Blogger Steve writes:
Oh boy! Prop 8 in Cali got overturned. I imagine most judiciaries will follow suit and laws against Gay marriage will begin to fall like dominoes. The judges language in the ruling is perfect and logically spells out the separation between church and state in legislative issues.
The arc of history is constantly shifting toward more and more inclusiveness and tolerance. Each passing generation is more accepting of others than the previous generation. I think we are on the edge of a new enlightenment. The world is worn out from war and hostility and hate. I think that we will still suffer more paroxysms of violence to be sure; Isreal is about to attack Lebanon again and will probably use that attack as a smoke screen to go after Iran and Syria. But the world is growing tired of armed conflict to resolve issues. What does the bible say about "wars and rumors of war" in the last days? But if you look at statistics.. the number and amount of heated armed conflict is steadily declining, victims of political violence is declining. One of the reasons for this steady decline - in my oppinion - is the empowerment of women around the world. The more women are empowered politically, the better the world will be. So who are the holdouts that are stopping the empowerment of women? Religions.. Specifically Christianity and Islam. Nobody should be treated a 2nd class citizen based on their race, gender, or what they do in private.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The number and amount of heated armed conflict is [sic] steadily declining, victims of political violence is [sic] declining."
HUH? I wonder about your so-called stats! Aren't you the bright-eyed optimist!! An American Christian mission team was in a restaurant in Uganda recently and Muslims happened to target it (not them but the general population) for bombing --76 dead but the mission team sustained injuries only--as body parts flew through the air.
One could go on and on and list the terrorist and other actions around the world which don't indicate we are becoming more civilized. Yes, women having respect and rights would help the cause of world peace because democracy brings such equality AND peace. However, Christianity is woman's friend, not foe. Democracy has thrived in our culturally Judeo-Christian nation. It is in Christian nations where women have the most freedom and opportunity.
I don't think women fare at all well under Communism, do you? with forced abortions, e.g. I read recently of a Chinese woman who tried desperately to escape abortion, without success. What carnage! What creepy totalitarianism is that!! Personally, I prefer America's freedom that came from its Christian faith --where children were valued and women were protected in divorce and custody situations, where adulterating husbands paid more than now for destroying their marriages. Where women were not expected to protect men from marriage, paternity and child support with abortion, where men were the primary bread-winners able to let the women stay home looking after children and house --or work if they wished, not because they had to.
So, I don't know what rose-colored glasses you are wearing, Steve --that you should see a coming utopia free of Christianity's moral and decency standards in the law in some misbegotten liberal opinion of church-state separation. Our moral standards come from religion --or atheistic ideology. Somebody's philosophical ideals inevitably must prevail in the law--I'll take the Christian ideals anyday.
I just read the Am. Family Practice News magazine or Journal of AFP --and noticed the diseases more common to MSWM (men who have sex with men) than anyone else --and to black youth who have 40% more of a type of STD, especially from bisexuality and down low activities. We can't seem to keep ahead of the flesh-eating bacteria which are on the increase and most prevalent in the gay population--and like HIV, spreading to others, particularly in hospitals.
So celebrate your coming utopia where your own children will be taught in school and media and even by you to feel just as free to explore same sex behavior with all its attendant risks, addiction, heartbreak, frequent promiscuity and broken relationships and childlessness --in order to find out if their self-perceived "difference" from peers (youth ALL feel odd and out of it at various times in development) that makes them odd or unpopular, might just be homosexual preference. There's a pop song out now about a girl kissing a girl and liking it. That's supposed to mean she's homosexual, no doubt. When in fact, it just means that lips on lips can feel good --barring bad smells and sloppiness that a clumsy, pimply-face, adolescent, first boyfriend (or girlfriend) might bring to the experience.
We're setting ourselves up for "the gaying of America." And in the long run, I predict you will rue the day and say, "Barb, you were right!!" when your kids announce their bisexual or homosexual experiences and proclivities. MARK MY WORDS. This is one time that I truly hope I am wrong!! The new rebellion against parental authority and society will become gay experimentation, as parents don't go along with the new official encouragement of gay marriage.
As for the courts --don't be so sure. This one is headed for the Supreme Court if democracy and the right of appeal are still alive in America. But of course, the liberals outnumber us on the court --though not yet in the country. We had better get a series of decent, God-fearing, principle-following presidents to appoint such justices after Obama --or "Gov't Of, By and For the people" will become, instead, "Gov't Of, By and For the Liberal Judges."
As for your privacy right --there is no such right as a right to do whatever you darn well please in private. After all, pedophilia and rape are carried out in private, along with most other crimes. A right to privacy was the twisted logic that produced abortion on demand in America --of which we can never be proud. "Privacy right" was also used to legalize sodomy behind closed doors between consenting adults, which I agreed with only because I don't want the police to barge in on same-sex adults, suspecting they are doing Back Door Boogie and Blow Jobs when they are just sharing expenses? I don't want to hear about their doings, except for educational info necessary to realize we should protect our kids from this mindset with its high-risk behaviors.
YOu are going to be amazed, Steve, if gay marriage is legalized, how fast the following will become legal: polygamy, close relatives petitioning to marry if they are willing to be sterilized or have any defective kids aborted, eccentric ladies marrying their pets, step-fathers marrying step-kids when they turn 18 --and ultimately, lowering the age of consent. All will follow gay marriage. All will be demanding perks for their various kinds of partners --like housing and spousal benefits in the military as Britain and other allied nations provide. Yet, we already have too much social expense due to divorcing heteros. Gay relationships are even more unstable and adulterous than hetero relationships. (On average, their couplings last 2 years, I read somewhere.) Gay spouses REALLY have no right to demand the financial benefits which heterosexual spouses get because of the obvious value to our national survival and health of procreating couples making and raising children.
Do you really want the gov't and business to pay for the maintenance, insurance, support and pensions of gay men and other same sex partners who can give us no children --same as for wives and mothers of children who deserve the perks for their labor and maintenance of homes for their spouse and kids whom they diligently and most healthfully raise with both mom and dad in the home? Just so these "couples" can give each other orgasms that are normally a part of potentially procreative/intimate male/female relationships? For which we are all designed --even the gays are designed for heterosexual intimacy and procreation.
That's just too much diversity for me to start paying for Adam and Steve to copulate anally and orally in the military --same as for Adam and Eve, father and mother of the future.
Yes, the constitution gives us all the same rights. But show me the right to homosexuality in the constitution.
Marriage is the union of a man and a woman and homosexual men and women may enter that kind of relationship if they wish --and it will be better for them and better for all of society, for any children they conceive (and they do), for any hetero spouse they marry, if they take advantage of their constitutional right to find a spouse of the opposite sex and found a family with her --or him in case of a lady --and remain faithful. In fact, if they remain virginal before marriage and NEVER start into homosexual relations, I predict they'll not likely see themselves as homosexual.
The Constitution neither explicitly nor implicitly, legitimates adultery, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, polygamy/bigamy/polyandry, transgendering, rape or homosexual behaviors and gay marriage.
There are universal moral laws beyond our Constitution --and some man-made laws derived from our constitution, which govern our sexuality and our sexual relationships. Homosexuality involves abnormal ways to copulate--which have proven to be highly risky to the participants and harmful to public health. We spend a lot of money trying to cure and manage STD's and promote condoms and gay "marriage" without addressing the actual problem --the abnormal, promiscuous, risky, homosexual activities themselves.
The "right to privacy" is limited in what it can legalize. Most of us know that privacy does NOT mean doing whatever we please between consenting adults in private --including abortion--and other crimes done in private. (Yes, I know about Roe vs. Wade --judicial activism legitimizing the killing of our children against the vote of the people and the laws of the states. )
The Bible talks about "unjust judges" and we've got them. They may give us gay marriage eventually as they gave us abortion (by a vote of 5 to 4?) --but it will never be moral or right or safe or monogamous or accepted by the masses. (At least I hope it won't --for that will be the beginning of the end when all the people are swinging both ways.)
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible