maklelan wrote: In retrospect, I was a more curt than I needed to be with your post, and I apologize. I hope you can forgive me.
No worries. I sort of suspected you're on high-alert, ultra defensive mode with all us heathen critics around, so it would be easy to take offense where it's not intended. I find myself respecting much of what you say, and I have no problem accepting your apology.
You appear to be a bigger man than most apologist-types (defenders of the faith) around here, in my opinion.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
But problems arose in Germany and Canada that were not supposed to arise either, according to the greatest legal minds. That has a way of worrying people.
When did Germany start allowing gay marriage? That is a new one for me. Of course, I am willing to be wrong, but....
Shortly afterward it was required to be a part of the curriculum in schools. A few years later it was written into the law that parents were not allowed to exempt their children from classes where it was promoted. Parents have been cited and imprisoned as a result of trying to keep their children from school during those classes.
maklelan wrote: In retrospect, I was a more curt than I needed to be with your post, and I apologize. I hope you can forgive me.
No worries. I sort of suspected you're on high-alert, ultra defensive mode with all us heathen critics around, so it would be easy to take offense where it's not intended. I find myself respecting much of what you say, and I have no problem accepting your apology.
You appear to be a bigger man than most apologist-types (defenders of the faith) around here, in my opinion.
maklelan, it takes a lot of courage to be a Mormon and be opposed to the Church's stance towards Prop. 8. I know this because I was once in a similar position, although probably a bit more radical: I didn't think there was anything wrong with homosexuality in the first place when I was a member. So you should be commended for staking out your position, because it's clear that you don't occupy it merely because it's the path of least resistance.
That said, I obviously don't think you're entirely in the right here, and your legal interpretation is in fact quite laughable. Why should the consequences of gay marriage in Germany be the same for social conservatives as the consequences of gay marriage in America? The two countries have vastly different constitutional frameworks, after all. In fact, the German social conservatives couldn't have been assured of a right to free speech or religion after gay marriage was legalized there, because those rights don't exist in Germany as they do here.
(It should also be noted that gay marriage in Germany is quite different from gay marriage as it's been granted in the States. Gay German couples don't have adoption rights, as they do even in many American states that disallow gay marriage. The same goes for tax benefits.)
But all that has very little to do with California law, which is what is really at issue here when conservatives whine about what their kids will be forced to be taught as a result of gay marriage in California. So let's look at some applicable law: the section of the California Education Code that deals with how romantic relationships are to be taught states that all long-term-relationships -- not just marriages -- are to be taught respectfully in classrooms, so whether gay unions are called "marriages" in California has no bearing whatsoever on what the children of social conservatives are taught in public schools in the first place.
Moreover, the scares about not being able to opt out of classroom teaching about gay marriage are founded on irrelevant law. Remember how the "Yes on 8" campaign trotted out the Massachusetts father whose kid was taught gay marriage despite his protests? Well, that happened in Massachusetts because Massachusetts doesn't have a no-fault take-your-kids-out-of-school clause in its education code. Guess which state DOES have a no-fault opt-out clause in its code? That's right: California. If social conservatives really wanted to ensure that their kids won't be taught that gay people love each other -- gasp! -- they'd be fighting for the preservation of the opt-out clause, NOT against gay marriage, which has nothing to do with what they're ostensibly after.
So maklelan, I think you can determine by now the reason why you only see the finest legal minds of California who came down on my side of the matter: no fine legal mind would have done otherwise.
Shortly afterward it was required to be a part of the curriculum in schools. A few years later it was written into the law that parents were not allowed to exempt their children from classes where it was promoted. Parents have been cited and imprisoned as a result of trying to keep their children from school during those classes.
Maklelan, thanks for the link.
It was as I suspected: it is a form of marriage. This distinction makes all the difference. Gay couples who get married are not provided the same rights across the board as a heterosexual couple who wants to get married.
So, yeah, they can get 'married,' but it still isn't the same 'marriage' as the heterosexual couples enjoy under the law. Read the link closely, if you haven't already.
But,I guess if it is called marriage, then it is marriage, right?
I detest my loose style and my libertine sentiments. I thank God, who has removed from my eyes the veil... Adrian Beverland
I am still a bit mystified as to why Mr. Maklelan cannot admit his church is antagonistic toward homosexuals. A few examples of antagonism if I may:
President Hinckley called homosexuality a "grievous sin".
The Mormon church used to electrocute homosexuals as a form of "therapy".
President Kimball called homosexuality a "disease" and a "heinous sin".
The Mormon church opposed the Equal Rights Amendment where part of its motivation was to prevent homosexual marriage.
Proposition 8 was just the latest of a long string of incidents where the Mormon church has actively opposed homosexual marriage within the political arena.
So on and so forth...
Mr. Maklelan, why won't you admit that your church has been antagonistic toward homosexuals?
an·tag·o·nize (n-tg-nz) tr.v. an·tag·o·nized, an·tag·o·niz·ing, an·tag·o·niz·es 1. To incur the dislike of; provoke hostility or enmity in: antagonized her officemates with her rude behavior. 2. To counteract.
Your church's policies and actions clearly meet the definition in that it counteracts homosexuality on various levels, and through its doctrines, teachings, utterances, and political activities it has incurred the dislike and provoked hostility from the homosexual community.
Very Respectfully,
Doctor CamNC4Me
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Proposition 8 was just the latest of a long string of incidents where the Mormon church has actively opposed homosexual marriage within the political arena.
Just to add a fine point to this.. Mormon Leaders directed millions of dollars to effect the lives of non-adherents to its myths and can not show a single substantive correlation that gay marriage would impact the lives of Mormons in any way.
I would say that fairly antagonistic ..
And yes, Mormon Leaders can not be trusted to be truthful... They live in a world that has no check and balance.
God has the right to create and to destroy, to make like and to kill. He can delegate this authority if he wishes to. I know that can be scary. Deal with it. Nehor.. Nov 08, 2010
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Hello, I am still a bit mystified as to why Mr. Maklelan cannot admit his church is antagonistic toward homosexuals. A few examples of antagonism if I may:
I would add the fact the LDS Church, ala the military, openly discriminates against homosexuals in its hiring practices.
In my home country of Norway, gay marriage is not only legal, it is on equal legal footing with traditional marriage. That and a 50 to 75 percent atheism rate, open and honest attitudes about sex, naked bodies, and even drug use, have resulted in one of the highest standards of living in the world, higher than most regions of the United States.