Why do Christians like to fixate so much on homosexuality?

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rereading, i can't see what you could have misunderstood to see that. apology rejected.

of course it will impact how society views marriage! the current laws already do!

rereading seems like it might be a good thing for you to try.

Yes, that would be the nature of misunderstanding. You know what you wrote; I misread, and I retract the statement.

Ah, good, something we agree on. I'm not getting into the particulars of the debate, 'tis all.

How would it be a bad thing for society to view marriage as a contract between two PEOPLE, rather than between a male and a female?

Isn't it inherently sexist as it is?

Society has done all sorts of things in various parts of the world and various points in time. There have been and are a lot of different relationships that have been seen by society as normal.

Governments - NOT quite the same as society, society has always done things in despite of governments and vice versa - have likewise mandated a lot of different things and come up specifically with many very different models or human relationship licensed or forbidden by the government.

A relatively small number of religious organizations have come into this, doing the same thing as governments, sometimes being cooppted my governments to endorse their prescriptions, sometimes being the government.

Religion comes into the current issues mainly because there ARE some remarks on marriage in the OT/NT complex. But as I have said, marriage rules of any relevance in the US today are purely secular. The churches may have their own rules, but the government says ig deal. If every church in town refuses to marry you, you can get your best friend to do it [at least in some places, I have a cousin who has been looking into doing this] or preferably go to the town hall. Whatever, you pay money for the license, you follow the rules, you pay the town official if you go that route, then you are recognized by the government as married.

The real problem I would suggest, is we are in transition from a societal / governmental marriage model based on permanent property trransfers and inheritance and registering children to a new model based of a temporary license to do sex with tax breaks. This is a major restructuring and poses big problems.

What do you consider the purpose and nature of marriage to be?

Actually, I had not noted that "inherently sexist" line.

Ah me - this species is inherently sexist. We - and a lot of other beings on this planet - come in two varieties which are physically and mentally different and which keep interacting with one another in sex-differentiated ways.

Do we need to redress this by either eliminating one of the sexes, or removing all traces of physical differences at birth? But that latter will leave a lot of differences that cannot be sliced away..And even if one sex is eliminated and propagation of the species handles by government controlled cloning, there will still be differences between individuals and groups of individuals..

Best wipe the planet of life.

Non-facetiously:

If M + M cohabit and / or M + M engage in sexual activity, or if F + F cohabit or F + F engage in sexual activity, or if M + F undergo a variety of surgical and hormonal treatments to redesign the bodies they started out in and then cohabit or engage in sexual activity [I am leaving out groups of more than two not only because it gets complex to write out but because that number was specified, volodja] - and if society and the government are fine with this and even if all religious organizations in the world are fine with this and if everybody either calls those contracts marriage or STOPS calling what is between me and my wife marriage:

Even so, I would suggest - none of that will ever BE the same as what we have.

I can tell you - changing Berlin Ontario to Kitcheber, or calling sauerkraut Liberty Cabbage, or calling the device in your bathroom a toilet or watercloset or loo SOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT OF WHAT IT IS.

I have very little say in what the government does or does not license, or what Big Brother chooses to call the public crapper. But no amount of societal attitudinal change or legal reorganization will turn any but a female - male bonded and harmonious couple into me, my widfe,and in due course Number 1 Son.

You know the song - Only God can make a tree.

I still don't see what difference it makes though. M&F, M&M, F&F. How does the penis/vagina matter to anyone else? I don't care if the couple down the road are M&F or not.

Marriage, for me, is legal/financial protection for couples, regardless of their sex. If a woman can marry a man, why shouldn't a man have that right? Denying him that right because he has a penis is sexist

That, too.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009 ... _poked.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

Sex is sexist.

Also, do not confuse right and privilege. Rights do not come from the government

I have a right to devote the fruits of my labors to such purposes as feeding my family. For a considerable portion of my income, which is making my family much harder to maintain, the government denies me the privilege of so doing.

As I already said, there is big upheaval shifting to the government model where "marriage is legal/financial protection for couples", from a societal / individual model where marriage involved a couple proclaiming that they were indissolubly bonded and the community witrnessing the fact and joining in celebrating it.

I read a scifi story once describiing a hypothetical future society where a "family" consisted of a man and a woman assigned to live together [how selected it did not say] and a boy and a girl from the governments pool of children assigned to be cared foer by them.

Very statist, very unhuman, very unhealthy.

Do you mean gender is sexist, or that the act of sex is sexist? It doesn't matter, actually, because either way your statement has no impact on the legitimacy of same-sex couples.


Rights come from the community around us.

Women in Saudi Arabia do not have the right to leave their house or choose whom they will marry.
Women in America did not have the right to vote until the voters of the nation gave it to them.
American children do not have the right to eschew schooling altogether, regardless of how they would rather spend their time..
I have a right to devote the fruits of my labors to such purposes as feeding my family. For a considerable portion of my income, which is making my family much harder to maintain, the government denies me the privilege of so doing.


Sort of the polar opposite of letting people choose whom they will marry, eh?

^ why don't more Christians like you speak up, then? Most of the people in the atheist community are quite vocal in their support of equality for gay people, but at best the Christians are kind of ...'meh.'

LKL - not sure you read my post, your comments suggest you read you rewrite of it.

"Do you mean gender is sexist, or that the act of sex is sexist? It doesn't matter, actually, because either way your statement has no impact on the legitimacy of same-sex couples. "

Gender - the fact of a difference - makes sexism inevitable. Sexual activity is necessarily sexist in that the gender and number of the participants makes a difference in what transpires and how the participants perceive it. Whether or not it is possible to be "color-blind" in relations with one's neighbours, I doubt anybody, regardless of gender or sexual preference, is "gender-blind" when approaching sexual activity.

"The legitimacy of same-sex couples?" Was I talking about that? Did I define what I mean by legitimacy? Did you? The original topic I believe, was why do Christians fixate on homiosexuality - NOT are same sex couples legitimate. If I did not say before, I am Christian, I rarely think and less often talk about same sex couples. Or opposite sex couples. Or tennis. [love].


You work with a community based definition of rights. Your privilege. And your right. I distinguish the two, it is a useful distinction. For one thing, in my worldview, the community cannot take away your rights, just block you from exercising them. In yours, you have only the rights your peers give you. But whatever - whethefr we call it this or that, the government, the community, your parents, your siblings, let you do this and stop you doing that. At that level the outcome is the same.

As for letting people choose whom they will marry - if I wanted to stop people from marrying, how could I? How can anybody? Nobody stops anybody from marrying. An organization may refuse to say words over you. A government may refuse certificates and tax breaks. A commuinity may make it advisable for you to move to another town.

But nobody - even if I had an opnion about my brother in law's relationship - can stop you marrying.

Read my lips:

Education is not the diploma, nor the job it MIGHT open up.

Marriage is not the certificate, nor the tax break.

If you want to argue with me, please argue with what I do say, not what you think I ought to say if I am a Christian.

If I might jump in, and in all fairness, I think few people have ever given much thought to those kinds of truths ... and then we run into trouble with thoughts of anything outside the norm of diplomas, certificates and tax breaks ... scary.

Point: Rather than trying to keep non-heterosexual marriage from being accepted among the norm, followers of Scripture ought to be stepping outside the norm and essentially into that "scary" area where homosexuals have long found themselves doing as they wish and believe in spite of whatever "the norm" might have to say about that anyway.

Everything really is backwards today.

Last edited by leejosepho on 12 Feb 2011, 3:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I responded to what you wrote, not what you thought or what you meant. If you thought or meant something other than what you wrote, it's up to you to clarify it.


Same-sex couples do it differently than hetero couples. So? That is no more any of my business than the fact that some hetero couples like whips and bondage.


Of course I am aware that they are 'different,' but that should make no difference in how I treat them. It is possible to acknowledge that I have no right to judge someone based on their skin or their gender or their orientation, and that it is immoral for me to work towards limiting their rights based on those factors and moral for me to work towards their equality.


*snort*
You're being disingenuous.


That statement doesn't jibe with the one above where you claim that it's impossible to be 'gender-blind.'


I appreciate you acknowledging my right to my own opinion on where rights come from, especially given that you stated your view previously as though it were a commonly-acknowledged given.


Given that I'm doing in-line quoting, I find it difficult to understand just where you think that I'm arguing with something that you didn't say.

A big part of marriage is the social recognition of, and respect for, the bond. If the certificate were meaningless, Christians would not be working so very hard to keep homosexuals from getting it.

I do not speak for all Christians, nor for all who call themselves Christians, nor for all outsiders assume to be Christians. I speak - now and back then and forever - for me because it is all I am qualified to speak for. And I work FOR no marriage but my own and those of the Inner Circle including, when he gets there, Number 1 Son. I work AGAINST no marriage - neither absolute marriage nor blessed marriage nor state-licensed marriage.

I may tell you, I have had MY marriage worked against - undermined and persecuted and eventually annihilated. It was not fun. I would not - do not - do that.

I say - AGAIN - attack what I say not what you think a Christian bad guy has to be saying.

And THERE is a statement that will othat will not be heard.