Same Sex Marriage heads to the Supremes.
Hardly surprising. Read all about it from the organ of your choice:
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/20 ... issue?lite
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12 ... latestnews
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... le6106483/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... riage.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/de ... iage-cases
I think it signal that the Court has taken up both DOMA and the challenge to Proposition 8. The Court could easily have confined itself to federal jurisdiction, and left the California matter alone. By taking it up, my read is that the Court is prepared to make a judgement that is national in scope, and will settle the question of the validity of state constitutional bans.
I do not believe that I am being overly optimistic in predicting that same-sex marriage will be legal in all fifty states within the year.
_________________
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Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
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Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
If that is the case, churches are going to start being sued for following religious doctrine within the year...
I wouldn't worry about that. In New York, the rights of religious institutions are taken into consideration regarding gay marriage. I doubt it wouldn't be the same nation wide.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
The day that a Roman Catholic Church gets sued for refusing to marry a person with a living ex-spouse, I will give your claim some credence.
'Til then, you're just Chicken Little, running around crying, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
_________________
--James
It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court reacts to this passage in the House Report on DOMA:
"For many Americans, there is to this issue of marriage an overtly
moral or religious aspect that cannot be divorced from the
practicalities. It is true, of course, that the civil act of marriage is
separate from the recognition and blessing of that act by a religious
institution. But the fact that there are distinct religious and civil
components of marriage does not mean that the two do not intersect.
Civil laws that permit only heterosexual marriage reflect and
honor a collective moral judgment about human sexuality.
This judgment entails both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a
moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional
(especially Judeo-Christian) morality."
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-104hr ... rpt664.pdf
The day that a Roman Catholic Church gets sued for refusing to marry a person with a living ex-spouse, I will give your claim some credence.
'Til then, you're just Chicken Little, running around crying, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
AKA a Fox News viewer.
The day that a Roman Catholic Church gets sued for refusing to marry a person with a living ex-spouse, I will give your claim some credence.
'"
That would violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
ruveyn
Weddings tend to be a money-maker for churches. I'm certain that most couples who are able to obtain a marriage license would be able to find a church willing to do business with them.
The church has to weigh the tithes and offerings coming in from more strident congregants who wish to be told that they are superior to other people (e.g., homosexuals), versus seeking to expand the number of people contributing to the church.
If enough people are going to get pissed off and leave a church because they aren't getting the message they want to hear (e.g., that they are better human beings than homosexuals), then that church would probably choose to continue shunning homosexuals.
There was the case of Reynolds v. United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._United_States
wherein it was decided that the Law trumped Religion vis-à-vis polygamous marriage.
Title IX of the Equal Education Amendments of 1972 (aka Equal Education Act)
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance...
might come into play in the case of a university chapel. If a university receives federal funds, and the university has a chapel, and the chapel celebrates heterosexual weddings, then a case might be able to be built for requiring the chapel to celebrate homosexual weddings.
In the case of a church that doesn't receive federal funding: it might be more difficult.
The day that a Roman Catholic Church gets sued for refusing to marry a person with a living ex-spouse, I will give your claim some credence.
'Til then, you're just Chicken Little, running around crying, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
Churches already have been sued as have pointed out in the past on these forums, and for the record you were perfectly fine with it, since the church had let other people use their property before (even though those groups (unlike the same-sex couple wanting to get married there) had agreed not to do anything on the property that the church would find morally objectionable).
So, quite frankly visagrunt your posting history does not fit what you are claiming you would do, I seriously don't want to go digging through posts throughout this forum to quote you on this, but I will if necessary.
UPDATE:
An example was easier to track down than I thought
You are saying that people that are homosexual are being discriminated against, and the only way to fix it is to completely ignore the religious liberty of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. In states where homosexual marriage is legal, religious charities have been ordered to perform things that are in violation of their religious beliefs. They are told to either get rid of their religious principles or shut down their charity.
Churches have been told they have to allow same sex marriages on their property or they can't use said building for anything other than mass. When a church rents out a building on their grounds, it is with the understanding that nothing will take place on said property that would be found to be morally objectionable to the church. Homosexual marriage is considered sinful (homosexuality in general classifies as morally objectionable), just like a porn studio would be considered morally objectionable (most churches aren't corrupt like what we saw with the Catholic Church), just like a brothel would be considered to be morally objectionable.
Fact is whenever Homosexual Marriage is made legal in a state, it is then used to trample on people's 1st Amendment Rights, despite the false claims made earlier to the contrary (and the same person also admitted this trampling took place in the same post).
Repeating a lie does not make it true.
Renting a hall to members of the public is not a religious act, and there is no protection that arises from the first amendment as a result. Find me a precedent where a court has made a final judgement saying otherwise and we will talk.
But otherwise you are lying about the meaning of the first amendment.
In the Chick-fil-a "boycott" that backfired, we saw conservatives and moderates coming out in droves to support Chick-fil-a because they are fed up with the Political Correctness insanity.
What was the left's response.
1. Label people as being bigots
2. Bomb threats
3. Vandalism
4. A shooting in Washington DC
I know of some Conservative Bloggers that have been targetted by liberals. Said liberals phoned in phony shootings so that SWAT teams would show up at said Conservative blogger's house (I'm guessing the liberals wanted the Conservative arrested or more likely actually shot full of holes).
So, don't go trying to lecture me about liberal civility, or the idea that liberals are tolerant.
Difference between when a Conservative commits an act of violence compared to when a Liberal commits it.
The mainstream media tries to brand all Conservatives as hate mongers, while trying to sweep violent acts committed by liberals under the rug and pretend nothing happened.
In short, these attacks on people's 1st Amendment Rights (specifically their religious liberties), have actually happened and continue to happen; just the mainstream media likes to look the other way cause they view their left wing ideology to be more important than telling the truth and doing their jobs as journalists.
Meanwhile you try to brand all liberals as intolerant.
Instead of diverting attention away from the lies and hypocrisy that you use to try to make your point, why not try to remain on topic.
So let's reduce this argument to a single issue:
Can you demonstrate that a congregation renting a hall to the public is a religious practice protected by the first amendment?
Leave all the other rhetoric aside and answer this one, simple question. Has a court (preferably, but not necessarily the Supreme Court) ever made a judgement that would protect this activity from public regulation?
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf210262-0-105.html
I also underlined the part that I had previously bolded. You talk about the church letting a meeting take place on their grounds opens them up to being forced to allow gay marriage to occur on their property, the agreement for a group to be able to have a meeting on church grounds is that they do not do anything that the church would find morally objectionable. Little old ladies having bingo night (provided there is no booze or something other crazy thing going on), is not something that is morally objectionable, having a meeting over whether or not to fight the city on them putting a truck depot where it could potentially contaminate multiple neighborhoods' well water, is not a morally objectionable use. Having a brothel holding some sort of sex-a-thon is a morally objectionable situation, so if they had allowed that, you would have a point, but they didn't.
Fact of the matter is you yourself admitted you are okay with people's religious liberties not being respected.
I do not see why the government involves itself with marriages other than to see that both parties are of age and have consented to the marriage. This is to prevent young teenagers being abused and exploited by Jack Mormon crazies who want to collect a harem of wives..
Short of this precaution why should the government regulate marriages at all?
ruveyn
My money is on the Supremes declaring that it is entirely an issue of states' rights, but I have only 10USD riding on this bet.
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The last time that the Supremes took on a major marriage issue, Loving v. Virginia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
anti-miscegenation laws were struck down throughout the country.
There may still exist some churches that ban interracial marriages
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/0 ... marriages/
And, some White churches that won't let Black people get married there
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/253107.html
In fact, a large number of Southern White Conservatives still think that interracial marriage should be banned.
http://loop21.com/southern-republicans- ... l-marriage
This is 45 years after Loving v. Virginia. So, it will probably be some time before homosexual couples can get married anywhere they want, and be accepted everywhere.