Why churches fear gay marriage
The crusade for Proposition 8 was fueled by the broken American family, explains gay Catholic author Richard Rodriguez.
By Jeanne Carstensen
Nov. 25, 2008 |
For author Richard Rodriguez, no one is talking about the real issues behind Proposition 8.
While conservative churches are busy trying to whip up another round of culture wars over same-sex marriage, Rodriguez says the real reason for their panic lies elsewhere: the breakdown of the traditional heterosexual family and the shifting role of women in society and the church itself. As the American family fractures and the majority of women choose to live without men, churches are losing their grip on power and scapegoating gays and lesbians for their failures.
Rodriguez, who is Mexican-American, gay and a practicing Catholic, refuses to let any single part of himself define the whole. Born in San Francisco in 1944 and raised by his Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrant parents to embrace mainstream American culture and the English language, he went on to study literature and religion at Stanford and Columbia. His first book, "The Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez," explores his journey from working-class immigrant to a fully assimilated intellectual -- angering many Latinos with his view that English fluency is essential. "Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father," which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1993, continued his investigation into how family, culture, religion, race, sexuality and other strands of his life all contribute to the whole, a complex "brownness" of contradictions and ironies. "Brown: The Last Discovery of America" completes the trilogy -- but not his insatiable intellectual curiosity, which he is now shining on monotheism.
Rodriguez' stinging critiques of religious hypocrisy are all the richer for his passionate love of Catholicism and the Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco, where he and his partner of 28 years are devoted members. Today, Rodriguez is at work on a new book about the monotheistic "desert religions" -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Ever since Sept. 11, "when havoc descended in the name of the desert God," Rodriguez said in one of his Peabody Award-winning radio commentaries for PBS's News Hour, he has been trying to understand the strands of darkness that run through these religions.
Salon spoke to Richard Rodriguez by phone at his home in San Francisco.
What was your reaction to California voters' going heavily for Obama and also passing Proposition 8, banning gay marriage?
I was like a lot of other Americans at the moment when the West Coast tipped the balance in favor of Obama. I didn't so much think it represented the end of racism but the possibility of change. At the same time, I also knew that large numbers of Californians in religious communities were voting against gay marriage and that Latinos and blacks were continuing to take part in this terribly tragedy. We persecute each other. The very communities that get discriminated against discriminate against other Americans.
The Spanish language newspaper La Opinión called the results an "embarrassment," saying "California still has two faces." Do you agree?
La Opinión represents the opinion of a lot of Latinos who are more educated and -- what should I say? -- more cosmopolitan. But Latinos in both my family and the Catholic Church belong to a more traditional America. This is a troubling aspect of the way our country is formed right now. It is a time of great change but also a time when people are afraid of change.
You said recently the real issue behind the anti-gay marriage movement is the crisis in the family. What do you mean?
American families are under a great deal of stress. The divorce rate isn't declining, it's increasing. And the majority of American women are now living alone. We are raising children in America without fathers. I think of Michael Phelps at the Olympics with his mother in the stands. His father was completely absent. He was negligible; no one refers to him, no one noticed his absence.
The possibility that a whole new generation of American males is being raised by women without men is very challenging for the churches. I think they want to reassert some sort of male authority over the order of things. I think the pro-Proposition 8 movement was really galvanized by an insecurity that churches are feeling now with the rise of women.
Monotheistic religions feel threatened by the rise of feminism and the insistence, in many communities, that women take a bigger role in the church. At the same time that women are claiming more responsibility for their religious life, they are also moving out of traditional roles as wife and mother. This is why abortion is so threatening to many religious people -- it represents some rejection of the traditional role of mother.
In such a world, we need to identify the relationship between feminism and homosexuality. These movements began, in some sense, to achieve visibility alongside one another. I know a lot of black churches take offense when gay activists say that the gay movement is somehow analogous to the black civil rights movement. And while there is some relationship between the persecution of gays and the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, I think the true analogy is to the women's movement. What we represent as gays in America is an alternative to the traditional male-structured society. The possibility that we can form ourselves sexually -- even form our sense of what a sex is -- sets us apart from the traditional roles we were given by our fathers.
I think Proposition 8 was also galvanized by insecurity around gay families.
I agree. But the real challenge to the family right now is male irresponsibility and misbehavior toward women. If the Hispanic Catholic and evangelical churches really wanted to protect the family, they should address the issue of wife beating in Hispanic families and the misbehaviors of the father against the mother. But no, they go after gay marriage. It doesn't take any brilliance to notice that this is hypocrisy of such magnitude that you blame the gay couple living next door for the fact that you've just beaten your wife.
The pro-8 campaign calls itself the Protect Family Movement, even though the issue of family was the very reason gays needed to have marriage. There are partners in gay unions now who have children, and those children need to be protected. If my partner and I had children, either through a previous marriage or because we adopted them, I would need to be able to take them to the emergency room. I would need to be able to protect them with the parental rights that marriage would give me. It was for the benefit of the family that marriage was extended to homosexuals.
Religions have the capacity for being noble and ennobling but they are also the expression of some of the darkest impulses in us -- to go after the "other." For Christians, if the other isn't the Muslim, it's the homosexual. That is the most discouraging part.
Speaking of hypocrisy, churches have plenty of sexual skeletons in their closet.
Right. The Mormon Church has this incredible notoriety in America for polygamy and has been persecuted because of it. The very church that became notorious because of polygamy is now insisting that marriage is one man and one woman. That is, at least, an irony of history. But as a number of Mormon women friends of mine say, the same church that espouses the centrality of family in their lives is also the church that urges them to reject their gay children.
Then there is the Roman Catholic Church, my own church, which has just come off this extraordinary season of sexual scandal and misbehavior in the rectory against children. The church is barely out of the court and it's trying to assume the role of governor of sexual behavior, having just proved to America its inability to govern its own sexual behavior.
Look at the evangelicals. In their insistence that people be born again, they know Americans are broken. In their circus-tent suburban churches, you find 10,000 people on a Sunday morning. You find people who have been divorced, people who have had drug experiences, people who have been in jail. These churches touch upon a dream that people can put our lives back together again.
Now these churches are going after homosexuals as a way of insisting on their own propriety. They are insisting that they have a role to play in the general society as moral guardians, when what we have seen in the recent past is just the opposite. I mean, it's one thing for the churches to insist on their right to define the sacrament of marriage for their own members. But it's quite another for them to insist that they have a right to define the relationships of people outside their communities. That's really what's most troubling about Proposition 8. It was a deliberate civic intrusion by the churches.
I wonder if these churches sense they're losing some of the influence they've had for the past eight years.
To my knowledge, the churches have not accepted responsibility for the Bush catastrophe. Having claimed, in some cases, that Bush was divinely inspired and his election was the will of God, they have failed to explain why the last eight years have been so catastrophic for America.
Now I think evangelicals are falling back on issues that have been reliable for them in the past. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, who said that children of immigrants should be educated, was essentially frightened away from that position by Mitt Romney. The tentativeness of the evangelicals on immigration only allowed them to be more vociferous on the gay issue. That's traditionally easy for them -- to go after the sinner. But it doesn't convince me of their ascendancy; it merely convinces me that they are retreating. They don't know how to extend their agenda beyond gay marriage and abortion.
There's going to be an ongoing legal battle over Proposition 8. How do you think gay activists should proceed?
I think gay activists should be very careful with this issue. We should not present ourselves as enemies of religion. I am not prepared to leave the Roman Catholic Church over this issue. The Catholic Church is my church. I was a little concerned about the recent protests outside the Los Angeles Mormon temple. I've seen this sort of demonstration escalate into a sort of deliberate exercise of blasphemy.
For example, in the most severe years of the AIDS epidemic, activists from ACT UP went into St. Patrick's Cathedral, took the communion wafer and threw it on the ground. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. One should be respectful of the religious impulse in the world. If we decide to make ourselves anti-religious, we will only lose.
But religious communities must be challenged too. I was in Jerusalem a couple of years ago for Gay Pride. All the leaders of religious communities -- Muslim, Jew and Christian -- were brought together by their mutual animosity toward gay activism to protest the parade. There was the grand patriarch of the Eastern churches, the high rabbi of Jerusalem, the Roman Catholic archbishop, the mullahs, and they were all united in one cause. The police outnumbered the parade participants. One marcher was attacked and stabbed by an Orthodox Jew.
We have to be very clear about male violence within the monotheistic religions. This is a failure within churches and we can't be casual about it. But we can't be casual about the importance of religion either. We need to be both respectful of religion and critical of religion. Otherwise I suspect we won't get very far at all.
What do you think about gay rights as universal rights? Many argue that it's a cultural issue and that specific communities, such as Latinos and blacks, have their own understanding of homosexuality and shouldn't be messed with.
In my own my family, and my parents were not well educated, it would have been impossible for them to have dealt with the words "gay" or "homosexual" in my relationship with them. But there was no way for them to reject me either. I was a member of the family and I couldn't sin my way out of it.
Once my partner became part of my life, he became part of their life too. They didn't want it said, they didn't want it named or defined, but they assumed it and accepted it. At family events, when my partner wasn't there, my mother would get on the phone and call him and insist he come over.
These communities have very intricate ways of dealing with these things and they are not necessarily the highly politicized tactics that you see in traditional middle-class society in America.
I have not been to a Mexican family without some suspicion of homosexuality in children or grandchildren. But people deal with it within the larger context of family. That's why I suspect the revolution will come not from the male church but from how women treat their children, and whether or not women are willing to reject their children. I don't think they are. I saw too many times during the AIDS epidemic that when death came and the disease took its toll, if one parent was there, it was almost always the mother and not the father. That bond is so powerful.
I also think about the role of gays as caregivers to the elderly parent while siblings are too busy with their children. At the Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco, which is the gay Roman Catholic parish, a number of old Irish women essentially adopted the gay parishioners, and were adopted by them, because their children had moved to the suburbs, or Pennsylvania, or Orlando, and were no longer in a position to care for them. That's a bond that no one really talks about.
My partner has taken care of many elderly people over the years. They know who he is and they know who I am. But it's unspoken. I don't know how they voted on Tuesday, but I do think that it is their responsibility now to speak out.
Are you saying individual relationships will ultimately be more powerful than organized religion?
Well, I'm working right now in the Middle East on monotheistic religions because I'm very worried about the direction of religion. Ever since Sept. 11, when I heard that prayer being spoken at the moment the planes hit the World Trade Centers, I realized how much darkness there is in religion compared to how much light there is. I am very much concerned with whether or not these religions can be feminized.
The desert religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- are male religions. Their perception is that God is a male god and Allah is a male god. If the male is allowed to hold onto the power of God, then I think we are in terrible shape. I think what's coming out of Colorado Springs right now, with people like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, is either the last or continuing gasp of a male hierarchy in religion. That's what's at stake. And women have a determining role to play. Are they going to go along with this, or are they going to challenge the order?
Well, yes, but then we have the rise of someone like Sarah Palin, who is just one example of how complicated things get in this issue.
Yes, you have Sarah Palin. But you also have women deciding to leave marriages. When a woman decides to leave the kitchen and seek a career outside the family, when a woman decides not to take on the name of her husband, when a woman wants to be more than simply the mother of children, when she wants to have some place in the world that is not defined by her family or her husband, that seems to suggest something comparable to what gays experience when they come out of the closet. Notice that both those metaphors of getting out of the kitchen and getting out of the closet are domestic images.
But are you saying Palin represents this?
I'm not that kind of optimist!
It does seem she wants to have a career separate from the family, but in many ways she embodies the old conservative order.
Clearly, what you say is true. I don't see women challenging the male order of things in every case. Wives tolerate all kinds of behavior of fathers toward their children. But I do think it's important that some woman are starting to challenge that. The divorce rate suggests that women are not happy with the relationship they have with men. And whatever that unhappiness is, I would like people to know that, as a gay man, I'm not responsible for what's wrong with heterosexual marriage. On the other hand, whatever is wrong with the heterosexual marriage does have some implication for the world I live in. Women are redefining sexuality in a way that's going to make it easier for me to be a gay man.
The formal role of women is also undergoing change in some churches, right?
That's right. The Episcopal Church in America is now under the leadership of a woman. Feminism is going to change a great deal. The most radical people in the Roman Catholic Church are women. They're challenging everything from the priesthood to the male God to what it means to be married. I don't expect to see gay marriage enter these conservative institutions in my lifetime. But I do see change.
I belong to a Catholic parish in San Francisco, where my partner and I are acknowledged by the other people in the parish as a couple. We take communion together, the priests know who we are, they're supportive of who we are, and what we are, and they see us in various roles -- giving eulogies to dead friends but also helping to baptize little babies. We're very much a part of that community. That's why I'm not prepared to lose it because some archbishop in Colorado or cardinal in Los Angeles is behind Proposition 8. It is not my church that they're talking about, it's not even my experience of love.
I still don't know where I stand with gay marriage. Probably just haven't given much thought to the process.
I do remember talking with a group of people about it a while back, and one of the more vocal men, made a reference to gays/gay marriage ...somehow breaking up the family etc etc
I replied to him "John, I didn't know you were gay?" and he had this shocked look on his face "I'm not"
I responded with "But you said gays are breaking up the family and yours recently broke up and you & Brenda divorced... I assumed you committed adultery with a woman. (that's why his wife left him plus hes a cheapskate) But since you said gays are breaking up the familys, I guess you went to bed with man?"
Very interesting article. The author makes a lot of good points. The church as a social institution for a long time has been trying to maintain it's control over the social and family lives of it's followers and seeks to assert itself into law and politics whenever possible. If church and state were truly separated, it is likely that we wouldn't be having this conversation. The maintenance of the traditional or nuclear family is just another way to maintain that control. Women's changing and redefined roles in the family and society in some ways can be seen as a breakdown of that traditional family unit, which the church, schools and even the government is often thought to be an extension of. This worldview is fueling the notion that the breakdown of the family is the beginning of the breakdown of society. So people truly believe that and this is their reality.
I would suggest looking at it from another perspective. That perspective would be that the traditional family is not being deteriorated, but "family" is being increasingly broadened to include different kinds of families. There are still nuclear families, but now families include gay couples, single parents, extended families, 3 generations under one roof, unrelated single people who dwell in one home and function as a family unit.
There is of course the scape-goating that does exist in the blaming of gays and lesbians for the breakdown of the family and the blaming of feminists for enticing impressionable young women into the workforce and away from the home and the maternity wards. There is also the element of class here, since working class women and women of color have generally always had to work.
As far as prop 8, it seems it should matter less how one feels about gay marriage and more about constitutional rights and violations thereof. This ban on gay marriage was declared unconstitutional by the California supreme court. Prop 8 was a referendum on that ruling carried out by a vote on a ballot in a contentious election. A very clever way to overturn it, since they could count on the general public's opposition to gay rights regardless of its constitutionality or lack thereof, and aware that they did not have enough support to take it back to the courts. I was in California back in October and I saw those Prop 8 ads. I had to ask myself if most people understood how they were voting. I had to clarify for myself that a YES vote on prop 8 meant overturning the supreme court decision denying the ban on gay marriage and NO on prop 8 meant continuing to allow gays the right to marry. I am not from CA but I thought that for some people who didn't take the time to understand the vote, they may not have voted how they truly felt. Albeit not a sufficient enough amount of votes what would have caused a different outcome.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Mon 08 Dec 2008 11:47 Post subject:
Anthrofreak wrote:
I would suggest looking at it from another perspective. That perspective would be that the traditional family is not being deteriorated, but "family" is being increasingly broadened to include different kinds of families. There are still nuclear families, but now families include gay couples, single parents, extended families, 3 generations under one roof, unrelated single people who dwell in one home and function as a family unit.
There is of course the scape-goating that does exist in the blaming of gays and lesbians for the breakdown of the family and the blaming of feminists for enticing impressionable young women into the workforce and away from the home and the maternity wards. There is also the element of class here, since working class women and women of color have generally always had to work.
I'm agnostic, bordering on atheist...and I definately don't "church".
That being said, I'm also fairly pragmatic. I don't think you need church or a religion to have moral values. I'm married, don't have kids out of wedlock, no felony record, etc. I would bet that most people in jail, most people heavily into "bastard production", will state a religious belief even if they don't actively go to a church, mosque, etc.
I want to separate morals based on humanism from morals that come from church. When adhered to they have pretty similar results in individuals. I do agree with you that it is often about "church control".
That being said I there are different "types of families" but do these "different types" work?
Is society getting better or worse? Do children from these "different kinds of families" become productive citizens at the same rate as "traditional nuclear families"??
I think not. The traditional nuclear family, like most marriage based institutions, is not just social, it is an economic institution of two partners who participate in the upkeep of the home and raising of the children. It does not have to be that both partners work. Often child care from a "stay-at-home parent" is a cost savings, if anything else. Some would also argue that it is better for young children as well.
Working class women and many minority women always had to work, but they still married, and the out of wedlock birth rate was not nearly as high as now. My grandmother worked, catering for rich white folks until she was about 60 years old, raised 12 kids, and stayed married to my grandfather until he died (who worked for an auto maker)...I'm not sure what "working" has to do with marriage. My wife works, almost all our friends work, all of them who have kids are married, in our peer group.
If different types of families is primarily "in the lower class" than why is that?
I have not made up my mind on Prop 8 and I don't live in Cali, but I am sensitive to the further unraveling of the traditional family, because from the studies i have read, and more importantly, what I've observed...these new families these new families don't do well most of the time in producing productive citizens who are a net positive for society.
As far as Prop 8...I see it like this.
If you believe being gay is an innate condition, than one could argue it is like race. There is scientific research going on to support this:
Those people could make a strong case for "equal protection" under various legal precedence.
If homosexuality is a "choice" than many things are. Why can't I marry 5 women? Why can't I marry a 13 year old (if the parents allow it, it is illegal in VA, but there are a couple states where this is legal).
Traditionally..."just because you choose to do something or want to" is not enough to "demand equal protection under the law for your behavior".
One man told me recently, that he does not care if gays are "born that way"...they are sick and this shows they need to be "cured". He compared it to genetic disease that causes mental illness. He gave an example like, "do we condone chronic depression and suicide related to it? Do we condone schizophrenic delusions?" I didn't quite agree with this analogy but I think a lot of people will.
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 02:43 Post subject: I don't understand...
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 03:14 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church is "the people".
People will vote, often based on their moral beliefs. Many people's moral beliefs are dictated primarily from their religion. Primarily, obvious American Christians don't have the same morals as Barvarian Catholics or Syrian Christians...but still...
You can't avoid this in that sense, people will vote their beliefs. Many people are religious conservatives.
Also, if you are a devout Christian (similar to a devout Muslim) you can not "make someone convert" but it is your religious duty to try to convert people and teach the word of God. These religious believe they are universal, unlike Hindus and Jews they believe they have the "right answer" from everyone in the "good news" from Jesus. This attitude has caused many wars and persecutions. There is a reason there has never been a religious war in Japan but many in Western Europe and the Middle East. Buddhist believe they are of a universal religious either, but they have no mandate to convert anyone nor do they believe in "one God and that is the only God"...
So...you have some choices.
Try to move people away from Christianity, but increasing their education level (that seems to be the most effective, especially if it is at a young age) or move to some place where people are less religiously observant.
I'm not trying to be nasty, I agree with you 100%, but this situation won't change overnight, but it is changing.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 03:49 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church forcing their beliefs onto people outside the church??? Please. Orthodox Jews and Muslims do not support same sex marriage. So don't attack just the Christians.
Also, it's the homosexual movement that is forcing their ways onto people who do not support it. Want proof?? Look at EHarmony.com. They are being forced to offer homosexual relationships. There are hundreds of sites which cater to the homosexual, so why do they need to encroach on EHarmony. Answer: because their agenda seeks to arm twist and force their ways at all costs. Instead of creating their own EHarmony, they need to take down the existing one by force. I would have fought it.
Another situation where a photographer did not want to photograph a same sex ceremony. They were forced to by the government. I personally would not want to patronize an enterprise that did not want my business. That is not the case here. It's all about forcing their agenda via the government through intimidation.
So it is not the Christians who are forcing their beliefs on anybody.
msmochachina wrote:
In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways.
You had better hope for the survival of the West. Even in Russia, homosexuality is still closeted. I saw an article last week about that on Drudge, I should have saved it.
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 13:05 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
Dragon Horse wrote:
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church is "the people".
People will vote, often based on their moral beliefs. Many people's moral beliefs are dictated primarily from their religion...
You can't avoid this in that sense, people will vote their beliefs. Many people are religious conservatives.
Exactly.
Allowing the citizenry to vote on State constitutional amendments demonstrates pure democracy at work. Majority rules. It also demonstrates the wisdom of our founding fathers in making our country a republic whose legislative representatives are democratically elected (and NOT a democracy, contrary to popular belief). Likewise, their foresight in establishing three branches, all deriving power through different means, with "checks and balances" in place amongst them. Could you imagine if ALL laws, statutes, and amendments - federal, State, and local - were voted on by we, the people? What a nightmare!
Last edited by OTHER on Tue 09 Dec 2008 13:08; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 13:08 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
OTHER wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church is "the people".
People will vote, often based on their moral beliefs. Many people's moral beliefs are dictated primarily from their religion...
You can't avoid this in that sense, people will vote their beliefs. Many people are religious conservatives.
Exactly. Allowing the citizenry to vote on State constitutional amendments demonstrates pure democracy at work. Majority rules. It also demonstrates the wisdom of our founding fathers in making our country a republic whose legislators are democratically elected. Likewise, their foresight in establishing three branches, all deriving power through different means, with "checks and balances" in place amongst them. Could you imagine if ALL laws, statutes, and amendments - federal, State, and local - were voted on by we, the people? What a nightmare!
Well, our system is not a direct democracy for the most part. It is a Federal representative government.
Our founding fathers only felt white male land owners should be allowed to vote and the Senators were hand picked by governors.
Checks and balances were good...but the rest is somewhat hype. If we went back to the exact system that our "founding father's devised you would not be able to vote in any form, neither would a good portion of people on this board if not the majority.
Benjamin Franklin felt the populous was fairly ignorant, hence Public Libraries being created.
Also, the ELectorial College was put in place to protect from populism, it has evolved since, but the original intention was not to "ensure greater democracy".
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 13:13 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
Dragon Horse wrote:
OTHER wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church is "the people".
People will vote, often based on their moral beliefs. Many people's moral beliefs are dictated primarily from their religion...
You can't avoid this in that sense, people will vote their beliefs. Many people are religious conservatives.
Exactly. Allowing the citizenry to vote on State constitutional amendments demonstrates pure democracy at work. Majority rules. It also demonstrates the wisdom of our founding fathers in making our country a republic whose legislators are democratically elected. Likewise, their foresight in establishing three branches, all deriving power through different means, with "checks and balances" in place amongst them. Could you imagine if ALL laws, statutes, and amendments - federal, State, and local - were voted on by we, the people? What a nightmare!
Well, our system is not a direct democracy for the most part. It is a Federal representative government.
Our founding fathers only felt white male land owners should be allowed to vote and the Senators were hand picked by governors.
Checks and balances were good...but the rest is somewhat hype. If we went back to the exact system that our "founding father's devised you would not be able to vote in any form, neither would a good portion of people on this board if not the majority.
Oops! Looks like I was editing my post as you were responding. Sorry about that! It looks like your response still applies.
Yes, the Senators were, but the Representatives were always democratically elected. And, no, none of it is hype. I believe that argument against the U.S. Constitution about "if we went back to the exact system" yadda yadda yadda whether in regard to voting, slavery, or anything else is intellectually dishonest. Why? Because there were provisions for amendments, of which we've had many. Some good (13, 14, 15). Some not so good (16!).
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 13:51 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
OTHER wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
OTHER wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church is "the people".
People will vote, often based on their moral beliefs. Many people's moral beliefs are dictated primarily from their religion...
You can't avoid this in that sense, people will vote their beliefs. Many people are religious conservatives.
Exactly. Allowing the citizenry to vote on State constitutional amendments demonstrates pure democracy at work. Majority rules. It also demonstrates the wisdom of our founding fathers in making our country a republic whose legislators are democratically elected. Likewise, their foresight in establishing three branches, all deriving power through different means, with "checks and balances" in place amongst them. Could you imagine if ALL laws, statutes, and amendments - federal, State, and local - were voted on by we, the people? What a nightmare!
Well, our system is not a direct democracy for the most part. It is a Federal representative government.
Our founding fathers only felt white male land owners should be allowed to vote and the Senators were hand picked by governors.
Checks and balances were good...but the rest is somewhat hype. If we went back to the exact system that our "founding father's devised you would not be able to vote in any form, neither would a good portion of people on this board if not the majority.
Oops! Looks like I was editing my post as you were responding. Sorry about that! It looks like your response still applies.
Yes, the Senators were, but the Representatives were always democratically elected. And, no, none of it is hype. I believe that argument against the U.S. Constitution about "if we went back to the exact system" yadda yadda yadda whether in regard to voting, slavery, or anything else is intellectually dishonest. Why? Because there were provisions for amendments, of which we've had many. Some good (13, 14, 15). Some not so good (16!).
Yes we can admend the constitution, and the only thing that says is the Founding Father's recognized that things might come up they did not foresee, however if you want to go by "exactly what they intended" I seriously doubt any of them intended women, blacks, poor people, etc to be allowed to vote. If they did they would have put those rights in the constitution from the beginning (or not restricted them).
Wise as these men were, they were not perfect or godlike heros of Greek mythology.
If you look at it from their time period, the AMerican Revolution was conservative.
Basically all they did was a greater extension of the Magna Carta.
The Magna Carta limited the power of the King by the aristocracy...which later turned into the House of Lords.
Our founding father's did not like the fact they were being lorded over by "blue bloods" from the UK and the King there. So they just got rid of "THEIR OVER LORDS" they were the elites and they obviously did not care about "lesser people" being able to participate in this government.
The issue was a class struggle. The class struggle was between the blue blood aristocracy and the neuveo riche colonist (landed gentry)...
The revolution was they overthrew the ceiling on their own power as a class.
After the revolution, the most powerful people in the colonies who were American born were still in charge.
If you want to see a real revolution, look at the French one. That was pretty much a middle class and even poor affair where they literally killed off their aristocracy (well a lot of them)...and they did have radical ideas about democracy, even for the lowest man.
I'm not saying our system is bad, but it didn't start off great either, it was just that they put in a frame work that allowed change without armed resistance.
Another issue is that most people followed the law, this was a tradition that came from Britain.
Many nations have great constitutions, but people care more about who is in power than the actual law on the books, this is due to culture. SO when something bad happens, a peaceful transfer of power does not occur, instead there is war.
Part of this has to do with the Western European idea of "citizenship" that came out of Greco-Roman culture, that the Founding Father's did take very seriously and sought to instill this in the populous, but this was already happening in the UK.
In many nations outside the West, they are artificial creations of colonialism, so people are not concerned with "citizenship" they are concencered with their ethnicity/race/etc. So they see a 0 sum game, it is not "we are in this together" more like "I'm going to get mine with my people and you ain't my people" (most of Africa and the MIddle East and parts of Southeast Asia).
East Asians are primarily monoethnic or heavily confucianists (the latter an alternative to Greco-Roman citizenship which also can form strong states).
My point is the Founding Father's had some radical ideas but the main one was that...
"White" (WASPs) men who are self built elites should be able to rise in power and not be limited by aristocracy (governmental or religious).
This is important and also key to the "American Dream", but I don't think this is what you were getting at.
Last edited by Dragon Horse on Tue 09 Dec 2008 14:35; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 14:18 Post subject:
This reminds me of the movie 300, all the revisionist hype in the movie about the brave Spartans fighting for freedom against Persian Despotism.
Yes the Spartan elites were warriors, but they were no democracy. The elites did elect 2 kings, but they weren't fighting for anyone's freedom besides "their own", most of Spartan society was ran by slaves, this is how the Spartans had the ability to just "prepare for war" all day every day. They knew what it was like to be slaves and didn't want to be someone elses, that does not mean they thought slavery was bad for others.
If you want direct democracy, go to Switzerland, they vote on everything, even giving citizenship to individual foriegners. Your community must approve your citizenship.
That is Democracy (big D)...what we have is "federalism".
Yes well, that ^ (of which you've all listed) but it also threatens the authority of the church. If a crucial notion is allowed to coexist then other things may be questioned. If that happens certain people lose power and the religious right has less clout. They can't afford that from their pespective.
Posted: Tue 09 Dec 2008 21:57 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
DChapman wrote:
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians. I'm not saying that everyone is agnostic/atheist, but that group (including myself and others) is rising and will continue to rise as the years roll by. In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways. With just about every large movement, it all began with negative protests and controversy before it became sweeter and peachier, I don't think this issue will be any different.
The church forcing their beliefs onto people outside the church??? Please. Orthodox Jews and Muslims do not support same sex marriage. So don't attack just the Christians.
Also, it's the homosexual movement that is forcing their ways onto people who do not support it. Want proof?? Look at EHarmony.com. They are being forced to offer homosexual relationships. There are hundreds of sites which cater to the homosexual, so why do they need to encroach on EHarmony. Answer: because their agenda seeks to arm twist and force their ways at all costs. Instead of creating their own EHarmony, they need to take down the existing one by force. I would have fought it.
Another situation where a photographer did not want to photograph a same sex ceremony. They were forced to by the government. I personally would not want to patronize an enterprise that did not want my business. That is not the case here. It's all about forcing their agenda via the government through intimidation.
So it is not the Christians who are forcing their beliefs on anybody.
msmochachina wrote:
In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways.
You had better hope for the survival of the West. Even in Russia, homosexuality is still closeted. I saw an article last week about that on Drudge, I should have saved it.
Notice I said the word Church. Religion is all the same thing to me. I was not singling out anything. Christianity, Buddhism, it's all different brands of cyanide. Church, to me, means every religion, although not every religion refers to it's places of worship as churches, or would you prefer for me to use the word Mosques? LOL
Posted: Wed 10 Dec 2008 14:00 Post subject: Re: I don't understand...
msmochachina wrote:
Notice I said the word Church. Religion is all the same thing to me. I was not singling out anything. Christianity, Buddhism, it's all different brands of cyanide. Church, to me, means every religion, although not every religion refers to it's places of worship as churches, or would you prefer for me to use the word Mosques? LOL
Most people when they read church assume you are talking about Christianity and not religion in general. Churches are Christian houses of worship.
Any traditional adherent of an Abrahamic religion would oppose gay marriage. Even other religious followers would as well. The generally peaceful and pacifist Baha’is see homosexuality as a sin.
As the U.S. becomes more diverse and multicultural, many left-liberals will have a hard time reconciling their exotiphilia with their progressive principles on such things as homosexuality and gay marriage. Many non-Western people are more religious and more culturally conservative than Western people. So, in the future, these kinds of battles will continue, and instead of (white) homosexuals calling random black people "nigger" (from a distance of course) we will see homosexuals duking it out with Muslims, Hindus, Mexicans, etc. Or maybe just shouting slurs at them from a distance.
DChapman’s claim that politicized homosexuals (and their allies) seek to impose their beliefs on others reminds me of the brouhaha in New York City back in the 90s over aspects of the “curriculum of inclusion,” specifically attempts by educators to present homosexual families as normal and just like heterosexual two-parent families. Many progressive members of the education bureaucracy were SHOCKED when they encountered fierce opposition by parents from the Caribbean, Latin America, South Asia, Asia, and the Middle East to such educational materials like “Jenny has Two Mommies.” To the proponents of the curriculum these people were “people of color” and filled with all sorts admirable qualities absent from intolerant white ethnics of New York City. To them these people were supposed to be supportive of such things…Right?
Quote:
msmochachina wrote:
In 5-15 years, gay marriages will be approved and flourish anyways.
Don’t bet on it….Maybe with lesbians “gay marriage” will flourish, but with homosexual men I doubt it. Much of gay male life is hedonistic and pleasure seeking, which doesn’t lend itself to stable, monogamous relationships. Furthermore, there’s really nothing stopping gay and lesbians from forming meaningful monogamous relationships without state-sanctioned marriage. Many already live in these kinds of relationships today. However, at least with gay men, this doesn’t seem to be the norm, and many politicized homosexuals are hostile to their community adopting aspects of so-called breeders anyway, so gay marriage isn’t likely to flourish in the future. Have domestic partnerships?
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Wed 10 Dec 2008 15:09 Post subject:
msmochachina wrote:
Notice I said the word Church. Religion is all the same thing to me. I was not singling out anything. Christianity, Buddhism, it's all different brands of cyanide. Church, to me, means every religion, although not every religion refers to it's places of worship as churches, or would you prefer for me to use the word Mosques? LOL
But you also said in bolded and underlined.
msmochachina wrote:
This is America, with that being said, we're all supposed to be allowed to have our own belief system. The thing I don't get is how the church will force their beliefs onto people outside of church. Okay, I can see why the church would have that view (via the Bible), but what they don't understand is everyone outside of the church are not Christians.
Maybe it's just me, but I take what you said as a reference about Christians in particular. Your reference to the Bible as well.
The ban against gay marriage (GM) is not just about religion. Can anyone name any civilization that openly supported GM prior to 1800s?
Seems to me all of humaity prior has rejected gayness. I've only read that the Greeks turned a blind eye to it (never legalized) and some Native American cultures tolerated certain members cross-dressing (but they were marginalized).
Some things are just wrong, just cause. Nothing 'religious' implied.
'
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