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robco wrote:

IIRC, part of the problem is that marriage was never explicitly defined as one man and one woman under the law.

No it wasn't - not at the federal level anyway.
But as I've pointed out - Utah could not join the union until they outlawed polygamy in their state constitution.

There may not have ever been a federal stating that, but that's what marriage has been in this country - one man and one woman. This is not surprising since we culturally came from the English - where it was one man and one woman.

That doesn't mean it is right - but it is the historical definition of the institution.

jerwin wrote:

everlong205 wrote:

As for non violence resistance, yes MLK adopted it as a tactic. There is also a non violent tradition in Christianity too(remember, turn the other cheek) but of course, he draws from many traditions.

Martin Luther King wrote:

Now a lot of people are confused at this point. They ask me from time to time: "What in the world do you mean when you talk about love or opponent?" Somebody said to me after lecture the other day: "I can go along with tactical nonviolence and I think you are right this is the best tactical nonviolence and I think you are right that it is the best tactic and the best technique. But when you start talking about this "love" stuff you lose me."
Well this "love stuff" stands at the center of nonviolence. The highest expression of non injury is love and I think many people misunderstand love at this point. They think that when you talk about "love" you are talking about sentimental, affectionate emotion and I would be the first to say that this is absurd; it is nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. This is very difficult and almost impossible.

So when I try to explain what I mean by this"love stuff" I turn to a Greek language. It has a word agape.

Now agape is more than aesthetical or romantic love. Agape is more than a friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive, good-will for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing to return. Theologians would say that it is love of God operating in the human heart. When an individual rises to love on this level, he loves everyman not because his way appeals to him, but he loves every man because God loves him. He rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed that person does.
This is always a goal and it is beautiful to have a method of struggle where it is a possible to do this, for we are coming to see now that hate is dangerous. It is injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. It is a wonderful thing to have a method of struggle where it is possible to rise to the level of love and yet stand up with determination against the unjust and evil system. You come to the point of hating segregation and standing up against it, with all your might and yet maintaining an understanding love for the person who is misguided.

The meaning of nonviolence
It's more than a tactic. It's one of King's core philosophies.

So the Huckabee/King comparisons are simplistic to the point of nonsense.

How is that a refutation of a huckabee/King comparison? It doesn't' refer to Huckabee at all, it only references MLK. How do you know Huckabee on reading this wouldn't be in whole hearted agreement with the sentiment? (Also, the idea of hating the segretion but loving the person who is misguided sounds an awful lot like Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin). I expect that from a preacher because that is a common refrain. Also, I would think that one of things that appealed to MLK about Ghandi's nonviolence is how it validated his own preexisting beliefs about nonvioelence that he had because he was a christian.

By the way, my argument wasn't about Huckabee being great or not great. The only similiarity I''m trying to point out is that both are preachers making claims based on their morality and trying to effect change. THey might be saying the completely opposite things,even . Some here seem to suggest thtough that the very utterance from a religious persons mouth means that they are trying to impose theocracy, when clearly that is not necessarily the case. Forget about what King said or what Huckabee said, as I'm not comparing their words. Both are preachers who are speaking from their conscience, which is driven from their faith and trying to get legislation passed. That's' the similarity.

They were driven by their own ambitions but both of them had/have their ambitions influenced by their faith.

Martin Luther King Jr developed a philosophy of nonviolence that was informed both by his faith and by the realities of this world. He could argue in support of it using both religious and nonreligious syllogisms. He looked at his own religion with a good deal of skepticism.

I don't see that sort of thinking in Huckabee. What does he mean when he refers to "God's standards"? Who decides these standards? Why are they good for the nation?

If there had been something inherent in christian doctrine that said that black people should not be treated as second class citizens then the problems that MLK fought would have never been there to begin with.

Oh they are there - it's just people chose to ignore those parts.
Slavery in the Bible was never racially based (and quite different from slavery in America).

The people in the Bible often treated foreigners poorly - IE the Samaritans, etc. - but that was actually contrary to what the Bible taught, where is specifically taught about treating them with kindness and respect, remembering that they too were once foreigners in a foreign land.

Part of the problem is that we have false ideas about what slavery was really like. The life of a slave was not easy, but we get an exaggerated idea of the hardships of slavery from watching movies or reading historical material that is written on a popular level. Here the purpose is usually to dramatize the plight of slaves or to make some point about the evils of slavery in general, (1) but the historical reality was less dramatic. In most cases the life of a slave was not much different from the life of any lower-class worker. Those who have been in the military have experienced something like it — being legally bound to an employer and to a job that one cannot simply "quit" at will, not free to leave without permission, subject to discipline if one disobeys or is grossly negligent — all of this is familiar enough to those of us who have served in the military. And yet we know that the daily life of a good soldier is not especially hard. This is what it was like to be a slave.

Another problem is, when thinking about slavery we tend to have in mind the recent slavery of the black race in America, and so the whole subject of slavery gets mixed up with the issue of racism. But in ancient times, slavery was not associated with any particular race. By condoning slavery the Bible does not approve of racism.

A third reason why modern people have a hard time understanding the Bible's treatment of slavery is that we often now tend to confuse morality with political values. The modern tendency is to politicize everything, including even the Christian gospel. Moral philosophy or ethics has become so politicized that it seems to be almost a sub-department of political science now, which is why we have seen the rise of an elaborate political correctness in our public life. "Racism," "sexism," "homophobia," and so on, are the really serious sins under this new morality. Although we all know that people are not really equal, the egalitarian ideology of our time is considered to be of such overriding importance that any slight affront to it is considered sinful, while the principles of ordinary old-fashioned morality are downplayed and even denied. This political correctness is not merely a fad, it is the logical and inevitable result of the politicization of morality, the elaboration of an entirely new morality based upon political ideas of right and wrong.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/slavery.html

Tallgeese wrote:

And the evangelists of science like to pretend (or at least proclaim) that scientists are magically immune to jealousy, pride, deceit, and all those bits of human nature that make the perfect theory into a much more confused reality.

Now, really, you know that's not accurate....you'd want to come down on us if we made such a broad comment on Catholics.

bratboy wrote:

That in of itself is not a compelling argument--society "does" lots of things, not all of them defensible or right.

But not all of them indefensible or wrong either. The point is society has to hash these things out. You may want it to be legal, but that doesnt' necessarily make it so (or not so). I may think the voting age should be 17, you may be happy with it at 18. because I can make a good argument for it to be legal at 17 doesn't mean that it will therefore be changed becuase there are competing arguments that say keep it as is.

Again...I fail to see your point.  Do you  believe restrictions based upon age are comparable to restrictions based upon sexual orientation, or sex, or religion, or ethnicity, or race?

Only so far as they are restrictions placed on marriage that society has placed that actually restrict peoples access to marriage. And you are making the association to the various restrictions by suggesting the  restriction to to  sex is wrong because restricting marriage to race   was  also wrong because you can't restrict. So then, with that as your standby position, I'll always loook at the state of marriage as it stands now and notice that the other restrictions are in place. If you can't restrict then polygamy couldn't' be restricted and child marriages couldn't be  restricted. So I don't buy your all encompassing argument. If you were to argue that society CAN restrict marriage BUT shouldn't in the case of gay marriage because of x,y,z then thats really a separate and more legitimate argument. But its not the one you're making.
I'm arguing  with your argument NOT that you can't have  gay marriage but that society can't restrict marriage. It can and does (and should be able to).
First off I have no actual say over whether marriages are legal or otherwise, so its not like  I'm actually preventing you from  marrying. And similarly, even if society doesn't recognize such marriages doesn't' mean that gays can't still have the relationships with one another or even have the ceremony (from the Joni Mitchell song "we don't need a piece  of paper from the city hall, keeping us  tried and true..."). It just means that its  not legally recognized.
You have to recognize that the desire to promote marriage as the ideal vehicle to raise children (and yes, there was also the  idea of women as property long ago as well,etc) was in existence and valid from a logical basis long for hundreds of years before there was a challenge to it by gays. Because it was never about finding a way to deprive gay people of benefits. Rather, it was a way to further society by creating a framework to raise children. That's a perfectly logical argument and there are additional arguments from a religious perspective, but that argument isn''t diminshed simply because gays want in. So my point is that two gays saying they don't have various rites they should have is a perfectly valid argument, but so is the argumetn that society can promote what it considers the ideal relationship in IT'S interest and exclude the others from legal recognition. So you weigh the two arguments. Which is why I would opt for something like a enhancing a civil union instead of  redefining marriage.

Well in my opinion (and that of my significant other), this "tradition" should go the way of bans on interracial marriage.  Of course, we're a bit biased because our lives (and not simply our sensibilities regarding the "definition" of a word) are directly affected. 

If all you're truly concerned about is the word at the top of the form, I suppose it really wouldn't matter a whole lot.  It's still going to be referred to as a marriage.

I agree its something of a semantic argument. My concept of civil unions would be different, in  certain ways in name only. It would be a relationship  that  allows for gays to have benefits that they are deprived of currently, but for example, wouldnt requirethat say priests perform ceremonies that they don't agree with, and wouldn't change  the idea of marriage for everyone else.
I will agree that some pushback is coming from people who hate gays. A lot of it is coming from people who don't think marriage is discriminatory and perfectly rational the way it is. And  will similarly react to being told that what they believe and what is currently legal only shows  they are bigots. Also, as stated earlier, tactically, I think gays would find it much easier  to get something to become legalized, if the argument were perceived differently, ie a civil union, to become legalized rather than marriage.Even if, ultimately it provides the same  exact thing for you. (The benefits which are roughly comparable).
I think it would ultimately be harder to disallow under law too, as what most people are arguing about is the preservation of marriage not the prevention of rights for gays. If it were a different (and not saying an inferior,but rather  a different) relationship  promoted, that didn't infringe on marriage as it stands, it would be much harder to find an objection to it.
As you well know many countries are offering civil unions as a compromise. I wouldn't characterize everyone of them as bigoted, since they are trying to accomodate gays while at the same time preserving an institution culturally relevant to them. (both of which are valid considerations).
For example take New Jersey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_m … New_Jersey
ITs labeled something else but is a vehicle to allow for gays to have rights similar to marriage, while still maintaining marriage.If in that vehicle gays are still denied specific rights, that would be addressed through legislation.

Last edited by everlong205 (2008-01-21 12:03 pm)

Tallgeese wrote:

Even the great Einstein threw in the cosmological constant without evidence because he was emotionally uncomfortable with a non-static universe.

There was no evidence whatsoever that the Universe was expanding the first time that Einstein wrote his field equations for general relativity. Thus, he was just making his theory agree with the evidence at the time. I do not know why you say this had to do with a "gut feeling". (From a theoretical/mathematical point of view it does not matter if the cosmological constant is there or not)

Yes, he later threw it out when incontrovertible evidence showed expansion, but until then he altered his equations based on 'gut feeling' rather than where the evidence led him.

And eventually science progressed...

It is true that sometimes scientists make random guesses, develop theories based on aesthetic principles and summon "spooky" concepts (think action-at-distance). Yet, given that we are constantly checking our theories with experiments these assumptions and postulates can be falsified. In the end the scientific method is able to overcome all the drawbacks brought by the imperfections of humans - such is the power of the scientific method.

Last edited by soulcrusher (2008-01-21 12:21 pm)

soulcrusher wrote:

Tallgeese wrote:

Even the great Einstein threw in the cosmological constant without evidence because he was emotionally uncomfortable with a non-static universe.

There was no evidence whatsoever that the Universe was expanding the first time that Einstein wrote his field equations for general relativity. Thus, he was just making his theory agree with the evidence at the time.

Not true. Einstein's field equations allowed for a non-static universe. There was no  convincing experimental evidence for or against a static universe at the time and Einstein's personal feelings about it led him to introduce the cosmological constant. If he had left it out and pursued research into the consequences of his original equations, he possibly would have arrived at the conclusion of an expanding universe before Hubble discovered the cosmological redshift.

It is true that sometimes scientists make random guesses, develop theories based on aesthetic principles and summon "spooky" concepts (think action-at-distance). Yet, given that we are constantly checking our theories with experiments these assumptions and postulates can be falsified. In the end the scientific method is able to overcome all the drawbacks brought by the imperfections of humans - such is the power of the scientific method.

Whatever the "power of the scientific method" may be, it's not relevant to this discussion, which is about a claim made by jerwin that

A scientist goes where the evidence leads her. If the experimental evidence contradicts a political or religious belief, than so be it.

soulcrusher wrote:

It is true that sometimes scientists make random guesses, develop theories based on aesthetic principles and summon "spooky" concepts (think action-at-distance). Yet, given that we are constantly checking our theories with experiments these assumptions and postulates can be falsified. In the end the scientific method is able to overcome all the drawbacks brought by the imperfections of humans - such is the power of the scientific method.

There is no "end" to science and there will always be problems introduced by the imperfections of humans.

soulcrusher wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

soulcrusher wrote:

It is true that sometimes scientists make random guesses, develop theories based on aesthetic principles and summon "spooky" concepts (think action-at-distance). Yet, given that we are constantly checking our theories with experiments these assumptions and postulates can be falsified. In the end the scientific method is able to overcome all the drawbacks brought by the imperfections of humans - such is the power of the scientific method.

There is no "end" to science and there will always be problems introduced by the imperfections of humans.

And that is a reason to discredit the scientific method... why?

thats not what this discussion is about:

And the evangelists of science like to pretend (or at least proclaim) that scientists are magically immune to jealousy, pride, deceit, and all those bits of human nature that make the perfect theory into a much more confused reality.

Last edited by Steyr AUG (2008-01-21 2:02 pm)