like these that resound with truth and are worthwhile.

"Teach the children, teach people to enjoy and appreciate this earth and her beauty, the false things built by man do fade, they are not empty platitudes. Set your value on the things of value, lest the things of true value be stripped away during the times of your scrapping for a bit of this and that of little value".

On pre-emption..."Develop in these ways and let others know, not as prophets of doom crying out warnings and preaching fear, but those who possess a great, great wealth within and have no fear of the changes that come. Speak in that attitude, that manner, and in that way men will listen."

Christians are SUPPOSED to be concerned with being on Gods side, not who's on theirs. Another way in which the Commander-In-Thiefs actions are incosistent with Christianity, but very constistent with holier-than-thou false piety. The comparison seems obvious to most of us, but perhaps it would help the blind being led by the blind to ask them which of the groups mentioned in the Bible the Greedy Old Party resembles and why. We can list their most predominant traits and then ask "Which of the groups depicted in the New Testament most reflects these values?" Bu
sh:Pharisee::Christ:Christian.

Don't forget, "by their fruits ye shall know them." True Christians will eventually "see" the light because there will be no fruit.

"Christ was a long-haired peace activist who would have hated the war in Iraq. "Blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said in his defining Sermon on the Mount. "Turn the other cheek...Love thy neighbor."

Where in the Bible does it say that Christ had long hair or was a peace activist? If you knew anything about the Bible, you would know that Christ did not comment on political matters whatsoever, instead, he said "Render unto Ceasar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's." This basically entails a separation of church and state. You are manipulating Christ's words for your own political gain. You also can't interpret cultural problems and pretend to know what Christ would have done.

"Such hippie-radical ideals are the "Christian" right wing's worst nightmare. The GOP would never tolerate an upstart like Jesus gathering a following in the face of their corporate-fundamentalist crusade. These are Christians who love power but would despise the actual Christ, just as they love a Zionist Israel but can't tolerate actual Jews."

When Christ came to earth, he did confront corporate style entities that were indeed, very powerful. The Jewish establishment hated Christ because he challenged their power. The Pharisees and Sadusees were some of the most powerful and wealthy men in biblical times. Turning the people away from all the customs and laws of Judaism would have threatened their positions of power, and therefore affected their wealth. Indeed, they did not tolerate Jesus and crucified him. If Jesus were some average joe who spoke with no authority and had little influence, do you think the hierarchy would have cared? No they would have laughed at him. But because he was so influential, they had to execute him.

As far as your comments about Jews and Zionest Israel, Christianity is based on the premise to love thy neighbor as thyself. If the Christians you are talking about are using or hating Jews, then they aren't being true to their faith. Don't generalize!

"In the wake of Jesus's exemplary life of non-violent rebellion, a perverse liturgy weighted by twenty centuries of intolerant bloodthirsty bigotry has erupted in his name. Attacks on people of color, on nations with oil, on humans of the same gender who love each other, on youth who enjoy sex….all have become enemies of a new fundamentalist crusade doing in Christ's name things that would have left him sickened and horrified."

This is nonsense! What liberal propaganda website did you get this one off?

"In large part through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came to be viewed as Divine because he spoke eloquently for a gracious, loving God."

Again, you know nothing about the Bible. Jesus was, and is God. First of all, His divinity had nothing to do with is eloquent or gracious manner of speaking. the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all apart of the trinity. They are all one in spirit. Jesus demonstrates the He is indeed the Father in John 8:58 "Jesus said to them (the Jews) 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'"

After Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, he spoke to the spirit of the Father, and ascended into Heaven. They are three spirits in one, but all the same.

"As Tecumseh, the great Shawnee warrior, shouted at William Henry Harrison in the early 1800s, "You killed the son of your God, then you worshipped him when he was dead, and now you kill those who choose not to follow him."

Interesting enough, I am related to both WHH and Benjamin Harrison. However, Tecumseh was wrong. Christ rose again for all sinners.

"But if Christ persisted, and built a following like, say, Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez or Nelson Mandela…well….they'd kill him."

Umm...the Jews did kill Christ. Again, Christ was not a popular figure among the wealthy and elite, just as these figures weren't either. You are not saying anything profound here.

"Easter says otherwise. It should remind us that if Jesus returned to preach the Gandhian love-thy-neighbor subversion with which he challenged the Romans, Karl Rove would do what Pilate did."

First of all, Christ came before Ghandi did. So let's not put the cart before the horse here pal. Maybe Ghandi got his message through Christ. Ever consider that?

Easter was about Christ dying for our sins, redeeming us, and establishing a new covenant. Yes, the sins of Delay, Hannity, Rove, Bush, and all the others who you bash in your heretic speech. You are the one who screams hypocrit to these men, even though you do not believe! You think you are righteous, yet we can't judge you.

Jesus also said, "Let he that is without sin, cast the first stone." I sure hope you do not live in glass house.

"Judge not, lest you be judged."

Do unto to others before they have done unto you... the book of Bush 9:11

Oh and Doyle, you have no idea what I believe, so don't tell me I "don't believe"..

You can cherry-pick the Bible all you want. The bottom line is that our government/military are committing crimes against humanity overseas right now. In light of all this, it is interesting to remember that all men are in fact, created equal; and not just within America for all you proud patriots. No, this universal truth spans across all boundaries and nationalities. If Christ himself took a tour through the streets Iraq right now, he would laugh at the fact that those responsible, call themselves religious and followers of his words. 160,000 dead civilian human beings. God Bless the World.

Let me post a question to you, oh truthful one. If Christ were to walk through the streets of Iraq now, or say five years ago, which would he prefer:

1) The country controlled by Sadaam Hussein, a brutal dictator that tortured his own people, limited medicinal treatment to the sick and dying, benefitted financially from the backs of slave labor, and killed over 100,000 Kurds with chemical and biological warfare, or:

2) A country liberated by the United States, who helped bring the first democratic elections ever, gave women a seat in the government, and continues to give human life and financial resources so the society can live in freedom.

America has done a lot more good than bad. That's where you err my little liberal friend. You look at the negative and don't think the best of your own country men, while I look at the positive and see all the lives we've impacted.

No one ever accomplished anything by hating, and that's what you do. You're hopelessly lost in your ideology, and the only thing you can do to make yourself feel better is to point out what you perceive to be negative about America.

If we're so evil, then move to France, where they appreciate liberal socialists. I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms.

No, I look at the POSITIVE my little conservative buddy. A view of a peaceful world. A grander vision where true peace generates true peace. Unfortunately, our administration lacks a similar where-with-all and vision in their political syntax. Changes will happen, it is only a matter of time. It will be momentus and huge event that perhaps may trigger or heighten global consciousness, to a level above war and violence. Then, the term "human civilization" will have true meaning. War and terror are linked like a chain link fence. What don't you understand about this? Also your CIA corroborated Saddam's pursuits for years. We set up the pins, then knock 'em down.

And what is with you people telling other people that have different ideas (often times peaceful ones)in this country, to move to France?? To cut to the chase, diversity of opinion is healthy and without it, even you would eventually be sorry. This is a fact! Or as the great GWB says, "if this was a dictatorship, things would be a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Do you think everybody should interpret the world and its respective event as you do? This would be ludicrous. I am not alone here by any means, I do like this country, and I don't have any plans to move to France right now. It is almost impossible to justify war. It should be implemented in a LAST RESORT fashion. Life is a gift and it is fragile. I am sure that if you and all other hawks just so happened to be born in Falluja, you would see for yourselves how inhumane and despicable war actually is. So go on and support this criminal administration. Go on and root for the imperialistic warmongers. Heck, as long as its not you getting napalm and bombs dropped on you, who cares? you are in the safety of being out of range, right? Or maybe not?...
The greates component in life is that of choice. I have chosen wholheartedly do embody and exemplify true morality. I can only hope that you will eventually choose to see how horrific our "foreign policy" has become. Remember, this is not negative although it might appear to be so. I am simply pipointing the darkness, to make clear the light. Acceptance precedes change. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

sorry for the few typos

Instead of listing all the problems you perceive, why don't you and your liberal friends provide some solutions.

It's so easy to tear down, but a lot harder to generate results. Out of all the criticism I have for this administration, they have produced a lot of results, in a lot of different areas.

Dude, first of all, I am a biochemist not a politician. I have no power of any kind in a political sense. So I can do very little in these regards. Maybe blog here and there like I am doing right now. Or have a talk with some friends every no and then. In fact my work here is pretty much done. I have said a few things and not many have listened, but that is fine. At least I have triggered a few neurons into action out there.
Anyway, lately it seems that Democrats get laughed at and ridiculed when they speak up. Know one gives them the time of day. And very few (Boxer, Kennedy etc..) give it a lame try. The Office is entrenched with varieties of conservatives and neo-cons alike. The corporate influence and funding is also very powerful and resides to the right. The left does not have a chance in hell right now. The public opinion, by some strange psychological phenomenon, is pro-war. I guess everyone has given into fear and vengeance. Yoda calls this the dark side of the force. I am done with this site. Go and celebrate... Truth has left the building.

www.supportthetruth.com

Plus I can sense that Dan Flynn detests my presence, so I am gone...

oh truthful one,

Since this strain is due to end today, this will be the last post I write to you. Over the past couple weeks I have read your observations, and have concluded that you are a hopeless ideologue who places conservatives and republicans in boxes.

You pick and choose high profile conservatives, take a controversial issue, and then try and slam them with some sort of liberal propaganda or conspiracy theory on the topic.

You also seem to think that Democrats or liberals are not funded by the same special interests that Republicans are. I'll give you a few:

1)Trial Lawyers
2)Hollywood film industry and many members of the SAG
3)Animal and Environmental activists

These are just a few of the many organizations and types of organizations that fund liberals. The first two have a lot of power, influence and money, and throw it around every election cycle in order to get their will imposed.

You also complain that no one listens to you or your liberal cohorts like Boxer and Kennedy. It's not that no one listens to you. Heck, we all are listening, it's that you people are so out of the mainstream. You go against the traditional principles of American culture, and make outrageous claims that both offend traditional conservatives and anger moderates who try and stay semi-non partisan, such as myself.

I am the first to admit that Republicans sometimes act just as bad as Democrats do for political reasons. I am sceptical of the whole political process, and have been around enough to look at both sides and see the problems.

The American electorate is not pro-war, it is merely on the side of freedom and liberty. It is also interested in defending our country from immanent threats such as Al Queda and other terrorist organizations that harbor in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and others.

Our leaders realized after 9/11 that we could no longer take a defensive strategy, but rather, go and fight the enemy abroad, so we wouldn't have to fight at home. As you see, we have had no major terrorist attacks in 3.5 years, and have put an end to two evil, brutal regimes. Our progress, although slow and arduous, is improving, and our work has been successful.

We must continue to protect our interests abroad, which means we will have soldiers stationed and fighting across the world. I hardly see this as a pro war stance, but rather, an offensive strategy to protect us at home. Liberty never comes without a cost. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

"So go on and support this criminal administration. Go on and root for the imperialistic warmongers. Heck, as long as its not you getting napalm and bombs dropped on you, who cares? you are in the safety of being out of range, right?"

I can see you have a lot of respect for people who differ from your opinion as well. Chris talks about other countries enjoying the blessings of liberty, but that's not concern. That's a lack of concern for you. You get to decide what concern is.

It's better that they should live on their knees--because they are at least living. That's concern. Because you can wear sandwich boards and hold up signs saying "I'm concerned---NO REALLY!!! I MEAN I AM REALLY REALLY CONCERNED...I DON'T LIKE THIS ONE BIT---LOOK AT ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS I USED--YOU WANNA' SEE TEARS?!?!?!"

You are a classic utopian radical, from what I can see. People have tried to tell you there are wolves out in the woods. You call that mean and negative. Then wolves attack the village---well that must be something we did to upset the wolves, wear more sackcloth and ashes, at some point the inner beauty of the wolves just has to shine through. And then, with increased frustration with the wolves, you decide that it is really the villagers hearts that are nasty. The wolves aren't nasty, its the negative attitude of the villagers. There are no really bad people in this world, except for the people who go around saying we have to protect ourselves from the bad guys. Maybe if I let my son play with the wolves, they'll see that I trust them and calm down---OH MY!! WHAT HAS MY SON DONE NOW!?!?

Jesus: "In this world, you'll have trouble."
'Truth': "No we won't."