|
7/8 |
2008/12/8-12 [Recreation/Dating] UID:52204 Activity:moderate |
12/8 So are The Mormon's really interested in equal rights? \_ Learn proper use of apostrophes' http://tinyurl.com/6g6up4 (LA Times) \_ Can you link to a non-bankrupt source? \_ The LDS church never took away rights. They just organized and dumped a lot of money into a definition. They want the definition of marriage to be man and woman. There are no rights taken away here. Gay people can still get married, just not to people of their same sex. \_ Your brain has been classified as: absent without leave. \_ The LDS church as an institution never dumped money anywhere regarding Prop 8. \_ Riiight. I guess those many articles, including a good one from the NYT, were confused. \_ LDS Church encouraged its members to donate, but didn't donate money itself that I'm aware of. Do you have a URL where it states the church donated money? I'd be interested to see. -vallard \_ They have been accused of not properly reporting "in kind" donations, which the FPPC is looking into. I don't know of any serious claims that they gave money directly. \_ Almost too stupid to respond to, but the CA Supreme Court clearly declared that gay marriage was a right, so Prop 8 explicitly removed that right. -tom \_ You should also read what the minority wrote on the subject. Look at Justice Baxter's remarks. The SC passed on a 4-3 decision. You shouldn't call someone's remarks stupid because you don't agree with them. \_ "The power of a state to regulate and control the basic social relationship of marriage of its domiciliaries is here challenged and set at nought by a majority order of this court arrived at not by a concurrence of reasons but by the end result of four votes supported by divergent concepts not supported by authority and in fact contrary to the decisions in this state and elsewhere...It is difficult to see why such laws, valid when enacted and constitutionally enforceable in this state for nearly 100 years and elsewhere for a much longer period of time, are now unconstitutional under the same Constitution and with no change in the factual situation. It will also be shown that they have a valid legislative purpose even though they may not conform to the sociogenetic views of some people. When that legislative purpose appears it is entirely beyond judicial power, properly exercised, to nullify them." Perez v. Sharp, 1948, J. Shenk, dissenting. The fact that it was 4-3, or that someone dissented, does not make the decision any less valid, any more than J. Shenk's dissent made interracial marriage less valid. -tom P.S.: I called it stupid because it's stupid. -tom \_ stupid = bitter Nikon shooters who got left behind by stupid Nikon management that can't compete in the digital world. \_ What exactly is stupid about it? Marriage has never in human history been done between gays. No society openly celebrated such official unions. Applying the word "marriage" to same-sex couples is redefinition. \_ "gays can still get married, just not to people of the same sex" is incredibly stupid. As stupid as "blacks can get married, just not to whites." -tom \_ Those aren't the same thing. You're stupid. Gays are self selected. \_ Prove it. -tom \_ Are you really this ignorant or are you just trolling? \_ Are you really this ignorant or are you just trolling? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions \_ I don't trust this site. <DEAD>en.mormonpedia.org<DEAD> is more accurate. \_ That article is full of complete shit. The examples generally have nothing to do with the type of union exemplified by "marriage". \_ Just because Christ isn't involved doesn't mean it isn't marriage. \_ You = Idiot. \_ Your reading comprehension is poor. \_ No, yours is. The article brings up mere incidences of gayness, which isn't in question, so it's fucking idiotic to put it in that article, although "unions" is pretty vague already so maybe the entire article is pointless. It also brings up pederasty which is irrelevant and also nothing like a marriage/familial relationship. "marriage" is an English word with a specific usage history. \_ "marriage" comes from the Old French "mariage", which in turn comes from the Latin "maritatus", which far predates the English language. \_ That doesn't refute my statement. \_ "The fact that marriage occurred between two men among the Romans is proved by a law in the Theodosian Code from the Christian emperors Constantius and Constans which was passed on December 16,\ 342. Martial attests to same-sex Constans which was passed on December 16, 342. Martial attests to same-sex marriages between men during the early Roman Empire. The first recorded marriage between two men occurred during the reign of the Emperor Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions." You == bad reader on different occasions." You == bad reader \_ That law is banning homos and it is strangely written. It certainly doesn't "prove" that gay marriage was previously accepted. Nero might have done all sorts of things, Caligula fucked his sister and claimed he was a god, that doesn't mean it's a norm. In 390 they made gay sex punishable by burning to death. Marriage is inherently about public recognition and all evidence is that homosexuality was ridiculed in Roman society. \_ Let me ask you this: what difference does it make to you whether gays call it marriage or civil unions or whatever? Does it affect you that they call their intercourse "sex"? What societal purpose is there to refusing to allow them to use the generally accepted term for a committed coupling? -tom |
7/8 |
|
tinyurl.com/6g6up4 -> www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oew-jacobs8-2008dec08,0,3004487.story Los Angeles Times Obama Headline Blowback Why we're mad at the Mormon church A Times Op-Ed columnist defended a religious group that worked tirelessly to trample on the rights of same-sex couples. The hard-hitting ad depicted two arrogant Mormon missionaries invading the home of a lesbian couple, stripping them of their wedding rings and shredding their marriage license. The dramatic visuals were designed to call attention to two issues: Proposition 8 sought to take away the legal rights of same-sex couples all across California, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had contributed an enormous amount of money and manpower to the campaign. But amid the uproar over the ad, there was very little discussion about something very important: the truth. And the truth is very simple: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints campaigned vigorously to strip rights from gays and lesbians. They contributed a staggering amount of money to pass Proposition 8 -- a figure estimated to be at least $20 million (and potentially much higher) to fund a fear-mongering, truth-distorting campaign whose only objective was to outlaw same-sex couples from getting a marriage license. Proposition 8 now threatens to invalidate the same-sex marriages already in existence, pending future rulings from the California Supreme Court. Goldberg claims that the ad focused on the Mormons because they were an easier target, one of many faiths that supported Proposition 8 In reality, the Yes on 8 campaign might as well have been a wholly owned subsidiary of the LDS Church. Many estimate that members of the LDS Church gave more than half of the total amount raised by the Yes on 8 campaign. In addition, the LDS Church ran large call centers supporting Proposition 8 and encouraged its members to travel to California to support the campaign. These efforts were only scaled back after California voters started to become more aware of the massive role that the LDS Church was playing in the campaign. They may also be putting the LDS Church into some legal peril as well: It is being investigated by the California Fair Political Practices Commission for failure to report expenses related to these, as well as other, campaign activities on behalf of Proposition 8 Unfortunately, this failure to take public responsibility for leading the fight against same-sex marriage, as well as the masking of its efforts behind the shroud of an interfaith coalition, is nothing new for the LDS Church. In other words, if we get into this, they are ones with which to join." This is exactly the strategy the LDS Church used to mask its involvement in Proposition 8 until the final weeks before the election. The LDS Church or any other organization has every right to use its power to influence elections to any extent that is legal. What it doesn't have a right to do is claim persecution when other organizations do nothing but expose the church's forays into the political arena before a discerning public. While the backlash against the LDS Church has made some of its members uncomfortable, they have nobody to blame but their leadership who dragged them into this mess. In an effort to repair its public image, the church has said that it wants to begin a "healing process" and has claimed support for equal rights for gays and lesbians, except for using the word "marriage" to describe unions between same-sex partners. The church now has an opportunity to demonstrate that support: Utah state Sen. Scott McCoy has introduced legislation that would provide gays and lesbians in his state with all rights that straight people enjoy except marriage. If the LDS Church were to support McCoy, it would show that it really does believe in love, compassion and equal rights. If it does not, the church's supposedly conciliatory stance would simply be one more obfuscation in support of truly bigoted intentions. Rick Jacobs is the founder and chairman of the Courage Campaign, a progressive online organizing network. |
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions Although state-recognized same-sex marriage is a relatively new phenomenon in Western society, there is a long history of same-sex unions around the world. Various types of same-sex unions have existed, ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions. Such desire often took the form of same-sex unions, usually between men, and often included some difference in age. There is far less information available on relationships among women in ancient times. Historical pederastic couples Some early Western societies integrated, and even celebrated, same-sex relationships, though it should be noted these relationships were generally substantially different from traditional marriage and in some cases co-existed with traditional marriage. We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment. eromenos) who had come of age were, it has been argued, analogous to marriage in several aspects but not recognisd as marriage. The age of the youth was similar to the age at which women married (the mid-teens, though in some city states, as young as age seven), and the relationship could only be undertaken with the consent of the father. This consent, just as in the case of a daughter's marriage, was contingent on the suitor's social standing. The relationship, just like a marriage, consisted of very specific social and religious responsibilities and also had a sexual component. At the same time, many of these relationships might be more clearly understood as mentoring relationships between adult men and young boys rather than an analog of marriage. This is particularly true in the case of Sparta, where the relationship was intended to further a young boy's military training. While the relationship was generally life long and of profound emotional significance to the participants, it was not considered marriage by contemporary culture and the relationship continued even after participants entered into traditional marriage to women as was expected in the culture when men reached age 30. Nevertheless, homosexual relationships between men of the same age were not unheard of in Ancient Greece. In the year 390, the Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodoisus and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public. The teachings of the Talmud and Torah, and the Bible, specifically prohibited the practices as contrary to nature and the will of the Creator, and a moral shortcoming. edit Modern Europe In the 20th and 21st centuries various types of legal same-sex unions have come to be accepted in the majority of European countries as they have modernized and become secularized. Opposition to gay marriage or unions comes from Christian groups, almost exclusively, especially from the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Religious countries such as Greece, Romania and Poland (and other Eastern European countries) continue to refuse to allow even same-sex unions, while more progressive equally religious countries such as Ireland and Italy are in the process of legislating on the issue. Two-Spirit-type relationships, in which some male members of the tribe, from an early age, heed a calling to take on female gender with all its responsibilities. They are prized as wives by the other men in the tribe, who enter into formal marriages with these Two-Spirit men. They are also respected as being especially powerful shamans. Metropolitan Community Church filed the first-ever lawsuit seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriages. In March 2005, two Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with multiple counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license in the State of New York. Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, DC-based gay rights group. The earliest use of the phrase "commitment ceremony" as an alternative term for "gay wedding" appears to be by Bill Woods who, in 1990, tried to organize a mass "commitment ceremony" for Hawaii's first gay pride parade. Similarly, Reverend Jimmy Creech of the First United Methodist Church performed his first "commitment ceremony" of a same-sex couple in 1990 in North Carolina. Quaker Meeting to take a same-sex marriage under its care with the marriage of John Bohne and William McCann on May 30, 1987. Although several other Meetings held "Ceremonies of Commitment, Morningside was the first to refer to the relationship as a marriage and afford it equal status. Congo, men would take youths for whom they had to pay a bride-price to the father. These homosexual relationships likewise were understood to be of a temporary nature. We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment. Nero and Elagabalus, along with a number of emperors, raised men from the lower classes into important positions of power and this offended the Senators who believed they had a right to these important positions of power. Our sources have a tendency to disparage any emperor who dares to tramp on the rights of the Senators. The fact that emperors whom the Senators adored, such as Hadrian and Trajan, also had male lovers negates the biased criticism given to Nero and Elagabalus for doing the same. |