The Federal Prop. 8 Trial / Gay Marriage Catch-All

RoughneckGeek wrote:

There are also people that believe that prayer alone is a valid response to a life-threatening medical condition. Maybe those folks aren't assholes and just delusional. I'm perfectly content classifying the parents in this story as delusional instead of assholes.

Yes, they are delusional. Their intent is good, their understanding of the world is not.

And so, we're back at my first comment that sparked all this. I have a hatred of religion, even as I am more sympathetic to the religious.

Jonman wrote:

You said yourself, "how could you NOT want your son to avoid this eternal damnation, regardless of the suffering it causes in this life?" Right there, you point out that his suffering is irrelevant (in the context of your thought experiment - not trying to lay that on you).

Does that sound sociopathic or assholey to you? Certainly does to me.

As opposed to an ETERNITY of suffering? Most certainly not! If your choices are to have your son undergo either a finite amount of suffering or an infinite amount, what kind of monster would you be to pick the latter?

Which leads me back to my initial point. The problem isn't that religious viewpoint, it's people willfully embracing it to the exclusion of other non-religious considerations. Like, you know, helping your kids be happy well-adjusted individuals.

The problem most certainly IS the religious viewpoint. If your religious viewpoint is that unrepentant homosexuals will be punished for all eternity, how could it not be?

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Does that sound sociopathic or assholey to you? Certainly does to me.

As opposed to an ETERNITY of suffering? Most certainly not! If your choices are to have your son undergo either a finite amount of suffering or an infinite amount, what kind of monster would you be to pick the latter?

So now you're arguing for my snark-to-the-max suggestion of a God-approved mass culling of the gays? To avoid monsterhood, right?

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Which leads me back to my initial point. The problem isn't that religious viewpoint, it's people willfully embracing it to the exclusion of other non-religious considerations. Like, you know, helping your kids be happy well-adjusted individuals.

The problem most certainly IS the religious viewpoint. If your religious viewpoint is that unrepentant homosexuals will be punished for all eternity, how could it not be?

I could hold that viewpoint, but simultaneously recognize that the unrepentant homosexual has also been granted God-given free will, including the free will to sin, but that God's forgiveness is boundless, and that He loves all His children. And that the currently unrepentant homosexual will have plenty of chances to repent on this earth, not to mention some more when he's chatting with St Peter, so we should love and accept and cherish him as a neighbor, as Jesus told us we should.

I'm no Biblical scholar, but that seems like a pretty broad-brushed religious viewpoint that lines up with more verses in the Bible that just one in Leviticus.

I'm arguing that there are sociopathic, assholery religious viewpoints as well as sensible ones. It's up to the believer which ones they embrace.

Valmorian wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Valmorian wrote:

And how do you determine your belief system is wrong, exactly?

I used logic.

As do I. Unfortunately, many people think faith is a valid methodology as well.

Logic would still have served them in good stead.

"Bible says homosexuals are evil. Bible says disobedient children should be stoned to death."

At that point either logic should cut in and you should realize that your stances on religion deserve a deeper look-through, or you should take the logical step of murdering your son. You're in the clear, because the Bible told you to do it, and he's in the clear, because he has been killed before he could carry out any homosexual sins.

These people's religious views are so completely mutually contradictory that ANY exercise in logic should cause them to rethink SOMETHING.

It would be pretty hard for a Christian that disliked homosexuality and hadn't murdered any Wiccans to get any respect from me. Not that a Wiccan-murdering, slut-murdering, child stoning Christian would get my respect either, but at least they're being consistent.

Jonman wrote:

So now you're arguing for my snark-to-the-max suggestion of a God-approved mass culling of the gays? To avoid monsterhood, right?

Nonsense. Although there ARE likely those who would advocate such because of their faith based beliefs. Let me point out that there are likely many behaviors that you think are destructive and yet you don't run around preventing those behaviors through over the top means (as you suggest in your hypothetical).

Furthermore, many religious people believe that homosexuality is a choice, and would rather convince those gay people to become straight than to resort to your ludicrous proposition.

It's not like there isn't any resistance to the teaching of homosexuality as natural in schools. Where do you think that comes from? Random "assholishness"?

I'm arguing that there are sociopathic, assholery religious viewpoints as well as sensible ones. It's up to the believer which ones they embrace.

Here's where we fundamentally disagree. I do not believe that people select their belief systems out of the ether. Rather they are shaped by their environment. If you are so lucky as to have grown up in an environment that is tolerant of such a viewpoint towards homosexuality, or have managed to break free of the poisonous view that it is a sin, then great. Don't presume that such a viewpoint is easy to shake off, though, especially when one is indoctrinated into it from a young age.

You're eager to label the parents as "assholes". Do you label the son as an "asshole" for believing his homosexuality was sinful and hating himself for it? If you blame the parents for that belief, then why stop there? Does it not come from a long line of religious traditional beliefs?

Yonder wrote:

Logic would still have served them in good stead.

And if you believe faith trumps reason, as many religious traditions teach? What then?

Valmorian wrote:

It's not like there isn't any resistance to the teaching of homosexuality as natural in schools. Where do you think that comes from? Random "assholishness"?

Random? No. Assholishness? Abso-freaking-lutely. Utter mis-use and/or wilful ignorance of the meaning of the word 'natural'? Naturally.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I'm arguing that there are sociopathic, assholery religious viewpoints as well as sensible ones. It's up to the believer which ones they embrace.

Here's where we fundamentally disagree. I do not believe that people select their belief systems out of the ether. Rather they are shaped by their environment. If you are so lucky as to have grown up in an environment that is tolerant of such a viewpoint towards homosexuality, or have managed to break free of the poisonous view that it is a sin, then great. Don't presume that such a viewpoint is easy to shake off, though, especially when one is indoctrinated into it from a young age.

I know orders of magnitude more people whose beliefs have evolved with age and experience than I do people who's beliefs have remained static. They all select their belief systems over time, discarding some, acquiring others, and modifying yet others to fit their changing worldviews.

Valmorian wrote:

You're eager to label the parents as "assholes". Do you label the son as an "asshole" for believing his homosexuality was sinful and hating himself for it? If you blame the parents for that belief, then why stop there? Does it not come from a long line of religious traditional beliefs?

Self-loathing does not an asshole make. Inflicting that loathing on others does.

Jonman wrote:

I know orders of magnitude more people whose beliefs have evolved with age and experience than I do people who's beliefs have remained static. They all select their belief systems over time, discarding some, acquiring others, and modifying yet others to fit their changing worldviews.

Lucky you, but your personal experience doesn't mean everyone is in the same situation. Why couldn't that poor boy just "change his views" about his own homosexuality? Perhaps because he had a lot of reinforcement from his environment?

Self-loathing does not an asshole make. Inflicting that loathing on others does.

You're doing a great job of ignoring the points I am making.

If you're going to say that the parents could simply "choose" to believe something different in regards to being gay, why don't you also say that the boy could have simply "chosen" to not believe all that horrible stuff and NOT get involved with drugs?

In this day and age, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to view anyone who considers homosexuality as a 'sin' to be anything other than a bad person, regardless of what other redeeming features or attitudes they may have in their favor, and regardless of their upbringing, environment, etc. Attitudes like this destroy lives. I understand that they hold these beliefs, in most cases, because they're following a Bible that they've determined to be the holy, infallible word of God, but in my mind that just makes them stupid and recklessly dangerous, not misguided and sympathetic.

The world will be a better place when people and attitudes like this are no longer with us.

OG_slinger wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Keep in mind that the son also was taught by his parents that the only way God would love him is if he repressed his sexuality. It was only after years of attempts to stop being gay that turned to self-destructive behavior. I don't think his parents knew how much their (and his) belief was hurting him until he dove into drugs and cut off contact with his parents. They weren't assholes, they were just unaware.

FTFY.

They were both assholes and incredibly bad parents because they put a fairy tale ahead of their son's wellbeing. They didn't adjust their beliefs one bit in the face of their son's death. Not once in that entire article did Robertson ever say "My religion is wrong, especially on the issue of homosexuality."

And they were taught by their parents, who were taught by their parents, and so on and so on. Once it became clear to them that their fairy tale was causing their son to hate himself and turn his back on their religion, they stopped caring what their fairy tale said about his sexuality and just wanted to help their son be happy. And they did adjust their beliefs entirely on that matter, well before he died.

Now, when I think back on the fear that governed all my reactions during those first six years after Ryan told us he was gay, I cringe as I realize how foolish I was. I was afraid of all the wrong things. And I grieve, not only for my oldest son, whom I will miss every day for the rest of my life, but for the mistakes I made.

Yes, they're still christians, and they still believe in God, but they did realize that they were horribly wrong on the issue of homosexuality. The whole point of that article and the speeches they do is to share with others how they were wrong, and what being so wrong cost them, in an attempt to help prevent others from making their mistake. I have no idea how you can read it and think otherwise.

I'd just like to chime in with the reminder that the Bible never says that heterosexuality is the key to heaven. According to the Bible, heterosexuals are all going to hell too, if they reject the gospel.

Valmorian wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Logic would still have served them in good stead.

And if you believe faith trumps reason, as many religious traditions teach? What then?

Pretty much everybody reasons things out. It's impossible not to. Maybe there is a super specific and logical Vulcan-based religion out there, but every other one usually speak in general themes and platitudes that contradict each other. Though shall not kill, you shall not suffer a witch to live. Be fruitful and multiply, be chaste and avoid relationships to better prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven. Turn the other cheek, unless you are literally throwing bankers out of the temple. Sodomy is terrible, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

Unless the religious entity in question is a goldfish, remembering only the last 3 seconds of what his pastor told him, the actual application of his faith to his life requires reason. It's not like reason is some wholly foreign skillset that religious people never user, that is just mentally impossible. All they have to do is go beyond "Shellfish yummy, polyester comfy, bacon comfy and yummy!" and extend those sorts of thought processes a bit further.

Maybe I am slightly over-generalizing, maybe their are more rigorous religions, but Christianity is emphatically not one of them. You have a key event which "breaks the old covenant" and there you go, 2/3rds of your holy text is called into question. Even if your family, pastor, and other worshipers in your group are all very consistent about what parts are valid and which aren't, the core theme and feel of the very basic stories that as far as I know all Christians keep at the core of their beliefs vary a lot. One Sunday (Friday/Saturday Sabbaths are so last millennia) you hear about love and peace, the next Sunday you hear about the entirety of the planet being killed in a flood. Then you hear about sexual purity, then after Sodom and Gomorra the dad impregnates his two daughters.

Trying to get the most basic of a behavior code out of that needs critical thinking.

You can justify almost anything you want with The Bible.

This leads to a predictable phenomenon:

1) Powerful people have an agenda.
2) Powerful people find a way to propagate the agenda using something in The Bible.
3) Ignorant people fall for it.

You could easily replace "The Bible" with various other religious texts and it works similarly.

Which I guess is to say: the people who "fall for it" aren't really assholes, they're just the output of a system which is engineered to manipulate them. The real assholes are the ones who run the system and initiate the memes to begin with.

Yonder wrote:
Valmorian wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Logic would still have served them in good stead.

And if you believe faith trumps reason, as many religious traditions teach? What then?

Pretty much everybody reasons things out. It's impossible not to. Maybe there is a super specific and logical Vulcan-based religion out there, but every other one usually speak in general themes and platitudes that contradict each other. Though shall not kill, you shall not suffer a witch to live. Be fruitful and multiply, be chaste and avoid relationships to better prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven. Turn the other cheek, unless you are literally throwing bankers out of the temple. Sodomy is terrible, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

Unless the religious entity in question is a goldfish, remembering only the last 3 seconds of what his pastor told him, the actual application of his faith to his life requires reason. It's not like reason is some wholly foreign skillset that religious people never user, that is just mentally impossible. All they have to do is go beyond "Shellfish yummy, polyester comfy, bacon comfy and yummy!" and extend those sorts of thought processes a bit further.

Maybe I am slightly over-generalizing, maybe their are more rigorous religions, but Christianity is emphatically not one of them. You have a key event which "breaks the old covenant" and there you go, 2/3rds of your holy text is called into question. Even if your family, pastor, and other worshipers in your group are all very consistent about what parts are valid and which aren't, the core theme and feel of the very basic stories that as far as I know all Christians keep at the core of their beliefs vary a lot. One Sunday (Friday/Saturday Sabbaths are so last millennia) you hear about love and peace, the next Sunday you hear about the entirety of the planet being killed in a flood. Then you hear about sexual purity, then after Sodom and Gomorra the dad impregnates his two daughters.

Trying to get the most basic of a behavior code out of that needs critical thinking.

I can understand your frustration if you are not separating the parts of the Bible that are narrative from the instructional bits. FYI, Lot impregnating his daughters is not meant to be instructional.

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Quadruple post from my ipad for the win! That must be some kind of record.

I'm not trying to belittle the religion here. I am simply making a point that the existence of these various elements requires some amount of thought to figure out what is going on.

gore:

I am unsure as to the extent of power powerful people have over your countrymen, but from where I stand, powerful people generally have very limited control over what people want to believe or do. I think "Prohibition" just illustrates how hard it is to turn the tide of a society that's not willing to accept the direction. People use religion (or politics, or what-have-you) to justify things they already want to do. If they don't want to do it, Christianity has a long history of being A-OK with catering to whatever the heck it is they want it to be, even if it's not in the Bible at all.

Religion is conservative in the sense that it follows and codifies beliefs people already have. It doesn't lead or establish much of anything in general, IMO. If the religious teaching in a particular area is that drinking water is a sin, it's because other forces made that into a powerful cultural item, and religious institutions seek to establish and validate their own existence by approving of it. In a sense, religious institutions are just very powerful yes-men. They simply validate what people already want to do.

Nomad wrote:

I can understand your frustration if you are not separating the parts of the Bible that are narrative from the instructional bits. FYI, Lot impregnating his daughters is not meant to be instructional.

How do you tell the difference?

I heard you, KingGorilla, and I was thinking the same thing.

Stengah wrote:

Yes, they're still christians, and they still believe in God, but they did realize that they were horribly wrong on the issue of homosexuality. The whole point of that article and the speeches they do is to share with others how they were wrong, and what being so wrong cost them, in an attempt to help prevent others from making their mistake. I have no idea how you can read it and think otherwise.

No, no, no. They realized they were wrong about how they treated their *son*. Not once did they acknowledge that their religious teachings about homosexuality were wrong. Not once did they ask for their son's forgiveness for putting him through the hell of making him choose between his religion and his sexuality.

All they did was make a little carve out in their belief system that basically involved them ignoring their son's sexual preference in favor of loving him (the ole "love the sinner, hate the sin" routine) and they only reached that point after they thought they'd never see him again.

I have no idea how you can read that article and not see that it's sole purpose was to elicit undeserved sympathy for a woman who killed her son because of her crazy religious beliefs, which she basically doubled-down on at the end.

NSMike wrote:
Nomad wrote:

I can understand your frustration if you are not separating the parts of the Bible that are narrative from the instructional bits. FYI, Lot impregnating his daughters is not meant to be instructional.

How do you tell the difference?

Also the second half of this Q&A clip deals with reading narrative.

No offense, Nomad, I watched the Big Think video, but I think I may have inadvertently thrown things off the rails with that question. I appreciate the effort, but I hope you'll forgive me if I don't continue the derail.

The next chapter in marriage equality in the U.S. looks like it will happen in New Jersey.

The first part of that chapter deals with the NJ Assembly and Senate looking to override Gov. Christie's 2013 veto of a gay marriage bill. Specifically, they asking the GOP leadership to allow a conscience vote on the issue (i.e. GOP members will be allowed to vote against the party line without repercussions). Apparently, some members of the NJ GOP disagree with Christie and want to vote to override his veto, but fear the consequences because of Christie's power and popularity. No date has been scheduled for the override vote.

The second part of the chapter deals with marriage equality advocated filing suit in NJ Superior Court looking for a summary judgement for the courts to allow gay marriage in the Garden State. This is based on the NJ Supreme Court's ruling several years ago that gay couples must be afforded the same rights as married heterosexual couples. The NJ Legislature then passed the state's civil unions bill. Then, last week, the SCOTUS struck down DOMA and gay couples are now at a disadvantage because without marriage, they are not entitled to all the federal benefits that gay couples in states that allow gay marriage would get (since some federal benefits are based on state of residence). The only way to get equality is to allow gay marriage. Arguments in the lawsuit are set for mid-August.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

Specifically, they asking the GOP leadership to allow a conscience vote on the issue (i.e. GOP members will be allowed to vote against the party line without repercussions). Apparently, some members of the NJ GOP disagree with Christie and want to vote to override his veto, but fear the consequences because of Christie's power and popularity.

I'm sorry to sound sarcastic, but how exactly do they plan to achieve this? Through everyone putting their heads down on their desks and doing a raised-hand count? How do you convince a political party of any stripe not to hold breaking ranks against someone?

Bloo Driver wrote:
Phoenix Rev wrote:

Specifically, they asking the GOP leadership to allow a conscience vote on the issue (i.e. GOP members will be allowed to vote against the party line without repercussions). Apparently, some members of the NJ GOP disagree with Christie and want to vote to override his veto, but fear the consequences because of Christie's power and popularity.

I'm sorry to sound sarcastic, but how exactly do they plan to achieve this? Through everyone putting their heads down on their desks and doing a raised-hand count? How do you convince a political party of any stripe not to hold breaking ranks against someone?

Anonymous voting?