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Should the Catholic Church be condemned for lobbying Catholic politicians around the world to abolish the death penalty, and in going so far as to threaten excommunication for Catholics who work to support the death penalty?

Is the Catholic Church's position inimical to the interests and wishes of non-Catholic families of victims of murder?

rcrocket wrote:Should the Catholic Church be condemned for lobbying Catholic politicians around the world to abolish the death penalty, and in going so far as to threaten excommunication for Catholics who work to support the death penalty?

Yes and yes.

Is the Catholic Church's position inimical to the interests and wishes of non-Catholic families of victims of murder?

Depends on the individual family of a murder victim. by the way, are you equating gay marriage with murder?

Rollo Tomasi wrote:by the way, are you equating gay marriage with murder?

If he isn't, then his thread's title is quite the non sequitur.

Sexual sins are second only to murder. The gay people protesting the temple are one-notch down from Ted Bundy and the BTK killer on the evil scale.

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

rcrocket wrote:Should the Catholic Church be condemned for lobbying Catholic politicians around the world to abolish the death penalty, and in going so far as to threaten excommunication for Catholics who work to support the death penalty?

Yes and yes.

Is the Catholic Church's position inimical to the interests and wishes of non-Catholic families of victims of murder?

Depends on the individual family of a murder victim. by the way, are you equating gay marriage with murder?

This position could only be taken by a thoroughgoing left wing statist for whom religion is the mortal enemy of government/judicial social control in the name of protected status groups.

Clearly, if members of the Catholic clergy are prevented from lobbying the members of their own church regarding central social and moral issues, this would amount to de facto elimination of the first amendment for a specific targeted out-group or class enemy - Catholic Christians, and by extension, all socially conservative Christians.

This is fine for Rollo, who is a leftist and therefore by definition an authoritarian "liberal fascist". It is not fine for those who uphold the liberal democratic tradition and philosophy of the Declaration and Constitution.

SatanWasSetUp wrote:Sexual sins are second only to murder. The gay people protesting the temple are one-notch down from Ted Bundy and the BTK killer on the evil scale.

We are talking about the constitutional right to marry, not "sexual sins."

Droopy wrote:Clearly, if members of the Catholic clergy are prevented from lobbying the members of their own church regarding central social and moral issues, this would amount to de facto elimination of the first amendment for a specific targeted out-group or class enemy - Catholic Christians, and by extension, all socially conservative Christians.

I never said the Catholics didn't have the right to do it; I was opining I thought they should be condemned for doing it.

This is fine for Rollo, who is a leftist and therefore by definition an authoritarian "liberal fascist". It is not fine for those who uphold the liberal democratic tradition and philosophy of the Declaration and Constitution.

Are you referring to the first "self-evident truth" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence: "[A]ll men are created equal."? Or perhaps the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution?

Bob, I posted this in another thread, but since you started this one, I'll post my comment here as well, since I think it applies. I would really appreciate your thoughts:

If the problem is really the word, "marriage", then let's just change the laws on the books so that "civil unions" between same sex couples have ALL of the same tax breaks, rights, etc., as married couples have.

It seems like a simple way to make everyone happy. Would it really be that difficult?

The only difficulty I see is if it really IS a money issue by the far right, and they don't want to see same sex couples get those tax breaks, etc.

Maybe one of our resident attorneys, Skippy or Bob can shed some light?

Are you referring to the first "self-evident truth" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence: "[A]ll men are created equal."? Or perhaps the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution?

Well, the Equal Protection Clause has never been fully defined as to either its scope or intended meaning. Regardless, if marriage is not a "right" in the constitutional sense, and it clearly isn't, then there is no equal protection for that which does not exist in law.

In any case, the clause stipulates that the law must treat individuals in the same manner under similar conditions and circumstances. This is an important caveat, because what we are dealing with here are men marrying men and woman marrying woman, which is a complete conceptual departure from the historic and culturally accepted definition of the concept of marriage.

Homosexuals are not, then, in the same circumstances and conditions, but are precisely attempting to redefine the boundaries, meaning, and purpose of marriage and hence of those conditions and circumstances. The redefinition and reconceptualization must precede the legal alterations for the legal alterations to make sense. At the same time, without the legal alterations, the redefinition and reconceptualization remain in the realm of ideology and personal values

However, without broad acceptance of the redefinition of marriage at the outset, the legal changes have less chance of being realized. Hence, the Equal Protection Clause cannot be used to support homosexual marriage unless the reconceptualiztion takes place successfully first in an abstract philsoophcial sense, which would theoretically make the clause relevant. It would be as if homosexual marriage had always been broadly socially acceptable and the clause was nothing more than an afterthought to what was already assumed or imagined politically.

This, however, is not the case. For the Equal Protection Clause to be applied to homosexual marriage, homosexual marriage must have applicability to the Equal Protection Clause, which it at all events does not as a matter of the long term historical, cultural, and moral substructure of western/American culture.

If the problem is really the word, "marriage"

The problem is the concept, not the word.

Please Liz, you're not dense, so stop playing the part.