Thread: Freedom of choice and the Law

Originally Posted by FUD

Somewhere along the way the crooked politicians and other crooked authority figures have twisted things around so that the American people are an 'enemy of the state'. As long as those in power justify their abuse of power with this excuse we'll never have the freedom our founding fathers intended.

I agree with your assesment of what the founding fathers intended.

What we hwve now is a gross corruption. Instead of working for us our leaders are now trying to control us. It's evident in all the dilution of the Constitution lately.

And if you speak out to protect your constitutional freedom you're shouted town as un-American for disagreeing with your government.

[quote=FUD;76018]

The trouble with the gay marriage issue is that it goes far beyond simple freedom issues.

It does not. Everything you offer is just an excuse for prejudice. You can practice you religiion and raise your kids the way you want, but the government has no right make someone a second class citizen beccause of sexual orientation.

Morality and especially that based on religion should not be legislated. Individuals can do what ever they want, but the government can't. And you shouldn't expect the government to promote your religious or moral beliefs to the disadvantage of another citizen. It's that simple, and making it more complicated only serves to legislate prejudice.

Scientifically homosexuality is considered "destructive" to human survival

Religiously speaking, for centuries homosexuality has been considered an offense to the very being of God. .... Now all of the sudden everyone wants to squelch a person's religious right to decide what's moral or immoral.

So now we have the problem of gay marriage not only causing a conflict on the rights of the masses to teach religious moralities

Your scientific assetion makes as much sense as some of the Nazi "science."

Government must be neutral as to religion. Giving equal rights to homosexuals doesn't squelch your religious right to decide what's moral. Make whatever decisions you want, but don't expect the goverment to enforce them. It is not permitted to have any part in that.

You have your right to teach religious moralities (there is no conflict- you can go on promulgating your religiously cloaked prejudice all you want), but not to impose your moralities on others, and specifically not to have the government do it.

Apparantly you have forgotten that there are two sides to freedom of religion, not only the right to practice- freedom of religion, but also the right not to have the government promote it- freedom from religion.

This is where your entire concept of freedom falls apart. It's not just yours, it's everyone's. If your right to swing your arm ends at my nose, your right to "protect" religion ends as soon as it infringes on someone else's rights.

When you think about the Constitution having to protect your religion, you need to realize that it also needs to protect beliefs that are totally opposed, such as atheism.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Homosexuality is a sin in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, it is also against the will of the Gods if you are a Hindu as well, I'm not sure about Buddhism, or any of the other eastern religions generally speaking any religion that favors the family is against gays. The only "religion" I can think of that favors gay relationships is Wicca(sp?) and it is of modern origin with still evolving rituals and beliefs.

This is all irrelevant. Government is not supposed to promote any religion, even if it promotes all of them. Even if nobody believed in the morality of homosexuality, it's not the place of government to impose moral beliefs.

BTW, if you believe in a Constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, you're admitting that it's presently constitutional. So, for the first time in history you're in favor of amnding the Constitution to eliminate a constitutional right.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Personally I have no problem with a gay "union" just don't call it marriage, it can have every privilege, requirement, and penalty marriage does under secular law, just don't call it marriage. Marriage is a very important part of many religions and it has significance in church law, something the government doesn't have any buainess messing with, and may not have the ability depending on how you interpret the first amendment.

This is a fallacious argument. Every government has the right to control marriage because it has legal consequences.

Just because it uses the same word as the Bible doesn't mean it impacts on the Bible in any way. Insisitng on not allowing the same name for a gay union is just another way of denigrating homosexual union. In law, when you give something a different name, it invites different treatment at some point. If it bothers you so much, the only fair thing would be to eliminate "marriage" as a legal term and call everything a union.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

I'll field this one. Fud never specified any one religion, because he didn't have to to make his point. Homosexuality is a sin in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, it is also against the will of the Gods if you are a Hindu as well, I'm not sure about Buddhism, or any of the other eastern religions generally speaking any religion that favors the family is against gays. The only "religion" I can think of that favors gay relationships is Wicca(sp?) and it is of modern origin with still evolving rituals and beliefs.

But my original point (and Harold's quote) still apply. How can you accept that a religious authority tells you what's right or wrong? The commandments have to do with negative actions towards others. And that is OK as far as I am concerned.

But as far as telling you have to behave, the religious authorities were wrong before.

In the 13th century, the pope (innocent the 3d) had a whole city (> 10000 people) massacred because there were 200 heretics hiding among them. The commander got orders to make sure the heretics were killed. When he asked how he would know which ones were the heretics, innocent the 3d spoke the immortal words 'Kill them all, and let God sort them out'

But that's OK, is it? I mean he was the pope, speaking with the authority of God. So that makes it right, yes?

And the crusades, witchhunts, repression of other opinions etc were also instigated from the top down.

If anything, this proves that religious authorities are fallible, and you should use your own common sense to make judgments. The church is not better qualified to make the 'gay marriage' judgment call than I am.

Originally Posted by FUD

"Biological design" is the general design of the species. It has nothing to do with artifical alterations to that design. The general biological design of our species requires a male and a female to reproduce.

This is entirely beside the point. We're talking about freedom and government. Your mixing in biological design is just a smokescreen for prejudice. Why is it any different than preserving the Arian race because that's what God intended? We can set up all kinds of systems and explanations, but they make no sense. We don't govern by biological design, and besides, who decides what it is?

Our Constitution and our whole way of thinking is based on humanism and the inalienable rights of the people. Nobbody has the right to curtail those rights because of their conception of biological design, and certainly not when it's based in religion.

Originally Posted by FUD

Prove evolution. You can't. no one can. We see evidence of "adaptation" and call that evolution. I've had the greatest science minds in KSU admit to me that evolution cannot be proven. It's just been promoted so much that everyone accepts it as "fact" and "law". The only thing evolutionary scientists will refuse to budge on is whether or not the world was "created". Even the very core of the theory of "evolution" is available for change, just don't throw in intelligent design. Bottom line is they're both theories and they both have "evidence" that "suggests" the truth of each.

Prove God exists or that the universe was created.

The greatest minds in the world accept evolution. Every time there's a new discovery it is consistent with evolution, and there are huge amounts of literature in peer reviewed publications on all aspects of evolution going back over the centuries. You can't prove a principal that broad and that's why it's a theory, but the evidence supporting many aspects of evolution is massive. Something as simple as the DNA of humans and chipanzees being over 95% identical. It's not just a matter of promotion. It's a matter of scientific investigation and evidence, and it's continually growing and evolving.

To equate evolution with only adapting shows a severe lack of understanding of what it really is. And for religious motiviations we are raising a segment of our population which is totally ignorant- educated people who will become the laughing stock of the scientific community when they go out and try to become part of it. You are self deceived, and you are hurting your children and our country.

And intelligent design is a sham. You look at a complex human and you say "what is the probability that all this could come together at the sam time"?. It's a sham because it's creationism in diguise. It also displays a severe misunderstnading of principles of evolution (maybe intentional).

One of the principals of evolution is that organisms mutate. So you may start with a one cell organism and over time those mutations which are most likely to aid survival take hold. Things come together because of ages of mutations (of course you can't believe that if you believe the universe is only 6,000 years old). So, the development of a human being is not a spontaneous ocurrence with with a minute probability of happening but a complex winding course with many deadends and one ultimate, complex path surviving. Sure there may be a minute overall probability, but at each turn it was finite and reasonable.

Which brings us to creationism. It is not a scientific principle but a religious one. It is based entirely on faith, and you can't even prove the fundamental leaps of faith underlying it. That's why they have to start calculating probabilities. What's worse is that because it's based on religion we should not be teaching it in our public schools as anything but philosophy or history.

So give me a break with this utter nonsense. It's a religiously based, reactionary concept that's an embarrassment to true conservativism.

Dear Joe,

I thought you'd be less inclined to feel stepped on your toes. You seem to take the whole thing quite personal.

The thing about this is that anyone should have the freedom to believe what they want. Whether it's evolution or creationism is not important. Enough arguments have been found by people smarter than us all to support either idea. And not just "faith" ideas either.

I have to say I agree with FUD on most points though. But most likely that is because I've had a chance to investigate for myself what I believe is true. Please do not call me "dumb" because I choose to believe in someone higher than me. Believe me I've heard ALL the arguments and have found none that causes a problem with my faith.

The one thing I'd like to point out in Firestart and FUD's points is the overpopulated world though. This is CRAP. Ilja...you live in Canada and think it's overpopulated? c'mon..... Same goes for the US. Now I agree that there are parts of the world that are overpopulated. Just not the world as a whole.

Population of the world is the same as the divide in riches. It's unequal. There's enough food for everyone on this planet it's just not divided very well.

But for closing I'd like to once again point out that arguments for any case can be made and no argument on it's own is going to make someone change his mind on this forum.

Not because it's not a valid argument.....just because Internet is not the place for discussions such as this.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

But for closing I'd like to once again point out that arguments for any case can be made and no argument on it's own is going to make someone change his mind on this forum.

Alex, I agree with your point - arguments on these very profound issues rarely gain converts either way. Its upto each of us to make up our own minds.

The trouble starts for me, when people, Governments, Religions etc start telling me what my Mind has to be.

I am always surprised when the glaring truth of a particular point of view is not immediately seen by all! A falsehood dressed up as the truth is still a falsehood.

So, Religious/Non-religious, straight/gay - Just dont make any of 'em Compulsory