njlauren
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quote:
ORIGINAL: crazyml
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ORIGINAL: Yachtie
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ORIGINAL: crazyml
[ED to fix my idiotic wording]
Forgive me Yachtie, I'm not completely clear about what you meant by...
quote:
Does that include religious ceremonies or are you solely pointing to State law as to gay marriage as legal?
Where you asking tweakabelle to clarify whether she simply supported legal gay marriage or whether she wanted religious groups to be required to perform gay marriages?
Yes, you are quite clear.
Thanks.
Obviously I can't answer for tweakabelle, but here's where I am.
Getting the right to have a civil partnership is certainly the most important thing to me, as that affects things like inheritance rights, insurance, taxation etc. So allowing same sex couples to enjoy the same legal protections as opposite sex couples seems like a very big step in the right direction, and it is.
Where it comes to obliging religious groups to accept same sex marriage, we obviously get into really gnarly territory since we're touching on people's beliefs.
In the interests of disclosure, I would say that ultimately, yes I would like to see religious groups offering the same access to the different sacraments (or their equivalents) to same sex couples as to opposite sex couples. I am honestly not certain that legally enforcing equality in the context of religious groups is the best way to address this inequality, but I can see some pretty strong arguments for doing so.
If you believe that it is wrong to treat same sex couples differently then what reason can you give for arguing that they should not be allowed equal status in religious ceremonies/sacraments?
If it is against the law to discriminate against people on the grounds of gender, disability, or sexual orientation then why should one group claim exemption?
I believe that prejudice (which in this case can reasonably be described as homophobia) is the reason people oppose gay marriage. I believe that because ultimately the reason for their opposition boils down to a belief that it's wrong to be gay.
The tactic by some groups to support civil partnership while opposing marriage is an interesting one, because it is an attempt to cloak that prejudice by claiming a) I am not prejudiced so support civil partnership while believing b) God would not approve of gay people making a formal faith-based commitment to one another.
The arguments that are put up against gay marriage then begin to decay into the absurd.
The first, and one of the most ludicrous, is the "I'll be forced to marry someone of the same sex". This is a particularly stupid argument because I'm pretty sure that no-one who promotes the right of people of the same sex to marry has ever suggested that hetero people should ever be forced into same sex marriage. Lets face it, that would be as prejudiced as forcing people into opposite sex marriage.
Then there's the "pollution" argument... which goes along the lines of "If we allow this to happen our kids might end up gay!". I can't help thinking in this case.. if you're not prejudiced against gay people, why would it be a problem if your kids ended up gay?
Ultimately, I believe that religious opposition to same sex marriage is a question of prejudice. I am open to the idea that someone might be able to make an argument against same sex marriage that doesn't essentially boil down to prejudice, but I haven't heard one yet.
Crazy-
I agree with most of your writing, but forcing churches to open sacraments to same sex couples (I am talking legally here) is a violation of the first amendment, it is telling a church in their core function, as a religious community, what they have to believe. A church is not a public conveyance, so the first amendment holds (it is where the big difference is between a church, and a public program run by a church, like a hospital, one is purely religious, the other is a public conveyance). Right now, the law cannot force a church to marry someone they don't wish to or hire someone as a priest, until fairly recently the Mormons did not allow black clergy, for example, and a church could legally exclude blacks or Asians or women. Orthodox jewish churches don't allow women to be rabbis and they aren't allowed to sit with men in the temple, the law cannot step in there, because it is belief.....Catholic churches do not marry non Catholics, even liberal CHristian churches may require that at least one of the people getting married is a baptized Christian, that is their right......
A JP or clerk, on the other hand, cannot claim that, because they are performing a public duty, so a JP or Clerk refusing to marry a same sex couple cannot or should not be allowed to claim religious belief, because their function is not religious, it is civic (a public office can accomodate someone's beliefs and not ask them to marry a same sex couple, but they also have to make sure that there is a clerk there who will do so. There are county clerks in several towns in NJ who refused to marry same sex people, who lost because the town only has the one clerk, so they had no choice, because they would then be denying the couple service by accomodating the clerk's belief).
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RE: "Religion will become as unacceptable as raci... - 
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