Church, Politics & Prop 8

[_Yoda]

Droopy, would you be opposed to a same sex couple having a civil union where they would have all of the same tax rights, etc. as a married couple? Why or why not?

[_Droopy]

Droopy, would you be opposed to a same sex couple having a civil union where they would have all of the same tax rights, etc. as a married couple? Why or why not?

Yes, and for the same reason I'm opposed to cohabiting heterosexual couples or any other assemblage of human beings living outside the Lord's principles and laws regarding human sexuality having any such rights and privileges.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

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.

The U.S. Supreme Court says otherwise -- see Loving v. Virginia.

In any case, the clause stipulates that the law must treat individuals in the same manner under similar conditions and circumstances.

Wrong. It simply says we are entitled to equal protection under the law. The "conditions and circumstances" come into play when the court decides whether the gov't has shown an appropriate reason for the discrimination (under different standards, the strongest being a "compelling state interest").

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.

Just as civil rights for blacks and women departed from history and culture, but we did fixed that under our Constitution. Tradition is never a reason to allow discrimination and injustice to continue. Our country is better than that.

Homosexuals are not, then, in the same circumstances and conditions ....

The same could once be said of blacks and women in comparison to white men.

The redefinition and reconceptualization must precede the legal alterations for the legal alterations to make sense.

Not when you are dealing with a secular, civil marriage (as opposed to a religious one). To civilly marry is a legal right in this country. If you don't want it to be, then tell the gov't to get the hell out of the marriage business altogether and let religion deal with it.

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.

The Equal Protection Clause has already been used by several courts for this very purpose (and I believe the U.S. Supreme Court will do the same when they get the right test case).

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.

Equal rights and protection under the law are hardly an "afterthought." Equality is what this country's founding was based on.

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.

You're absolutely wrong. Equal protection means just that. Regardless of the situation, the gov't CANNOT discriminate among groups of people (unless it has a damn good reason, which goes to the "compelling state interest" issue). Since marriage is a legal and civil right in this country (as opposed to just a religious sacrament), the gov't cannot grant that right to some and withhold it from others (especially based on religious dogma), unless it can show a compelling reason to the court. And this, I believe, it cannot do.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Yes, and for the same reason I'm opposed to cohabiting heterosexual couples or any other assemblage of human beings living outside the Lord's principles and laws regarding human sexuality having any such rights and privileges.

Do you believe we should outlaw such behavior?

[_dblagent007]

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.

In California, civil unions have all the same rights as marriaged heterosexuals. Proposition 8 was only about whether homosexual unions could be labeled "marriage."

[_Sethbag]

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.

In California, civil unions have all the same rights as marriaged heterosexuals. Proposition 8 was only about whether homosexual unions could be labeled "marriage."

Do you agree, or disagree, with my assertion that the primary objection to this, from the Mormons, is that legal marriage implies legality of sex (in the religious sense), and therefore the implication is that legal gay marriage would imply "legality" (in the religious sense) of gay sex? And that this is an impossibility in Mormon theology? Ie: there is no way gay sex can be "legal" religiously?

And thus, since the Mormons regard legality of marriage and (religious) legality of sex to be intertwined, and indeed based on each other, in order to justify continuing illegality of gay sex, gay marriage itself simply must go?

If you disagree, please be specific about how you disagree, and your reasons.

[_Droopy]

Do you believe we should outlaw such behavior?

No. I do believe that none of these relationships should be legally understood to be forms of "marriage", including homosexual relationships.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Do you believe we should outlaw such behavior?

No. I do believe that none of these relationships should be legally understood to be forms of "marriage", including homosexual relationships.

But such a sinful heterosexual has the right to marry his/her equally sinful partner (and often does in today's world); a similarly situated homosexual does not (at least in CA).

[_Droopy]

But such a sinful heterosexual has the right to marry his/her equally sinful partner (and often does in today's world); a similarly situated homosexual does not (at least in CA).

Except that such marriage goes a long way to making right the sexual activity outside of marriage that was sinful. The marriage relationship itself is legitimate, regardless of prior activities. Homosexual sex is not only sinful, it is a gross perversion of appropriate human sexual relations, and hence, no further modifications of it, such as marriage, can alter the fundamental salient spiritual reality involved.

Heterosexual immorality involves a misuse of otherwise normative sexuality. Homosexuality and similar fetishes involve a perversion or distortion of our sexuality that no other legal or institutional accretions can possibly consecrate as legitimate.

[_Ray A]

Heterosexual immorality involves a misuse of otherwise normative sexuality. Homosexuality and similar fetishes involve a perversion or distortion of our sexuality that no other legal or institutional accretions can possibly consecrate as legitimate.

Does Bill Marriott know this?