Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 05:43:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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544 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:
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[snip]
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To answer the first part of your paragraph. No, I don’t have a problem
with multiple partner marriages or with communal lifestyles for that
matter. It makes no difference in answering this question that I am in
an ordinary heterosexual two person relationship myself. I don’t have a
problem if other people want to choose something different for themselves
from what I choose for myself.
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Please, stick to the issue. We are talking about government sanctioned
unions, not tolerance of lifestyles. You want to shack up with a chicken?
Knock yourself out. But you don’t have the “right” of recognition by the
government. But feel free to point it out in the Constitution or BoR.
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The first phrase of the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof,...”
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Not applicable, Mike. We are talking about civil unions here.
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No we are talking about legal marriages. That is very much the jurisdiction
of the first amendment.
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You confuse me. What is the difference?
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You call me “unamerican”, but what you have stated above is completely
unamerican! We live in a Judeo-Christianity society whether you like it
or not, and we have decided as a culture to uphold the traditional
male-female family structure as the foundation of our society.
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I consider myself a Christian and I am sick of hearing this nonsense.
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Really? How so?
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The silly notion that Christianity is somehow superior to our government and
other religions.
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Again you confuse me. Superior in what way?
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Attempts to undermine
that foundation are not efforts to protect freedoms, but to destroy the
fabric of our society as we know it. I am afraid that you are in the
vast minority here, because this issue of “family values” cuts through
political, economic, and gender lines.
Your vision of what America should be is simply not shared by the
overwhelming majority of Americans. Whine all you want; it is a free
country.
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If you have read here:
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=22019
Well some letters came back touting the same basic thing Mr. Neal did
above. I sent another letter which they actually printed in the local paper
again, as it is relavent to this topic here it is:
There seems to be a popular misconception that our country was founded by
Puritans and Quakers. While those groups had a large impact on the accepted
social mores of our country they had minimal, if any, impact on the
founding of our government.
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But don’t you see? This is what I am talking about! I am talking about
social mores, culture, values.
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Well you were talking about legal marragies. Social mores, culture, and
values have no legal basis. The government can not enforce them as laws or
they are in violation of the first amendment.
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Again with the confusion. Laws just don’t pop up out of thin air. They are
based on the morality and sensibility of a given society or culture.
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Most of our founders came to the colonies because of
religious persecution. At the time persons that did not accept the English
state church were branded as heretics and usually executed. The
Roman-Catholic Church was not much better in that regard.
Our founding
fathers recognized this as a threat to freedom and liberty. That is why the
first amendment to the constitution includes the phrase; “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof,...” This isn’t exactly rocket science, its meaning
is quite clear.
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I think you are confused in this assessment. Our FF came to the colonies in
order to worship as they wished, not as the State told them. They didn’t
come to escape religion, or view religion as a threat to their freedom or
liberty. The reason the First Amendment addresses the religion issue is to
unequivocally assert that there would never again be a state religion as
the one in England. People would be free to worship as they wanted.
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Exactly people are free to worship as they want.
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Anything the Government does can not endorse one religious belief
over another. In the case of legal marriage, (not to be confused with the
sacred religious vow,) the government treats it as an entitlement to
privileges.
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Exactly. Entitlements are not rights.
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They are when they become legal entilements based on religious preference.
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As this is a government institution, constitutionally it must be
offered to anyone regardless of their religious beliefs.
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Again, the government doesn’t “recognize” religious marriages; only civil
marriages. That society chooses to uphold civil unions between a man and a
woman is a cultural preference, not a religious one.
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If the government is in the buisness of marriages, they cannot refuse someone
because they have a different religious belief. (Such as it is Okay to be
Gay)
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This is not a religious issue, but a cultural issue.
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Note: The other
letters were whining about the removal of the Ten Commandments too
As far
as the Ten Commandments, lets be honest here, if we were talking about
removing a statue of Buddha from a courthouse no one would question its
unconstitutionality. The only reason people oppose the removal of the Ten
Commandments is because they agree with that religion.
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You are simply wrong. As I mentioned previously, our culture is based on
Judeo-Christian values. Have you ever been to the Lincoln Memorial? Did
you realize that Matt 18:7 is inscribed on the north wall? Are you telling
me that you would support the Memorial being defaced to remove the
references from the Bible??? How about the National Monument? The
Jefferson Monument? I could go on and on.
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I don’t care if those buildings are leveled tommorow. The principles for
which they are supposed to stand, are indestructable despite the best efforts
of the government to the contrary.
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All righty then. At least now I see where you are coming from. Many Americans
actually do care if those monuments are preserved. I would characterize your
attitude here as “unamerican”. There is more to America than simply the concept
of freedom-- we happen to be a culture as well.
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I would really appreciate an answer, because this is
the issue in a nutshell. The fact is that the Judeo-Christian tradition is
a part of our heritage; it is part of who we are. we need not apologize
for it, or try and deny it. It’s just the way it is.
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Tradition and heritage are not enforceable as laws. That would be a violation
of the first amendment.
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This makes absolutely no sense to me.
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People love freedom
until it works against their beliefs.
I wonder if people realize that they
are unintentionally sending the message that Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Wiccian, and many other religions are not as important as Christianity just
because they are not the majority.
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No, no, no. It sends no such message! Only that that tradition is our
tradition. Why apologize for that? Don’t be such a PC wimp!
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But you cannot force people to accept our traditions as though they are laws.
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But our laws are influenced by those very traditions!
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(Nevermind the fact that most people are
too close-minded to realize that those of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim
faiths, all pray to the same god. Allah is the Arabic word for God and is
not a name.)
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Our God is not the same God of people who murder women and children in His
name. If you call that close-minded, so be it.
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Calling terrorists Muslim extremists makes about as much sense as calling
Neo-Nazis Christian extremists. All of the aforementioned religions including
Muslim hold the same basic tenet of do no harm unto others.
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(Note: The one guy wrote that the ACLU was a puppet of the liberal
left because they fight to legalize lots of things he found morally wrong)
Last but not least is the ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union is not
liberal left, rather they are extreme conservative right or what people
call libertarians.
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Mike, where did you ever get that idea??? Sure, the ACLU is interested
in defending rights, as long as they are the rights of those with whom they
agree ideologically! Just look at the cases they decide to defend-- it
says it all.
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Any crime that is not a variant of rape, murder, or stealing is not a crime
according to the constitution. All of these silly religious based crimes
are unconstitutional. This includes but is not limited to: prostitution,
smoking chemically proccessed tobacco, drinking alchohol, smoking natrually
grown marijuana (you do not have the right to drive while intoxicated),
protesting, driving you car down the street (protesters to not have the
right to block the street), shooting up herion, marrying more than one
person, etc. Now many of these things are against certain religious beliefs
and some are downright stupid (like smoking tobacco) but they only affect
those that choose to participate. As a result they are protected by the
first, ninth, and tenth amendments regardless of what the government
currently believes. No one is telling you that you must condone behaviour
that goes against our religious beliefs. However you cannot legally force
people to accept our beliefs as their own. Liberty comes first. People make
their own choices. You cannot tell them how to live their lives even if they
do things that you consider immoral. Everyone has the same freedom, deal with
it.
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And yet all of these laws and restrictions do indeed exist in our society. I
seriously doubt that our society (or any society for that matter) could survive
with such freedom. With freedom comes responsibility; responsibility comes from
morality; morality comes from religion. So although our society’s values aren’t
based on a particular religion, it is based on morality derived from
religion (in particular Judeo-Christian).
JOHN
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