Alternative Spirituality

» Migisi - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by RichardSpeaks:

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The Church wants the State to keep its nose out of church business; the same should work in reverse. Or are some more equal than others?
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I couldn't agree more.
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The church leaders are demanding that our legislators define 'marriage' and 'family' based on their religious traditions. This, IMO, is clearly the church meddling in State. IMO, if a minister or denomination refuses to perform nontraditional marriages, that's their perogative. I'm okay with that. But in no way should they insist that the State support their decision by enacting laws.
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One caveat: why would gay people want to enter into a system of legal joining that falls apart in the majority of cases? Have they not learned from the heteros' mistakes??
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How many marriages fail now? Over half? One doesn't need a certificate to prove love for each other. However, one does need that cert to enjoy certain privileges and benefits afforded a married couple.

-- posted by Migisi

» spiritalk - Slavery

In response to Slavery posted by Migisi:

It is the interpretations of the messages of such people as Jesus Christ, that have been the problem, not the solution.

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» spiritalk - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by BrianTubbs:

Exactly!

1. His/her rights under law must be equal according to the constitution.

2. Social acceptance comes with education and knowledge. Only the uneducated propegate discrimination. Under this one, many hate crimes exist.

3. Churches have a right to make their own law.

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» spiritalk - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by pink101:

Again I say: Exactly!

It is their life to live! And I don't know why anyone who would 'choose' a life of abuse if it were not a physiological issue?

In Afghanistan it is underground - but I would bet it exists.

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» spiritalk - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by RichardSpeaks:

One caveat: why would gay people want to enter into a system of legal joining that falls apart in the majority of cases? Have they not learned from the heteros' mistakes??

that, too, would be answered by your paper on the History of Marriage! I believe all of us have a hard time learning from anyone else's mistakes - we would rather make them ourselves.

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» RichardSpeaks - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by spiritalk:
Ideal: The young man grows up, learns a trade/profession and then allows his father and mother to barter for a wife from another family, hopefully prominent. The wife then becomes the posession of the husband. She is protected and bears his children. In turn, she keeps his home and stays away from all other single men. Depending on custom, she will keep herself covered in as much a respectful way as dictated. As she raises her children, interacts with other wives in the community, and ages, she becomes wise. She instructs her children in tandem with other mothers doing the same with theirs on the ways of the culture. When her sons and daughters reach the right age, they begin the process all over again. The process is accepted as the moral and legal way to keep the society intact. There is no divorce, no abortion, no adultery, no homosexuality. The families all believe in the same deity or sets of deities. No one questions but that this is the natural way. Things never change. The one exception: Royalty.

Sucky, no?? And yet, until very, very recently, that is basically the way marriage has operated, in varying degrees, even in Catholic countries. It was only with the advent of Protestantism that familial questioning arose. Blame Copernicus for starting any questioning at all.

Marriage will not and cannot ever return to such a pristine state. Even the celebrated Evangelical Right can't control it. Might as well let the whole thing evolve. What with all the new ways to reproduce medically, even gay men will one day get pregnant! Then, watch out.

-- posted by RichardSpeaks

» spiritalk - Gay Civil Rights

In response to Gay Civil Rights posted by RichardSpeaks:

Won't that be the day!!!
:)

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» Migisi - What's Their Real Problem?

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This article deserves a serious read, IMO:
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What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)
The New York Times Magazine, cover story, June 19, 2005
By RUSSELL SHORTO
http://www.russellshorto.com/articles/Wh...
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"At its essence, then, the Christian conservative thinking about gay marriage runs this way. Homosexuality is not an innate, biological condition but a disease in society. Marriage is the healthy root of society. To put the two together is thus willfully to introduce disease to that root. It is society willing self-destruction, which is itself a symptom of a wider societal disease, that of secularism...
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"But, of course, the Christian activists aren't vague in their opposition. For them, the issue isn't one of civil rights, because the term implies something inherent in the individual -- being black, say, or a woman -- and they deny that homosexuality is inherent. It can't be, because that would mean God had created some people who are damned from birth, morally blackened. This really is the inescapable root of the whole issue, the key to understanding those working against gay marriage as well as the engine driving their vehicle in the larger culture war: the commitment, on the part of a growing number of people, to a variety of religious belief that is so thoroughgoing it permeates every facet of life and thought, that rejects the secular, pluralistic grounding of society and that answers all questions internally..."

-- posted by Migisi

» pink101 - What's Their Real Problem?

In response to What's Their Real Problem? posted by Migisi:
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I think that's nothing but bull roar.
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What has happened is that our choices have been narrowed according to the mediataion we get that is put on us.
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How do I mean that?
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Simple. The quality of t-v programming gives us a choice. Our teean agers can watch crap or they can watch religious programming with some rather dry choices choices thrown in that doesn't do much when it comes to entertaining. I happened to catch some halloween comedian on the radio to day while I was driving in my car. Some guy was doing stand up about visiting a medical office where dead bodies were being dissected for some reason or another. He had the audience roaring with some of the most unfunny stuff I've ever heard. Some of the promo ads I've seen on the tube for horrow shows coming up in the next few days are nothing less than obsene. Triple x rated porno wouldn't be as bad in a certain sense.
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What is that doing to the psyche of the teen agers who will soon be running society?
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You have a choice and it's populist religion or its crap and not very much else in between. Do your kids study Shakespeare in high school? Did you? Too dry, right? So what's out there? The three stooges hitting each other over the head with hammers? Or the walking dead with mildew growing on their faces coming at the camera with arms outstretched so as to get you.
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Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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But, what do I know? I'm just an old man.
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-- posted by pink101

» Migisi - What's Their Real Problem?

In response to What's Their Real Problem? posted by pink101:

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I agree that regular TV is mostly crap. But there ~are~ good programs to watch.
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Do your kids study Shakespeare in high school? Did you?
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Yes, and yes. My favorite is the Taming of the Shrew. I rented Romeo and Juliet for my son when he was studying it in school - to help him understand the play. Kids are visual-oriented today.
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Too dry, right?
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Some of the histories are. I mostly enjoy his comedies.
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So what's out there? The three stooges hitting each other over the head with hammers?
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There was a time when I laughed at the Stooges' slapstick - and Abbott and Costello, and Jerry Lewis.
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Or the walking dead with mildew growing on their faces coming at the camera with arms outstretched so as to get you.
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I still enjoy the old classic horror films with Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre... Remember 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'. Talk about dumb, dumb, dumb. Didn't you enjoy those?
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I agree that many of the modern horror movies are nothing more than boring bash-n-slash. And, yes, many of today's comedians aren't funny.
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All this said, what's this got to do with gay civil rights?

-- posted by Migisi