It's neither.  The point was that if you agree that homosexual people dont deserve the same rights as heterosexuals, then what's wrong with denying rights to people of different ethnicities?  I dont care how you choose to candy-coat it, if you say you would vote against gay marriage, then you might as well say black people shouldnt be allowed to get driver's licenses.  All men are created equal.  You're in or you're out.   

On what section of Fantasy Island do you reside?  There are people all over this country that would do EXACTLY that if given the opportunity.  Once you decide that gay people dont deserve the same rights as others in the matters of domestic partnerships(which are absolutely "rights of a U.S. citizen), why not remove their right to vote?  Or vote to have separate bathrooms?   You're pushing for separate but equal.  It's a lie, and it's been proven.

Have you had a chance to read all that was given to you on this thread?  I believe it was Lynette who had a link to a very thorough website.  Because you don't agree about who a person should love, because your Bible tells you so, you feel that you've done the righteous, the correct thing by voting against gay marriage.  You feel you've done the right thing by stopping homosexual couples from getting the same benefits and protections as heterosexual couples.  These people aren't asking to be married in your church, they're asking that they be recognized as partners.  That means if one partner becomes ill, the other can attend to them in a hospital.  There was a case in NJ where a lesbian police officer had terminal cancer and fought to have her lifelong partner receive her pension after her death.  And you think that's ok? If they were married in the eyes of the state, this woman would not have had to fight to her dying day to make sure the person she loved was protected.  In my opinion, that's just cruel.  

How do you know homosexuality is sinful?

And I can't speak for the other individuals who get it wrong day after day....all I can do is if I am there try to prevent them.

Ah but see now you are mixing OT with NT which is where lies a huge difference for Christians.

I misspoke before and didn't get a chance to correct it. I mean to say statutory rape, not premarital sex. My mistake...for some reason that's what I was thinking but not typing.

Your question though is valid....my opinion based on my faith on this would be when a woman gives herself to a man they become one flesh hence married in the eyes of God. Now I have a feeling that premarital sex might take on a different point of view if you were considered married after one night. It is not right for a man to have sex with a woman when he knows his intention is get in get off get out.

Do I really have to repost the bible verse? 

Also, pardon me if I don't reply before tomorrow ... I'm leaving work now.

so? you still want to deny me my rights. what does it matter if you don't want to bash my head in with a bottle? you still want to deny me my rights. what does it matter that you won't call me a "faggot"? you still want to deny me my rights. the way you keep coming back to this idea makes it seem as if you expect us to view this as some kind of consolation to the fact that you want to deny gays the rights of marriage. gotta tell ya, it isn't. doesn't make your position any better, and it doesn't make you look any better. i'm sorry if you don't want to look like a bad guy, but wanting to deny people rights they are entitled to makes you look like a bad guy.

Razorphreak, I realize that some of my messages in this thread look outwardly hostile to you ... I'd like to say that this has more to do with the haste with which I'm writing ... I hope the tone you infer from my posts is not needlessly mean or hostile.  I genuinely care about you and want you to join the growing community of people who believe in equality and love for all people.  So I apologize if you have been offended ... please do not think that the tone of my messages are supposed to be hurtful, that is not my intention.

Actually, he cross referenced the KJV, the JPS (Tanakh) and the RSV ... and what's important here are not the peculiar discrepencies between translated words, but rather the socio-historical reality of what the texts were intended to do - organize and harmonize a breeding in-group so as to conquer lands, kill or enslave out-group members and dominate resources.  He goes right to the Jewish Sages for their interpretation of the scriptures ... again what's important is intentionality and how the texts were to be used.  God did not write the Bible, people wrote the Bible - the mythology of the Bible is not true, but it was useful for the purposes of local/ regional hegemony by the in-group.

Ok, but this is from one of Paul's Epistles which is in line with Hartung's argument ... It was Paul that universalized salvation, not Jesus (an historical Jesus probably never existed ...). 

Remember the story of the Canaanite "dog" (woman) and her daughter in Matthew 15 (NIV):

²¹Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²²A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." ²³Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." ²⁴He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." ²⁵The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. ²⁶He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." ²⁷"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." ²⁸Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

So what if he helped a Roman centurian or a Canaanite "dog"?  He says it himself, he was sent for ONLY the lost sheep of Israel and any action wouldhave sufficiently impressed in-group members that happened to be around.  

The point is, and it should just be said outright, is that your morality is baseless, your conclusion on behavior are wrongheaded and in this country your personal, religious feelings that are contrary to the fundamental principles of the republic should be subordinated.

how did i "curse" you?

that's a much better position than declaring that people are twisting your words around to make you appear hateful. accept that your position is hurtful and offensive to some. don't lie to yourself and pretend that it isn't. i hope you will really think about what people say to you about this matter. and ask yourself how your position does anything but drive people away from your religion. how exactly does doing that serve your god?

then may i suggest abstaining from that vote should it ever come to your town. and hopefully the politicians will realize that putting people's rights up for popular vote was one of the situations the Constitution was created to avoid.

I don't feel like going back through all of the warrantless theist oriented comments that have been made in this thread but I recall one in particular that suggested that gays and lesbians are not being discriminated against because they can get married if they were straight and that a law that simply sets guidelines for what genders can marry one another doesn't affect gay and lesbian couples. The news I received today does more than shatter that into a million peices, it points out just another reason why we should fight till our last breath for equal rights.

A gay woman had a child with her partner. The biological woman didn't want the child so she asked that her ex adopt the child. She attempted to and not only was she denied on the basis of the "gay marriage ban" but she had the child taken away from her simply because of this and put into the FOSTER CARE SYSTEM! Yes, the gay marriage ban that you insist won't hurt anyone. This state (Georgia) doesn't have an no gay adoption law, mind you. To anyone who says that gay marriage bans don't harm anyone or keep gays from doing anything...this one child is just one of 14 million children in gay and lesbian homes. There are more than 20 million gay couples. One out of six gay men and one out of three lesbian couples plan to have children. You're personal opinion isn't just affecting two gay people, but millions of children, too. 

I've said it once and I'll say it again. Religious law in any country and in any form is simply bad law, it's uneducated law. Just ask this little girl thrust into foster care because a judge thought her mother was a sinner and didn't deserve to have children. What's next, sterilization? Oh wait, I already forgot, religious leaders have already started calling for women to participate in in-the-womb alterations if it means not having a queer kid. Case closed on not affecting anyone. 

Does religion give the majority the right to be make laws based on their religion? That's what this all boils down to. You're saying sure, if it's the majority opinion. However, if religion is used to dictate public opinion and then become law, do you see the problem here? Last time I checked congress shall make no law respecting religion. Theists are whitewashing an issue as "immoral" or "sinful" because that's religious language but claiming it's because it's _____ (insert falsifiable claim here) and therefore NOT a religious issue. I was once quoted by a theist an entire page on all the reasons that Tony Perkins' "pro-family" group gave as to why gays don't deserve equal rights and I was able to use several studies to debunk EVERY claim he made. I never heard another word from the theist. Why? Because it is what it is. It all boils down to religion dictating public policy. Religion, in this case, Christianity, says an awful lot of heinous bull shit to inflict on people who commit various "sins" but this is the one everyone hyperfocuses on. Why? Because it doesn't AFFECT them. Period. Why focus on the fact that a Christian has had 7 marriages when we can bash queers?  

Last time I checked just because it's a majority doesn't make it right. Under your reasoning, if this was always the case, we'd still have slavery.  Correct me if I'm wrong but the ninth amendment states that we have rights not enumerated within the constitution and that laws are not to disparage any particular group of people. Any law written to keep people OUT of a right (in particular here, marriage rights) would be in direct violation of said amendment. Combine that with the first and constitutionally speaking, any theist point is null and void. 

Think it's wrong, think putting your kid on an alter as a test from god is fine, think stoning people who commit sins is okay but don't think that in a country with people of varying faiths/non-faiths, sexual orientations, etc. that particular groups of people should be disparaged to live under the rule of one religious ideology. We're not living in Afganistan the last time I checked. 

this is the same question you asked me before when you asked me if i would vote to allow thieves to keep the possessions they stole. and my answer is the same. such a law would be unConstitutional. so your comparison fails to make a good parallel with the situation we are discussing. let me see if i can help you out here, though. see, i was a pretty fundamentalist theist for quite a long time. there were a number of things that i found immoral for religious reasons. homosexuality (imagine that), abortion and doctor assisted suicide among them. however, in spite of that, i found that forbidding any of them was not Constitutionally sound, so i never supported a ban on them. and given the opportunity to vote on the issues, i would not have voted to ban them. so, to answer the question you appear to be asking me, which is whether i would behave as you are if we were in the same situation, no, i would not. i have been in the position you are, and i made a very different choice.

and you would fit into that category based on your loose definition of a hate crime and your desire to deny me my rights based on my sexuality. so are you claiming you yourself are wrong?

i will, for the sake of argument, agree to that definition.

i have addressed my position on this above. i'll leave it at that.

yes.

no.

yes.

besides the reason that a book told you this was so, why do you believe this? and why, if they are all equal, do they not deserve the same punishment? and on that note, doesn't the bible say that all sin has the same punishment? death. sweet guy, your god. 

you will not abstain from denying me my rights through a vote, but you will sit by and shrug your shoulders if i am granted my rights by law. i find this inconsistant. do you respect already established law over your faith?

which is what you would be doing (supporting immorality) if you sat back and accepted a law granting me my rights, correct? how can you accept something you find immoral after it becomes law but not before? seems to me you should be fighting to make homosexuality illegal again. or better yet, fighting to abolish right to free exercise guaranteed in the First Amendment. after all, what could be more immoral than having other gods before yahweh?

i'm not sure what you are asking here. if you could clarify, i'd appreciate it.

you might want to check again, because, no, we do not live in a country of majority rule. yes, there are things we handle democratically. yes, there are times when the will of the majority is used as a determining factor, but there are also quite a number of times when the will of the majority is disregarded because it is unConstitutional. and that is the beauty of our system. it is set up to protect everyone. not just the majority. (although it hasn't been doing a very good job of late). so, on the issue of granting me the rights i am entitled to, the majority should not have a say. this country was set up to protect me (as a minority) from the tyranny of the majority. it's a really great system when it works properly.

You know, and this is complete point that you simply don't seem to be getting. You're not to be our damned spiritual judge our our earthly judge but if you go to a polling place and you vote for a law that enforces your judgement on other people that's the end of the line. You've just gone against everything you claim.

Your argument is that you won't picket in public but you'll go to the ballot box and silently picket. Are you NOT seeing any of your blatent double-speak here? Moreover you haven't even paid an ounce of attention to the proof that any of us have provided you. It makes me wonder why you're even HERE. Babbling, bible quoting and double-speak might be religious thing but here it does nothing but piss people off. You've proven that you'll vote for laws that disparage people based on your religious opinion. End of story. While you enjoy your life, others are put out because of your opinion. There really is nothing more to it than this. If the Bible said it and you believe it and that settles it then your work here is pointless. 

lovely, but that's completely irrelevant to what you asked me and what i replied. so i'm really not sure why you're telling us this again. 

As I've told you before...I am not judging YOU, only your choice, your action.  There is a difference even if you choose not to believe there is.

Out of curiosity, how does this distinction manifest practically?

then do explain to me what it would take for you to be judging ME in your mind. because my choices and actions are certainly not separate from "me." what else is there for you to judge besides my actions and my choices?

how does that answer my question? please answer my question. how is judging me by my actions and choices not judging me? if that isn't "judging me" then what IS judging me? explain it to me.

and i asked you before, why, if you are expected by your religion to respect authority, you don't respect the authority of the Constitution.