Obama on gay marriage
May 10th, 2012 at 1:18 pm by David FarrarReuters reports:
Equivocal no longer, US President Barack Obama has declared his support for gay marriage in a historic announcement that instantly elevated a polarising social issue to a more prominent role in the 2012 race for the White House.
On a personal level, its good to see Obama to have the guts to say what I suspect has been his actual position for a long time. It is a position I agree with (except I would probably not have the state involved in marriage at all, and just have the state register partnerships and allow people to call it a marriage if they want to, under whatever religion they may follow).
What is interesting is the potential political impact of Obama’s announcement. The US is split around 50/50 on this issue, but those against are vehemently against and will be highly motivated to turn out and vote if the election is pitched as a referendum on the gay marriage issue.
Of course it is in fact a decision for states, not the Federal Government, but Presidents appoint judges who rle on the constitutionality of various laws for and against gay marriage.
But Obama has the future on his side. He noted:
Obama touched on that in the interview.
He said he sometimes talks with college Republicans on his visits to campuses, and while they oppose his policies on the economy and foreign policy, “when it comes to same sex equality, or, you know, sexual orientation, that they believe in equality. They are more comfortable with it.”
There is a huge difference of views on issues such as gay marriage and gay adoption by age. Under 30s tend to be massively in favour and over 60s massively opposed. That indicates that with the passage of time, there will be a clear majority in favour. But that may not be the case in 2012.
So a bold risk for Obama to announce this in election year, and I await with interest to see how it impacts the US elections.
Related posts:
- MPs on same sex marriage
- Hone and Mana on gay marriage
- Obama mania
- Major party leaders all support same sex marriage
May 10th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/obama-watch-1/with-the-stroke-of-a-penobama-makes-free-speech-a-felony.html
Democracy is going fast. All those who deride the conspiracy live under a rock
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Brilliant.
Obama’s speech was a moment where a political leader encapsulated his personal experience of what a majority of people around the country have come to realise.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Sodomite marriage is not marriage, cannot be marriage since marriage requires one man and one woman. – it is a sick parody of marriage, and a concept of utter absurdity.
AS per usual the lefty elite are using word games, changing the meaning of words to undermine the institutions that have served humanity well, in order to advance the agenda of one world socialism.
This is just the next step in rendering marriage meaningless
An obstacle in this agenda are strong families and for years now by stealth the socialists and their useful idiot followers have been grinding away at the family undermining it – with their usual mixture of lies distortions and word games.
[DPF: Andrei. Lesbians don't tend to do sodomy. Yes they may use strap ons, but if they do they tend to do vaginal penetration. Plus many lesbians do not use strap ons at all but just do oral sex or mutual masturbation.
As for gay couples, not all gay couples do sodomy either. And as around a third of heterosexual couples have had anal sex, most sodomy actually occurs between a man and a woman. So most sodomite marriages are heterosexuals.
Less common is pegging where a heterosexual couple have anal sex, but the woman uses a strap on, on the man's anus. There is little data on the prevalance of that, but they also are heterosexual couples]
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
wikiriwhis business (1,187) Says:
May 10th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/obama-watch-1/with-the-stroke-of-a-penobama-makes-free-speech-a-felony.html
Democracy is going fast. All those who deride the conspiracy live under a rock
The law is quoted as:
“Whoever attempts or conspires to knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions…”
To my knowledge disorderly behaviour has never been protected as “free speech” whether the matter is government business or otherwise. Napolitano complains:
“What good is free speech if the people in the government are so far away from you that they can’t hear you?”
Yet free speech has never been the right to force other people to listen to you. Having the freedom to express yourself doesn’t mean other people have to listen. Similarly, the freedom to express oneself doesn’t mean one has the freedom to disrupt others going about their lawful business.
Free speech extends only so far as the speech is not harmful to other people. Impeding or disrupting the government’s lawful business is a form of harm.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Hahaha, it’s hilarious seeing the absolute delusional irrationality of people like Andrei. Good thing old meatheads like you are dying out Andrei. Gay marriage, like interracial marriage in the past, is going to eventually become legalised and you and your bigoted views will die out.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
That indicates that with the passage of time, there will be a clear majority in favour.
I think that’s why the debate is so vicious. The bigots know they’ll lose sooner or later.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Well, it would be good for DPF to note that 42 states actually have statutory provisions prohibiting gay marriage – including North Carolina as of yesterday (by a huge margin). Whenever put to the people, gay marriage has been defeated (even in liberal states like Maine and California).
As to opinion polls showing an even split, Ross Douthat had a good opinion piece in the New York Times pointing out that what people tell pollsters over the phone and how they act in the privacy of the voting booth are not always consistent.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
@Andrei – as someone who is part of a ‘traditional family’ with two children and a wife, I don’t feel that my family or my values would in any way be threatened if the lesbian couple who live on the other side of our street were able to get legally married.
However they may feel threaten that there chance to live with the same legal status that I enjoy is so strongly opposed by religious bigots like you.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
I simply do not get people who see this as a threat to marriage. Rather society should encourage stable relationships. People who feel threatened by this need to take a good look at themselves and ask whether they have a problem regarding their sexuality.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
More political correctness. Marriage has been defined until the last few years as a union between a man and a woman. Now after thousands of years the politically stupid and cultural morons have decided to change that and foist their views on every one else. Marriage is marriage as defined above.
If the politically stupid and cultural morons want to call what has been known as marriage by a different name then fair enough. but they DONT have the right to take an already defined institution and apply a new meaning to it.
But then of course the politically stupid and cultural morons are a selfish lot of bastards and just tramp all over others to get their way.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
It would have been braver if it had come before Joe Biden’s recent moment of candidness on this subject forced his hand. Obama’s “evolving position” was revealed for the piece of political expediency that it was.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
I am so looking forward to Mitt Romney explaining why Dick Chaney’s lesbian daughter, and all the other gay couples in the US, need to be denied the comfort that the name “marriage” give to others.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
lastmanstanding: “Marriage has been defined until the last few years as a union between a man and a woman” only because it has only been for the last few years that society has decided to stop criminalising male homosexuality and stigmatizing female homosexuality. Until about 100 years ago, maybe less, marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman of the same race. As we come to tolerate new behaviours, we will need to change the language we apply to human relationships. Fifty years ago, one’s “partner” was the person with whom you had a business relationship in the nature of a partnership. Now it includes that, plus the person you are married to or the person who live with.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Blacks who tend to be significantly more against it than whites will still vote for Obama because he is part black. Latinos might have slightly lower turnout.
It might help energise some of the evangelicals who are luke warm about Romney because he’s a Mormon.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Good to see Obama take yet another one of Dick Cheney’s political positions. Barack really is evolving.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Who really gives a rat’s arse about what other people do? Even if they are ‘Sodomites’? (Christ how ‘Old Testament’ are you mate??) Life’s too short to worry about what your neighbours are up to behind closed doors…
Vote:As an aside hasn’t Obama done a complete U-turn on this issue?
May 10th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
For the sake of the obtuse.
Marriage came to be recognized by the Church and by the State because it was a way of ensuring that children were raised by their biological parents in particular by their fathers who would be obliged by custom and law to provide for any offspring arising from that now recognized union cf the post below this one about deadbeat dads.
There is no reason for the Church or the State to recognize the relationship between me and my golf partner, say – therefore no institution nor custom revolves around such a relationship.
By separating marriage from the reproductive elements the meaning of the institution is further eroded.
Marx and Marxists have always dreamed of a society without marriage, the raising of children born being done by the STATE so as to raise children with the values of the STATE and not those of their parents.
Historically marriage was abolished after the Russian revolution and nurseries set up to raise children, in orphanage type settings to be good worker bees in the Socialist Utopia – this fell over very quickly as a step too far, being as people were not ready for this level of change and felt attached to their husbands, wives and children. It was quickly realized by the Bolsheviks that if they didn’t back off they’d be facing another revolution, one against themselves (well civil war was raging already at this time but that is another story).
So the socialists have been imposing this new world order by stealth – this is the real reason why “no fault divorce” came into being. It is why “day care” for working mothers is so important – because getting mothers back to work and kids into day care means that the STATE and STATE registered employees take care of the early
educationindoctrination of the young and their indoctrination into worker beehood and the values of the STATE.Gay Marriage is about separating the procreative element of marriage out and changing its meaning and purpose so as to advance this agenda
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Andrei you need to get out more…
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Human history shows us that the notion of a marriage being between one man and one woman is hardly ubiquitous. Polygamous unions have been pretty common. There have been prohibitions about marrying across religions, across culture, amongst slaves etc. Marriage is an institution that adapts and changes.
I don’t particularly care what people decide to call it, but in general it is easier to define same-sex unions as marriage than to adjust lots of other regulations to include civil-union type provisions. There are all kinds of issues around guardianships, inheritance, access to partners in medical emergencies- that resolved easily by just classing unions as marriages.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
lastmanstanding,
Your delusional sense of victim-hood is hilarious. Nothing has been “foisted” upon you, no one is “trampling” over you.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
I just dont understnad how (presumably heterosexual) people can get worked up about something in which they really should have no say – what 2 people voluntarily do with and to each other. It cant possibly affect them (unless they think the mere idea of homosexual love and marriage somehow affects their harmony), it hurts no one, it’s just sad in this day and age.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
@ Chthoniid well said
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
I’m glad that political correctness overtrumped tradition in terms of interracial marriages. I’m glad that interracial marriages are commonly accepted today as opposed to only in the last century that people still had a stigma against it, and that white men are free to marry black women now as well as black men being free to marry white women.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Andrei’s not happy though. Interracial marriage clearly a characteristic of a Marxist takeover.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Um … Dick Prebble … is there any particular reason that you deliberately changed what lastmanstanding wrote to reflect some sort of point that you are trying to make?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Yes Graham – the point is just because something has been cultural or traditional for the last thousand years doesn’t make it right. Societies change – slavery was once legal, it was economically beneficial for the US when their cotton industries contributed significantly to the economy. In the Bible various righteous and wise men such as Solomon had hundreds of concubines. So what?
Marriage is not a defined institution – definitely not one defined by the Bible at least. I can’t find a single verse in the Bible with this definition other than 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul refers to marriage only as a last resort for people who can’t keep their dick in their pants, otherwise the correct Biblical position, the righteous one, according to God’s messenger, is to be an eunuch. I don’t see many eunuches.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Marry your labradoodle for all I care; fact is most gay men and women, and increasingly their heterosexual counterparts will remain in de facto relationships regardless of a law change. Equal recognition of those who choose not to marry, as those who choose to marry, seems a much more important issue. New Zealand has gone some way to creating this kind of equality, but we’re not there yet.
But of course the media will fawn over the heartwarming (or bile-inducing for Andrei) yet ultimately unimportant issue of letting everyone have the right to what is usually just an excuse for a tasteless, self indulgent and very expensive party.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Yes, times have changed, Andrei. The word “love” didn’t enter your elucidation of marriage, and that’s come to be an important part of marriage today – and thus relevant to same-sex couples in love who want their commitments to be recognised in the same way heterosexual couples’ are.
That’s why heterosexual couples who can’t conceive can still meaningfully get married: it’s the love, not the procreation.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
I laughed out loud at the form of tom hunter’s praise of Obama. Keep it up.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Nope, still can’t see why you deliberately changed what lastmanstanding wrote.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Christians expect gays to ‘control’ themselves, yet happily get married in the hundreds of thousands in their Churches because they burn with passion and use it as an excuse to get married. It’s ridiculous the standards they set for homosexuals yet relax the rules for themselves when God, through Paul, clearly prefers them to remain unmarried.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
And, of course, the 100s of 1000s of christians who are having sex before marriage. The hypocracy is astounding when it comes to traditions. Are these people really that stupid?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
It is a position I agree with (except I would probably not have the state involved in marriage at all, and just have the state register partnerships and allow people to call it a marriage if they want to, under whatever religion they may follow).
Refreshing to have a blogger state their position in one sensible sentence and leave it at that. Unlike some other bloggers we could mention who go on and on and on about it ALL THE TIME… ARRRRRGGGGGGH! SOMEBODY MAKE SLATER SHUT UP!!!!
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
As an addendum, I’m pleased to see Obama making a stand on this issue. It would be easy to equivocate and avoid the controversy. While I’m not persuaded that Obama is a great economic leader, these sorts of things make him a decent president.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
“While I’m not persuaded that Obama is a great economic leader”
Understatement of the year. You could even drop the “economic”. History will not be kind to Obama.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Obama’s support of gay marriage will set the stage for a fascinating and quite possibly contentious debate between himself and Romney on a social issue that as DPF reports has a 50/50 split amongest US voters.
Vote:This is a welcome change for the US public who are war weary and economically fatigued and need a diversion, albeit one that addresses the rights of the gay community.
However it is important that Obama genuinely addresses this issue and not just use it for political theatre to illustrate the differences between himself and Romney.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/mitt-romney-gay-marriage-civil-unions-obama_n_1503597.html
May 10th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Christians expect gays to ‘control’ themselves, yet happily get married in the hundreds of thousands in their Churches because they burn with passion and use it as an excuse to get married.
I’ve yet to meet anybody, Christian or otherwise, who got married simply to have sex (it’s a nice perk though, admittedly).
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
I think if it does spark a contentious debate between Obama and Romney it will be a good thing. The arguments against marriage equality are so weak they won’t stand up to the scrutiny of logic when the glare of national federal attention is shone on it.
Basically the small-brains get away with it because the intellectual firepower is otherwise-engaged and not interested in small feuds in regional state-based legislature. They are currently operating at full-capacity trying to fight this it and will be crushed when this thing goes centre-stage. Bring it on.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
BlairM:
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
DPF,
It is a position I agree with (except I would probably not have the state involved in marriage at all, and just have the state register partnerships and allow people to call it a marriage if they want to, under whatever religion they may follow).
What’s the purpose of registering a relationship if not to allow the government to regulate it?
If people register their relationships and the government still regulates it then what’s the difference other than the fact the word marriage isn’t used?
That would merely seem an attempt to appease the bigots and their cherished “definition”. Personally I’m of the view that the government should take a more proactive stance. Individuals may have the freedom to be prejudiced and bigoted towards gays in their personal lives, but the government shouldn’t endorse that view and should proactively encourage the notion that gays are equal in society as everyone else and provide them the legal protections that are appropriate. Use of the word “marriage” is good for this purpose in order to emphasize the notion of equality.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Where’s the like button?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Chthoniid posted at 2.27:
A number of acts have been adjusted already – for example, the Adoption Act. 1955.
That act also says:
If you are going to apply the standards of discriminations of race, nationality, religion and so on to adoption by homosexuals, you might have to say gay parents can adopt only gay children, and hetereosexual parents can adopt only hetereosexual children.
Determining the sexual orientation of a pre-pubescent child raises problems, though it doesn’t seem to stop traditional Samoans from choosing certain boys and raising them as girls.
Wasn’t the whole idea of civil unions to give legal protection to homosexual couples? If that’s not working, might not amendment of civil union legislation fix any legal problems?
What’s wrong with marriage under it’s traditional definition as being a hetereosexual union? Is the real agenda of gays to destroy hetereosexual marriage by so widening its definition that marriage means bugger all (excuse the pun)?
What next? Will we have the animal-rights freaks diverted from seeking to convert us into pet-less vegans to a new campaign to redefine marriage to cover oranguatans and canaries?
Blair M posted at 3.06
How do you poll them Blair? “How do you do, did you marry to get a steady root?”
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
@Jack5
The NZ regulatory scene probably wasn’t very big on Obama’s mind when he made the announcement.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Has any one else ever had the feeling that perhaps Andrei
Vote:should be encouraged to experience his obviously repressed desire for sodomy
And trot of to a gay club
Rather than ranting his homophobic fear at any mention of GAY to bolster his faltering attempts to keep his desire in check
Go on be a bum boy Andrei the rest of us really don’t care what two consenting adults get up to
May 10th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Jack5,
What’s wrong with marriage under it’s traditional definition as being a hetereosexual union? Is the real agenda of gays to destroy hetereosexual marriage by so widening its definition that marriage means bugger all (excuse the pun)?
Why does including homosexuals in marriage diminish the value of other people’s marriages? This argument is put forth repeatedly yet it makes no logical sense.
Even if Civil Unions are the equivalent of Marriage to me that’s not good enough. It’s not good enough for me that the government makes the relationships equal in substance. I think gays deserve more than that. They deserve unequivocal acknowledgement from the government that they are equal, not only in substance but in name also. By creating two names the government gives a little wink and a nod to the bigots which lends legitimacy to their outdated prejudices.
The legal title ascribed to a relationship is like an arm band that people wear. It’s symbolism and what it symbolizes is objectionable.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Here’s a question:
Apart from the word, what is the difference between a gay union and a gay marriage? Nothing.
So gay marriage is all about the word. It’s all about saying a man and a man, is the same as a man and a woman. But the thing is it’s not the same.
Two men might get a marriage certificate, and some sort of “approval” from the new secular Church; the state, they might legally share all their belongings, they could even get to adopt children (one day the technology might exist to mix their DNA to make a baby, not just adoption – though I don’t know how you splice together two sets of XY genes), they can even live to old age and have “grandchildren”.
However, even after all of this they wouldn’t actually be married. They’d just have a quasi-benediction by the state and the appearances of marriage.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Why does the Government have any interest in peoples relationships?
Answer that in a coherent fashion all ye who think Gay “Marriage” is a goer.
Why is it needed?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
One of the best [DPF:___] comebacks ever.
Quoted just to re-live the awesomeness.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
David, when will you learn to follow the money?
“Obama already had their votes. He did the flip flop trick today to make sure he keeps getting their money. He raised $1 million within 90 minutes of today’s announcement.”
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
@ Weihana
“They deserve unequivocal acknowledgement from the government that they are equal, not only in substance but in name also.”
The government is not “God”. The government cannot grant rights, it can only acknowledge them. Any government that is given the power to grants rights, can take them away.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
KiwiGreg (2,358) Says:
May 10th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
“While I’m not persuaded that Obama is a great economic leader”
Understatement of the year. You could even drop the “economic”. History will not be kind to Obama.
I suppose history will discover how bad Obama is around the same time it discovers how amazing Dubya was. lmao.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
EWS,
The government is not “God”. The government cannot grant rights, it can only acknowledge them. Any government that is given the power to grants right, can take them away.
Indeed, and the government should acknowledge the right of gay couples to be treated equally under the law alongside heterosexual couples.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
RRM,
Thanks I might not have read it otherwise. Very good lol.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
What do you mean by “treated equally under the law”? Even before the civil unions law passed, two people could draw up legal documents to get the same rights. And now with the civil unions laws those legals rights are just delivered through a quicker process. However, it had nothing to do with legal rights. It was about normalising homosexuality – as is this next round of lobbying – so don’t couch the social change you want to see in the language of legal rights.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
EWS,
“So gay marriage is all about the word.”
No, it’s all about the word for the bigots.
For me it’s all about the government expressing itself in a way that is consistent with the underlying ideology of legislation. Gays have been granted legal rights because it is widely believed that their relationships are just as loving, and therefore just as legitimate, as a straight relationship. To give it a different name is inconsistent with that view and is designed only to appease those who are intolerant of gays.
Imagine the uproar if the government gave a different legal title to interracial marriage. Even if they held all the same legal rights, the different legal title would be offensive and sends the wrong message.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
@ Weihana, and other pro-gay marriage people,
If gay marriage comes into law in NZ, and gay couples are allowed to ‘marry’, and if we teach our kids at school the sticking you penis up another man’s defecation channel is normal.
If this comes to pass, would you support the government taking legal action against organisations such as the Catholic Church and other groups that disagree? Force them to acknowledge gay ‘marriages’ and do away with their teachings, under pain of prosecution if they didn’t? All in the name of ‘equal rights’?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
@ Weihana
“For me it’s all about the government expressing itself in a way that is consistent with the underlying ideology of legislation.”
What? I don’t even know what you mean here.
“Gays have been granted legal rights because it is widely believed that their relationships are just as loving, and therefore just as legitimate, as a straight relationship.”
By that definition you’d support polygamous relationships.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
As a matter of interest, how do gay and lesbian couples feel about the honorifics “Mr” and “Mrs”?
Is there any equivalent (at present under civil unions), or do gays introduce themselves as a couple as “Mr and Mr”, and lesbian couples as “Mrs and Mrs”?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
EWS,
Even before the civil unions law passed, two people could draw up legal documents to get the same rights.
This is not equivalent to marriage.
A contract is only as applicable as the law permits it to be. Any area of law which specifically grants rights to legally recognized relationships does not necessarily apply to others just because they write a contract saying that they enjoy those rights.
Also, regulation of relationships is designed to protect people regardless of whether some other contractual arrangement exists, thus affording more legal protection.
Further, I do not agree that efforts to normalize certain social changes in society is irrelevant to the question of rights. Equality before the law, to me, means that the government should actively promote that concept both in name and substance. If the government created a separate legal title for interracial marriage that would be a violation of their rights to equality before the law even if they otherwise enjoyed all the same legal protections.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
“By that definition you’d support polygamous relationships”
not directed at me, but sure, as long as all involved have full disclosure why not? Cant hurt anyone else and may in fact provide a more viable family unit.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Non sequitur there @East Wellington Superhero
All that gay marriage says is that if two people love each other and are prepared to make a commitment to a relationship, this has equally legitimacy for heterosexual or homosexual couples.
It doesn’t follow there will be mandatory lessons at school on sodomy.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
@ Weihana
“Further, I do not agree that efforts to normalize certain social changes in society is irrelevant to the question of rights. Equality before the law, to me, means that the government should actively promote that concept both in name and substance.”
So you think the government should now become the new moral agent of the 21st century?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
I do hope that all these wonderfully open minded people who seem to enjoy destroying only some forms of culture remain so open minded about legalising polygamy, marriage between people and animals, and other such open relationships which surely, based on their reasoning above, should not be opposed, but instead welcomed.
Surely the arguments against polygamy or polygyny fail on exactly same grounds as restricting it to heterosexual unions. It’s only a word after all, doesn’t have any cultural meaning, or at least apparently none that most would recognise.
Oddly enough, other cultures have in the past been apparently quite happy with homosexual relationships, but never before have they been elevated to the status of marriage. I wonder if there’s any wisdom in that approach ?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
EWS,
As long as all parties consent, are informed, and are adults, then I support the right of groups to engage in polygamous relationships, yes. Not my cuppa tea, but then I don’t see it as my place to tell other people how to live their life.
edit: note, I don’t want them all receiving working for families though!
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
> Lesbians don’t tend to do sodomy. Yes they may use strap ons, but if they do they tend to do vaginal penetration
DPF – Fomenting happy mischief…and an expert on lesbian sex.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
“It doesn’t follow there will be mandatory lessons at school on sodomy.”
Granted, though I was being facetious to make the point. Once it becomes ‘normal’/legal it would have to be somehow dealt with when young children bring up the issue. (And no doubt some bully-boy queer group while shoulder its way into the classroom to make sure teachers are teaching about marriage equitably).
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Sadly East Wellington superhero that is what it will come to. Biblical Christianity and gay-rights cannot coexist. It will not be long before Christian churches and people are actively persecuted by the gay-rights lobby.
Homosexuality is wrong because God has made us male and female. God knows how he made us. He did not make us Adam and Steve.
Homosexuality is also wrong by reason as well as revelation. Every person writing on this blog is the product of heterosexual intercourse. Putting aside artificial reproduction techniques, every person that lives today and has ever lived is the product of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. The only exceptions are Adam and Eve and Jesus. So sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is 100% natural. It is 100% the way that we naturally conceive children. So heterosexuality is natural – it is how you all came about. Homosexuality is unnatural. None of you came about this way. Men and women are designed to have sexual intercourse with each other and beget the next generation. This is 100% the case.
Furthermore sexual intercourse between men and women is essential. If men and women stopped having intercourse the human race would die off in one generation. So heterosexuality is essential. Homosexuality is not essential. If men stopped having sex with men then the human race would go on. So homosexuality is neither natural nor essential. Heterosexuality is 100% natural and 100% essential. So heterosexuality is right and homosexuality is wrong.
Try using your reason on these arguments. And try not to use the word bigot.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
EWS,
The government should promote equality before the law. You may disagree if you wish, but why should the government lend credence to your prejudices? I don’t know what exactly you mean by “moral agent”. Obviously a loaded term.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Wow, Obama supports gay marriage and closing Guantanamo Bay and ending the war on drugs and balancing the budget and…
Its an election year promise and thus meaningless.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
EWS,
Once it becomes ‘normal’/legal it would have to be somehow dealt with when young children bring up the issue.
Oh dear… how ever will we explain to children that some people like the opposite sex and some people like the same sex. It’s just so hard to understand…. pfftt.
You do know that just because straight sex is normal doesn’t mean children are given a demonstration right?
The reality is that young people are far more comfortable with gays than the older generations. Polls show overwhelmingly that the younger generations are far less prejudiced and intolerant than the older generations.
So really it’s not the kids that we need to worry about.. it’s the crotchety old bastards who seem stuck in the 19th century.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Can someone please explain what legal rights are conferred by marriage but not by civil union?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Scott,
The only exceptions are Adam and Eve and Jesus.
Those aren’t exceptions… they be fairy tales.
Every person is the product of one man and one woman. If you go back far enough those men and women turn out to be more monkey than man.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Jack5,
As far as I’m aware adoption is the only right not conferred upon civil unions.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Scott,
Furthermore sexual intercourse between men and women is essential. If men and women stopped having intercourse the human race would die off in one generation. So heterosexuality is essential. Homosexuality is not essential. If men stopped having sex with men then the human race would go on. So homosexuality is neither natural nor essential. Heterosexuality is 100% natural and 100% essential. So heterosexuality is right and homosexuality is wrong.
So this is “reason” according to you? I would call it a false dilemma.
What if a portion of society has heterosexual sex, and reproduces (i.e. the population that is straight) and another portion of society does not (i.e. the population that is gay)?
If only the gay population does not reproduce then the species will live on.
You seem to be afraid that the whole world is going to turn gay. I suppose religion is the only thing that keeps you away from the gay saunas
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
@ Weihana
To an extent, I agree that people should be free to do what they want. However, no man is an island.
We live in a community and at the moment the state controls a third of the money that people earn. When this occurs the “negatives externalities” are socialised and the bad consequences of bad decisions have to be paid for by others.
Yes, we all make mistakes, and safety nets and shared responsibility for the social enterprise of a national community are good because it means a life isn’t completely ruined by one bad mistake or one dash of bad luck.
However, when we legislate bad things, we do ourselves damage. I don’t think gay ‘marriage’ will be the end of the world (I’d wager that our rampant materialism as well as no-fault divorce has done more damage to the social fabric that gay ‘marriage’ would do) but it’s another step in the wrong direction. It further cements the idea that human relationships are more about “myself” than about “the other”.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
@ Weihana
“The reality is that young people are far more comfortable with gays than the older generations.”
You’re mixing up tolerance with normality. One of my wife’s best friends (an old long-time flatmate of hers) is gay. I’m not uncomfortable around him. And I don’t view him as ‘Tom the gay guy’. He’s just Tom.
Being comfortable around someone is not the same as agreeing with an ideal they have.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
“Lesbians don’t tend to do sodomy. Yes they may use strap ons, but if they do they tend to do vaginal penetration”
I see DPF is as committed to thorough research on this issue as any other.
I expect he found researching this one quite fulfilling though. The internet really is a boon for researchers.
[DPF: No internet research on that one. I just have a very diverse set of friends who share]
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
How does marriage equality do that, EWS?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
Ignoring everything else, “X is natural therefore X is moral” doesn’t follow.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
DPF: but those against are vehemently against and will be highly motivated to turn out and vote if the election is pitched as a referendum on the gay marriage issue.
Yeah, that’s why 30 states now have bans. Really gonna turn out the voter.
But it appears Obama is already retracting. It’s his personal view, and it’s a state issue. Yeah right!
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
‘Historically marriage was abolished after the Russian revolution’
You seem to have a track record of making rather wild claims in relation to this sort of subject, Andrei. I remember you claiming, against all the evidence, that nobody was ever prosecuted in New Zealand and Britain when these countries had anti-gay laws. Now you’re claiming the Bolsheviks abolished marriage, when what they actually did was legalise divorce. If marriage was abolished after the revolution, how do you explain the fact that most of the Bolsheviks were married?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:44 pm
I’d be more supportive of the government getting out of regulating personal relationships completely. Should we really need a piece of paper from a government department to get married? It is purely a personal matter what one calls one’s relationship.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
There is something ironical about people who insist human are a supernatural special creation- rather than the product of natural processes- employing the “gay marriage is unnatural argument”.
Many social species- ants, wasps- seem to do just fine with having a preponderance of non-breeding adults in their ‘super-families’.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
@mikenmild,
I am inclined to agree that the most elegant solution to this is for the state to get out of the relationship business, and allow people to sign relationship contracts that determine the terms of the relationship and what happens in the event of a breakup. However, even if New Zealand got out of the relationship business, other countries wouldn’t necessarily follow and the government would therefore need some level of involvement to ensure that New Zealanders could have their relationships recognised overseas.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
I asked Dunedin MPs what their views were on same sex marriage, so far only Metiria Turei has responded – “I fully support same sex marriage.”
Coincidentally while I was setting this up I got an email from Obama outlining his views, so I tacked it on the end of the post if anyone’s interested: Dunedin MPs on same sex marriage.
He closes with:
I’m fully in agreement with equal marriage rights for same sex couples.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:23 pm
An Economist magazine blogger has an interesting take on Obama’s endorsement for gay marriage here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/05/obama-endorses
Essentially he argues that Obama endorsing gay marriage makes it a partisan issue, and potentially delays full recognition of gay marriage.
This particular blogger is generally supportive of Obama, so I find his comments interesting.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Yes that exactly true Chthoniid and that is exactly how our socialist masters would have us be – worker ants, conditioned to strive for the “greater good”.
And that is what they would turn our children into, which is why they want to separate us from them. To condition them into their world view and not our own.
But we aren’t worker ants – yet
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
This is an “equality” issue. It shows how far and how ridiculous the concept has gone.
If equality is the justification then Islamic ,Mormon, and any other form of marriage that can be conceived and practised must also be recognised.
Some people here seem to think that with the passage of time this equality madness will become more acceptable ,well demographics and immigration have a funny way of effecting societies and history.As we get more Islamic, sharia law will ensure that this particular interpretation of equality will be seen as a passing phase in what was the end of the European era.
This issue is being thrashed out in the UK at the moment where the faux conservative Cameron was reminded at the polls that he needs to stick to being a conservative.
I reckon Obama has just lost the election. Maybe he doesn’t want a second term. More money to be made out of idiots who ‘d pay to listen to the idiot speak.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Ed Snack:Oddly enough, other cultures have in the past been apparently quite happy with homosexual relationships, but never before have they been elevated to the status of marriage.
Same-sex marriages have occurred in history.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
kowtow
Vote:There’s nothing wrong with polygamy – Islamic, Mormon or secular. It’s no one’s business but those involved.
May 10th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Scott:God knows how he made us. He did not make us Adam and Steve.
The evidence indicates that sexual orientation is innate and has a biological component.
Homosexuality is also wrong by reason as well as revelation.
Your reasoning is impaired. And many of those bible passages don’t mean what many christians think.
Homosexuality is unnatural.
And yet we see it in the animal kingdom.
Nature is a bit more complicated than people like you, Scott, seem to realise. There is no great problem if some proportion of the population don’t breed. Many humans for example, are born sterile.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
So has Obama just announced compulsory butt sex for all Americans?
Sorry I’ve just skimmed the thread…
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
Since this is a political blog I thought a few political points might be worthwhile amidst the fire and brimstone:
Glad to hear that milky, since it was my intention. I’d like to think you also got my other point with that comment. But just in case ….
He’s announced that he considers it to be a matter only for states and nothing to do with the Federal government. I suppose it’s possible that he’s now pro-”States Rights”? Tut, tut! That’s playing with fire, given how loaded with history that term is, and we’ll see how that works on some of his other pet issues.
Shorter version: he just voted “present”, while also getting Chrissy Mathews and other lefty pundits all leg-tingly again, along with some other elements of his base.
Oh please Chthoniid – I don’t expect you to be so naive. Barry has merely circled all the way back to the position he held in the late 1990′s, and I’d note that the great circle route he has flown on this is already being described as “courageous” – the term “flip-flop” being reserved for any position Mitt Romney changes. Narrative control in the lefty media again.
I’m more interested in what this says politically about Obama because there’s an element of the dog that didn’t bark here. First of all, it was telegraphed the other day by Biden’s comment – which immediately raised speculations about what Obama would say. It’s clever, because he can play it as having been “forced” into making the commitment by others in his administration, which leaves him the needed wriggle room required to do nothing practical (see “states rights” above), whilst keeping most of his base on-side.
I say most of his base because – for all the screams and squawks about opposition from fundamentalist, white Christians – the fact is that this will not sit well with his most hardline support base: African-Americans. The opposition of that group to gay marriage (to gay rights in general) is well-known but little talked about since it makes US liberals very uncomfortable, both because of its cultural and religious reasons (not a lot of African-American atheists). It only occasionally emerges in public, as with Tom Hanks appreciation for Denzel Washington’s role as the lawyer defending Hanks gay, AID’s stricken character in Philadelphia, the support for California’s Proposition 8 with black voters, and Van Jones’s recent comment that Obama could probably even announce that he’s gay and AA’s would still vote for him.
In other words, he’s taking a calculated risk that will probably come off given his likely 95%-plus vote in that community. Just don’t expect to see him talking about this when visiting Black churches – not even Jeremiah Wright’s!
But why now? Surely he’s cruising to victory against the milquetoast Mormon? Moreover, in some recent opinion polls, this issue was recently ranked last by Independents and Democrats – and second to last by Republicans!
The answer is that this announcement – plus all the noise around contraception, cradle-to-grave “Julia”, and a host of other bright, shiny distractions – can mean only one thing. Obama is not doing as well as he expected so the name of the game will be turning out the base four years past his rock-god peak, and not talking about the economy, not talking about the economy, not talking about the economy ….
Finally, with regard to this thread, here have been some other important “political” events in the US in the last few days. Surely they could have been tied into this announcement, as they should be. If Obama and the rest of the left-wing really think this is going to be a huge culture-war brushfire that they can ride through to the election then I think they’re in for a hell of shock.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
‘This question of divorce is a striking illustration of the fact that one cannot be a democrat and a socialist without immediately demanding full freedom of divorce, for the absence of such freedom is an additional burden on the oppressed sex, woman–although it is not at all difficult to understand that the recognition of the right of women to leave their husbands is not an invitation to all wives to do so!’
Poor old Lenin wrote that* in 1916. He failed forsee Andrei’s peculiar confusion of the right to divorce with the abolition of marriage.
*http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/subject/women/abstract/16_08.htm
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
The one thing that I’m happy about with all this is that Obama has shifted the debate forward. I truly look forward to the day when most of the anti-gay group have died out and such views are no longer held. Just like how probably in the 1950s there were still a significant number of people who were against interracial marriage, nowadays you would be labeled a racist. Today there are a lot of homophobes but sadly they aren’t progressive thinking enough to see how this is all going to end up.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
pebble dick,wants to see his opposition dead,well at least he’s honest.
And yes he’s right .It’s not about the debate or the issue,it’s about “labelling” people as racist or homophobic and so shutting down debate .
Typical leftist.And talking of leftists ,more self labelling to control the debate ,”progressive?”.There’s nothing progressive in socialism.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Nice.
“The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.”
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:19 pm
[DPF: Andrei. Lesbians don't tend to do sodomy. Yes they may use strap ons, but if they do they tend to do vaginal penetration. Plus many lesbians do not use strap ons at all but just do oral sex or mutual masturbation.
As for gay couples, not all gay couples do sodomy either. And as around a third of heterosexual couples have had anal sex, most sodomy actually occurs between a man and a woman. So most sodomite marriages are heterosexuals.
Less common is pegging where a heterosexual couple have anal sex, but the woman uses a strap on, on the man's anus. There is little data on the prevalance of that, but they also are heterosexual couples]
One of the best [DPF:___] comebacks ever.
Quoted just to re-live the awesomeness.
With or without sodomy, it’s a FACT that two people of the same gender cannot have sexual intercourse (coitus). They just CAN’T – it’s not physically possible. They can commit sodomy, but the anus is not a sexual organ the last time I looked: it is the sewer line of the body. Anyone who is trying to say this is the same as sexual intercourse needs their head examined.
If sodomy is not involved, it’s purely a matter of mutual stimulation; this also is not sexual intercourse.
It’s kind of sad really. They are trying to achieve something that is beyond their reach, in what ends up as being a parody of the real thing, and somewhat disgusting as well. Ultimately, a futile act that produces momentary pleasure, like a drug hit, and then is over.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Good link, cha. Very apposite.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
You’ve clearly thought a lot about this Fletch, and you may even be right, but the point is it’s none of your business what other consenting adults get up to. You don’t have to like it, you just have to keep out of it. And that means that the state cannot invent some special status between certain dividuals: it has to treat everyone equally.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I believe that the same-sex marriage thing, to a certain extent, is a way toward promoting homosexuality as being ‘normal’.
If you are doing something abnormal or perverse and want to be accepted, you want others to accept it as well. Aristotle wrote, “men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.”
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/ReillyCultureVice.php
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:33 pm
You’ve clearly thought a lot about this Fletch, and you may even be right, but the point is it’s none of your business what other consenting adults get up to. You don’t have to like it, you just have to keep out of it. And that means that the state cannot invent some special status between certain dividuals: it has to treat everyone equally.
wat dabney, in actual fact, I do NOT care what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. What I DO care about is someone’s perversity being made legal in affirmation by the State, and that if affects society as a whole – be it children in school, churches, or businesses.
Vote:And I DO see homosexual marriage as the State “inventing some special status between certain individuals” – it would be doing so in the case of gay marriage.
May 10th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
This too.
http://www.economist.com/node/21554201
Yet the Devil can quote Scripture, too: many Americans used it to defend slavery and segregation. And Christian voters eventually rejected the devout, low-church Mr Carter in favour of a divorced movie-star longer on charm than piety. All of which suggests that American Christianity—much like both America and Christianity themselves—is fundamentally neither of the left nor the right, but is capacious enough for all comers.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:39 pm
ps, funny how when a politician changes their mind, the media usually calls them on their “flip-flop”, but with Obama he is just “evolving”. LOL
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
I do NOT care what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. What I DO care about is someone’s perversity being made legal in affirmation by the State
Make up your mind. Which is it? Is the state to favour/interfere in our private affairs or not?
And I DO see homosexual marriage as the State “inventing some special status between certain individuals” – it would be doing so in the case of gay marriage.
In fact the state “invented” special status for heterosexual marriage when it recognised that particular arrangement. If the state would refuse to recognise any special status for heterosexual couples then we would have parity.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Homosexuals already have the right to marry.
In fact, they have exactly the same rights as everyone else.
The fact that they aren’t satisfied with merely being treated equally with everyone else under the law (as they are now) and want the government to create special categories just for them is their problem, not society’s.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
“Homosexuals already have the right to marry. ”
Er, no they don’t.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
No one is asking for a special category. If the government wants to regulate heterosexual relationships, then it should do the same for homosexual relationships.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
With regard to Obama’s popularity I think the story of the day has to be the Democratic Primary held in West Virginia. Obama actually did have an opponent – and that guy garnered 41% of the WV Democrat votes (no cross-party voting in this primary).
Forty one percent! That’s not a good sign for President Obama. His opponent, Keith Judd, did not campaign while racking up those votes, and he lives in Texas.
In fact he couldn’t get to meet the voters because he’s also known as Inmate #11593-051.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Homosexuals,as human beings already have the RIGHT to marry regardless of what anyone else says…they just don’t have the FREEDOM to…as others via the state employ force to prevent them doing so and being recognised as such.
Marriage long preceded the Christian church…..it was never a religious creation at all. And gay marriages have been carried out in the Christian church over the centuries…..only really ending in the last 500 odd years.
The real issue for the bigots is an insecurity about their Deity and his supposed all powerful ways. They are really trying to maintain an old power base that is slipping by the day in the face of reason and facts….and good riddance.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Homosexuals already have the same RIGHTS and FREEDOM to marry as everyone else (eg, man and woman). They’re just not allowed to marry someone of the same sex (just like everyone else).
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
“Blacks already have the same RIGHTS and FREEDOM to marry as everyone else. They’re just not allowed to marry a white person”
Sorry, did I misquote you?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
It has been alleged that Obama was engaged in homosexual activities in the 80s. That means that Obama may still be hiding his lust for sucking carrots.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
No, Fletch has it right. What were those silly homos thinking, that their relationships should be just like any others’?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
A reasoned explanation as usual milky.
Could you give us straight guys a bit of an insight into how their bedroom activities are just the same as us so we can all put this topic “To bed” so to speak?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:36 pm
I’m lot really all that interested in what you get up to in your bedroom (or barn) Johnboy. That’s no one’s business but you and your consenting partner.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Well you just suggested that “silly homos” relationships were just like ours. So I naturally expected you would be prepared to expand your comment if requested.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
They are the same as any other relationship between committed life partners. Actually, the more I think about it, the more convinced I becomes that the only real answer is to scrap all government regulation of personal relationships. Let people define ‘marriage’ for themselves.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
You know this from experience milky or do you have a degree in aeronautical engineering (kite) like Magpie?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Wat – anyone of a legal age and sound mind can marry – just find a marriage partner of the opposite sex and off you go.
Equality before the law.
The real issue here (apart from Weihana somehow thinking it’s the government that decides in issues of morality) is that a minority aren’t happy with equal rights – they want something more.
They want to create a new category of marriage – man + man / woman + woman, or man + man + man, man + woman + woman, (insert any other permutation), etc.
That is not marriage. That is something else entirely.
As it stands, everyone has the same right to be married. Some choose not to exercise that right, and are bitching about it.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Woman+Me+Another Woman+Sheep+ X does it for me really!
X being the unknown surprise factor!
As long as X does not = milkey or Phool or Lance!
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
“Wat – anyone of a legal age and sound mind can marry – just find a marriage partner of the opposite sex and off you go.
Equality before the law.”
Did you see what you did there?
“Just find someone of the same race…”
If you want to impose your bigotry on other people then please have the honesty to say so, but don’t pretend that you are talking about equality.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Never realised so many folks in NZ had a phD aeE(k) till tonight!
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Race and gender are two totally different issues. The homosexual issue has NOTHING TO DO with civil rights (although promoters of the gay agenda would like to see it like that).
A European court ruled this March (two months ago) that gay marriage is not a “human right”.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Oh noes!.
The answer, paradoxically, is yes. In the period up to roughly the thirteenth century, male bonding ceremonies were performed in churches all over the Mediterranean. These unions were sanctified by priests with many of the same prayers and rituals used to join men and women in marriage. The ceremonies stressed love and personal commitment over procreation, but surely not everyone was fooled. Couples who joined themselves in such rituals most likely had sex as much (or as little) as their heterosexual counterparts. In any event, the close association of male bonding ceremonies with forbidden sex eventually became too much to overlook as ever more severe sodomy laws were put into place
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Fletch,
So the statist EU monstrosity made a ruling that you approve of.
Do you approve of all their rulings?
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
1957 = 2012
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Wat – You’re equating a person’s genotype (black/white/etc) with sexual preference and behaviour.
Prove it.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 11:03 pm
Rufus,
Please do explain.
Surely everyone is free to pursue their own happiness, whatever other people may think of their choices?
It doesn’t matter if you ascribe their preferences to genetics or to a creator space pixie.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Surely everyone is free to pursue their own happiness, whatever other people may think of their choices?
What if that happiness depends on marrying a minor, a relative (like your sister or cousin), an animal, two other people etc.
Vote:Are they free to pursue that?
May 10th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
I agree Wat – these are moral choices.
So why draw parallels between interracial marriage and homo/poly etc partnerships?
One’s race is not a moral choice.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 11:22 pm
“One’s race is not a moral choice.”
True, but neither is one’s sexuality.
But more to the point, even if it were, why do you care? What difference does it make to you if other people pursue their own happiness: people every bit as human and as wonderful as yourself.
For fucks sake. Stop persecuting other people and join with them in personal freedom.
DNA or moral choice?
Ask yourself why you give a fuck.
And be sure that you are not just indulging your own prejudices.
Nobody is asking you to support homosexuality. You can despise it all you want. But you don’t get to impose your beliefs on other people.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:04 am
And yet, the same people, religious conservatives, are using the very same arguments against gay marriage as they did against interracial marriage.
The good thing is they are losing the argument the very same way.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:12 am
It’s really sad, your very, very limited view on what constitutes enjoyable sex. A parody of the real thing, that the rest of us (straight and gay ) enjoy.
It’s just so very typical of those religious conservatives, especially the Catholics, to feel guilty about anything that would give them the slightest pleasure.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:46 am
Nobody is asking you to support homosexuality. You can despise it all you want. But you don’t get to impose your beliefs on other people.
And yet the beliefs of a small minority are often forced on society. Believe it or not, I don’t go out of my way to force my beliefs on anyone, not even in real. If I mention it on the board here, it is almost always by way of defending what I already believe against attack.. What I see in society is those with other agendas forcing them down *my* throat – be it by way of gay parades, the sitcoms or movies which always have to have a gay character, etc etc.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:58 am
It’s really sad, your very, very limited view on what constitutes enjoyable sex. A parody of the real thing, that the rest of us (straight and gay ) enjoy.
But that isn’t sex (coitus), and that is what we are talking about. Yes, I understand that there are many ways to stimulate one another that are ‘fun’ but we are not talking about “guilt” here. We’re talking about the one and only way that gays can experience “sex” (well, what they call sex, but isn’t sex), and which they want to equate as being the same as coitus, or sexual intercourse. They want society to accept this and affirm them in this being the same thing. If this is considered being the same, then there is no reason that gay marriage cannot be accepted, as the sexual act is central to marriage.
As I said before – it is not the same at all. Sex is not only about pleasure, it gives life. Just as eating is pleasurable, but eating is not just about the pleasure, and it only gives life if food is put in the right, er, orifice.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:10 am
Wat : “True, but neither is one’s sexuality.”.
Wat – you cannot choose whether you are male or female, black or white.
You can however choose your sexual behaviour and preferences.
You are incorrect in equating skin colour with sexual preferences.
As for forcing beliefs on someone – you are proposing to change marriage. I’m asking you to leave it alone.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Assuming you’re straight, you seriously think you could choose to become sexually aroused by men?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:20 am
PIV after menopause or with contraception ISN’T SEX.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:22 am
Marriage isn’t about sex. It’s about love and commitment.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:24 am
Ryan, some people do, for whatever reason. Some people change later on or are affected by other things. Professor Elizabeth Wells from Otago University interviewed 13,000 people, and it turned out that those who identified with being gay or bisexual had been abused as children.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:26 am
Fletch, if you chose to, could you become sexually aroused by other men? Or fall in romantic love with another man?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:30 am
“Marriage isn’t about sex. It’s about love and commitment.”
Exactly Ryan, the homosexual community is notorious for lack of love and rampant promiscuity. To call their relationships marriage is a perversion of the term.
Cha at 10:19 PM talks some rubbish about male bonding ceremonies performed by the church. Please don’t make things up! That is nonsense.
The churches always been against homosexuality because it is a sin. God is so unevolved that he is against homosexuality as well. Apparently there are about nine references to homosexuality in the Bible. All are negative.
To me this is the continuing down slide of our civilisation into something wickedly perverse. Hopefully we will have a new generation that will reverse the trend.
Otherwise so few people are getting married anyway and having so few children that our civilisation will eventually die out. Homosexuality which by definition cannot reproduce will only add to that decline.
But I must say I cannot stand the wickedness of our liberal elite who are so proud. Fortunately I take satisfaction that they will meet their judgement before God. You have been warned. There is still time to repent. Take advantage of it.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:33 am
I’ll think about repenting when I’ve finished penting.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:48 am
Scott, it is unjust to deny marriage equality to a loving committed same-sex couples on the basis that some other homosexual people don’t have loving committed relationships. The rampant promiscuity of heterosexuals isn’t a reason to deny marriage to loving committed heterosexual couples, is it?
That doesn’t matter. We live in a democracy, where one religion’s rules should not be imposed on everyone. Synagogues have always been against eating pork – should it be outlawed?
You would have to be crazy on drugs to think that underpopulation is a problem. And recognising same-sex couples’ right to marriage equality is not going to have any impact on the number of children being produced anyway.
If you want to live in a country run by religion, move to Iran.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:53 am
God you’re full of shit.
The amount of children being produced, let’s say is 100 per year, will not change if gay marriage is allowed.
All gay marriage does is allow two gay people to get married.
Two gay people getting married is not going to increase/decrease the chance for two straight people from having a child.
Two gay people not getting married is not going to increase/decrease the chance for two straight people from having a child.
Plus, if you really care about what God thinks about relationships: http://i.imgur.com/bHp6k.jpg
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:04 am
No Dick it is you that are foolish. The amount of children is declining which you and Ryan don’t seem to have grasped. Homosexual marriage cannot reproduce.
You are crazy on drugs Ryan. Under population is a problem. Russia and Japan are in manifest decline. So get your facts right.that’s why Europe has such a Moslem problem. They have to have immigration because the population is in decline.
In actual fact homosexuality was rampant in Greece and Rome. Contributed greatly to the decline of those civilisations. The men spent much of their time in rampant sexual relationships with boys. And so the women were ignored.
I want to live in the country that respects God. God made us and we are made to live in relationship with him. Not the God of Iran but the God of the Bible.I certainly don’t want to live in a country with foolish people like you who think they are God and so make marriage anything they want it to be.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:11 am
As I said, marriage is about love and commitment, not about producing children. And marriage equality is not going to decrease the number of heterosexual couples having children.
Well, I’m afraid you’re stuck with democracy instead.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:13 am
Democracy is based on Judeo/Christian principles and values Ryan.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:20 am
How so?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:26 am
How fucking ironic is it that someone who believes in a great big fairy in the sky calls someone else foolish. As far as I’m aware there are a load of children in Africa that need saving/adopting and all you Christians care about is trying to make clones of your idiotic selves.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:38 am
A guy called McCain (not the McCain) has a website and is on Obama’s mailing list.
Vote:He pastes an email that Obama is sending around, and his translation –
May 11th, 2012 at 10:38 am
How so?
Well, the Old Testament is all about obeying a Big Authority Figure or suffering extremely horrible consequences, and that’s the basis of our whole… er… never mind.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:44 am
Dick Prebble at 10:26 am: “… there are a load of children in Africa that need saving/adopting and all you Christians care about is trying to make clones of your idiotic selves.”
Not all Christians.
http://www.mercyships.org.nz/
“Mercy Ships exists to address the critical shortage of health care services in the developing world. Mercy Ships operates a 16,000 tonne hospital ship which provides free medical surgeries for the poorest nations of the earth. Staffed by volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care and maritime professionals, the Africa Mercy provides life-saving surgery for thousands of patients each year.
The Africa Mercy is operating in Lome, Togo from January to June 2012, then in Conakry, Guinea from August 2012 to June 2013.”
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 11:06 am
It’s about obeying God. I often wonder what is the basis of the support for homosexuality? I mean so few people are homosexual – about 1%, maybe 3%? And homosexual marriage? Liberals don’t even like marriage. Many of the people on this blog are not married, had never been married, and have no plans to marry. Look at DPF – living a gay life with Wellington girl or which ever other girl he is dating at the moment.
I actually think the basis of support for homosexuality and gay rights and gay marriage is pride. Pride means that you believe you know how life should be. You believe you are self-sufficient. And you believe that you do not need God. In fact most of you hate God.
But the reality is that God is in charge of you and this whole world. Homosexuality is a sin. It is not how God made us to be. Until you reconcile yourself with God life will not make much sense.
I do not want to live in the country where people like you, with your deranged and decadent attitudes, rule this nation. We had a wonderful civilisation. You Liberals are ruining it.
In the meantime we in the church will do our best to uphold the Christian civilisation we inherited from our forebears. But know that in the end God will win. However much you rail against God at the end of days you will be in judgement before him. You should repent now. While there is still time.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Firstly, I am well aware that Christianity is about oppressing minorities, as it evident today as well as throughout history so I am not surprised that they are not interested in the rights of the 1-3% of homosexuals.
Secondly – I don’t know if you thought what you wrote was convincing or not, but a Muslim could have came in here and said the exact same thing and you would (rightly so) think of him as a nut ranting on about something that is non-existent:
It’s about obeying Allah
Pride means that you believe you know how life should be. You believe you are self-sufficient. And you believe that you do not need Allah. In fact most of you hate Allah.
But the reality is that Allah is in charge of you and this whole world. It is not how Allah made us to be. Until you reconcile yourself with Allah life will not make much sense.
I do not want to live in the country where people like you, with your deranged and decadent attitudes, rule this nation. We had a wonderful civilisation. You Christians are ruining it.
In the meantime we in the mosque will do our best to uphold the Allah civilisation we inherited from our forebears. But know that in the end Allah will win. However much you rail against Allah at the end of days you will be in judgement before him. You should repent now. While there is still time.
Hint: You are winning over zero souls for Christ by being a bigoted homophobe, in fact, one day you might stand before His judgment throne and He will go all Matthew 18:6 on you because He is a murderous/vengeful God.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Scott:The churches always been against homosexuality because it is a sin. God is so unevolved that he is against homosexuality as well. Apparently there are about nine references to homosexuality in the Bible. All are negative.
As I said before, many of those references don’t mean what people like you think. Furthermore some of them are in the Old Testament which Jesus is supposed to have liberated you from. Jesus also remarks at one point that people are born gay.
Homosexuality which by definition cannot reproduce will only add to that decline.
And yet, homosexuality occurs naturally. By the way, mothers of gay men tend to be more fecund than average so your argument doesn’t work.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Fletch:Professor Elizabeth Wells from Otago University interviewed 13,000 people, and it turned out that those who identified with being gay or bisexual had been abused as children.
Homosexuality is not caused by abuse.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
I am not saying that is the only reason, but it is very interesting.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
I do not believe that people are born gay, or in “orientation”.
Vote:Otherwise, why is there not a paedophile orientation? Why is his desire any less that a homosexual desire, even if he never acts on it? Is it not fair to a paedophile that he cannot live the way he wants to? NAMBLA sure thinks so, and they are supported by the homosexual movement. Many gay proponent establishments carry NAMBLA brochures.
May 11th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Otherwise, why is there not a paedophile orientation? Why is his desire any less that a homosexual desire, even if he never acts on it? Is it not fair to a paedophile that he cannot live the way he wants to?
Your inability to understand the basics of logic or fundamental concepts of human rights isn’t the gays’ problem.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
PM, well, you explain it to me then: how a homosexual desire is different from a paedophile desire. And yes, we both know that paedophilia is wrong, but we’re talking about the desire itself, even if the paedophile never acts on it.
Tell me how it is different. How one is still considered to be a sickness and one not?
Vote:Isn’t desire, desire?
May 11th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Isn’t desire, desire?
That last statement destroyed your argument totally
is not desire between hetro persons desire
is that to a sickness?
FFS get out of the bedroom of others its not yours mine or anybodies business wot two consenting adults do for kicks
Vote:Cristians do not own the bodies of any ones but there own
the sooner they learn this the more chance they have of surviving into the future
Sit back fundies and remember the down fall of the last conservative Cristian political party leader to blight our landscape
May 11th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Dick Prebble – gosh you write some crap. There is a world of difference between Islam and Christianity. If you don’t believe me go to Saudi Arabia.
Christianity is not about oppressing minorities you foolish fellow. Jesus actually liberated many minorities including women and Samaritans actually.
There is a world of difference and you know that and so stop writing rubbish.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
I don’t know, is it? Then why is that legal and not paedophilia?
Explain it to me. The difference between heterosexual, homosexual, and paedophilic sexual desire.
The truth is, you can’t.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Chiz- “Jesus also remarks at one point that people are born gay.”
And that is more rubbish. Jesus never said any such thing. Stop making things up.
“mothers of gay men tend to be more fecund than average.”
Did you make that up as well? I have never heard anyone say any such thing.
Gosh you write rubbish.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:15 pm
ps, to read about the connection between child molestation and the homosexual movement, check out this article by the Hon. Steve Baldwin.
http://www.mega.nu/ampp/baldwin_pedophilia_homosexuality.pdf
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Griff – “its not yours mine or anybodies business wot two consenting adults do for kicks”
It is actually societies business. Homosexuality is a sin and we have no business legalising it and calling it marriage. Sin increases, sin always wants to expand. Consenting adults today, nonconsenting children tomorrow. Sin always grows.
Also it is our business what people do. It’s called caring about other people. Homosexuality is a sin. Sin destroys people, it hurts people. Those indulging in homosexuality hurt themselves and others.
Your view is the typical liberal view. Just do what you want. Because I don’t care. That is your view. You don’t care. You don’t love. Love does care about what other people do. Love cares enough to show people the right way. Homosexuality is wrong, it hurts people, it destroys societies – we have no business calling it marriage.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
What the fuck Scott, the only difference between Islam and Christianity is that they believe in different Gods – but they are both equally as stupid in terms of believing in outdated fiction and imaginary beings. It’s Christian scum like you that make this world as bad as a place as it is, people like you go around going on about God and Jesus yet everything in your actions show that you’re just the most uncaring people in the world. Christians have a bad reputation of being horrible neighbours and you really need to look at yourself before you go around judging homosexuals – Jesus also made a point of saying that people who claim to love God have no place in condemning other people yet that is all you Christians are known for.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
The cravat Consenting adults
Vote:Is not in any way aligned to pedophilia rape bestiality necrophilia
or any other such sexually deviant practices
People have a capacity to love why do fundies see that as wrong and try to outlaw it between persons of the same sex
Its not our business so long as its between consenting adults
marriage is a contract between two adults
it exists were the Cristian church does not
as such fundies do not own the concept and have no right to dictate its boundarys to others
May 11th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Your view is the typical liberal view. Just do what you want. Because I don’t care. That is your view.
And your view is a typical of a poorly developed Christian world view.
Others peoples sin is actually none of your business, Jesus said so many times. In fact, Jesus made a remarkable statement regarding self righteous pious people, he said it would be worse on the day of judgement for them than it would be for homosexuals.
I am opposed to gay marriage, but I place much of the blame for this issue becoming the mess it has at the feet of Christian fundamentalists, they botched this up, they had a chance to show society they have something valid to offer and they blew it spectacularly.
Jesus was not an arsehole, so why do so many people that claim to represent him think behaving like one is ok?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Shunda barunda (2,057) Says: Jesus was not an arsehole, so why do so many people that claim to represent him think behaving like one is ok?
Now that … is a very good question.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
How is it being an asrehole to disagree with someone’s conduct?
Am I an arsehole if I disagree with someone smoking?
That’s what the gay community wants though – they want anyone labelled as a “homophobe” who simply disagrees with ANY of their conduct. I do not hate or fear gays. I know two of them at work, and we get on quite well. That doesn’t mean I agree with all of their conduct.
Again, how is it being an arsehole to disagree with someone’s conduct?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Tell me how it is different. How one is still considered to be a sickness and one not?
One is considered a crime, not a sickness, and it’s considered that because there is this thing called consent, which we’ve decided animals and children aren’t in a position to give. You’ll be familiar with the term “consenting adults,” I’m sure. It’s not a meaningless term. If you’re seeking to fathom the difference between homosexuality and paedophilia, that term gives it to you in two words – there is no great mystery there to delve into.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Dick Prebble – more rubbish. Christianity and Islam are worlds apart. Everyone knows this. If you don’t know this then go and live in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq or Egypt. Contrast them with nations of the Christian heritage such as New Zealand or the United States or Great Britain. Huge difference.
How do you know about my actions? I just vehemently disagree with you and your Liberal mates about homosexuality. I do care about other people. But it is not kind or caring to encourage people to do sinful things that hurt them. Such as taking drugs, such as prostitution, such as homosexuality. Simple as that really.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Shunda barunda – what are you on about? It is not kind or caring to encourage other people in their sins. Giving homosexuality the status of marriage is completely wrong. I am forthrightly opposing this.
What is wrong with doing this? Jesus did not encourage other people in their sins.
What I can’t stand is people who claim to be Christian and then attack other Christians for standing up for true Christian beliefs. Homosexuality is a really big sin. We should oppose it. You should oppose it. And you should stop attacking other Christians who are opposing it.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
To us atheists
Christianity Islam and Jewish faiths are very much the same
Its the same god you all worship
just different prophets
Did not Jesus say something about prostitutes?
Vote:How the lord welcomes them more than the self righteous
May 11th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
I think it is masterful of OB1 to flag this.
Vote:They’ll all be talking of this not the economy.
May 11th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
yes Griff you’re absolutely correct he did say that.
If I remember correctly in context it was when they turn from their sin life and to Him.
As for being prophets, can’t say I see that, as Jesus didn’t present Himself as a prophet but as the Son of God, one with the Father.
Vote:Big difference to being a Prophet, though He operated in the gift.
May 11th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
But I am angry. I am angry with the sinfulness of people who want to make a mockery of marriage. It we men can marry each other then presumably we can marry our pets? Or what about marrying our mothers? Or what about marrying two or three other people? This redefinition of marriage to make it whatever you want to make it is completely wrong.
So I am angry at Liberals. I am angry at the hard-heartedness of my fellow New Zealanders who just ignore God and try and impose this wretched decadent corruption on our nation and our children. So that makes me a bad person? I just disagree with you.
Remember that we are all sinners. Some of us are just forgiven our sins.
But in the end God will win. I do hold onto that.
But there is still time to repent. That is the nicest kindest thing you will ever hear. Heaven and hell are real places. They are both full of volunteers. Make a good choice – go with God. And that is a really kind thing as well for me to say.
Scott – out
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
“To us atheists
Christianity Islam and Jewish faiths are very much the same
Its the same god you all worship”
Would not agree sorry. The Muslim Allah is not the God of the Bible.
Scott- out – really this time.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Scott:And that is more rubbish. Jesus never said any such thing. Stop making things up.
Jesus says in Matthew 19;11-12 that some people are made eunuchs, and others are born eunuchs. This was a refernce using the coded language ofthe time, to homosexuality.
Did you make that up as well? I have never heard anyone say any such thing.
Yes but its clear that you aren’t a well-informed person. There has actually been scientific research on this point.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Fletch:I do not believe that people are born gay, or in “orientation”.
You can believe that the Earth is flat for all I care, that won’t make it so. The evidence is clear that there is biological component to sexual orientation. There are differences in finger length rations in lesbians compared to heterosexual women. There are also differences in the auditory systems of lesbians. Just to give two examples.
Otherwise, why is there not a paedophile orientation?
There is evidence for a genetic component to paedophilia.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Fletch (2,732) Says:
May 11th, 2012 at 10:38 am
delicious absolutely delicious.
Vote:Thank you for that I had a great laugh.
Cheers.
May 11th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Pets can’t consent. Mothers raise too many concerns around grooming (thus questioning real consent). Marrying two or three other people doesn’t bother me as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult.
Scott, you basically seem angry that people don’t agree with you, don’t think that you’re right about religious matters. We don’t live in a country where you are allowed to push your religious views on everyone else. If you don’t want to marry another dude, don’t marry another dude. No one’s going to make you. Meanwhile, don’t try to use the state’s power to enforce your religion on other people.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Again, how is it being an arsehole to disagree with someone’s conduct?
You aren’t necessarily an arsehole for being in disagreement with someone, but you might be depending on the way you do it.
I am sick to death of people talking about the love of God one minute and displaying appalling conduct the next.
I have experienced the worst aspects of humanity in church, and by a bloody long shot at that.
Like I said, a poorly developed Christian world view is a big part of the problem, it is the cut n paste Christians that do a great deal of harm to the message of Christ and unbelievers rightly reject them as speakers of the truth.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Shunda barunda – what are you on about? It is not kind or caring to encourage other people in their sins.
So you think that you have to speak out about this on a political blog or you think God may judge you for encouraging sin?
I
Giving homosexuality the status of marriage is completely wrong. I am forthrightly opposing this.
I am also opposed to marriage being redefined, but I also know that marriage is not strictly a Christian concept, this means one has to modify the argument against change from strictly religious reasons.
If Christians had have understood this from the start, I think a very different situation could quite possibly exist now.
What is wrong with doing this? Jesus did not encourage other people in their sins.
No he didn’t, he spent much more time talking about “good news”, sadly, many Christians only ever offer bad news based more on fear than faith.
What I can’t stand is people who claim to be Christian and then attack other Christians for standing up for true Christian beliefs.
What I can’t stand is the current form of Christianity that behaves more like a fearful cult than anything to do with the truth of the Gospel.
Homosexuality is a really big sin. We should oppose it. You should oppose it.
No, actually, I shouldn’t and nether should you.
Other peoples sin is Gods business, not mine and not yours.
Jesus was not part of the ‘sin police’, and incidentally, the real ‘sin police’ hated him so much that they called him a false prophet and got really angry because he wouldn’t do Gods work and condemn all that dirty sin like they did so well.
Guess what happened next?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
At the end of the day people like Fletch and Scott have to ask themselves – are their supposedly ‘caring’ attitudes actually causing gay people to turn to the imaginary being that they believe in?
When Churches are fully made up of people like them – homosexuals are going to stay miles away. If there was a semi-curious gay guy who always felt like there was something more to life than just the world and could possibly be dumb enough to entertain the possibility of a loving God due to being uneducated about science read the comments here, ones as welcoming as: “But I must say I cannot stand the wickedness of our liberal elite who are so proud. Fortunately I take satisfaction that they will meet their judgement before God. You have been warned. There is still time to repent. Take advantage of it.”
You can bet your ass and subject it to sodomy that there is no way they will ever consider thinking about going to Church ever again. Your anger sucks Fletch and Scott (doesn’t the Bible say that God can be angry but it’s not your place) and you are the reason people do not like Christians, pretending to be caring when in reality you are just using it as a platform for you to express your bigotry and condemn others. Jesus has a few words for people like you:
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Sunday morning Church service – pastor asks if anyone has any two minute testimonies about the glory of God which congregation members would like to share with everyone?
Old woman gets up: “This week I ran out of money to buy groceries. It was very shameful of me to have to go down to WINZ to ask for additional help, but praise the Lord that the welfare officer could see that I wouldn’t have gone there unless I really needed that help! The government topped up my pension with an emergency benefit for the week and I was able to buy bread and milk!”
Clap clap clap. Anyone else?
Young man: “I had been praying about getting into second year engineering at university. Every morning before I went to the library to study I would spend five minutes with God asking for strength. He gave it to me and I found out on Friday that I passed!”
Our God is an awesome God! OK we have time for one more story before we get into worship!
Scott: “I must say I cannot stand the wickedness of our liberal elite who are so proud. Fortunately I take satisfaction that they will meet their judgement before God.”
Hallelujah – that’s our amazingly loving God alright! How wrong it is for homosexuals to want to ruin the sanctity of marriage. It is fully reasonable and within normal mental rationality to wish eternal torture upon gay people for daring to want to get married. One who has sex with another of the same gender deserves death and since it’s illegal for us to murder them in this country we take glee in the thought that God will do it for us – woohoo!
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Nice Christian women.
Now for our prayer, we pray that the women who work in your MFRR and the women in your family will befall fast moving breast cancer which can not everbe cured. We pray this for Leah Bruton, and Becki Miller, Patricia Corigan, Chris Rodda, Edie Disler, Vicky Garrison, Kristin Leslie, Melinda Moeton and Joan Slish. And you evil clan too, we pray this for Bonnie Wiensten and Amanda and Amber Wienstein and the woman lawyers Cariline Mitchel and Katherin Ritchy and all women of all who work at with for Military Freedom Against Religon Foundation. know that we pray and pray hard all the days until you stop your destruction of our American army and accept Christ Jesus as Lord and join His army.”
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
chiz 4:41 Science disagrees with you.
“Meanwhile, Columbia University Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Robert Spitzer, who was instrumental in removing homosexuality in 1973 from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders, wrote a study published in the October 2003 Archives of Sexual Behavior. He contended that people can change their “sexual orientation” from homosexual to heterosexual.
Spitzer interviewed more than 200 people, most of whom claimed that through reparative therapy counseling, their desires for same-sex partners either diminished significantly or they changed over to heterosexual orientation. Although still a proponent of homosexual activism, Spitzer has been attacked unmercifully by former admirers for this breach of the
ideology that people are “born gay and can’t change.”
Robert L. Spitzer, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?”, Archives of Sexual
Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003: 403-417. http://www.springerlink.com/content/rk67865783602411/
Immutability is a central tenet of demands for “gay rights” and “gay marriage.”
Because no single study can be regarded as definitive, more research on people who have overcome homosexuality needs to be done. But a considerable body of previous literature about change from homosexuality to heterosexuality has been compiled, and the sheer number of exceptions to the “born gay” theory should be a warning to researchers and media to proceed with caution before declaring that science has “proved” that homosexuality is genetic.
See, for instance, Charles Socarides, A Freedom Too Far: A Psychoanalyst Answers 1,000 Questions About Causes and Cure
and the Impact of the Gay Rights Movement on American Society (Phoenix, Arizona: Adam Margrave Books, 1996), pp. 115-155, particularly pp. 151-152.
In 1993, Columbia University psychiatry professors Drs. William Byne and Bruce Parsons
examined the most prominent “gay gene” studies on brain structure and on identical twins, and
published the results in the Archives of General Psychiatry. They found numerous
methodological flaws in all of the studies, and concluded that:
“There is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory. … [T]he appeal of
current biologic explanations for sexual orientation may derive more from dissatisfaction
with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of
experimental data.”
William Byne and Bruce Parsons, “Human Sexual Orientation: The Biologic Theories Reappraised,” Archives of General
Psychiatry, Vol. 50, March 1993: 228-239.
etc.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Nice, caring, compassionate, tolerant left-wingers – until
And who can forget this:
What was that again Cha – something about religious fanatics forgetting some of their principles?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
I posted this 5min ago on the other thread on this topic.
Looking into the future (as I suspect gay ‘marriage’ will come to pass in New Zealand), and as a Catholic, the eventual collision of church and state will be interesting. I say this because, with all due respect, the other mainstream churches are pretty flimsy on this issue (and the Pentecostals’ biblical fundamentalism means they tend not to engage rationally in this debate and are written off by any media that actually still think) whereas the Catholics are actually more steadfast in their beliefs.
When one considers the vehemency of the gay lobby, I cannot see that they’ll be happy with just gay ‘marriage’. They will demand that Catholic schools do not receive funding if they insist on teaching homosexuality is a disorder. Maybe even seek to shut down certain groups and certain priests. If this did occur (and maybe it won’t), who would blink first? Frankly, after 2000 years I cannot see the church blinking first. They’d chose prison first.
It will be interesting to watch.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
@ Dick Prebble
What churches are you going to?
Before reverting back to Catholicism I was a bit of a ‘church slut’ and shopped around. Yeah, most people subscribed to trad marriage, but I never met a Christian that “hated” gays and wanted to lynch them. Even Brian Tamaki is a softy. He talks big but he’s soft. The march on Parliament was totally misreported – it’d almost be funny if it wasn’t such a revelation of media dishonesty.
You need to chill out and actually go to a church and talk to some actual Christians.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
While removing public funding from Catholic schools would be good, we would have been much better served if they hadn’t been bailed out in the 1970s.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
@ mikenmild
I tend to agree. He who pays the piper get to choose the tune. That said, I don’t really know the choices the Catholic bishops had in front of them at the time, so I won’t judge too much.
However, before you get too high-and-mighty, I’d point out that the first schools set up in NZ were set up by various churches with their own money and a lot of volunteer staff. Not by union protected, well paid teachers, and poorly accountable bureaucrats.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
I look forward to all the libertarians and freedom-lovers’ outrage and protest when the first Christian minister/marriage celebrant/church is arrested/fined/dragged before the courts for refusing to marry a gay couple.
A lot of pastors I talk to expect to be arrested in their lifetimes for refusing to bow down to the State and sticking to their beliefs.
These are sincere, humble, normal everyday guys who can see the writing on the wall.
New Zealand: Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
“A lot of pastors I talk to”
Are you a Bishop Rufus?
Self appointed or anointed?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
That is essentially what I was going to say Rufus. Or when it is decided that Christians don’t make good parents because we believe that homosexuality is wrong and so our children must be removed from us. We’re getting there in Britain, with the decision that Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin can no longer be foster parents. Wait, this sounds remarkably familiar! Didn’t something similar happen in the USSR?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Johnboy (boy?
) – nope, I’ve just been a Christian for as long as I can remember. I’ve also travelled a fair bit, and so have gotten to know a lot of other Christians around the world, including pastors. Many of my friends in the Western world are expecting the worst.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:16 pm
@ Rufus & Aredhel777
I don’t think it will be that bad. But I think a stand off will occur. A real stand off I mean, not just a slap fight between conservatives and Labour that occurred at the time of civil unions.
Granting a group of people a civil mechanism they want, that Parliament had popular support to do (until NZ had enough and got rid of them in 2008), is different from actively encroaching on the rights of another group.
There will be a face-off, but the state will lose. It will just be interesting to watch.
People forget that Bolger was a believing Catholic, and the current Deputy PM is a believing Catholic, and there are more people going to church on Sunday than Helen Clark, John Campbell and David Farrar would have you believe. And, from my experience, there are a lot of Catholics in the National Party. They may not all stand shoulder to shoulder with the Pope, but they won’t stand for their freedoms being taken from them.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Are you talking ‘Armageddon’ Rufus?
Do you have maps?
Some of my properties may be affected.
Not that I’m worried of course!
I just want to alert the tenants you understand!
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Selectively applying any principles that you happen to have isn’t quite the same as the inability to keep a civil tongue in your head Tom.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Gay Marriage?
Who gives a shit. Let the Homos, root and rim each other to their hearts content.
Who cares?
As long as they don’t make homo sexuality compulsory and they shouldn’t be able to ram it down my throat.
Keep their parades and that to themselves.
Someone elses sexuality has nothing to do with me and I get sick of Fags and Lesbians trying to ram it down my throat. (gay parades and mardi grass and their deviant Aids Foundation)
Let them marry, who really gives a toss.
I get sick and tired of the big deal made out of this very small part of society. There are far more important things to discuss.
Don’t worry it’s not a disease that you will catch.
To you religious zealouts out there, keep your judgements to yourself. If you are true to what you believe in you will know that your god will sort that out on judgement day. Don’t judge and you won’t be.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
and by the way, just because they are Gays or Lesbians, they should be extended the same rights and restrictions as every other citizen. So lets stop making a fuss and wasting time over them and let them marry.
This Blog is a waste of space.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
OOps forgot to mention, that Gays and Lesbians should not expect a Church or anyone to marry them if that person or group doesn’t want to.
Remember Freedom runs both ways. Don’t force your views of Gay marriage on those who don’t approve of Gay Marriage either.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 7:53 am
What the fuck makes you think homosexuals would want to get married in Churches – the institutions which have shown them nothing but bigotry all their lives?
The only gay people I can picture wanting to get married in Churches are gay Christians who are still dumb enough to believe in God. At the end of the day it’s a good thing that the Church would seek to alienate them even more and hopefully by doing so will lead them away from Christianity and into the logical, rational choice of atheism.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 10:50 am
It is not bigotry to oppose what is wrong Dick. The Christians and other right minded folks are standing up for marriage,family ,children and what is good in our civilisation.
You on the other hand are standing up for sodomy and perversion. And the destruction of marriage which is a universal institution and from the beginning of time has always been the joining of one man and one woman in matrimony.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 10:55 am
What the fuck makes you think homosexuals would want to get married in Churches – the institutions which have shown them nothing but bigotry all their lives?
To stick it to the Christians, just like they did in California.
There is a big friggin reason support for the homosexual lobby dried up in that state.
Aspects of the homosexual lobby are at least as bad as the worst fundamentalist Christians.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 11:18 am
John Key has been kissing Obamas ass so much every time they meet that it’s no wonder he is supporting gay marriage as well…
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 11:23 am
Here is a question for you. Who said, at the Saddleback Church in 2008?- “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian . . . it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Here’s a question for you – who said:
“We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible as only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage.”
Dun dun dun…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard
If only you are able to look at the things you write from an outsider’s perspective, you’re no more credible than a Greek mythologist or Buddhist trying to tell people that the world was created by some gods or Lord who decreed that each man shall have sex with many wives or have no wives since the beginning of time the Titans created the world blah blah blah etc.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 11:34 am
Well the truth is Scott you and the other Christians who share your view are exactly what is not good in our civilisation. Just because you say something is right or wrong does not make it right or wrong and you aren’t able to see the plank in your own eye everytime you cast judgment on others, which if you truly believed in God, you would know that Jesus said it’s not your place to be condemning others. You are the one who is very unChristian and wrong-minded despite all your grandstanding like a Pharisee.
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May 12th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Actually Dick it was Barack Obama.
You are quite wrong about Jesus. He was the fellow who said if your eye causes you to sin then rip it out. He was the guy who cleared the temple of buyers and sellers twice,once with a whip. And he was the guy who told his best friend not to stand in front of him because he was not fit to do so.
So Jesus is not a fellow to be messed with,then or now.
But look homosexuality is wrong by revelation and reason. It is important to stand up and be counted about what is wrong. Paedophilia is wrong-I think we can all agree on that? Now it is right to condemn paedophilia and those people who commit the crimes are rightly judged.
So is homosexuality wrong. We are not sinning by pointing out to this nation it is going on a wrong path.
And it is good that you are thinking about Jesus. At least that is a start.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
You are very confused if you think homosexuality is wrong for the same reasons that pedophilia is wrong.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
You are quite wrong about Jesus. He was the fellow who said if your eye causes you to sin then rip it out.
He was talking to believers.
He was the guy who cleared the temple of buyers and sellers twice,once with a whip.
Directed at hypocritical believers.
And he was the guy who told his best friend not to stand in front of him because he was not fit to do so.
He was addressing a self righteous attitude of a believer.
You should stick to your own house before you start telling the rest of the world how to live.
Your corruption of the character of Christ is disturbing.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Shunda-what are you trying to achieve?
Everything I said is true. You are quite wrong-he was talking to general audiences some of whom believed in him, many of whom did not.
I am addressing the idea we should not judge. So should we leave the shaping of our culture to the atheist?
No the idea of not judging is sure look at our own actions and attitudes first. But we must exercise judgement every day. As you yourself are doing in the other thread on this topic. Now I’ll argue my way and you argue yours.
But you need to give me a break. I am arguing for Biblical Christianity in the same way you are arguing on the other thread.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
From Bill Meuhlenberg @ http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2012/05/12/the-obamanator-and-the-decline-of-the-west/
Spare us this baloney about equal rights, tolerance and “homophobia”. As Jeffrey T. Kuhner writes, “This is nonsense. Most Americans are neither intolerant nor bigoted. Rather, they understand that marriage is the basic institution of society. For thousands of years in the West, it has had a privileged role. Marriage solidifies the bonds between a man and a woman, laying the foundation for raising children in stable families. It is the glue that binds a functioning, viable social order. Marriage is the natural unit that enables society to perpetuate itself from one generation to the next. This is not hate; it’s common sense.”
He continues, “Every major religious faith – Christianity, Islam, Orthodox Judaism – teaches that homosexuality is an abomination. Homosexual behavior, especially sodomy, is unnatural and immoral. It is absurd, bordering on social madness, to elevate gay and lesbian relationships to the sanctified status of marriage – a form of moral anarchy characterized by radical individualism, hedonism and sexual liberation. Same-sex marriage is a symptom of cultural decay.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Jesus said it’s not your place to be condemning others.
Quite right. But he did condemn sin.
He was the guy who cleared the temple of buyers and sellers twice,once with a whip.
This is because at the time Solomon’s temple required Roman sestertii donation and the money changers were charging exhorbitant exchange rates thus creating a barrier to the poor from worshipping to G-D.
Same-sex marriage is a symptom of cultural decay.
This is what people cannot seem to face. In the name of “pweventing discwimination” we’re throwing out the main element of our social stability. This is not the first tenet which has been thrown out: it started with divorce and continues to this day. The common element is feminism.
Cultural decay is the objective and it is clear and present today. If you took a snapshot of late 1950′s western society and compared it to today, you would find no comparison. And if anyone mature understands the social mores of the 50′s, with the hero generation, what the hell is wrong with that? What we see today is no accident but most people get lost in the details (e.g. gay marriage) and fail to see the bigger picture (i.e. social restructuring along enervating lines).
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Oh yeah, sure… Like sometimes I’ll be walking along the street and see a homeless guy and think about how fragile life is and how dependent we are on material things and then when I get home at night I look up at the stars and wonder if there’s something out there, whether our thoughts and conscience are the result of a greater creator, whether all this could have happened by chance, whether I may be wrong about atheism… But then I just need to hop on to Kiwiblog and read your posts and be reminded that Christians and Christianity is a joke.
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