Why do Christians like to fixate so much on homosexuality?

Post Reply New Topic

How quickly you forget. The people have limited their own authority by means of the US Constitution. No action of any organ of government, nor of the people themselves has any legitimacy if it does not comform to the US Constitution.

The people have taken away from themselves the capacity to amend that document, it must be amended through the process that the people have established. If the people wish to undertake an action that violates the constitution, they must first initiate the processes that will amend the constitution. Then, and only then, can they proceed to undertake their intended action.

Strip people of their equal protection of the law, by all means. But repeal the 14th Amendment clauses first.

It's really not that complicated a process to understand.

Lest you forget -

I was in any case assuming, which it seems you were not, that the people could and would amend the constitution as it pleased them.

But leave us remember:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Show me how the people cannot do that to the Constitution of the United States which they did to the government of George III.

Has government of the people, by the people, for the people, perished from the earth?

I see no capacity for them to do so. The US constitution is paramount over any individual state's constitution, and there's an end to it. To the extent that they are capacitated within their individual states, they may be able to do so, but no farther than the circumscriptions established by the superior document.



You have quoted a political manifesto that has no force of law.

The question is not whether or not the people have sovereign authority, but rather whether their attempt to exercise sovereign authority in this particular case is consistent with the circumscriptions that they have previously laid down for the exercise of that jurisdiction. To answer that question, the Declaration of Independence is wholly and entirely subordinate to the Constitution.



The people can, of course, through armed insurrection overthrow the government of the United States. However, perhaps an attempt to amend the US Constitution might be a method of approach that does not involve civil war.

So -

the people can create a Constitution and a Framework of law which then they have no right nor power to remove, replace, amend in any significant way or control?

King Stork in the flesh.

My quoting the political manifesto has simply this point:

The people CAN [as they have done in the past] and if pushed the wrong way WILL pull the plug, shut it down, and start something else.

I grant you the secession of the southern states did not work out well. But ask Charles I, or George III, or Louis XVI, or Nicholas II, or Fulgencio Batista whether revolutions ever trump existing forms of government.

My reading of the US Constitution is that this is exactly what they have done. They can amend it through their elected representatives or through convention and in no other legal way. Of course, if we move into the realm of illegal methods, then by all means the scope is wider.



I thought I made it perfectly clear that I agreed that the people can resort to armed insurrection. Are we vehemently agreeing with each other on that point?

As for the five tyrants that you have posited, what has been the fate of their regicides (well, stretching the word, for Castro). Charles I's regicides lasted a mere 11 years before the Monarchy was restored, unchanged. Louis XVI's were gone, and a new tyrannical moncarchy was in place within 20. Nicholas' were more successful, lasting a full 72 years before imploding.

One of the reasons that the product of the American Revolution has last as long as it has is that you took the best of what preceded. You kept the rule of law. I suggest to you that disposing of that feature of your republic is far more likely to forment rebellion than courts constraining the people to the framework that they have established for themselves.

I am more than happy to agree vehemently with you on the following propositions or such variations as may be duly ratified by a majority vote of three self-appointed arbiters:

1. The Rule of Law is viable only when enough of the ruled consent to play along.

2. The Rule of Law is at least preferable to practical anarchy or malign governance.

3. The people can and will replace any form of government that enough of them dislike enough.

4. A large percentage of those who can do what they want without negative consequences will.

5 Any government will, given enough time attract and come to be run by the kind of people who ran the previous government.

And that is why most revolutions have as you point out a pretty short half-life

I am not enough of the right kind of history buff to know whether in the past the USA has gone through populations as polarized and disaffected and administrations as low-scoring in wisom and statesmanship as we have today. Sure feel's like the old ark's a-movering, though.

Check out Djilas' New Class.

The reason that the existing limits on the rights of the people as a whole were established was to prevent 'mob rule.' The founders did not want a pure democracy - they were as afraid of the 'tyranny of the majority' as they were of the tyranny of the king.

The constitution was formed the way it was to provide a balance between the two powers (the people and the government) and a balance between the three branches of government.

Democracy: Two wolves and a lamb sitting at table voting on what to have for dinner.

ruveyn

You already said that. I THINK I mentioned the rabbit - lion - hyena story.

Not objecting or criticizing in any way - just reality checking my sometimes flawed memory.

In answer, yes, yes and yes. The constitutional framers were afraid of a thing called majoritarianism, absolute rule of a small majority. The United States's size and vastly different population composition is the only real protection against such a factor occurring. If you read the Federalist Papers you will see the amount of thought that the framers put into this issue.

The bible doesn't really talk about homosexuality itself.
It talks about the act of sexual intercourse between two men "as with a woman", meaning anal intercourse.
Lesbians can't have this kind of intercourse, so it's irrelevant to them.

Otherwise I don't think that there's a difference in the bible's attitude towards male and female homosexuals. Actually, as far as I know, in the bible there's no mentioning of it at all, apart from the intercourse thing. Many people that I know interpret it simply as a ban on that act, and not on the attraction to other males, or kissing them, or whatever. It is believed that David and Jonathan (I think those were the two) had a homoerotic relationship. The Jewish Halakha also judges other forms of gay sex (like oral sex) the same as it deals with masturbation, or ejaculating "outside", or using a condom or whatever.
Some even say that the whole semen thing is the reason for its "ban" in the first place... The bible says nothing about gay people otherwise. It also didn't condemn King David's alleged homosexuality.

The New Testament might have more stuff about it, but as far as I know they take their "justification" from the OT. As for the story of Sodom, Jewish tradition says nothing about homosexuality there. It talks about xenophobia, being rude to guests, rape, hatred, but no one says that the city was destructed "because they were gay". If anything, it may be added to their list of sins, but it's never mentioned as a key reason, or even as a reason at all. Christianity later "changed" that, contradicting the living tradition of hundreds or thousands of years, which it claimed to continue.

I don't get the impression that you really know the Bible very well.

Well, the pragmatist's viewpoint would be that, as opposed to an heterosexual relation, homosexual relationship do not "produce" anything. =/ (except bodily fluids, yeah, but that's not "concrete" enough to have signification in the christian religion, may differ in other religions).

Well, it looks like the death penalty for male homosexuality applies only to Jews.

From what I can tell, Jews think that non-Jews should only follow the "Seven Laws of Noah"

I don't know from where this originates, nor what the official translation is. But, according to this, the only sexual things about which Christians should worry are incest and adultery. I'm assuming that "adultery" is defined strictly as boning someone else's wife. Male homosexuality is fine, as long as you aren't Jewish.

"inferred from Genesis Ch. 9,"

This is not the Constitution, it is the court interpreting the Constitution.

Even if it is the Supreme Court - the equivalent, that is - 'it is not the same thing.

Actually, I did see a video where 2 women were using a strap-on device, and there was some anal penetration.


In most cases, all you had to do was take a bath, wash your clothes, and remain indoors until evening. Except for Onan.


Okay.