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Homosexuality and Homosexual Marriages: Why do Christians Care?
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
This is false, and outside of the Bible there is no evidence to support it. More often than not, what the many cultures of our species has deemed is that marriage will be of some sort of polygamous model. And of course we also have to bring into the debate that heterosexual/homosexual as we know them today are modern concepts and ideas, and much of our history sex was sex and there was no hetero/homo distinction. Except to those who thought it icky.
And a business owner is not legally entitled to discriminate.
In some places they are.
Here in my town an effort to add orientation to the anti-discrimination law was defeated. Of course, I live in Mike Peace's home state.
So, while it is illegal for me(a private shopkeeper) to discriminate against Mormons it is legal for them to discriminate against me for gayness.
Ironic how religious freedom works, but there you have it.
Tom
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
That's a really good point. Especially since divorce is explicitly mentioned as being forbidden in the Bible, and gay marriage isn't...
I've always thought that there was a really simple solution to the whole "religious organizations don't want to conduct gay weddings" problem. Personally, I think it's ingenious. It's really easy - all churches have to do is rescind their right to conduct legally-recognised marriage ceremonies, and instead conduct private ceremonies in accordance with their beliefs. To me, it seems like a win-win! The church gets to keep marrying people however they feel is the most correct way in the eyes of God, and they get to choose who qualifies because they no longer have a legal requirement to abide by! However, whenever I have proposed this solution, it is met largely with derision by the fundamentalist community. I find this quite odd, since apparently they claim that all they care about is that marriages are conducted in the way God supposedly wants them to be - if this is the case, Christians shouldn't need their marriage recognized by law. It should be more important to them that they are married in the eyes of God, right? I mean, they could always do BOTH, couldn't they?
Geez, it's almost as if what they really care about isn't their religious freedom, but withholding legal services from homosexuals while maintaining privileged legal status through religious means! But that just can't be true, can it?
Prestor John
Well-Known Member
First, you understand that this is your opinion, right?
And that there are going to be people who disagree with your opinion?
I have a feeling that this is going to be a “thing” between you and I.
You are going to keep stating your opinion as if it were fact and I will keep reminding you that your opinion does not run the universe.
Lastly, my opinion does not matter in the least in regards to this issue. The only opinion that matters is the baker’s, because it was his religious freedom that was violated.
Well, eggs can go into all kinds of dishes and pastries.
A wedding cake baked for a same-sex wedding is only for the same-sex wedding.
The baker in question offered to make the homosexual couple a cake(s) for their wedding, he just did not want to bake/decorate/sculpt a wedding cake for that occasion.
He felt that becoming that involved in the event would cause him to violate his religious beliefs.
Awesome. How is that going? Isn’t it just the best?
Here we go again.
This is an anecdote. It is about you. It is about your perspective.
This is your opinion.
You might not consider them participants in your wedding, but are you sure they themselves didn’t consider themselves participants?
Anyways, that is neither here nor there. The important take away from this is that your opinion does not run the universe nor is it a mandate that can change this baker’s religious beliefs.
He opened his business before same-sex marriage became legal in his state.
The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision and now his business, which he loves and has been using to support himself and his family, has the potential to conflict with his religious views.
So, now, all of a sudden, this baker must either violate his religious beliefs or be fined into oblivion?
In any controversial issue concerning First Amendment rights, I will always side with the First Amendment.
Alright, back to our “thing”.
I understand that to you, the things that people believe in and do for religion’s sake may be “silly”, but let me remind you (here it comes) that that is your opinion.
And in case you have already forgotten, I just want to remind you that your opinion does not run the universe.
This baker offered to serve the entire public. He offered to serve the homosexual couple. He just did not want to participate in a same-sex wedding.
I did not know that one of the requirements for obtaining a business license was being forced to participate in an activity/practice/event that you found offensive or had religious convictions against.
It looks like someone should have told this other Wisconsin baker about that before she decided to refuse to decorate a cake with anti-LGBT slurs:
Bakery's refusal to put anti-gay slur on cake not discriminatory - Wisconsin Gazette
Wait. She won that case? She wasn’t forced to make the cake the way the customer wanted it?
And this took place in the same State as the baker in question? Wow. Talk about your double standard.
But that other Wisconsin baker refused to make a cake the way her customer wanted, because she believed that it would cause her to participate in a message or activity that she had reservations against.
If one baker can do it, why can’t the baker in question?
If you really want all these bakers to operate exactly the same, then why the double standard?
Isn’t it because you agree with one and not the other? Only those people with the same opinion as you should have rights?
I am unaware of any law that states that a private business-owner is required to participate in activities/events/practices that they find immoral or have religious convictions against.
Maybe you and I are talking about two different things.
Well, this is not at all comparable because the wife’s right to life would be violated.
While none of the homosexual’s rights were violated.
I don’t think bringing up the most marginal example of religious beliefs is a good argument against religious freedom in general.
Maybe that’s just me.
Prestor John
Well-Known Member
He served the public before same-sex marriage was made legal and afterward.
He did not refuse to bake a wedding cake because his customers were homosexual.
If a heterosexual couple came in and asked for a wedding cake for someone’s same-sex wedding, he would have refused to bake it then as well.
He offered them cakes for their wedding, yet he considered baking a wedding cake to be him promoting/encouraging/participating in an activity he believed was immoral, just like the other Wisconsin baker who made a cake, but refused to decorate it with anti-LGBT slurs.
He attempted to serve that homosexual couple, but they thought they had the right to force him to promote/encourage/participate in their wedding when they don’t have that right.
Yes and he attempted to serve the couple, but they wanted him to do more than serve them.
Just like that other Wisconsin baker was willing to bake a cake for her customer, she was not willing to become involved in his anti-LGBT message.
To this baker, baking and decorating a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding would cause him to become involved in the same-sex wedding.
They wanted him to violate his religious beliefs and they do not have that right.
And people wonder why some religious people would have issues with same-sex marriage becoming legal?
Once it became legal they were expected to change their religious views, business practices, professions - you name it!
This is why the argument, “Why do you care about same-sex marriage? No one is forcing you to marry someone of the same-sex!” - Is total baloney.
Everyone knew that this would lead to violations of citizen’s First Amendment rights.
No. I am not sorry to say that no business-owner should be forced to participate in an activity they find offensive or have religious convictions against.
That other Wisconsin baker was not forced to decorate the cake with anti-LGBT slurs, so this baker should not be forced to endorse a same-sex wedding.
A government threatening to punish you unless you violate your religious beliefs is persecution.
No one is expected to participate in an activity they find offensive. The other Wisconsin baker was not expected to. You are not expected to. So why is this other baker expected to?
It’s because you disagree with him, right?
Not being forced to violate your religious beliefs is not a “special right.”
It is a right that is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
No. He offered service that would not violate his beliefs.
Just like the other Wisconsin baker who refused to decorate the cake with anti-LGBT slurs, this baker did not want to become involved with something he found offensive.
Read up on the case.
He offered them cakes. He offered them cakes for their wedding.
He just did not want to decorate a wedding cake because he felt that that would cause him to become too involved in a practice that he has religious convictions against.
Their gender, race, religion or sexual preference were not factors in his decision.
They wanted him to design and decorate a wedding cake for their same-sex wedding.
That wouldn’t bother me, but the baker felt that that would cause him to promote a practice that he had religious beliefs against.
So, just like with the other Wisconsin baker, he was willing to serve up to the point where he felt any further participation would cause him to become involved in that activity and violate his right to not be involved.
No, they asked for a wedding cake. That most likely included the names of the couple, salutations or commemorations of some type and two grooms on top.
He offered to make them cakes to serve after the ceremony. Good, but non-wedding cakes.
No, they demanded a wedding cake. Not only a wedding cake, but a wedding cake from him specifically.
No other baker would do. No other kind of cake would do.
They were the ones who made the big deal out of the cake, not the baker.
That’s according to you. That is your opinion, which I feel the need to remind you again, does not run the universe.
Don’t ask me. Participating in a same-sex wedding (as long as I am not one of the grooms) does not violate my religious views at all.
You’d need to ask the baker. He is the one that draws the line based on his religious beliefs. Not mine and not yours.
No, you are not being serious.
I understand that things like someone else’s beliefs or opinions don’t mean much to you, but they mean a lot to the people who have them.
Part of growing up and being an adult is living in a world of conflicting beliefs and opinions and realizing that you cannot force people to accept your way of life or participate in your activities that they might find offensive.
Some don't care. In the Church of England (CofE), there are some ministers that state that a homosexual marriage is OK and they can still continue with their duties. I think the CofE does not want to appear old-fashioned thus embraces this subject now.
Personally, two same-sex partners having sexual intercourse is prohibited, therefore I oppose this as a blessed marriage; we class them as un-clean. You will find that more senior Christians will oppose this more than younger Christians - this is because times are changing at the Church is adapting to suit this.
Leviticus 18:22
“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.
Leviticus 20:13
“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Hebrews 13:4
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Personally, two same-sex partners having sexual intercourse is prohibited, therefore I oppose this as a blessed marriage; we class them as un-clean. You will find that more senior Christians will oppose this more than younger Christians - this is because times are changing at the Church is adapting to suit this.
Leviticus 18:22
“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.
Leviticus 20:13
“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Hebrews 13:4
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
QUESTION: What ingredients go into a same-sex wedding cake that are different from the ingredients that go into a non-same-sex wedding cake?
The baker in question offers wedding cakes as one of the services they provide. If the baker doesn't want to provide weddings cakes for specific kinds of weddings, the solution is very simple: don't offer the service.
Then, as said before, he shouldn't be offering the service to ANYONE.
It's irrelevant what they "consider themselves". They could "consider themselves" the groom, but it doesn't make it so.
And the opinion of the baker does not change the law, which states that businesses offering services must do so in accordance with anti-discrimination law. The baker broke that law by denying a service they offered to potential customers purely on the basis of the sexual preference of those customers. That is against anti-discrimination law.
Irrelevant. If they had a personal problem with offering wedding cakes to same sex weddings after the law came in, all they had to do was no longer offer that service to anyone.
His views are irrelevant. He operates the business in full knowledge of the law, and if his beliefs prevent that then he shouldn't be in the business.
Or, instead, he could offer a service he provides regularly to heterosexual couples to homosexual couples in accordance with the law, or discontinue the service altogether.
The first amendment protects beliefs, it doesn't protect actions, and it certainly doesn't protect discriminatory policies of businesses.
He didn't have to, he just had to provide a cake for it. This bizarre notion you have of "participation" is ridiculous.
It isn't. But if you offer a service then you are required to offer that service without discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or sexuality.
Because there's a difference between providing a service that you otherwise provide to all other people and being asked to put a SPECIFIC message on a cake that could reflect on your business. It's the same as me owning a book shop and refusing to serve someone based on their race, and me refusing to stock handbooks for the KKK.
If you can't tell the difference between the two situations, I can't help you.
There is no double standard. One baker refused to provide a service on the basis of the sexuality of the customers, the other refused to decorate a cake in with a specific message because that message reflected poorly on them.
2016 Minnesota Statutes
Subdivision 1.Access to public service.
It is an unfair discriminatory practice to discriminate against any person in the access to, admission to, full utilization of or benefit from any public service because of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, or status with regard to public assistance or to fail to ensure physical and program access for disabled persons unless the public service can demonstrate that providing the access would impose an undue hardship on its operation.
SOURCE: 363A.12 - 2016 Minnesota Statutes
The fact that you keep characterising this as "refusal to participate" rather than what it actually is - a refusal of service - indicates to me that you are already well aware that refusal of service on discriminatory grounds is unjust, and are desperately using creative language to get around that.
By your logic, a shop can refuse service to ANY homosexual if they disagree with the "homosexual lifestyle" and don't want any of their goods to be used in the "participation" of it. It is nothing more than a weak excuse that severely stretches credulity.
Yes they were. They were denied a service which is offered to non-homosexuals.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
So is lesbian marriage okay?
No; this is the same principle.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
But the Bible only specifies that it is "detestable" for a man to lie with another man as he does with a woman - it says nothing about a woman lying with another woman, does it?
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
That's fine. Just don't expect everybody else to adhere to and uphold your personal belief.
I suspect that has reasons to do that are earlier and more primitive approaches to the idea that for sex, there must be penile insertion and ejaculation.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
That makes sense. I suppose it's a lot more difficult for a woman to lie with another woman as she would with a man.
Kind of reminds me of Queen Victoria. She was a vehement opposer of gay rights, but only enacted or supported legislation against homosexual men and wouldn't oppose lesbian sex because she literally believed it was impossible for two women to have sex.
Some people just have a stunning lack of imagination, I suppose.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
I pretty much covered all of this in my answer to your previous post, but let’s reiterate a few things.
First let’s talk about extending this baker’s right to refuse service based on religious beliefs to everyone else. Do you think my racist granddaddy had the right to refuse to serve to interracial couples because in his opinion serving them would in some way signal that he approved of their marriage? Would you support this baker if he/she refused to bake a cake for an interracial couple? Would you support a tow truck driver who refused to tow your wife’s car stranded on a rural road because the driver’s religion says that women should not be in public un-escorted? Where do you draw the line between a person’s religious rights and person’s right to equal protection under the law?
“A government threatening to punish you unless you violate your religious beliefs is persecution.”
If you’re going to make such a blanket statement then you need to be willing to defend it even in extreme cases. By your definition the husband who is thrown in jail for beheading his cheating wife is being persecuted for practicing his religious beliefs. But of course you’re NOT making that argument. You understand that a person’s right to practice their religion must have limits in a secular nation. My right to practice my religion ENDS when it starts to violate the rights of OTHER people. So what we have to decide as a nation is when is a person’s right to practice their religion trumped by the rights of others. Back in the 60’s lots of religious folks argued that by forcing them to serve people of color or other religions violated their religious rights. As a nation, however, we decided that a person’s right to equal treatment under the law was more important than a person’s right to discriminate against customers simply based upon their religious beliefs. Just like the store owner who can no longer put WE DON’T SERVE JEWS signs in his window is NOT being religiously persecuted, the baker who is told that they can’t discriminate against customers is also NOT being religiously persecuted. But then, for all I know you DO think that the store owner who can’t put the WE DON’T SERVE JEWS sign up IS being persecuted.
“So, just like with the other Wisconsin baker, he was willing to serve up to the point where he felt any further participation would cause him to become involved in that activity and violate his right to not be involved,”
Again, this is a really poor example. You’re comparing apples and oranges here. The baker that was asked to write a slur against a group on one of their cakes was NOT a baker who offered cakes with slurs printed across the top to other customers but refused to do so for this particular customer. IF this baker regularly sold cakes with slurs against groups on them and then refused to do the same for this customer THEN you could claim that the baker was discriminating. The baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding regularly baked the exact same cakes for other weddings. They were NOT being asked to bake a type of cake that they normally don’t offer.
Now, if the Wis. Baker was asked to bake a cake like any other cake they normally bake that had no slurs written on it, but refused when told the cake would be used to celebrate the hatred of gay people, THEN they could conceivably be sued for discrimination. The baker wouldn’t be asked to provide anything other than the same type of cake they’d sell to any other customer. What a person does with that cake after it’s sold is none of the baker’s business.
“Part of growing up and being an adult is living in a world of conflicting beliefs and opinions and realizing that you cannot force people to accept your way of life or participate in your activities that they might find offensive.”
EXACTLY! Which is why we decided that just because a person has a religious belief that black people and white people shouldn’t interact does NOT mean that they can refuse to serve black people in the public business they own. We decided that the secular laws promoting equal treatment under the law superseded the store owner’s religious freedoms. And since no one is FORCING a person to open a public business, no one is being FORCED to violate their religious beliefs. If you follow a religion that doesn’t allow you to run a public business, talk to your religious leaders as to why the religion has such a silly restriction. DON’T insist that you should get a SPECIAL right to ignore the same secular laws that everyone else has to. That’s what it’s like to live in a diverse society with conflicting beliefs.
Skwim
Veteran Member
FYI. The types of businesses that evidently come under the Minnesota statute you cite.
2016 Minnesota Statutes
301B.01 PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS; PURPOSES.
A corporation may be organized to construct, acquire, maintain, or operate internal improvements, including railways, street railways, telegraph and telephone lines, canals, slackwater, or other navigation, dams to create or improve a water supply or to furnish power for public use, and any work for supplying the public, by whatever means, with water, light, heat, or power, including all requisite subways, pipes, and other conduits, and tunnels for transportation of pedestrians. No corporation formed for these purposes may construct, maintain, or operate a railway of any kind, or a subway, pipe line, or other conduit, or a tunnel for transportation of pedestrians in or upon a street, alley, or other public ground of a city, without first obtaining from the city a franchise conferring this right and compensating the city for it.
source
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Ach, nuts, I cited the wrong part. Here's the correct bit:
363A.17 BUSINESS DISCRIMINATION.
It is an unfair discriminatory practice for a person engaged in a trade or business or in the provision of a service:
(3) to intentionally refuse to do business with, to refuse to contract with, or to discriminate in the basic terms, conditions, or performance of the contract because of a person's race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, or disability, unless the alleged refusal or discrimination is because of a legitimate business purpose.
SOURCE: 363A.17 - 2016 Minnesota Statutes
Thanks for the correction!
Skwim
Veteran Member
I don't expect everyone to share my beliefs; I enjoy learning about world religions, therefore I expect others to not believe what I do. I have never been one to force my religion and beliefs onto others - I don't like it when people force religion onto others.
No it doesn't, however the Bible references homosexuality - this is written as a man having sexual intercourse with another man, however I believe this to be the same for a women. It is still unnatural according to the Bible.