Mrebo said:
Apologies for late reply. When stressed, I lose appetite for much social interaction, even if just online.
Warbler said:
Mrebo said:
Mrebo said:
It should be respected when people sincerely advocate for positions based on their religious views, including advocating for laws.
So in your opinion it should be respected if a Muslim were to advocate for laws requiring women to completely cover themselves in public or if a Jewish person were advocate for laws banning the eating of pork products?
It is a good question. I draw a distinction between laws that outlaw a personal activity (like women being uncovered/people eating pork/people 'practicing' homosexuality) and laws that operate through a government program (like marriage/health insurance contraception requirement/sex education in schools). The latter category requires value judgments.
I fail to understand this distinction you are making, and surely you can see the problems that can happen when you ask the government to make value judgments.
My point there is that the government must necessarily make value judgments when it seeks to implement certain programs. Take sex education for example. The government must determine what is appropriate and desirable to teach children. That involves value judgments. It's not a strict science.
The distinction I'm drawing is between those necessary kind of value judgments needed to implement a government program and attempts to forbid/compel people from engaging in personal activity. This was in response to your hypothetical of seeking to ban the eating of pork products and compelling women to cover themselves. The distinction is that the government would be seeking to regulate personal activity - not creating its own program necessarily requiring some value judgments.
ok, but I still ask why must the Government make a value judgment in who can get married other an than that the parties wanting to marry are consenting adults?
Mrebo said:
Mrebo said:
The first category seeks to oppress personal activity. I don't think oppression is respectable simply because it is religiously motivated.* Many people feel not including homosexual relationships under marriage is itself oppressive. This makes total sense if one sees no difference between gay and straight relationships. The issue is that for many religious people, there is a substantive difference, and at least in the context of the government program of marriage, they cannot in good conscience sanction the relationships as equals.
No one is asking them to sanction the relations, only government. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the government shouldn't be taking a side in this debate? Only way to for government to not a take a side is allow homosexuals to legally marry.
This is a great error. We are supposed to have a government of the people. In a democratic system like ours, the majority is supposed to rule, constrained only by those rules we've all agreed upon (ie the Constitution).
yes, but it is not dictatorship by majority. The majority isn't supposed to have total control over the minority. We should be constrained by more than just what is in the Constitution. We have inalienable rights that are given to us by nature, not even the Constitution can remove those. There is also the idea that we are supposed to be free. Just because it right to marry whomever we want isn't in the Constitution doesn't mean the government(or the majority) should be us(or the minority) who we can and can't marry.
Mrebo said:
To say the government shouldn't take a side in a debate is to say the people (or at least certain people) shouldn't take a side in the debate.
wrong. government is not the same as the people. Do you think the government should have a role in deciding which religion is superior? But the people can certainly decide that one is superior.
Mrebo said:
The government does increasingly feel like a foreign entity over which we don't really exercise any control, but that is the danger.
I am not trying to limit our control of government, merely limit its control over us. When the government says we can't marry half the population, don't you think it is exercising control over us?
Mrebo said:
The only way for the government to truly not take a side is to not maintain the system of legal marriage.
I disagree but I would consider getting the government out of the marriage business.
Mrebo said:
Mrebo said:
Some Christians take the position that legal marriage doesn't mean that much and broadly permissive rules are not a sign of approval.
it isn't a sign of approval. I agree that the Westboro baptists ought to be allowed to hold their views on homosexuality, but that isn't a sign of approval of those views is it?
Per my comments above, in a democracy it is a sign of approval.
no, its not. Barely anyone in the country approves of what the Westboro nutcases do. We merely approve of them having the right to do so.
Mrebo said:
Not necessarily by every individual of course, but by majority rule.
the majority ruled that they have the right to do what they do, not that they agree with what they do.