Fed appeals court: Gay marriage ban in California unconstitutional
February 7, 2012 at 6:25 am in Grand Forks Herald
The ruling puts the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court. Continue Reading
This is very good news. This issue must be heard & decided by the Supreme Court. Anything up till then is political theatre.
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Why do people care what is going on inside someone else’s bedroom? We are all entitled to marry so why does it matter if it’s a man or a woman? The same for a person’s work benefits…if you can add a spouse why does the gender matter?
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Because religion still exerts a powerful effect in secular society.
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Thank you for reminding me of why I won’t join a church. I don’t need to pay somebody to tell me what to think or how to judge people.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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You don’t have to join a church. You can’t get into most stores in ND before noon on Sundays. And, if I recall correctly, can’t buy a bottle of booze all day. Religious doctrine enforced by secular government.
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Edit: in Minnesota you can’t buy a bottle booze all day
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completely agree TJ.
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Since when do we change laws based on sexual preference and our constitution? You ever see someone on a motorcycle who starts to get a high speed wiggle? 9 out of 10 times they can’t stop it and it just gets worse until they fly out of control and crash. Certainly keep changing out social structure but just understand, too much change too fast and things may start to, quickly, fall apart. You think things are bad now, economic collapse, inflation, gas supplies, healthcare, the Persian Gulf. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
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Marcus Bachman seen prancing eagerly in anticipation of being able to finally marry his true love.
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The finding was all Prop 8 does is limit the rights of a minority, in violation of the 14th amendment. Why do conservatives, who so love the constitution, hate when it is referenced properly?
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There are economic conservatives and social conservatives. They are not one and the same. Clint Eastwood is an economic conservative but social liberal Most people nowadays would refer to him as a RINO (Republican in Name Only).
The vast majority of the conservative movement would not vote for Regan (their quasi diety) if he ran today. He was not socially “conscious” enough for Palin, Bachman, et. al
This emphasis of the social agenda over the economic agenda is why the Big O is in the White House. The vast majority of Americans are fiscally conservative but socially left of center. If the Republicans continue to look at Santorum instead of Regan, they will never regain the power they enjoyed in the 1980s
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Throughout history marriage has always had a religious and an economic component. The religious component is easy: if you don’t believe in same sex marriage – don’t marry someone of the same sex (thank you Wanda Sykes). If the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, or Muslim traditions do not want to host same sex marriages, they do not have to.
The economic component is a little dicier. For whatever reason we as a country have sought to promote marriage by intertwining it throughout our legal system. I dealt with this extensively during the early days of the AIDS crisis when a person’s lover had to accept the wishes of the patient’s family, even though they were not involved in the person’s life and in many cases had rejected them years ago. Marriage is so bound up with our rights that a person’s spouse can legally override the wishes of a parent when it comes to healthcare. Unfortunately that is not true of an unmarried partner, either same sex or heterosexual.
If a person wishes to establish a legal relationship, with all that it entails, gender should be superfluous. It should be a purely economic transaction between the people involved and the state. Everyone, regardless of who they join with, should have to register that union.
If the couple wish to have the union blessed by their church/synagogue/mosque, that is up to them and should be separate from the legal/economic component.
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This is not a new trend. There were gay gladiators. It was common for Ancient Greeks to have a male lover and a woman for procreation. Now that isn’t how we do things at my house…don’t get the wrong idea here.
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America has always been a Christian Nation. Just look at this reenactment from the signing of the Declaration of Independence:
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/7110/goddamnitz.jpg
Today’s evangelicals would be the first in line holding nails at the feet of the actual, liberal Jesus for his teachings.
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Dont think that Jesus was a liberal. He forgave sin not condoned it. He did not preach that government should set up a welfare system people were forced to send money to. Charity was to be a choice not a tax. He did not preach that the government should control business and spend vast sums of money it did not have. He did not preach that we should murder our unborn children.
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You are 7/8 correct Glen. Jesus was definitely not a liberal. Where modern talking heads like Santorum screw up is he was most decidedly not a Republican either.
Jesus would not have understood or condone a social welfare state. If you were a Catholic in the 1960s He would not have preached or participated in a Liberation Theology.
Jesus would approach many of our insular- you must look like us, dress like us, & believe like us – modern churches the way He did the money changers in the temple: a whole lot of preachers & congregations would be in for a whipping.
Jesus did not tell the government to take care of the poor; he told the church to do that. He did not tell the government to educate the children, He told the family to do that.
Most importantly,& here is the part Falwell, Robertson, & Santorum hate; he did not tell his believers to try & regulate morality via secular law. He instructed His people to address the problems of the world 1:1, via personal relationships.
There is nothing going on today that was not happening then. Abortion, homosexuality, infanticide, substance abuse, & sex slavery were all alivev& well during His time. He would recognize our headlines as readily as those from His day.
Christ did not tell His people to legislate morality. In fact, if Jesus paid attention to the government at all it was with a type of benign neglect. Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s & give unto God that which is His.
Christ did not have any faith in the ability of government to transform man. He knew only He could do that.
The government was impotent then & it is impotent now. Nothing has changed.
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Jesus didn’t come to make laws and, in fact said, to obey the laws of the state. He also said we, orthodox believers (true mature Christians) are not of this world. We live in it but we must expect to suffer because of who we are. We also aren’t living in the Old Testament times (under the Law) but instead have come under the Gospel (good news). We are to be accepting and if the law of the land is same sex marriage, it becomes our secular law to respect it. We may not approve of it but Jesus didn’t come to rule on secular earth.
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Exactly correct Skate. Jesus instructed believers to go & make disciples of all men. In doing so 90% of the problems we bemoan would be solved.
He never once said to try & force people to believe. The Spanish Inquisition never met with His approval. In fact I would suggest He took a very dim view of those who committed atrocities in His name.
Christ knew the only way to change people was through relationships. He rejects a Christian’s attempts at Sharia Law as surely as He does the Muslim version.
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You guys are all assuming that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels were all actually said by him. Kind of a stretch. The Gospels were all written 4-6 decades after Jessus supposedly lived. All the extant manuscripts date from centuries later, and show that a huge amount of manipulation (deletions, additions) took place. The earliest story of the woman taken in adultery in John, isn’t until the 10th century. Plus your stuck with translations of the original Greek. Not to mention that the final New Testament canon wasn’t decided until the 5th century, and then by men.
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tj says:
“I don’t need to pay somebody to tell me what to think or how to judge people.”
No, the NCAA and Obama administration will do it for free.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Always: why must you interrupt serious conversations with your drivel? Are you really so ignorant you cannot come up with one single intelligent remark that is on topic & advances the discussion?
I rebuke your continued efforts to draw attention to yourself.
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Define “soul.”
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Soul in respect to a nation means united in common beliefs. Otherwise you are held together my force such as the old USSR. They were a empire held together by state police and military.
A strong common belief in America had been religious beliefs and conviction. We have no common beliefs in this country. We are fragmented. Votes in our election cycles, nationally, are 50% 50%.
I see my mention of Christianity means my remarks are to be disapproved of. You’ve apparently misunderstood them. I say lift the social restraints in government. Religion has no business trying to control government. However, please don’t complain decades from now if things become very loose.
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Actually, the churchgoing nation died around the time of the Salem Witch Trials.
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If you say so
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Soul = James Brown
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and I’m superbad!
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“The World is my country, all man and women are my brothers and sisters, and to do good is my religion.”
Thomas Paine
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I like that….that pretty much sums up how I feel.
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Well, Thomas Paine was a pretty smart individual.
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Did Thomas paine consider slaves “man?”
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3/5 man perhaps?
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Not all churches are opposed to same gender marriage.
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The Evangelical wing is pretty much universally opposed, but they do not represent even the majority of Christians. They are many Christian who have a more nuance view of things.
The biblical witness is not nearly as monolithic as evangelicals present. To select verses from the Apostle Paul without presenting the prevailing social context, is not a valid theological argument. It is proof texting, selecting verses that support your predetermined point of view.
There are reasons Paul wrote what he wrote that have nothing to do with current understanding of sexual identity. I could argue in detail but it would be lost here.
As for the Old testament texts usually cited, they are all from the Priestly code written for a people set apart. They fit in the same category as the requirement for women not to wear pants, the abomination of of expelling semen outside the woman’s body, the abomination of eating shell fish, and the defilement of eating pork, and touching a dead body.
These were rule to set apart the people of Israel.
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Good point.
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Mark: well said. I agree to a point. I completely agree that the commandments & laws you cite are for a people set apart. I would just add that by definition Christians are a people removed. They ARE to live, act, & believe differently than those around them.
Earlier I said God opposes coerced belief. I argued that He is opposed to Sharia Law; either Muslim or Christian. I still believe it & have several Biblical references to support it.
Did I get all those thumbs down because people think God is into force d worship or because I used the word Sharia in a Christian context?
God has rules that His people must follow. If you belong to Him, you are obligated. If you don’t, don’t bother.
Secular law is different. They can & do coerce you.
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Politicians have used religion and religious issues to get elected and get donated money. Roe V Wade will never be struck down. Gay marriage will be constitutionally sanctioned by the Supreme Court, as a national standard, within the next few years. And politicians will try to make hay out of it (money and political power).
To conservatives Gingrich is a poor symbol of a Christian and Romney, as a Mormon, isn’t a Christian. Yet each are trying to claim the mantle of Christianity. Because they want us to believe that the citizens still want that. Look at the red dislikes on this board. Mention Christianity and you reject it.
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Mormon’s aren’t christians?
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Mormons are not Christians. Yes. You are correct. They aren’t.
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It was a question not a statement. Please explain.
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The Bible is a book of faith, yes. And it’s a book of history. But it’s also contains a theological book of legal definitions. Christ is, in the Bible, true God and true man. Only through Him was the Old Testament Law fulfilled. The Mormons refuse to recognize Jesus as God and man. Furthermore they have perverted His legacy.
Romney would be wise not to refer to himself as a Christian (and I don’t think he has). To do so would bring the wrath of Christians and almost certainly, would make him unelectable.
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No where in the bible does jesus refer to himself as god always as the son. Maybe the mormons are right and you aren’t a true orthodox christian as you like to call it.
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god, Jesus, Mormons? Actually while the Bible has stayed the same the Book of Mormon has changed repeatedly or I should say the new affirmations put down by their leadership. And now the Mormons call themselves Latter Day Saints. But they still baptize the dead. That’s why they have the largest genealogy database in the world, so as to baptize the dead. Where in the Bible does it say to baptize the dead shanko?
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The bible has changed numerous times throughout history also. You are dodging the question. If the basis of christianity is the belief in christ them morons would be christian. You conveniently left out the first part of the latter day saints(the church of jesus christ). I don’t know much which really means I know nothing of the mormon religion but all sects have different practices and beliefs. Christening is not found in the bible, does that make catholics not christians?
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Joseph Smith was about as phony as they came back in his day. Also up until the late 1970′s African Americans weren’t fully accepted by the Mormons. That will all be brought out by the Democrats come October.
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Joseph Smith IMO was the Harold Camping of his time.
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?
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A nut job.
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Lots of people didn’t accept us until 1970′s and still many don’t.
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So was Saul of Tarsus. But he managed to convince people he was right based only on his say-so.
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One of the most misunderstood portions of the Bible is the command to judge not lest you be judged.
God is not telling people not to approve or disapprove other people’s behavior, He is telling people to get your own house in order before worrying about anyone else’s. Ye who is without sin cast the first stone.
Since all men have sinned & fallen short of the Glory of God, those who make a career out of telling everyone else how to live their lives are just setting themselves up for a fall. Just as many Christians get divorced, use drugs, drink to excess, beat their wives & children, have affairs, & sleep with members of the same sex as the society at large.
I distrust social conservatives because rather than paying attention to the plank in our own eye, we are fixated with the speck in other people’s eyes. God wanted His people to lead by example, to be a city on a hill; unfortunately in this regard we fail more often than not.
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You’re walking a slippery slope. Since God created man, he also created his sinful nature. So he punishes him for the very thing he made him. But, that’s Pauline theology. Once it was declared orthodoxy, Christians were stuck with it.
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I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mohandas Gandhi
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Now if only we could get the U.S. Supreme Court to interpret the constitution as it is written instead of how it might effect political powers…Nice to see we still have some higher courts that take the constitution to heart in all their decisions…
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Here’s my take on what Christian conservatives are nervous about. If and probably when the supreme court legalizes marriage as a bond between a person and who they want, then the next step is you can’t discriminate against anyone if they want to be married. Henceforth, the Evangelical churches will have to make a decision.
1. Do we marry every gay couple that walks through the door (even though they consider it a sin) so we can continue to marry hetro couples in the church as a union between a couple and God.
2. Do we make the decision to tell everyone there will be no marriages in the church whatsoever being the supreme court says it would be discrimination to tell a gay couple, “We can’t marry you because your beliefs don’t align with our interpretation of scripture.”
Someone once told me that the reason there is very few marriages done in the church in Europe is because of this. Probably just as much to do with a high percentage of unbelieving people.
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The government isn’t supposed to dictate what religious denominations must do. Therefore unless the Christian church is accused of a hate crime for refusing to marry gay couples, they should be free to follow their religious practices.
I’ve known a fair amount of gay persons in my life. They are just like anyone else and certainly nice people. The argument to preserve marriage or restrict it, is to keep what stable social order we still have left. As you remove more and more of the foundational stonework, cracks and splinters start to emerge. I hope everyone is ready for this blessed new age?
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That’s my point Skate, someone will say the church is violating my rights to a church wedding if they are willing to marry my brother and his girlfriend but not me and my gay friend, when the law of the land is that gays have a right to marry.
Second of all, it will depend how the supreme court would make the ruling, because there is always a person in the USA willing to find a loophole in every law. Someone will sue for the right to marry an animal.. Now everyone is saying I’m off my rocker, but with 312 million people in the USA, someone will feel compelled to make a point. When you change the legalized definition of a word, it is easier and easier to change it. The supreme court would ultimately have to make the decision if someone has the legal right to marry an animal. (I would hope that would lose) But someone will feel obligated to challenge it.
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“when the law of the land is that gays have a right to marry.”
More than Religious leaders have the ability to marry. Ship Captains can marry a couple, Judges can. I support the right of any couple to get married, but understand this I do not support a perceived right of same sex couples to get married in a church. You are not being denied a right to obtain your marriage, and the religious doctrines will not allow for two men or two women to get married. In my personal beliefs it is a fine distinct line that I tread.
If the day would come that groups would start harassing churches to marry same sex couples, you will see me standing on those steps defending their rights.
I believe in equal rights under the law, and those rights would be met with your ability to get married. Churches are private clubs where you have to subscribe to their belief systems to belong, and in that I support their right to do so.
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You put it in a logical perspective I hadn’t thought about, and I’m guessing a lot of people probably haven’t thought about. That makes sense. I guess I wouldn’t be too concerned about particular religions not wanting to be forced to perform gay marriages if they feel it really goes against their belief. However; That shouldn’t be the deciding factor to ban all gay weddings in places and/or religions that do allow such a thing.
Hell…..I was watching Larry The Cable Guy with the famouse Naked Cowboy in NY (He actually is just down to his skivvies and holds a big guitar if you’ve never heard of him), and the Naked Cowboy performed a sidewalk wedding right there in NY…..Anyone can become an ordained minister for under $50…..Once you have the paper you can legally wed people in most areas….Or at least it used to be that way. So if allowed I’m sure they’ll have plenty of ways to find someone to marry them
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Your point on ordination is salient. Because the government cannot get involved in religious politics, they cannot say who is, or who is not a man/woman of the cloth.
They do not get involved in ordination. They simply register those who say they are ordained
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Did I sound like I knew what I was talking about when I mentioned they somehow were ordained? That’s one of those sausage issues to me…Hell if I know what’s in there…
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Now I get it….You and your fancy diction…I thought it meant something else….Not nice to fool a dumb old trucker…
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There are a lot of people who think along those same lines DB, but you are wrong. The 1st amendment protects the churches. I cannot be married in a catholic church unless they say so. Same with any other denomination. I cannot get married in a synagogue just because I like the decor; I have to meet whatever stipulations the Rabi imposes.
The Supreme Court has held up the sanctity of the church on several occasions. Religious schools cannot be compelled to hire staff who do not share their beliefs, no matter how qualified they are.
Remember: the 1st amendment protects churches from the government, it does not protect people from religion.
As I said above, if my baptist church does not want to marry same sex couples, they don’t have to. What this does is say the government has to recognize them.
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Where do you find the Devil on Sunday morning? Right there in church sitting with everyone else. There’s a lot of baby Christians who wouldn’t even know it if he sat next to him. The Christian church is being destroyed from within.
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People don’t believe in the devil honey. They also don’t like people who mention him. America also doesn’t believe in hell.
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I’m amazed that in the 21st century this supernatural mythology is still believed. The devil is nothing more than the personification of evil. Hell is one half of the carrot-and-stick proposal Christians are given.
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Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to come to grips with why every time there’s something brought up about samesex marriage, there always has to be this big theological back and forth.
Why not just play it as it lays?
I really could care less what anyone’s conception of what Jesus would think about the issue is. Or Mohammed’s or any other diety.
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Bac: the only reason there is any discussion at all over the issue is because of theology. If all the monotheistic religions were not opposed, it would be legal.
No matter what people say, church is not very separate from state. Most of our laws have some basis in religion because Western culture is based on Judeo/Christian beliefs.
Africa looks much different than we do legally because they do not come from the same background. Same with the middle east & Indonesia. Different laws because they come from a different cultural background.
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I raised the theological not to judge gay marriage. In fact I believe I said this is man’s world, not God’s world. Therefore allow men (mankind, humanity) the freedoms to do as they please under law. Christians are followers. In peace we let you have secular freedoms and in turn , you allow us our religious freedoms. Isn’t that fair? Live and let live. Can you live with that?
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Skate: I am a Bible thumping believer. That is how I roll. Politically I am a Liberterian. I do not believe the government should be involved in much more than keeping us safe & keeping the roads & other infrastructure in shape.
I am vehemently opposed to school prayer – if Romney is elected will we be reading from the Book of Mormon before class? I am for the legalization of marijuana, & I explained my views on marriage above.
I do not believe God wants me to try & make this world good. I believe He wants to change me, & that will make the world better. You cannot legislate morality anymore than you can legislate common sense.
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Flying Nurse you strike me as someone who sees life in absolutes and black and white. I know you’re deny that but your collections of detailed writings hint at this. Life has many gray areas to it and not always so clear cut.
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Personally you are correct Rich guy. I am pretty black and white. Socially and politically I am anything but. I am Libertarian because I believe in personal choice and personal responsibility. I am also very practical. I am for the decriminalization of marijuana because it is not a gateway drug (that myth has been debunked, but it still surfaces every election year, just very few people in the treatment community believe it), 85% of the border violence can be traced back to it, and the war on drugs has been a huge failure (as we have discussed in the past, as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply). I am also against the prohibition of alcohol: the most dangerous and costly drug in the United States in terms of shear damage; bar none.
That said, I am for self responsibility. Do not drink for 30 years then ask me to pay for your transplant. Do not smoke for 30 years then expect me to feel sorry for your when your life is miserable and you don’t have the energy or wind to get up and go to the bathroom so you urinate on yourself.
I am very hard core when it comes to that; you are correct, very black and white.
I only get angry when people want it both ways: they want the freedom to choose, they just don’t want the consequences of their choices.
I explained above my feelings on marriage. It is two parts: religious and secular. The religious part is between the people involved and God through their church/mosque/synagogue. The secular part is the people involved and the state, and the state should not care what you look like naked.
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Well being a Bible thumping believer doesn’t mean much anymore in that even within single church denominations they can’t agree on what their doctrine is. Used to be if I said to someone that if we use the Bible as our basis for understanding then we shouldn’t be in disagreement.
But what would Jesus do? Non Christians love that line as in Jesus said, anything goes since you are poor, fallible human beings. Restraint, discipline, aren’t something this advanced American society wants to adhere to thus why it’s in such a state of collapse economically.
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I’m all for people in this country being free to make choices in thier lives. You know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness. I like this decision because it allows people freedom of choice and takes away the ability of some to tell people how they must live. To me this is simply an issue that conservative politicians like to keep alive to energize the base during election time.
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“I’m all for people in this country being free to make choices in thier lives…takes away the ability of some to tell people how they must live.”
Well good for you. More power to you. As long as I’ve got people and they’ve got guns to protect me from those who want to do whatever, good! Tear yourselves apart. When people do what they want the question becomes, where is the bottom? Where is the stopping point? Each new freedom negatively affects someone else. That’s how society breaks down.
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If cuddling up with all of your guns gives you a sense of security against those big, old, threatening gay people that is your American freedom to do so as you pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness. I’m not worried myself and have better things to do. I’m a little worried however about all you angry people who have all those guns. You’re more likley to screw up and hurt inocent people than any gay person.
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My comment wasn’t about gay freedom or lack thereof. It was about the blanket statement that everyone should be allowed to do as they like. Some would call that chaos. Certainly gay people who by the way are usually of a higher social class and earned income, aren’t going to be a problem for any of us. Freedom gone hog wild usually ends badly for the underclass. Not the wealthy. How many rich guys do you see living on the poor side of town?
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Oh! I’m not angry why should I be? I understand the bigger picture. I’ll be alright no matter what happens.
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I would imagine your castle has a moat around it and you have your own dragon.
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If gays and lesbians want to get married there is nothing stopping them. there is no shortage of pastors, it seems, that are willing to perform the ceremony. If it was all about love for each other that is all that would be required. The bottom line is that they want to force the rest of us to accept it as a legitimate and equal entity.
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So, ‘ken’, why don’t you tell us what you think is wrong with that? “Force” you? Do you really think they care what YOU believe? Or are willing to accept?
Could be this is just one more thing that’s really NONE of your business.
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So you’re saying that my point of view is of no consequence and I have no right to an opinion. Sorry you’re out of luck on that one. It is my business whether you like it or not. I have contempt for your opinion on this no less than you do of mine.
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Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Unless you have a stake in the game, (do you?), your opinion is so much smoke in the wind.
And if you have ‘contempt’ for my opinion, well, that just makes my day.
Why is it that the loudest shouters against equality for gays are the same people who are still in the closet?
Idaho.
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Those against gays now will look just like the pro slavery bigots of years ago. Of course once all the dust has settled they will say otherwise in their typical hypocritical fashion.
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So many people are fighting to get out of bad marriages at the same time this goes on….some want in and most want out….
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