Pah
Uber all member
The Progress-Index
Peoples Forum 09/25/2006
Letters to the editor for Sept. 24, 2006
http://www.progress-index.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17242594&BRD=2271&PAG=461&dept_id=462943&rfi=6
No law should favor one religion or religious group
To the Editor,
It is a smoke screen. Gene Ballance, Peoples Forum, Sept. 17, is right. The marriage amendment is nothing but a smoke screen for a minority group of Christians to practice hate and discrimination contrary to God's law and America's principles of equality. The hate and discrimination that went into creating the amendment is also in the laws that the amendment will protect.
It is not fear of activist judges that gives Ballance and his cohorts worry. It is the fear that one day loving people in Christ will realize that the laws must be removed in accordance with the love Christ had for and taught to His people.
Why do I care as an American? It is because my rights are being reduced. Not what you might think - I am married and straight. My freedom of religious expression is being threatened by a theology included in law and Constitution not my own and not of the majority of Christians. No theology should be present in American law. No law should favor one religion or a religious group. The Constitutional provision that protects your right to worship freely does not give you the right to deny my freedom of worship. To suppress me and others this way is to bite the hand that feeds you.
Ballance is wrong about laws not being affected. The laws currently do not include unmarried straight couples. This fact was admitted too by our charming Attorney General in a town hall meeting. The amendment will change the law and place every unmarried couple in the same circumstance. The law governing corporate benefits to domestic partners does not specify "domestic partners" The AG is right. That law will not need to be changed. He is wrong about the law governing domestic abuse. In a previous letter to the editor, I showed that an injured unmarried partner will not have legal standing to claim the law's benefits. Joint ownership and provision of a will be as it is today. It will remain open to challenge by anyone else related to the deceased. The surviving partner will not be able, under this amendment, to withstand the challenge due to lack of standing.
We have a real problem with politics "bending" the truth to suit the cause they champion.
Ballance is also wrong about any forced acceptance in personal life or in proceedings of whatever faith Ballance holds. Nobody will be forced to take a same-sex spouse. No church will be required to perform a marriage ceremony for every Adam and Steve that requests it. No church will be required to serve the bread of Christ's body to one considered to be in flagrant sin. No church must appoint a women or a man that holds the innate orientation that is wrongly considered sin. These will be adopted by those denominations that hear the new teaching and emphasis of the Holy Spirit, a teaching of the primacy of Christ's love and inclusiveness.
The decent, Christian thing to do, for Christians, is to vote No, against the amendment.
You will find I am in complete agreement with this letter - I wrote it
Peoples Forum 09/25/2006
Letters to the editor for Sept. 24, 2006
http://www.progress-index.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17242594&BRD=2271&PAG=461&dept_id=462943&rfi=6
No law should favor one religion or religious group
To the Editor,
It is a smoke screen. Gene Ballance, Peoples Forum, Sept. 17, is right. The marriage amendment is nothing but a smoke screen for a minority group of Christians to practice hate and discrimination contrary to God's law and America's principles of equality. The hate and discrimination that went into creating the amendment is also in the laws that the amendment will protect.
It is not fear of activist judges that gives Ballance and his cohorts worry. It is the fear that one day loving people in Christ will realize that the laws must be removed in accordance with the love Christ had for and taught to His people.
Why do I care as an American? It is because my rights are being reduced. Not what you might think - I am married and straight. My freedom of religious expression is being threatened by a theology included in law and Constitution not my own and not of the majority of Christians. No theology should be present in American law. No law should favor one religion or a religious group. The Constitutional provision that protects your right to worship freely does not give you the right to deny my freedom of worship. To suppress me and others this way is to bite the hand that feeds you.
Ballance is wrong about laws not being affected. The laws currently do not include unmarried straight couples. This fact was admitted too by our charming Attorney General in a town hall meeting. The amendment will change the law and place every unmarried couple in the same circumstance. The law governing corporate benefits to domestic partners does not specify "domestic partners" The AG is right. That law will not need to be changed. He is wrong about the law governing domestic abuse. In a previous letter to the editor, I showed that an injured unmarried partner will not have legal standing to claim the law's benefits. Joint ownership and provision of a will be as it is today. It will remain open to challenge by anyone else related to the deceased. The surviving partner will not be able, under this amendment, to withstand the challenge due to lack of standing.
We have a real problem with politics "bending" the truth to suit the cause they champion.
Ballance is also wrong about any forced acceptance in personal life or in proceedings of whatever faith Ballance holds. Nobody will be forced to take a same-sex spouse. No church will be required to perform a marriage ceremony for every Adam and Steve that requests it. No church will be required to serve the bread of Christ's body to one considered to be in flagrant sin. No church must appoint a women or a man that holds the innate orientation that is wrongly considered sin. These will be adopted by those denominations that hear the new teaching and emphasis of the Holy Spirit, a teaching of the primacy of Christ's love and inclusiveness.
The decent, Christian thing to do, for Christians, is to vote No, against the amendment.
You will find I am in complete agreement with this letter - I wrote it
