It is at that point that the discussion descended into baseless personal smears. Please keep on topic.

Regards,

JohnD

The new fad is to bend the tradition to accept marriage between people of the same sex. For some, that is an idea whose time has come.

Other cultures permit child marriages. Other cultures permit polygamy. Other cultures permit adults to marry children.

You continually thrust sarcasm into the debate when there is a suggestion that opening the traditional institution to gays also opens the door for other traditionally prohibited combinations.

Hop on this as specious and “illogical” thinking, but JohnD has absolutely nothing to do with controlling the course of action after the one man/one woman barrier has been breached.

For someone who counts bruises personally and continually clamors for respect, you certainly are free with the sarcasm and barbs.

This has gone on beyond any reasonable point of philosophy or cultural understanding.

I am always interested how moral relativists arrive at their list of do’s and don’ts. Agnostics and atheists are particularly interesting in this respect.

Pitch out the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas and all the other religious founding works. What, then do we turn to for our moral authority? Shall we just have a floating code that is popularly amended over the the internet? A Wikipedia of ethics?

The best description of moral relativism is an appropriation of an axiom of Gertrude Stein: When you get there, you discover there isn’t any there there.

As to: “Otherwise, surely it’s time to push for a Christian theocracy and be done with it?”…….Your regular resort to the “fallacy of black and white” is at play here big time. Western culture is steeped in Christian tradition and philosophy. A Christian theocracy sounds threatening, but it totally ignores the history of Western civilization. That straw-man won’t stand, hunt or scare crows. I can not think of a single Christian theocracy, but there may have been one for 20 minutes or so somewhere in history.

You have, however unwittingly, stumbled into the cultural conflict in which we are now engaged. Sharia law is what you might want to think more about. Perhaps you really don’t care what cultural traditions direct your daily life and you would be as happy being kafir as you are being a subject of English Common Law, which is 100% steeped and guided by the Christian tradition. That is your decision, not mine. Although I doubt you will be happy with the Sharia approach to gays.

Regardless of whether or not the Manson Family jibe was a sidewards slur against gay partnerships, I argue that what you say you are ‘positing’ is essentially without logic. In claiming that gay people being ‘allowed’ to marry is proof of society’s readiness to accept a ‘clan’ of ‘weirdos’, or marrying a ‘goat’ as you put it. Whatever, it certainly seems like you are putting a pejorative spin on homosexuality.

How many heterosexual serial killers have been married? How many heterosexual wife-beaters have been married? How many heterosexual rapists, paedophiles or violent bigots have been married?

Is this proof that society ‘accepts’ such people?

Is society’s acceptance of heterosexuals making vows to each other in the eyes of a God or the state, proof that society approves of rapists or serial killers?

I posit that it doesn’t. However, no-one tends to make general comparisons of heterosexuals to animals or weirdos.

I’m sorry but I just don’t buy this ‘slippery slope’ nonsense. Too many times I’ve seen people say things like: “Gays, marry?” What next? A man raping a harem of under-age domestic animals on the steps of the Whitehouse?”

Look, if Churches don’t want to bless gays, fine, let that be. If the State doesn’t want to recognise gay marriage, let it be. But let it be on a more reasonable context than equating gay marriage with the projected (hypothetical) societal acceptance of ‘weirdos’ and bestiality.

Polygamy is another thing entirely – it is described at it’s simplest as ‘not’ monogamy, and hence no more causally related to ‘gays’ as is flying a rocket to the moon for tea and cake.

Religious polyandry or polygamy is another question. And if America accepts other religions and traditions than monogomous heterosexual Christians, so be it.

Otherwise, surely it’s time to push for a Christian theocracy and be done with it?

Respectfully,

John

The Manson family (emphasis on the word family; not an appellation of my invention) without the Tate murders was merely a sex den of with a weirdo and his harem.

I posit that the attack on the traditional institution of marriage makes it possible to accept such a clan. Nothing more.

I know you would like to kneecap my logic, but twisting the premise is never successful.

Hmm, of late I’ve seen gay people equated with cats, dogs, horses, demons, goats, and now psychotic serial killers (minus the slaughter!)

Good effort. A+. I don’t think even Dr Paul Cameron discovered the Manson correlation.

How wonderful it would be if marriage could be returned to the status of a sacrament. But it it can not happen in our pluralistic society. The Islamic method of “divorce” is anathema to Christians, for example. So, the Christian formula would hardly fly in 2006.

But I do question why the state should take any interest in marriage. It would seem that any minority that wishes to change the institution has been given a platform. Gays are truly foolish if they think that a state sanctioned marriage would command respect. But I do not see how gays differ from a group marriage or an arranged marriage between a toddler and an adult. I am not really certain why a person should not be able to marry his goat.

Either we are sensitive to the “institution” of marriage and consider it a valued pillar of society, or we call it old fashioned and quirky and let it go free form. Charles Manson’s family, except for the slaughtering, looks more and more acceptable to the US of today. It does not make me happy or proud, but I think that “family values” are looked upon by many with the same scorn they have heaped on “Leave it to Beaver” and the Cleaver family.

Gentlemen, start your praying! “Did you know, ladies and gentlemen, that every day we inflict on ourselves another 9/11?” -Gary Bauer It was certainly news to us, but not to the thousand or so people watching with rapt attention the…

Sorry Will, you missed my point. And, I fear, Heliotropes. Heliotrope was saying that Swedes are looking down their ‘liberated noses’. He was saying that Sweden is a place for sluggards.

My point was that you state that you perceive Swedes as generally laid back and unassuming. Heliotrope states that Swedes are Ungodly sluggards, but it’s ok of you like that sort of thing

The above disagreement is of course *relative* to yours and Heliotrope’s individual viewpoints about what does and does not constitute being a sluggard or without moral compass, (one man’s meat is another’s poison) and not *simply* a matter of ‘right or wrong’. Where it becomes a matter of ‘right and wrong’ is the tough part. For instance, militant Muslims consider the US to be Satan because of it’s ‘liberalism’, such liberalism is of course relative to their Islamic beliefs. Likewise, fundamentalist Christians have blamed homosexuals, pagans, feminists for 9/11 etc. These people’s world view is relative to their beliefs.

I am not making a case for morals being relative, I am pointing out the fact that relative viewpoints affect one’s view on what is and isn’t acceptable. It may be acceptable to someone to kill gays because of their Religion. it is wholly wrong. it may be acceptable for someone to use the murder of gays as ‘proof’ that being gay is ‘wrong’ in the eyes of ‘God’. I claim that to be wrong. But of course that is the way I relate to the world. In that, my point is relative.

And frankly, its not all relative that anyone says ‘death to gays.’ Its wrong.

One person’s ‘laid back’ is another persons’ ‘sluggard’

One person’s ‘unassuming’ is another’s ‘spineless moral relativist’

I’ve seen Republicans cite Islam (Death to gays) as proof that homosexuality is wrong. It’s all relative isn’t it?

The Christian response should be to end state licensing of marriage altogether. The state standards are pure sin as far as the standards of the Bible are concerned. It is blasphemy to say that we have preserved marriage as a godly institution when we allow things like “no fault divorce.” It is as ugly and profane as any that would allow gays to marry.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

La Shawn is a beautiful sister in Christ and a wonderful blogger. I was honored to meet her at The Washington Briefing: Values Voter Summit this year. She live blogged the event.

However, if you have just a little sense of ambition and a concern for taking care of yourself and your own, you will not be a happy camper. That is a tough row to hoe on 80% taxation.