California’s Proposition 8 has been getting all sorts of attention, but let’s not forget that Floridians also have a gay marriage-themed ballot measure, Amendment 2, which would define marriage as between a man and a woman. And Amendment 2’s passage, writes Jack Romberg, would bring the state closer to a theocracy:
Marriage is a sacred ritual that takes place within all mainstream religious traditions. However, not all religions agree on what marriages should be sanctified. Even within the Jewish or the Christian world are disagreements. For example, many rabbis will sanctify interfaith weddings, others will not. How would my fellow clergy feel if an amendment were proposed allowing only same-faith weddings to be legally sanctified?
These are decisions that should be left to individual religious communities to decide, guided by their clergy. Religious decisions should not be at the whim of a voting public or by government fiat.
Why don’t we just give everyone equal rights and call it a day? That would be heavenly!
Mike
“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separate.”
— Ulysses S. Grant
And tax the fucking churches. Now.
Jaroslaw
Great quote Mike, I think this one is even better:
“When religion is good, it will take care of itself. When it is not able to take care of itself, and God does not see fit to take care of it, so that it has to appeal to the civil power for support, it is evidence to my mind that its cause is a bad one.” Benjamin Franklin, Statesman, Inventor, Author, Letter to Dr. Price.
crazylove
One of the reasons why this will no end even with the defeat of Prop 8 in CA is that there is a significant dedicated group of theocrats out there. Take the example of Prop 4 on the CA ballot. They got another signatures 2 years ago. The measure failed. They are back again with the same measure. In AZ, they failed to pass a ban on gay marriage 2 years ago, and they are back again with a new attempt. While the gay community sleeps, this group monitors sites such as this one, plans and keep fighting what they think of as a holy war.
Jaroslaw
Not sure what your point is Crazylove. Historically there will always be people for and against most issues. The important thing here is public opinion is slowly changing and making this “dedicated core” less and less relevant. As an example – women fought long and hard to get the vote. When I was a kid unmarried people were “living in sin.” You almost never hear that anymore. Times change, sometimes for good, sometimes not. But in the SSM issue, things are looking very good.
Nickadoo
I woke up to this little piece:
Headline: “CA parents angry kids appear in pro-gay political ad”
The actual story below the headline? The opposite:
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9272737&nav=0RaPebwo
M Shane
While I support the people who want same sex marriage either because of personal religious proclivities or because of rights given that marriage is written into our laws even though it is a religious ceremony. Practically Gay people should have the same rights as others even though the basis is theocratic and wrtongheaded.
It has become clear in other countries that a purely secular constitution is very workable.
The aim of gay activists and others nereds to be that of eliminating anything like marriage from our legal lanuage. Any agreements between any two or more people should be written in completely secular terms .
Leave marriage for religiouds people unrelated to law. That is the only rule which will work if we want to develope with the rest of the world. Recall people like Franklin were all athiests or agnotics.
seitan-on-a-stick
To quote the late Tim Russert:
FLORIDA!
FLORIDA!
FLORIDA!
Avenge 2000 (and say farewell to our real President Albert Gore!) Bush was only our Commander-In-Thief! Twice!!!
john
JAROSLAW thank you for that awesome quote, by a founding father no less. I freaking LOVE that stuff. WHY don’t we have that on billboards all across the US? You can’t argue with a founding father, you would be seen as unpatriotic….I hope the HRC or someone uses that quote soon, to see that back then they had problems with religions trying to run everyones life…it’s a recurring theme that does NOT work.
TAX CHURCH”S NOW!!!!!
john
every gay and lesbian in tis country pays taxes. our tax dollars help cover the chruches in this country so that they don’t have to pay taxes. WE HELP THEM STAY IN BUSINESS, and they repay all of us by trying to force THEIR ideology on everyone? They spend all this money, millions of dollars that could have gone to feeding the homeless, etc..and they spent it on getting people to vote on changeing the constitution.
They have crossed the line, it’s apparant and they did it publicly, there is no denying now that Church’s are trying to influence government and they must now pay taxes. Sorry but they broke the RULES! They took our tax dollars and they used the money they saved on paying taxes to try to take our freedoms away. NO MORE. We need to get together, EVERY gay person, and demand our tax dollars back for being singled out as a hated minority and for government to allow the church to influence voters.
FAIL!!!!
chuck
>there is no denying now that Church’s are trying to influence government.
You’re only partially right with that statement John. The truth is, the church wants to become the ‘government’.
They don’t support Democracy. They only support Theocracy.