Runt
Well-Known Member
*Tries to interpret this in a way that isn't dirty and fails*
-
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The Family - A Proclamation to the World
- Thread starter madhatter85
- Start date
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
Runt
Well-Known Member
Thanks! <3
Be nice! You should be proud of me for not knowing very much slang!Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
Be nice! You should be proud of me for not knowing very much slang!
It's not that. I just never thought of "sticky fingers" in that way. I was thinking "dirty" what does she mean, than I was like
Bested by a girl :sad4:
madhatter85
Transhumanist
again, why would this matter to an athiest anyways?
What can you say to an atheist? "when you die nothign happens...."
i could do that to make you feel better if you like.
What can you say to an atheist? "when you die nothign happens...."
i could do that to make you feel better if you like.
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
Yes say it, say it now!
Gentoo
The Feisty Penguin
I'm not an atheist, but I'll wager a guess. I think that it's because Christians are the majority in the US, and right now, they pretty much get their way. It's the tyranny of the majority. As MidnightBlue is both atheist and gay, he (and everyone other LBGT) has to listen to the majority tell him who he can and can't love. And should the majority disagree with his preference, then too bad for him. He can't live his life, because of someone else's "morals".
MidnightBlue, please correct me if I'm wrong.
MidnightBlue, please correct me if I'm wrong.
madhatter85
Transhumanist
but then i'd be breaking a commandment, the one about lying, cause i know somethign marvelous happens when you leave this temporal existence.
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
Smoke
Done here.
See, for example:
The Boston Phoenix, 28 March 2005:
For a crash course in Mormon political power, consider the important role the LDS Church played in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed women equal rights under the law. Passed by the House in 1971 and by the Senate in 1972, the ERA enjoyed widespread national support and seemed destined to succeed. By 1976, 34 states had ratified it; only four more were needed to make it part of the Constitution.
Then the Mormons got involved. In October 1976, the LDS Church's First Presidency - consisting of the church's three highest-ranking members - issued a formal statement opposing the ERA: the amendment, the First Presidency warned, might "stifle many God-given feminine instincts" and lead to an uptick in homosexual activity. This denunciation had a near-immediate impact in Idaho, home to a relatively large Mormon electorate. The Idaho legislature had previously given the ERA the requisite two-thirds approval, but this was undone by a January 1977 referendum in which a popular majority opposed the amendment.
Next, the LDS Church turned its focus to the state-level International Women's Year (IWY) conferences taking place around the country. These gatherings had no formal role in the amendment process, but served as highly public barometers of female support for the ERA. As Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn recounts in a forthcoming anthology, God and Country: Politics in Utah (Signature Books), LDS women in numerous states worked to block pro-ERA resolutions at IWY conferences. The process was top-down, and controlled by the Church's (male) leadership. In Hawaii, for example, Mormon women received these written instructions: "Report to Traditional Values Van, sign in, pick up dissent forms. Sit together. Stay together to vote. Ask Presidency for help if needed." ...
In addition, under the guidance of Gordon Hinckley - then a special adviser to the First Presidency, and now the president of the LDS Church - Mormon-led civic groups were set up in a dozen states. Anti-ERA speakers were invited to speak in LDS Church buildings, and massive letter-writing campaigns were launched. Here, too, the Mormons' limited numbers belied their ultimate effect: by one estimate, Saints generated 85 percent of the anti-ERA mail sent in Virginia, where they made up only one percent of the population. Ultimately, after a promising beginning, the ERA was defeated. And while it might be going too far to say the LDS Church killed it, it certainly put the amendment on life support. True, Mormons made common cause with conservative Catholics and Protestant fundamentalists in their battle against the ERA, a collaboration that paved the way for the political sector now broadly known as the religious right. But without the LDS Church's timely intervention and efficient opposition, the amendment probably would have passed.
More recently, Mormons have devoted their political efficacy to the fight against gay marriage. In 1994, the First Presidency issued a formal statement opposing the marriage of same-sex couples. Soon after, fliers offering advice on how to create anti-gay-marriage PACs were distributed at Mormon congregations nationwide. In the mid '90s, the LDS Church's national headquarters tapped couples from Utah to participate in anti-gay-marriage endeavors outside the state, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to "traditional marriage" campaigns around the country. Meanwhile, local leaders used their wards (which are analogous to parishes) to coordinate anti-gay-marriage lobbying efforts. In 1996, for example, at every LDS chapel in Texas, meetings were held to urge Mormons to join the Coalition for Traditional Marriage, a Church-sponsored lobbying group. The necessary registration forms were provided in case they wished to do so on the spot.
This strategy came to fruition in California during the fight over Proposition 22, an initiative to ban gay marriage in that state. In the year before the election, LDS leaders mobilized local congregations to support the ban, formally asking California Mormons to raise money, knock on doors, send mailings, and staff phone banks. It worked. In 2000, California voters approved Proposition 22 by a 23-point margin.
The Advocate, 7 December 1999:
Earlier this year, the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a letter calling on its faithful in the state to support the measure and uphold "sacred" limitations on matrimony. Church members should volunteer their time for the anti--gay-marriage measure, known as the Knight initiative after its sponsor, California senator William "Pete" Knight, or write checks to ensure that the proposal succeeds with voters in March, the letter said. ...
Starting in May, church leaders in Utah wrote letters to be read aloud during worship and then distributed to their 740,000 adherents in the Golden State, whose ranks include four GOP congressmen. The letters from LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City urge California Mormons to give generously of their "means and time to assure a successful vote" on the March initiative. The missives pack a visceral punch since many LDS members believe that the signature of LDS president and prophet Gordon Hinckley make them divine instructions.
Hinckley kept up the drumbeat against gay marriage. At the church's annual conference in October, he told attendees that "this issue has nothing to do with civil rights. For men to marry men, or women to marry women, is a moral wrong." Bay Area LDS spokesman Merrill Higham, who did not return calls for this story, told the San Francisco Examiner that the effort to keep existing curbs on marriage is about protecting "something we consider sacred."
Far from unprecedented, these letters follow donations totaling $1.1 million by the Mormon Church in 1998 to the statewide campaigns against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and in Alaska--in the latter state, the LDS windfall constituted 79% of the antigay campaign's entire contributions. Measures in both states passed by greater than 2-1.
Deseret News, 8 July 2004:
LDS Church leaders Wednesday took an official stand in the politically charged debate over same-sex marriage, issuing a statement that a church spokesman said supports state and federal efforts to constitutionally ban gay marriages.
The statement issued by the church's governing First Presidency reads: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman."
Deseret News, 28 May 2006:
Voice your support for a federal marriage amendment, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urges in a letter to be read in LDS sacrament meetings Sunday.
The letter, sent to priesthood leaders in the United States, calls on Latter-day Saints to contact their senators to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would limit lawful marriages to those between a man and a woman. ...
Last month the LDS Church officially signed on to another letter, written on behalf of the Religious Coalition for Marriage, that called for a national marriage amendment. Elder Russell M. Nelson, a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve, signed the letter along with 49 other religious leaders from around the country.
In 2004, two-thirds of Utah voters passed a state version of the marriage amendment, which changed the Utah Constitution to specifically ban gay marriages. Four months earlier, the First Presidency of the LDS Church issued a brief statement saying that the church "favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman."
Deseret News, 20 October 2004:
The LDS Church's First Presidency issued a statement Tuesday saying the church "favors measures that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and that do not confer legal status on any other sexual relationship."
The statement by the governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comes two weeks before Utah voters will decide whether to amend the state's constitution to define marriage as the "legal union between a man and a woman" and to prevent any other domestic union from being "recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect."
For a crash course in Mormon political power, consider the important role the LDS Church played in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed women equal rights under the law. Passed by the House in 1971 and by the Senate in 1972, the ERA enjoyed widespread national support and seemed destined to succeed. By 1976, 34 states had ratified it; only four more were needed to make it part of the Constitution.
Then the Mormons got involved. In October 1976, the LDS Church's First Presidency - consisting of the church's three highest-ranking members - issued a formal statement opposing the ERA: the amendment, the First Presidency warned, might "stifle many God-given feminine instincts" and lead to an uptick in homosexual activity. This denunciation had a near-immediate impact in Idaho, home to a relatively large Mormon electorate. The Idaho legislature had previously given the ERA the requisite two-thirds approval, but this was undone by a January 1977 referendum in which a popular majority opposed the amendment.
Next, the LDS Church turned its focus to the state-level International Women's Year (IWY) conferences taking place around the country. These gatherings had no formal role in the amendment process, but served as highly public barometers of female support for the ERA. As Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn recounts in a forthcoming anthology, God and Country: Politics in Utah (Signature Books), LDS women in numerous states worked to block pro-ERA resolutions at IWY conferences. The process was top-down, and controlled by the Church's (male) leadership. In Hawaii, for example, Mormon women received these written instructions: "Report to Traditional Values Van, sign in, pick up dissent forms. Sit together. Stay together to vote. Ask Presidency for help if needed." ...
In addition, under the guidance of Gordon Hinckley - then a special adviser to the First Presidency, and now the president of the LDS Church - Mormon-led civic groups were set up in a dozen states. Anti-ERA speakers were invited to speak in LDS Church buildings, and massive letter-writing campaigns were launched. Here, too, the Mormons' limited numbers belied their ultimate effect: by one estimate, Saints generated 85 percent of the anti-ERA mail sent in Virginia, where they made up only one percent of the population. Ultimately, after a promising beginning, the ERA was defeated. And while it might be going too far to say the LDS Church killed it, it certainly put the amendment on life support. True, Mormons made common cause with conservative Catholics and Protestant fundamentalists in their battle against the ERA, a collaboration that paved the way for the political sector now broadly known as the religious right. But without the LDS Church's timely intervention and efficient opposition, the amendment probably would have passed.
More recently, Mormons have devoted their political efficacy to the fight against gay marriage. In 1994, the First Presidency issued a formal statement opposing the marriage of same-sex couples. Soon after, fliers offering advice on how to create anti-gay-marriage PACs were distributed at Mormon congregations nationwide. In the mid '90s, the LDS Church's national headquarters tapped couples from Utah to participate in anti-gay-marriage endeavors outside the state, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to "traditional marriage" campaigns around the country. Meanwhile, local leaders used their wards (which are analogous to parishes) to coordinate anti-gay-marriage lobbying efforts. In 1996, for example, at every LDS chapel in Texas, meetings were held to urge Mormons to join the Coalition for Traditional Marriage, a Church-sponsored lobbying group. The necessary registration forms were provided in case they wished to do so on the spot.
This strategy came to fruition in California during the fight over Proposition 22, an initiative to ban gay marriage in that state. In the year before the election, LDS leaders mobilized local congregations to support the ban, formally asking California Mormons to raise money, knock on doors, send mailings, and staff phone banks. It worked. In 2000, California voters approved Proposition 22 by a 23-point margin.
The Advocate, 7 December 1999:
Earlier this year, the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a letter calling on its faithful in the state to support the measure and uphold "sacred" limitations on matrimony. Church members should volunteer their time for the anti--gay-marriage measure, known as the Knight initiative after its sponsor, California senator William "Pete" Knight, or write checks to ensure that the proposal succeeds with voters in March, the letter said. ...
Starting in May, church leaders in Utah wrote letters to be read aloud during worship and then distributed to their 740,000 adherents in the Golden State, whose ranks include four GOP congressmen. The letters from LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City urge California Mormons to give generously of their "means and time to assure a successful vote" on the March initiative. The missives pack a visceral punch since many LDS members believe that the signature of LDS president and prophet Gordon Hinckley make them divine instructions.
Hinckley kept up the drumbeat against gay marriage. At the church's annual conference in October, he told attendees that "this issue has nothing to do with civil rights. For men to marry men, or women to marry women, is a moral wrong." Bay Area LDS spokesman Merrill Higham, who did not return calls for this story, told the San Francisco Examiner that the effort to keep existing curbs on marriage is about protecting "something we consider sacred."
Far from unprecedented, these letters follow donations totaling $1.1 million by the Mormon Church in 1998 to the statewide campaigns against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and in Alaska--in the latter state, the LDS windfall constituted 79% of the antigay campaign's entire contributions. Measures in both states passed by greater than 2-1.
Deseret News, 8 July 2004:
LDS Church leaders Wednesday took an official stand in the politically charged debate over same-sex marriage, issuing a statement that a church spokesman said supports state and federal efforts to constitutionally ban gay marriages.
The statement issued by the church's governing First Presidency reads: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman."
Deseret News, 28 May 2006:
Voice your support for a federal marriage amendment, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urges in a letter to be read in LDS sacrament meetings Sunday.
The letter, sent to priesthood leaders in the United States, calls on Latter-day Saints to contact their senators to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would limit lawful marriages to those between a man and a woman. ...
Last month the LDS Church officially signed on to another letter, written on behalf of the Religious Coalition for Marriage, that called for a national marriage amendment. Elder Russell M. Nelson, a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve, signed the letter along with 49 other religious leaders from around the country.
In 2004, two-thirds of Utah voters passed a state version of the marriage amendment, which changed the Utah Constitution to specifically ban gay marriages. Four months earlier, the First Presidency of the LDS Church issued a brief statement saying that the church "favors a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman."
Deseret News, 20 October 2004:
The LDS Church's First Presidency issued a statement Tuesday saying the church "favors measures that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and that do not confer legal status on any other sexual relationship."
The statement by the governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comes two weeks before Utah voters will decide whether to amend the state's constitution to define marriage as the "legal union between a man and a woman" and to prevent any other domestic union from being "recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect."
Smoke
Done here.
Obviously, the church has various ways of making money. Nevertheless, the LDS Church and every church or organization that has tax-exempt status benefits from the taxes paid by others, as well as from having more disposable income because they don't have to pay taxes. That amounts to the subsidizing of all tax-exempt organizations by the taxpayers.
How heartwarming. Maybe it would help you to understand how that sounds to me if I give an parallel example: Christianity has been pre-defined, and it is not up to the Mormons to change it. I never said Mormons shouldn't have equal rights; they can have their cult, whatever they want to call it, but it should be a completely separate entity from the term "Church." The law should prohibit them from using the term "Church" or calling themselves "of Jesus Christ" since they don't meet the requirements to use those terms.
Just so: Mormons should be welcomed and treated with a modicum of respect, as long as they don't practice their Mormonism. Who needs such condescending treatment? Only those who have been so damaged by their church that they're willing to be collaborators in their own oppression.
You don't know me.
Your church leaders are bigots. It's not derogatory to point out a simple fact.
Because people who follow the bigoted teachings of their religion also tend to vote accordingly, and that affects me.
Way off topic, but I'll address it in another thread. See here.
Runt
Well-Known Member
:biglaugh:It's not that. I just never thought of "sticky fingers" in that way. I was thinking "dirty" what does she mean, than I was like
Bested by a girl :sad4:
DeepShadow
White Crow
I guess you missed the part where it said, "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."
DeepShadow
White Crow
In that case, we should get the government out of the marriage business. I hereby propose a constitutional amendment stating that the government can only give anyone civil unions. If the word "marriage" is so charged with religious overtones as to demand such protective action, then we ought to separate church and state for good.
All in favor, please sign the petition.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
I've been saying this for years... :yes:
Bishka
Veteran Member
I second that.:yes:
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
I agree but I would like the government to use the word marriage.
Another label is only going to deepen the rift.
