Another reason to hate Texas

[PaperLuigi]

http://wakingupnow.com/blog/texas-gop-proudly-following-uganda

The Texas GOP wants to criminalize sodomy AND they want to punish people who support gay rights. I've never been more disappointed in my home state.

[Luigison]

While I share your disappointment, I don't think that page shows that the Texas GOP was actually inspired by Uganda.  It seems more likely that they were inspired by the Bible based on phrases like, "unchanging truths that have been ordained by God," and "out of faith." 

[ShadowBrain]

I have never heard, and do not forsee ever hearing, any valid reason to oppose homosexuals or anything "they" do. Additionally, it is at times often surreal to me how unabashedly, religiously/"patriotically" overzealous some Texas-based political happenings are.

[CrossEyed7]

To be fair, the "punishing people who support gay rights" is legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a gay couple, which is technically breaking a federal law, albeit one that's never really been very strictly enforced. And there is a difference, at least in theory, between supporting criminalization of sodomy and opposing decriminalization of sodomy.

But yeah, while I do believe homosexuality is immoral from a Biblical perspective, I can't think of any good reason why it should be the government's business. Morality, like charity, cannot and should not be legislated. But then, I'm also not sure why marriage should be a government thing at all, as I've mentioned before a couple of times. Marriage is about a commitment made between two people and recognized by society, with each other, their peers, and the deity or lack thereof of their choice as their witnesses, not a piece of paper from the government. And since marriage as an institution is effectively a joint operation between the church and the state, forcing the government to change the definition of marriage would end with the government telling churches what they can and can't believe.

I say we move all the legal benefits of marriage into civil unions (as a contract drawn up between any two adults) and have marriage be solely a personal religious deal, with each diocese, each church council, and each individual deciding for themselves what kinds of marriages they'll recognize. The government doesn't have to dictate people's beliefs and no one's civil rights get violated. This would also solve the problem of people who want to get married but feel like the legal aspect cheapens what should be solely about love -- you can get married without getting a civil union. Most people would get them both, though.

Sidenote which will be irrelevant for most people here: At this point in my thinking, the social conservative in me protests, "Regardless of the gay issue, wouldn't removing the legal weight from marriage have the side effect of making people take marriage less seriously and lead to a societal collapse? Since people are less serious about religion, wouldn't making marriage just a religious institution increase the divorce rate even more?" Well, if people were only taking marriage seriously in the first place because of the legal benefits, then all it would do is reveal the truth rather than continuing a facade. When you open the curtains and the light shines in, you see dust on the table you thought was clean, but opening the curtains didn't create the dust -- it just showed you what was really there and forced you to be honest about the table's state of cleanliness. God cares about the heart, not appearances. So if this plan did end up leading to societal collapse, it would only be because we were headed there anyway.

[Turtlekid1]

What do you believe the purpose of law is, if not to uphold morality?  Just curious.  I'm tired, though, and may be interpreting something wrong or missing something or not reading it in context or something.  But what other reason is there to even have legislation?

[PaperLuigi]

it is at times often surreal to me how unabashedly, religiously/"patriotically" overzealous some Texas-based political happenings are.

Take it from a guy who's lived here for 20 years, you don't even know the half of it.

[CrossEyed7]

What do you believe the purpose of law is, if not to uphold morality?  Just curious.  I'm tired, though, and may be interpreting something wrong or missing something or not reading it in context or something.  But what other reason is there to even have legislation?

The purpose of the American government (especially at the federal level, but also at the state level) is to protect our rights -- primarily life, liberty, and property/pursuit of happiness (the main reason the Declaration doesn't say "property" was so slaveowners wouldn't be able to say that emancipation violated their property rights). Murder is immoral, yes, but it's not illegal because the Bible says Yahweh doesn't like it or because it goes against the teachings of Buddhism, it's illegal because it's infringing on another person's right to life. If no rights are being violated, it's not the government's business, strictly speaking. The lines can get blurred, of course, when you get into deterrence (like speeding -- it's already illegal to hit someone with your car, but making it illegal to go fast is an attempt to prevent that from happening), laws to protect your own life (like making it illegal to buy contact lenses without a prescription), unclear areas like abortion (is the mother's right to liberty superseded by another person's right to life?) and the like, but that's the basic guiding principle.

That's not to say that morality should have no place in society. I'm just saying it's not the government's job. The trap that politicians on all sides -- left, right, and libertarian -- often fall into is the idea of "If something is a good thing to do, the government should do it." (This, of course, is largely because they themselves are politicians -- when all you have is a hammer...) The left says "Charity is a good thing, so the government should take money from people and give it to the poor." That's wrong, because forced charity is not true charity, and because the government is horribly inefficient at doing charity. The right says "Morality is a good thing, so the government should enforce it." That's wrong, because enforcing morality at gunpoint doesn't create true honor and integrity. Libertarians think they have it figured out because they don't assign morality or charity to the government, but they often then fall prey to the equivalent contrapositive statement: "If the government shouldn't do it, neither should we." The government shouldn't be concerned with morality or charity, and neither should we. Ayn Rand-type stuff. Greed is good and all that. That's wrong too. Just because the government isn't telling me not to drink that third martini doesn't mean I should.

The government can't force us to be charitable or to have honor and discretion. Yet we must.

Now, there is moral law, certainly, but that's not the same thing as civil law. We should be very much concerned with it, but the government shouldn't.

[PaperLuigi]

I'm just going to throw this out there, but saying that marriage is a religious institution is essentially privatizing marriage. Basically gays are excluded because those on top (the pastors, the churches, etc.) don't want them to get married. The members of the GOP are always talking about how they want less government and more freedom. Yet under such rules, freedom is about the same as it was in ancient Greece: Freedom for the slaveholder.

[CrossEyed7]

If there's no churches nearby you that have doctrines you like (and incidentally, there are quite a few churches that recognize gay marriage), you're perfectly free to go set up your own denomination, the way American Protestants have been doing for centuries. As long as you're not killing anyone or doing over-the-top animal sacrifices or starting an incestuous prepubescent bigamy plantation or something, there's no regulations on what the doctrines of a church you go out and start up can be.

If you get the government involved to force churches to change their doctrines, that freedom will be reduced, even if you don't see the effects immediately. If you get liberals in power and make it illegal for a church to not recognize gay marriage, conservatives will later be able to use those same powers to enforce their morality once they get back in office, and, say, make it illegal for a church to oppose war.

[Glorb]

Jesus Christ, from what I've read, this isn't a cloudily-worded attempt at minority-targetting laws (see: the whole Arizona thing), this is just a straight-up middle finger to an entire, wide group of people. Apparently, it's going to be illegal to be gay?? What the ****, Texas?

Next you're gonna tell us it's illegal to eat da poo poo.

[Luigison]

If there's no churches nearby you that have doctrines you like (and incidentally, there are quite a few churches that recognize gay marriage), you're perfectly free to go set up your own denomination, the way American Protestants have been doing for centuries. As long as you're not killing anyone or doing over-the-top animal sacrifices or starting an incestuous prepubescent bigamy plantation or something, there's no regulations on what the doctrines of a church you go out and start up can be.

If you get the government involved to force churches to change their doctrines, that freedom will be reduced, even if you don't see the effects immediately. If you get liberals in power and make it illegal for a church to not recognize gay marriage, conservatives will later be able to use those same powers to enforce their morality once they get back in office, and, say, make it illegal for a church to oppose war.

CE7, I was completely with you until this last post.  As for the first paragraph, are your telling PL to start a church.  If so, that's funny.  On the other hand, he may actually enjoy a visit to a church that practices Unitarian Universalism. 

In the second paragraph you may be wrong as far as I know, but I only know about California and federal law in this regard.  In California law it is written, "No religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples."  Of course were talking about Texas law here and that could be different in this matter similar to how California and other states allow medical marijuana even though it's against federal law.  But you started the second paragraph with "if" so if you were simply making a logical statement, never mind.   Although, conservatives opposing war, aren't those rare? 

[CrossEyed7]

I was more using the generic rhetorical "you" than referring specifically to PL, but if he wanted to start a church, he could.

As for the second paragraph, I'm not sure what the specific laws on all that are at the moment, but it seems inevitable to me, based on how marriage works and how civil rights and equal access stuff works, that churches will eventually be forced to follow the government's lead if gay marriage is legalized. Per the Civil Rights Act, privately-owned businesses aren't allowed to only offer services to people of a specific ethnicity; churches, it will be argued, shouldn't be allowed to only offer their marriage services to straight couples.

If you don't think that argument could possibly hold water, look at eHarmony, a privately-owned dating site that was sued in 2008 for only offering opposite-sex dating services. They settled out of court, so the argument hasn't been officially tested yet, but the lawsuit did successfully get them to start offering same-sex dating services as part of the settlement. It wouldn't be that far of a leap from there to effectively forcing churches to change their beliefs.

[nensondubois]

Yeah, the world is getting worse and worse after everyday... just move out of Texas and badmouth them to the rest of the country for their capital ideas (I know it's easier said then done, but for something like this, I'd definitely do it).

[Chupperson Weird]

Actually right now a lot of what's getting worse is just America.

[Trainman]

Take it from a guy who's lived here for 20 years, you don't even know the half of it.

That's because you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Here's a suggestion for the law. Don't break it. Seems pretty simple to me. No amount of discussion on this Mario forum will change anything except generate more hate towards Texas by board members.

See, this irritates me a bit. Yes, I do live in Texas, and a lot of you know this. I'm not irritated because he's taking a stab at the state I live in. No, it's because all you're doing, PaperLuigi, is enticing people to come out and start talking [dukar] about the state, and I've heard about all the ten gallon hat/ride horses to school/Bush is a redneck bull[dukar] I can handle for one millennium. You know that this is gonna degenerate into some type of reaction image thread, and it's probably because you named the title of the thread the way you did. Some are gonna read that title and come in just looking for a fight, I'd imagine. (See? Glorb's already here on cue)

True, I could just refrain from visiting this thread; however, this thread caught my interest and I do want to discuss it.