[Singer]

I agree with Jeena, except on the KKK issue where I declare ignorance.

[Singer]

Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ May 23 2005,09:46) Also remember, according to the very same bible you use as your support system: Jesus died for your sins. So it's OKAY to commit Sodomy, since Jesus forgives you. And therefore all claims to "sinful" activities are moot.

Oh I just have to comment on this.

Firstly, read the point Jeena makes.

If you follow your argument to conclusion, all the sins are ok, since Jesus died for our sins.

It doesn't make sence.

Note though that I agree that it is noncense to derive Homosexuals of rights due to quotes from the bible.

[Alleria]

Originally Posted by (Singer @ May 23 2005,12:21) Originally Posted by (Jazuela @ May 23 2005,09:46) Also remember, according to the very same bible you use as your support system: Jesus died for your sins. So it's OKAY to commit Sodomy, since Jesus forgives you. And therefore all claims to "sinful" activities are moot. Oh I just have to comment on this. Firstly, read the point Jeena makes. If you follow your argument to conclusion, all the sins are ok, since Jesus died for our sins. It doesn't make sence. Note though that I agree that it is noncense to derive Homosexuals of rights due to quotes from the bible.

You can actually bring the bible into play here for deriving homosexuals out of rights. The bible contradicts itself in many ways. One in particular was brought up by Singer. If Jesus died for our sins, and if he forgives us for them all, then why would someone go to #### for sins if they are being forgivin? (I spelled that wrong, I know)


Just a thought.

[dragon master]

Originally Posted by (Jeena @ May 23 2005,11:33) Originally Posted by Although I am very liberal, and do not agree with these things. Here is a few samples. Wow folks read the entire message before commenting. The fellow said he didn't agree with these things and just googled them. And of course I was speaking from the KKK point of view earlier. Sheesh. As for myself, I'm sorry, but there was never a time when the KKK was an okay institution. Yes, it's purported reason for organizing was as a political group and to help the poor. They even said they were a religious organization like the masons. They had secret meetings and handshakes and the whole nine yards.  But it was a political group who did not simply use politics in order to push it's agenda. In the very early stages, it harrassed people, was largely responsible for threats against blacks and whites who supported black rights. Frequently, threats were carried out.   Now, all that aside... Let's face it...it's no one's business what goes on in the bedroom of another person. If one important thing is kept in mind. "No other person's rights are violated." Honestly, who cares who is gay and who is not? I don't. No one should. Being homosexual has nothing to do with whether a person is a hard worker, or is a caring person, or is able to fight as a soldier. It has to do with who that person has sex with. A private act which is no one's business.

First of all, I never said the KKK was a good thing, EVER. It was always a bad thing, from having an ickyish goal with a very bad means to go about it to having very bad goals in general with very bad means to go about them.

Second, he Bible is just one big story or I guess a whole bunch of little ones, so I don't see what you mean about not finding stories.

Leviticus 20 opens with the "The LORD said to Moses," and goes on to say things like gays should be killed, as should adulterers, disrespectuful children, fortune tellers, and such like that. So, if the stories in the bible are true, God actually said that.

If you want something more storyish, (because maybe you do believe that although the bible is perfect right, God lies in places like Leviticus 20) that actually tells about God doing something awful, how about this:

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. "Go up, baldhead," they shouted, "go up, baldhead!" The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24)

These aren't isolated occurences either, there are all sorts of death and destruction as well as encouragement upon things like slavery. The Old Testament encourages all sorts of dreadful things that aren't usually accepted by today's moral standards. Yet, there are lawmakers who look at this same book and take the anti-gay quotes and use them to make laws.

[Ilkidarios]

Not if you think like I do, like I said earlier, in my beliefs the old and new testement gods are two different dieties.

[AC1]

"Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. His mind was created for his own thoughts, not yours or mine. " -- Henry S. Haskins

[Kopribear]

So... in my opinion the bible arguments are over to be honest. Redundancy is fine and well for a while... basic points:

The bible says that homosexuality is wrong.

The bible also contradicts itself all over the place.

I agree that the diety in the Old Testament and the One in the New Testament are completely different...

But anyway, as was stated before, since there is separation of church and state, taking away the religious argument and trying to argue for depriving people (gay or not) of their rights is almost impossible. ...but I'd like to see it tried. So...

Putting personal opinions and religious bias aside, who can give me an argument that shows the legitimacy or even legality of depriving law abiding individuals of their rights?

<3
Kopri

[shadowfyr]

Hmm. Lets see:

Health - Probably not. Gay or straight, its the presense of a disease that is a problem, not 'who' is exposed. However, the CDC has stated that nudity is actualy a slightly lower risk to disease transfer, since diseases don't survive sunlight or exposure to dry and/or cold environments and clothes provide dark, warmth and moisture (sweat), yet you won't find one person arguing for the 'healthy' nature of nudity, unless its a nudist. Same with homosexuality. Its benefit is lack of pregnacy, which is definitely also a health issue, so 'could' by a bit of a stretch be considered 'safer'. But definitely a stretch. What is true is that there is a lot of inuendo, but no evidence of 'any' greater health risk, aside from that arising from promiscuity, which those trying to enter into civil unions are either not interesting in or willing to give up.

Child health - Bad idea to argue this. Every study every done so far suggests that if anything homosexuals are 'more' dedicated to and empathic with the needs of children they raise. It might actually be a major boon to be raised by one.

Psychological - Same as child health to some extent. The anti-gay crowd screams about exposure to them 'turning' people gay and even claims they conspire to convert people. Again, every study in existance indicates that children raised among them have no higher a percentage of homosexuality than society in general. I'll repeat that, all these horrible conspiring gays are failing to convert any more people to it than would already have shown the behaviour, to word it so the loony right wingers comprehend it. Note, I didn't say 'believe' it, just understand it.

Hmm. What's left? Gross out factor? Maybe for two men together, but most males would have no problem with two girls they know involving themselves with each other, while he watched. lol Double standard at its best. That pretty much 'only' leaves religion. Unfortunately, Christianity and Islam are still edging out all the 'sane' ones by at least a slight margin:

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Yep, I would love to hear about the 'legal', 'medical', etc. reasons, without finding out that the author claiming them pulled the whole article out of religious propoganda, pseudo scientific groups like the Discovery Institute or his own ass.

[AC1]

Well, there would be the expense. Having to provide family benefits to even more people could raise insurance costs and stuff. Plus more taxpayer money to expand the divorce court system, since gay marriages will inevitably lead to gay divorces. The status quo saves money.

On the other hand, think of boon to the wedding industry. Straight marriages are on the decline, think off all the taffita manufacturers on the brink of bankruptcy who could be saved but a sudden influx of new marriages. Wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, tux rentals, caterers, florists, wedding planers, music providers, chapels, hall rentals, bakers, people who design cake top decorations . . . the ripple effect on the economy could probably offset the expenses. Some of these people have been waiting a long time to get married, and they've got the money to throw one heck of a party.


It's not much but if you take out religion, then that's all I've got.


Angela Christine

[Kopribear]

There wouldn't be an expanse in anything... it'd be just like a heterosexual couple marrying. Two lesbians + two gay males could= two hetero couples if not for pre-stated sexual persuasion. It equals out.

And... sad social commentary that 'inevitable' comes before 'divorce'.

Plus, we're talking about civil unions remember. We don't want the zealots getting uppidy.

[Spoke]

Throughout the posts I have noticed that you basically do not wish a discussion going outside of what you already chose to believe is the truth. Aside of the extremist comments of whomever wanted to shoot all gay people, many have argumented their position based on what they do believe.

Asking people to set their beliefs aside, their morals aside, their religion aside and then trying to build a debate around an issue, and right away disqualifying all the arguments people have used with a wave of your "pen" and no argument behind tells that probably this whole thread about gay rights was never really intended to be used for any debate, since you are just killing it and forcing people to agree with you.

It might sound odd, but most legal systems throughout the world are somehow founded on some moral values usually dictated by whatever religion dominated that part of the world when the guidelines were set. It is clear that laws prohibiting things like incest for example, a common practice in the natural world but something we frown uppon as westerners (those of us who are), will not find a really solid scientific explanation for, at least not when they were declared illegal. It is just an example, and might have flaws, the point is, that the morals are usually founded in a religious teaching, and the reason for the morals of the world to be so similar is that most religions share many of their structural commandments.

This said, I think with your post Kopri (Posted on May 23 2005,17:15) you basically disregarded many of the arguments given by some of the people who actually attempted to contribute intelligently to your original thread. If what you want is people to just say: Homosexuals should have every single right heterosexuals do, maybe you should have added a comment at the end that read something like: if you do not agree, please don't reply.

Anyway, if you trully are using this for a debate, go an learn how to moderate one, go and study the facts before summarizing (actually, read people's feedback) and try not to insultingly disregard other people's opinions or ideas without even stopping to support your claims with a real argument.

For your vague original question though, my own answer was Anti-. Though as pointed by someone above, it is poorly asked, and obviously intended to make Pro- the only "correct" answer.

Have a nice day,

[Kopribear]

Excuse me, Spoke, but it seems that my statements have been misread. I didn't mean that any of the arguments (aside from the extremist one, which wasn't exactly an argument but more of a vicious statement of opinion) were invalid or untrue. My point in asking someone to come up with an anti-gay rights argument without incorporating religion was to challenge the people who -are- using the Bible and the word of their God as their sole foundation of argument to help me understand how it's even legal to legislate in such a way. I apologize if I offended or disrespected anyone by making such a challenge... it wasn't my intent. It's simply that all of the religious arguments are not only not supporting the legality of the issue... they're becoming redundant.

Now, the problem with talking about all government using morality as a foundation is, though it's true, where do you draw the line? How can we have both separation of church and state -and- religion dictating who gets what rights? So either separate church from state in legislation, or don't and stop saying we do.

Also, I believe I already apologized for the vagueness of my original question, I was in a hurry in making the poll and didn't take time or care in forming my question properly.

Thank you for your corrections, however, and I will keep them in mind when next faced with a similar situation.

[dragon master]

Originally Posted by (Kopribear @ May 23 2005,23:16) There wouldn't be an expanse in anything... it'd be just like a heterosexual couple marrying. Two lesbians + two gay males could= two hetero couples if not for pre-stated sexual persuasion. It equals out. And... sad social commentary that 'inevitable' comes before 'divorce'. Plus, we're talking about civil unions remember. We don't want the zealots getting uppidy.

I think he's saying that it would be more expensive because you'd have more people being married if you allowed gays to get married. Simply because gays aren't being married(or civil unioned) in some places right now and if they were allowed to, it would cost more money, not equal out.

Not that it is an especially good argument though, as you can save more money by stopping heteros from getting married(since there are more of them).

[Kopribear]

*blink* sad will be the day that we deprive people of their rights to save -money-... good lord...

But if it happens, we should just ban any kind of union all together, because I could argue discrimination...

[shadowfyr]

Yeah. Incest is definitely another example. The odds of a negative ourcome are only 2% higher for incest than 'normal' relationships. Note, that is 2% **overall**. If you carry a trait for a genetic disorder and your partner does too, then it doesn't matter if you are siblings or first cousins, because instead of a 2% increased risk, it will be at 'best' a 25% risk of disease if only one has the trait, a 50% percent risk if 'both' share one faulty gene pair, or one has none, but the other has two faulty genes in their pair (though usually that is fatal for most diseases). If one has both bad genes in a pair and the other has one bad gene, its now 75%. And if 'both' share the same flaw on both gene pairs, guess what? Its now 100% certain to be passed on. But the law was passed for religious reasons and later defended based on the 'huge' 2% increase in risk. lol Of course, by huge they probably meant, "I am not a biologist or anyone else qualified to make a statement, by I and sure it like 50-50 or something..."

The single worst danger to science, medicine and human survival is imho the endless stream of, "I have no clue, but I believe X", statements made to support laws, procedures and policies that prevent progress or undermine our ability to *be* human, while instead promoting conformity, stagnation and inhumanity to those that won't conform.

[dragon master]

Originally Posted by (shadowfyr @ May 24 2005,20:39) If you carry a trait for a genetic disorder and your partner does too, then it doesn't matter if you are siblings or first cousins, because instead of a 2% increased risk, it will be at 'best' a 25% risk of disease if only one has the trait

The problem is that if you carry a rare trait for a genetic disorder(that is reccessive and so you need two genes for it to be noticiable), and most people carry some such trait or another with all their massive amounts of DNA, the odds of having a partner that has the exact same rare trait are incredibly low, thus giving you a very low chance of even having that 25% come up. Yet if they are your sibling and thus have very similar DNA as you, it is much much much more likely that they will happen to be a carrier for the same rare trait as you, and then there is 25% that the child will have the carrier gene from both parents and thus actually get the disease. Now, a normal person is usually the carrier for more than one rare genetic disorder, but they don't evolve this out of them, because it is so rare that the odds of meeting somebody else that has it too, is low. But if you mate your sister or brother, or somebody else related to you, there are very high odds that they are the carriers for the same genetic-disorders as you.

[Lanthum]

Originally Posted by (Kopribear @ May 24 2005,15:12) Now, the problem with talking about all government using morality as a foundation is, though it's true, where do you draw the line? How can we have both separation of church and state -and- religion dictating who gets what rights? So either separate church from state in legislation, or don't and stop saying we do.

The problem isn't talking about government using morality as a basis - as Spoke said - every large form of government is based in someway off of SOME religion and/or religious belief system.

No, that's not the problem. The problem lies in the disinformation that has been sowed through America's school system in the last 50-75 years of this idea of "seperation of church and state". A statement AND idea that doesn't even occur in any of our founding political/governmental doctrine.

There are many underlying problems that perpetuate this - the Supreme Court making a "perception" based decision without regards to the Constitution itself or other documents Jefferson had wrote. Or the fact that people believe this false ideal without understanding where it's coming from (not our founding forefathers), etc. But, that's the main problem with discussing Americans' rights, ideals, and laws. Trying to use the Constitution and our laws without using a moralistic mindframe won't get you very far.

You see, when you falsely believe a set of documents (our governmental doctrine) was written under a certain mindset (church should not interfere with the state), and then you try to interpret those documents using that mindset - nothing you come up with will make much sense.

And I believe that's exactly how our founding fathers wanted it to be. That freedom was the highest cause in this country with regards to the morals set forth by a strong faith. Back 230 years ago, they knew that this Republic they had created would be wisely lead by the collective common of people who strongly believed in God tempered by those that didn't. Checks and balances.

[shadowfyr]

Interesting Lanthum, just one problem. Most of the founding fathers where deists, not Christians. Some where agnostic and at least on may have been pagan. As an example:

John Adams

From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”

http://www.deism.org/foundingfathers.htm

So, why would it be assumed that they wouldn't want a seperation? How precisely do you avoid establishing a state religion and still impose its morals and thus all its baggage and justifications for them on society? Well, I can think of one simple way actually. Be a deist that believes in 'a' god, but completely rejects organized religion, and thus the Biblical claims to be grounds for morals in the first place. But that is hardly what the modern, "atheists and secularists are out to destroy the country",