Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Marriage Equality voted down by NY Senate


[Joe Vanny Pérez]


Associated Press story here.
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And once again gay and lesbian couples get to watch while their deepest and most precious relationship is put up to majority vote. No wonder Jesus wept!
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22 comments:

LGMarshall said...

For those few who value & look to God's Word as the most important aspect of their lives & deaths... Jesus did speak about homosexual unions.... in his very first act, [therefore the most important] he made in his Ministry that spoke to the World once, & for all time... He attended a Wedding, of a Man & a Woman.... that were formed by Jesus himself. Made for each other. Complimentary Creations. Made to become 1 in the Flesh. Made to cleave to each other. He attended their Wedding, because Jesus values Marriage. He peformed his first miracle of his earth shattering ministry. He turned water into wine... he wanted to honor Marriage. It was an act of Love, Mercy, and Approval. Jesus loves Marriage. Jesus supports Marriage, 1 Man, 1 Woman. Complimentary & Beneficial , for reasons we cannot even fathom.

Brian F said...

Ahhmmm - Jesus wept Susan? Yes, but not over this matter I assure you. If you actually read the story in its context, you will find that Jesus wept over the death of a loved friend, and at the despair of the onlookers in the face of death, knowing that life was never meant to be threatened by death, since death was only caused by sin. And one of the ways that sin expresses itself in our lives of course is in twisting God's word, taking it way out of context to mean something it was never intended to mean, and refusing to apply it truly in our lives.

Sidney said...

I wish members of the media would start asking tough questions of people like Diaz about their 'support' of the Bible. Just ask a few questions about their belief in purity laws, laws against interest, etc. I'm guessing most politicians like Diaz are so ignorant of most of the Bible and its associated apologetics that they would thrash mightily trying to defend parts of the OT when confronted with it.

Patricia Brush said...

LG ... wow. First act? Maybe the first act that was reported on, written down, and where the manuscript survived and made it to the council of men that decided, through the filter of their cultural reference, fears, and biases, what we should know and what we shouldn’t know.

At the Wedding at Cana, Jesus did not speak against homosexual unions or in favour of heterosexual unions. He berated his mother for putting him on the spot. Does this imply approval for disrespecting your mother? Jesus told the servants to bring water and then to take it to the master of the banquet. Surely this means that Jesus thinks slavery is a good thing. Jesus turned water into wine. This must be unqualified approval for alcoholism. I don’t think so.

Be that as it may, approval of one thing does not necessarily mean disapproval of another thing.

And just to be clear, the Word of God is Jesus, not the Bible.

uffda51 said...

Brian F, "this matter" to which you refer has a name. Bigotry. I believe that Jesus weeps in the knowldge that 2000 years after his time on earth, so many people are still using the Bible as a club, in his name, against anyone perceived as "the other." Quoting a handful of verses out of context is the time-honored method the self-righteous have employed to deny the full humanity of women, people of color, Jews, LGBT persons, and on and on.

IT said...

And what any of this Jesus-talk has to do with civil marriage....
BTW one of the renegade Dems who voted against EQUALITY, Hiram Monserrate, will be sentenced shortly for slashing his girlfriend.

Yup, love those Family Values.

LGMarshall said...

Rev. Susan... I am nothing but dust and ashes.... I really do appreciate you publishing my 'viewpoints'. I realize that 99.75% of your bloggers strongly disagree with my Biblical World View, so much so, that they hate me. Please continue to let me know what the purpose & plan is of 'An Inch at a Time' -- I do not wish to step over the line that you have drawn. humbly yours, Leslie G.M.

LGMarshall said...

ENTIRE BIBLE = JESUS' WORD.

For PB.... Jesus was not disrespectful to his Mother, Mary. Jesus was Perfect. Sinless. Blemish free. The 'Bible' is the Word of God, True, God-breathed, useful for teaching and admonishment.

You say... 'The Word of God is Jesus -- not the Bible.' Huh? Please share with me the collaborating scripture that points out that Truth.

From my perspective, Biblical World View... Jesus is present in Genesis 1, ['in the beginning , God created.'] and he is present thru to Revelation 22, ['Yes, I am Coming Soon.']

see John 1:3 'through Him [Jesus] all things were made...'

Jesus is the WORD... the Bible is the Word of God... Jesus is the Word.

'In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through HIM, all things were made...He was in the World.... the WORD became Flesh and made his dwelling among us... '

JESUS is the WORD. The ENTIRE BIBLE is HIM. -- In his Mercy, he left us his Word, the Bible. Living Breathing Saving -- Truth.

'And if anyone takes WORDS away from this prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the Tree of Life and in the Holy City, which are described in this BOOK. [the Bible-- the JESUS].'Revelation 22:19

Rev. David Justin Lynch said...

The right to marry is fundamental FOR EVERYONE. It is not subject to a vote. It exists independently of the democratic process.

MarkBrunson said...

Actually, Jesus blessed wine, blessed doing what a mother asks, blessed going to parties. All those are far clearer and more direct readings of the Wedding at Cana.

Jesus' only words on marriage were warnings.

Brian,

Jesus is the only Word of God. You're twisting it by claiming that for Scripture.

Beyond that, your analysis of both Susan's writing and the situation is so bizarre as to be . . . well, a lie.

We get it that you refuse to comprehend either fairness or justice and reject compassion as weakness, and that's your choice, but we have every right to express the evil inherent in people like that having control over our lives.

MarkBrunson said...

LGMarshall,

Since everybody else is too embarrassed by your misbehavior to call you on it, I'll do it. It's enough.

What is your purpose?

You certainly don't reflect Jesus in any way, shape or form, so why bother? You bring despair and spiritual disaster with your words.

What is the point in you or your posts?

You really have no concept of God or what He's doing in our lives, and you just blindly, bestially go blundering through insisting on trumpeting a view which we absolutely know to be wrong and which you know we know is wrong. So what's your purpose here?

Look, your version of god has nothing to offer us, and we don't need it. God's here with us already. I can't speak for your relationship, but I hope He's with you.

So, we don't need you or your preaching . . . you are unnecessary to us.

What's your purpose here?

Hate you? You overestimate your importance in any of our lives. Like the Manhattan Declaration, all this "You-hate-us-'cause-we're-real-Christians" whinging is just paranoid nonsense. Grow up. So, you're not even fighting us, because we don't hold you to be an enemy, any more than I could hold a frightened wild animal to be an enemy.

What is your purpose?

I had hoped you might have enough rationality in you to at least grasp the concepts of compassion and justice and work toward them; I was wrong.

So, there is no purpose in your presence. You refuse to learn and have nothing to teach. You have nothing to do with the reality we live in, so you neither engage nor threaten, so . . . you're not enough of anything for us to hate you.

In the end, I believe the purpose of your being here is to convince yourself of your importance, your relevance and your specialness-to-God, and I, for one, am not going to let you keep on getting away with it. It takes enormous spiritual pride to need to publicly state that you are "ashes and dust." You may fool you, but certainly no one else.

Perry Lee said...

David Justin Lynch said...

"The right to marry is fundamental FOR EVERYONE."

Nonsense. The state puts all sorts of prohibitions and restrictions on marriage.

You cannot marry someone below a certain age.
You cannot marry if you are below a certain age.
You cannot marry someone who is within a certain degree of kinship with you.
You cannot marry without your parents' permission, in some cases.
You cannot marry more than one person at a time.
You cannot marry someone of the same sex.
You cannot marry someone who is dead.
You cannot marry someone who is already married.
You cannot marry someone who is deemed (usually by a court) to be unable to give consent.

Outside of that, you are probably free to marry anyone you want.

RonF said...

The right to marry is fundamental FOR EVERYONE.

I was going to do a bit of a lengthy exposition here, but The Pilgrim beat me to it. Suffice it to say that the kind of relationship that the State considers worthy to recognize as "marriage" has to meet a number of criteria. One of those is one that has been present since antiquity - it's a bond between people of opposite sexes. Those who propose otherwise aren't trying to remove discrimination - they wish to change the basic nature of marriage itself.

Homosexuals state that they are being discriminated against because heterosexuals can get the favor of the state for relationships with the people they love and they cannot. But that obscures a very basic fact about marriage law; it is not based on the existence of love between the people involved. Read the law in your state. It does not require the the two people involved love each other. And thank God for that - the last thing you want the State doing is to decide what's love and what isn't. That can lead to some pretty horrific results.

It is not subject to a vote. It exists independently of the democratic process.

Sure it is. And no, it doesn't. What we are talking about is taking something that was never before recognized as a right - that the State should grant privileges to homosexual relationships - and now recognizing it as a right. In a democratic society the people always decide what's a right and what isn't. The process may be more or less convoluted depending on whether the thing being called a right is defined in the Constitution or not. If it is, then appeal may be made to the judiciary.

But while there is fittingly a right to engage in private behavior that involves only consenting adults, there is no Constitutional requirement that such behavior be granted privileges. And even if there was, the people can override that in the end by amending the Constitution. Everything in our Republic is subject to a vote in the end.

IT said...

Let's not forget that you used not to be able to marry someone of a different race, for many of the same reasons now thrown at us today.

uffda51 said...

We all know what David Justin Lynch meant – except the two guys who took him literally.

Perry Lee said...

It would appear that one of my assertions was wrong, at least in France, where you CAN marry a dead person...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/16/french_widow/

Brian F said...

MarkBrunson - you say that Jesus is the only Word of God but according to our own Anglican formularies the Bible is also the word of God, inspired and written. This is in line with what the Bible says about itself. You are of course entitled to believe what you like, but not if you want to claim to be Christian (Jesus himself clearly believed the Scriptures to be the Word of God), or part of the Anglican Communion.

uffda51 - in the passage that Susan quoted from - Jn 11:35; where on earth do you get the idea from that Jesus wept over bigotry? It is not clear to me from that context that bigotry was the matter that caused Jesus to weep.

And doesn't the LBGT movement want a literal change to various states' laws and constitutions that enable homosexuals to marry? If they are indeed pursuing a literal change to the wording, rather than some kind of metaphorical or symbolic change, then surely it was right of The Pilgrim and Ron F to take DJL's comment literally, otherwise you are simply being disingenuous.

MarkBrunson said...

Wrong, Brian.

I can believe just about anything and claim to be Christian: just look at the formulary you quote.

Jesus is the Word. What the Bible says about itself is the "testimony of one witness." So, here you are: what I, Mark Brunson, say is true and from God and is God's Word, therefore you must agree to all of it and follow it all. There. Just as valid as the Biblical writings were, so you have to accept it.

You may claim the Bible to be the word of God - the inspired - word of God, but to call it the Word is idolatry, regardless of what any formulary says. Of course, even then, inspired is not dictated, and, so, all of it must constantly be tried against hard, cold reality. Much, most of the Bible stands up to that test. The superstitions about homosexuality do not. They are to be discarded.

Now, this is why I say that you orthodites operate at an animalistic level: here you are, playing word games around a subject that, if you are to be taken seriously, should be of vital importance. You reduce it, by wilfull misunderstanding of what has been said to triviality, rather than engaging. You apparently have no ability to do so - like a gorilla who's been taught sign-language, you have the tools, but no ability to use it flexibly and inventively, while remaining cogent of Reality/Truth. Unlike the gorilla, you have the capacity to rise to a better level, but choose not to: the potentiality means that we must respect your choice - for YOU - while absolutely denying you the ability to use your misuse of comprehension to harm us.

Always calling the lie the lie is the best way for that, in my experience.

And, by the way, I didn't claim either to be Christian or Anglican - who cares about either? I claim to be on the side of God in Christ, and that's all that matters.

MarkBrunson said...

And I do keep forgetting, BrianF, since you butt in with such selfish entitlement:

These are internal concerns of the United States and The Episcopal Church, so, your opinion is really neither valid nor needed here. Thanks.

uffda51 said...

Brian F, I thought my earlier post was pretty clear.

The LGBT community and all of us who believe in marriage equality are not lobbying to change the legal status of the eight red herrings listed by The Pilgrim. He knows that. You know that.

“Jesus wept” is one of the most well known verses in the Bible, and in many translations and versions, is the shortest. I don’t believe Susan was literally referencing the Lazarus story in John’s gospel but rather was using a familiar phrase as a response to the sadness of the New York decision. Surely Jesus weeps metaphorically at many things – injustice, war, poverty and bigotry, just to name a few. Where in heaven do you get the idea that He does not?

Those who support marriage equality are not looking to change just the literal ink on the pages of state constitutions, but rather the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens of the world. And it’s working, even with occasional setbacks. Marriage equality is about extending the rights and benefits (over one thousand at the federal, state and local levels) that heterosexual couples enjoy to same-sex couples. LGBT persons are not asking government to “decide what’s love and what isn’t,” and Ronf knows this perfectly well, too.

RonF said...

LGBT persons are not asking government to “decide what’s love and what isn’t,” and Ronf knows this perfectly well, too.

Nonsense. Uffda51, I have repeatedly seen on this site and in numerous ads, etc. for Proposition 8 and other initiatives statements to the effect that LGBT people are discriminated against by being denied the right to marry thowe whom they love. The charge of discrimination is based on the concept that such a right is currently possessed by heterosexuals.

Currently marriage law does not account for love. You are looking to change that. You are asking government to change the definition of marriage. You want it to evaluate the bond between homosexual couples, judge it equal to that between heterosexual couples, decide that on that basis that homosexual couples are being discriminated against, and then change the definition of marriage on that basis. You ARE asking the government to judge what love is - and to then change the law accordingly. Up to this point the government has not based the definition of marriage on the love between the partners. You seek to change that.

uffda51 said...

Ronf, as I stated, the discrimination lies in the denial of the 1000+ civil rights. Love can’t be defined or measured.

When we expanded voting rights to include women, to cite one example, we didn’t redefine what it means to vote. We simply stopped excluding women. Marriage equality is about extending the same rights that you and I enjoy to gay & lesbian couples. Your rights would not be diminished in any way.