Read about another crazy judicial decision in most every newspaper --like this one sent to me in Mudrake's recently deleted (by him) post on my blog.
The Westboro Church and any other group should be denied the right to harrass people and demonstrate negatively at funerals. If people want to stand outside with signs honoring the dead and bearing flowers, that should be legal. But this is an example of hate speech I would not condone --which I think the country should not condone --at funerals --anyone's funeral. Would we let political dissenters cause a ruckus at the funeral of an assassinated president, I wonder? Should our courts defend that? I think not.
Just as we say it is not constitutionally interpreted as legal to yell "fire" in a crowded room where there is no fire, we should make negative funeral demonstrations illegal anywhere near the funeral route and sites. But people through all other forms of MEDIA should be able to teach and preach and in casual conversation say that the only sexual intimacy that is NOT sin, according to the BIble, is that between a man and his wife. All other sexual intercourse/intimacy is sinful and counter to God's plan for our bodies. They should be able to blame American deaths on America's sinfulness if that's their view [it is not mine] --but not near the funeral or the grave site.
As for the money ordered as a fine to be paid to the Westboro Church, I dare say it will all go to the lawyers who took their case.
It IS time we kicked more lawyers out of gov't --even the courts --and sent some ethical citizens with common sense. Interestingly, you do not have to be an attorney, by law, to be a judge, as I understand it.
As for the rationale of the WB church, besides their horrid manners, lack of common sense, lack of compassion, and lack of Christian love for sinners and grieving people and our war dead-- they are referring to the OT's description of homosexual conduct as an "abomination" --something God hates. They are referencing Paul's writing where he says homosexual acts are punishable by death ("They receive the recompense for their acts in their own bodies,") and that those who APPROVE homosexuality (like the USA leadership --and thus our military ultimately) deserve death also. They are saying God's hand of protection is not with our nation because of our tolerance, approval, and promotion of homosexuality.
I DO think God may allow certain events into national life to remind us that we NEED HIS protection--that we NEED to acknowledge Him so He can direct our paths into paths of "righteousness," instead of into destruction.
But this country does not overall YET approve homosexual acts. The majority of us have voted to uphold the Biblical and traditional definition of marriage --between a man and wife -- and most of the military knows how inappropriate it is to house out-of-the-closet gays with straights --just as inappropriate as to house heteros together. It makes for a sex-focused climate in bathroom, barracks, and fox holes --where there should be none of that.
But, the fact is, all sin (sexual and non-sexual, homosexual and heterosexual) and approval of sin are punishable by death already, not at society's hands, but by the fact that WE ARE ALL MORTALS WHO ALL DIE FOR ALL SIN. That was the Adamic curse for mankind's sinfulness. But the Bible says, thanks to events celebrated on Good Friday and Easter, "we shall all be made alive" --if we confess our sinful need for the Savior and believe in Christ as that Savior.
The Westboro B Church would have a Christian message if they bore signs at Christian funerals that said, "Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?" In Christ Jesus we have hope that all can be saved because all the sins are paid for.
We just need to look up above our muck and receive the "Celestial Crown" --a "Crown of Life" which our Heavenly Father offers us.
Westboro Baptist Church does seem to be focusing on the muck instead of the Crown of Life offered to all of us, homosexuals and straights, who will repent of sin and receive the Crown.
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26 comments:
One of the funny things about WBC is that Duetoronomy also condemns a bunch of other stuff to death. Like eating shrimp. If your kid talks back, you kill the kid, ect.. So a lot of funny websites have sprung up mocking WBC like "Godhatesshrimp.com" They protest at places like Long John Silvers and Red Lobster. Hahahaha!
I wrote WBC on their web site and told them that since God hates pretty much everything, according to them, they should be pro abortion. At least that way you nip the filthy hell bound sinner in the bud, doing God a favor.
You focus on the incomprehensible aspects of rabbinical law --the purity laws. I have said that perhaps God's purpose was to explain what purity meant --don't shrimp forage from the scum at the bottom of the sea? Perhaps shellfish allergy killed some of Abraham's descendents, such that it was best for all to stay away from them? Mixing fabrics sometimes made fabrics weaker (like mixing old with new) --and mixing seeds in the ground made it difficult to harvest --creating an extra step for separating the grains. I'm just guessing that if every law in the O.T. has a godly purpose, and came from him, He is trying to cultivate a people who understand the word "purity" and the value of "law" ---and being obedient to law - for our own good.
But we don't see the OT revelation as wholly applicable today --or Jesus would not have had to teach. He brings clarity and common sense --and liberated people from Jewish legalism.
But the sexual morals still stand and are entirely defensible. Does it matter to you if your mother would decide she wanted to live and hanky panky with a girlfriend --or your father with a guy? or each of them with other hetero persons? adultery?
would if matter to you if your son went to camp --or the army --and the guys engaged in gay activities, introducing your son to orgasm with people of his own sex?
The Bible says God hates that sort of behavior--just as I'm betting you would, Steve.
Peter's vision cleared the shrimp for consumption--and the pork, etc.
As for abortion, of course it's murder of innocent human life --cannot be condoned by Bible-believers. As the rudeness of WBC is also indefensible.
I read an interesting article in the NY times. The article highlights new research that shows that homosexuality is widespread among many animal species. Since animals don't have the ability to make rational choices, they are guided by instinct so...
So I decided to write WBC again and suggest that they picket zoos because God hates these filthy fag animals and they need to repent as well.
The instinct is to pursue orgasm any way one can--hence a dog will hump your leg. I don't think we find that homosexual PREFERENCE among animals is all that "widespread" as the media propagandists would claim--there is also an instinct to procreate, after all.
But we are not to live like animals, are we? We are MORAL creatures who are rightly taught (civilized) to avoid indulging our most base instincts to perverse ways of getting "off". I think we can help kids to grow up straight AND moral --through good parenting and religious instruction. If we waffle about the basics, our kids will also.
Even when I was a enthusiasticly evangelical, I never really bought the old testiment and have never liked it, or the God represented by the old testiment.
>>"Perhaps shellfish allergy killed some of Abraham's descendents, such that it was best for all to stay away from them?"
For me, that's the whole deal with the old testiment. It was an informal record of a very primitive people reacting to their environment. That's why thay had all these crazy laws because daily existence, I'm sure, was a life or death struggle. They could not tolerate any social and religious incohesiveness. We just talked about the OT in my ethics class last night. The jews of Duetoronomy were actually progressives for their day. They inhabited an area with neighbors that still conducted human sacrifice, still had harvest orgies where slaves and children were killed and all sorts of deboucheries were conducted. The tribal Jews were attempting to rise above that by creating a progressive civilization. But we, looking back, have progressed a thousand times more than they have. They got the ball rolling.
Maybe homosexuality brought on different blood borne diseases that they couldn't explain, or couldn't accomodate in such a close knit struggling society.
We brought this up in class because there is a catholic council of women that my teacher belongs to and I guess the Cardinals or some church council is really making an effort to disband this council of women because they believe in ministering to the homosexual community - and a bunch of other progressive ideas I can't remember that has upset the Catholic hierachy. And so, since the Catholic church gets their stance on homosexuality from the same sources, she was trying to show how Duetoronoy was a natural set of laws for that period of time in dealing with internal and external threats to the wandering tribes.
But of course I would be upset if my parents did any of those things. But me being upset, should not infringe on their right to live life as they see fit. Why are you trying to always take away peoples freedom? We need a "Braveheart" to stand up and say - they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!
The problem with banning these hate-filled people from funerals or anything else is the first amendment. They have freedom of speech.
They also have the freedom to "peacefully assemble" and that's where the law should stand on this issue.
They do not peacefully assemble, but scream hate and hold signs of hate, as do their children.
There were a lot of Viet Nam era vets who rode motorcycles and stood between these haters and the families to protect the families of the fallen.
At one point the hate group was told they had to stand a certain distance away.
The interesting thing about this ruling is it was only two pages long and did not state the basis for overturning the previous verdict.
I pray the Supreme Court will overturn this ruling and re-instate the original ruling.
These people are actually a group of lawyers all related to one another, but I understand they do have the 11 million. I hope they go broke from it.
You know, much of the religious concepts concerning things such as abortion, homosexuality, marriage relations, come from the Catholic concept of "Natural Law" that was formalized by Thomas Acquinas. It started out as the idea that women had no role in reproduction other than housing the baby. When men had sex with a woman, he transfered a "little man, or little woman" into the mother. There's a term for the "little man", but I can't remember it. So anything that interfered with the efficacy of this "little man" was a murder because once you let the little man lose, he died unless he made his way into a womb to grow. It sounds ridiculous, but that is where we get most of our moral sexual laws! Masturbation, or "letting your seed drop on the ground" was punishable by death because it was viewed as murder. Same for homosexuality.. Obviously the little man couldn't grow inside another man. Since protastantism is basically a branch off of the Catholic church initiated by Martin Luther, that is where all churches get their underpinnings for sexual morality. It's interesting how the concept of natural law has changed over the centuries. For the longest time, it was a means to ensure patriarchy - women were just housing and a growth chamber for the "seed". But now, reproductive ethics, as far as Catholicism is concerned, has evolved from Natural Law into the more modern ideas of Human dignity and Sacradeness of Life. And so the arguements are no longer about "protecting the seed", but stopping the tide of the constant efforts at trivializing and debasing human life - which is a more nobel way to look at things. But it's also interesting that when discussing homosexuality, the Catholic church reverts back to Natural Law.. just like you did with your arguements against "It's unnatural". And the point I was trying to make with the animal research is that apperently in rare instances, homosexuality is a common occurance in nature. If you remove one brick out of the foundation of Natural law, then natural law cannot stand.
Maybe homosexuality brought on different blood borne diseases that they couldn't explain, or couldn't accomodate in such a close knit struggling society.
Well, DUH!!! STEVE!! That is what it does. Think a little. If that were the case, would it not also suggest that GOD didn't want us to have anal sex? (and maybe not oral sex, due to our bad teeth carrying the blood borne diseases that anal sex is prone to?) We are not designed for homosex and that's what's wrong with it --and it harms us.
It's not inconceivable to me that God used even Rabbinical laws --like the ones against cross-dressing and sex with close relatives --to warn His covenanted people against harmful, counter-productive acts.
Sins can just displease a holy God --as in homosexuality going against his procreation plan for our bodies --or sins can also be things displeasing to Him just because they are HARMFUL to us!
Sin is definitely harmful: "the wages of sin is death --but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
I agree with you that the Old Testament image of God is scary --but the New Testament Jesus is the clearer picture--and He said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." "I and the Father are ONe."
We needed the clearer Word. And yet Paul says "we see through a glass darkly--but some day we'll see face to face"
So there are things in the OT that may be more cultural than relevant for today --but the design plan of one man for one woman in covenanted relationship --still stands as the best arrangement for health and happiness for adults and their children. It is God's design and the only arrangement for procreation for human beings. Any other way of seeking pleasure is a counterfeit for the REAL thing which God designed. And thus, sin, appropriately forbidden in both testaments.
Steve: "it's also interesting that when discussing homosexuality, the Catholic church reverts back to Natural Law.. just like you did with your arguements (sic) against "It's unnatural".
I take it since you are an ex-evangelical then you think sexual immorality is fine with you. Or am I mistaken?
Are you married? Is it OK with you if your wife has sex with other women or other men? Or would you have a problem with that and possibly divorce her?
Does she think it's fine if you have sex with another man or another woman or would she think it was grounds for divorce?
I think you've been hanging around with the atheists at Mudrake's blog too long. Maybe you need to leave their "world of delusion" and enter into what your heart tells you even if your head is trying to tell you something different.
And, Barb, a dog humping someone's leg is usually a sign of dominance and not sexual. My female dog who is spayed has done that to me once or twice. All you do is give the "Uh-uh" command and she stops.
The WBC is a good example of what happens when you focus too much on a single subject like homosexuality. This should act as a warning to others.
I very seldom talk of homosexuality and that's why my comments here have become few and far apart.
I was merely asking Steve if he is so liberal in his Christian thinking now that he would think it was OK for his wife to have sex with someone else of either gender or if it would be OK with her if he had sex with someone else of either gender.
Of course, I would expect his answer to be a resounding "No!", which would show he still has some moral teachings he has not given up.
Steve, I was not attempting to insult you. What I got from your comment is that you are very liberal now in your religious thinking. Am I correct? That's my real question to you.
My wife would never do any thing like that to me, and I would never do anything like that to my wife. My morals don't apply to my neighbor in as much as his activities don't infringe on my rights; so if my neighbor had similar circumstances happening. That's none of my business.
Well, over the years I have become more and more despondent towards religion (as opposed to spiritualism). I think that religion is more concerned with protecting the doctrines, positions, and traditions of the religion, vs any actual effort at seeking God. I believe that there is a God, and I don't even like using the term "God", because of the loaded connotations of that word. I like using "Intelligence", I believe there is an intelligence and a purpose to the universe that is pure and altruistic - that tends to create order out of chaos, energy out of entropy, Love out of Ambivalence. I believe that Jesus, or the idea of Jesus, is the perfect template of how people should relate to one another. Was Jesus divine, the only son of God? I don't know. I guess I'm agnostic about that kind of stuff. I don't have enough information to make a judgment - doesn't mean I'm not seeking an answer. I think agnosticism is the wisest position to be in regards to spiritual things. It just means you don't have enough information to make a rational decision. I might mention that this sort of rational examination of religious ideas is what most of the forefathers were all about -> Deism. If you read Thomas Pain's "The Age of Reason", that was pretty much the view of Christianity that was in vogue in that day.
I think that if there is a God powerful enough to have created the Universe, etc.. then I think that God would be offended at how religions attempt to confine him and define him and his character to only that found in the holy books. Take Christianity for example. On the one hand, the Bible says that God is all powerful and God does as he sees fit, But on the other hand "God can only act to that which is a part of his perfect nature". So what is this perfect nature of God? It is the morals and ideas of God that man has ascribed to him, Ideas that have changed and morphed over time I might add. The obvious example is that the God of the Old Testament is a completely different God of that of the new, with no adequate explanation how this evolution took place. I could go on and on, just read age of reason, Paine pretty much lays out all the inconsistencies and ridiculousness of it all in a very entertaining way.
I am an awful speller, I admit that, but that doesn't reduce my arguments.
But of course I would be upset if my parents did any of those things. But me being upset, should not infringe on their right to live life as they see fit. Why are you trying to always take away peoples freedom? We need a "Braveheart" to stand up and say - they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!
Braveheart had in mind different freedoms than adultery, porn, drugs, abortion, and homosexual coupling, I dare say. I'm all for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of whatever kinky acts consenting adults do behind closed doors (unless kids are exposed),property rights, freedom from gov't fines and ever increasing taxes on the working people of this country, freedom to home-educate, equality of educational resources and opportunities.
We all have free will in God's earth. And we have bad consequences for bad choices.
But we also have LAWS to restrain our more base inclinations --and for good reasons, the protection of children, the helpless, elderly, women and economy and public health, public safety, and even public morals, etc. E.g. it used to be so costly to the man to divorce and so hard on his kids that the couple often stayed together after all.
Unwed parenting and shacking up were so socially frowned upon, that the parents either married or gave the babies up for adoption. Now kids having kids depend on their good ol' Uncle Sam (and their parents) --for years and years and years and more and more babies --we have umpty dozen programs to enable people to be irresponsible.
The thing about the law is that it "teaches" standards to the public. 5 people on our highest court made abortion legal, they "taught" the nation that abortion is a "right" and therefore "right" i.e. OK to do. And so millions have been killed --people who would have been consumers, entrepreneurs, inventors, soldiers and police, defenders along our border where we are having such trouble with criminals coming across our borders, hospital care-takers, teachers (I heard that Cleveland had imported teachers from India at one point because of a shortage in their inner city schools.) And we certainly are importing physicians from overseas because we aren't making enough docs here.
And what "they" did with abortion, they want to do with making sex between same-sex people legal as "marriage" and thus a "right."
It's not a right; it's a WRONG with dastardly consequences --particularly that one generation seduces and influences the next into having sex perversely --like animals. and the attraction is there for some because of the failure of their fathers. And the diseases are rampant in their "community" of those imitating instinctual animal behaviors without regard to rules of health and decency --and the design of our bodies for sex only between man and woman--"In the image of God." As Jesus said, "As in the beginning....man is to leave and cleave --to a woman."
Steve and Mudrake --I'm not obsessed with the topic--I'm vigilant about politics --and this is a very serious issue in our nation--about which Mudrake is more obsessed than I am --in that he HATES the people who want to keep marriage as between a man and woman. I don't hate the gays for wanting to marry nor do I hate those who support them; I say they are wrong and we should not change the definitions of marriage and morals which we have. This is Mudrake's biggest issue for which to hate fundamentalists and evangelicals. He says more against them than against Islamic terrorists who are truly hateful and dangerous.
I know the issue is a critical one for our nation--I don't want to see us go the way of Europe --militarily incapable of defending themselves --lacking church influence and faith --people of Christian cultural heritage not marrying and not having kids --but being very sexually licentious and drunk.
that's my impression of Europe --self-indulgent. And while many Americans are that way and worse, we have always had a majority of americans who believed in Judeo-Christian cultural morals --and those have served us well.
I was surprised to learn that many European countries are more in debt per capita or compared to their GNP --than we are --due to their socialism.
Now, immorality is dragging us down with fatherlessness, gov't dependency, shacking up, abortion, perversions --it's costing us a lot now and will cost us more if we keep going this way. It costs us in mothers and children having insufficient support from the fathers of their children. It costs us in diseases. We have way too many people depending on gov't for housing and food, etc. because of unwed parenting--(and also because of obesity, smoking, alcohol and disabilities from those things for which they can't work.)
I don't say "cut them off." I say, "let's teach responsibility! let's not condone more immorality by saying it doesn't matter if people shack up or copulate with their own sex. It matters.
Of course, we can float more people who are helpless and needy for whatever reasons if we get our economy up and running. Meanwhile, we can't ALL live off a gov't that MAKES NO MONEY!!! IT ONLY GETS IT FROM PRIVATE SECTOR. IF THE PRIVATE SECTOR COLLAPSES, THERE IS NO INCOME FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR. And so far, Communism hasn't been all that successful where the gov't runs all the businesses. The more capitalistic principles China uses, the more they prosper.
I heard a guy say on tv tonight that we achieve liberal aims (like gov't help for all with needs for whatever reasons) by conservative methods (e.g. low taxes as economic stimulus.)
Jeanette --Now, how do you know what the dog is thinking?? I think he has an urge to copulate anything that seems alive and the right size!!
Because female dogs don't do that for sexual pleasure. They supposedly get no pleasure from sex at all.
That and the fact I actually study about the habits of dogs and know this is a domination thing with them. Yes, some unneutered males will do it for copulation purposes, but since all our animals are neutered there is no desire for sex for them.
I didn't know female dogs "humped"!
My, my --there's that lesbian thing in the animal kingdom.
As for dominance with simulated sex acts? Interesting....
Got to study for a test this week, I'll come back to this.
Eh?
Barb,
The "a" comment was to delete another comment, but I had to sign in and type something.
Unfortunately, it didn't keep me signed in to delete the comment. I'll look for it now and take it out if the system will allow it.
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