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Originally written by Mc 'mini' Thralni:

Well, apart from the fact that it could get your old grand mother a heart attack, its for the president in office (Bush at the moment), a very wise thing to do, politically spoken. He'll have masses of people which agree with him and he will need that if he wants to stay in office.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

I defy you to find any place in the constitution that says that there should be a seperation of church and state. Go ahead and look. It isn't there.

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Originally written by Tyran:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

I defy you to find any place in the constitution that says that there should be a seperation of church and state. Go ahead and look. It isn't there.

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I think "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" sums that up pretty well.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

1) They did not make it a sin, but they took far too much out of context in order to justify it. All that was needed was the phrase that men should not spill their seed, i.e. perform in sexual acts that does not have the potential result of impregnantation.

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The traditional reply to this is, of course, what about infertile straight couples? What about women after menopause? What about birth control? What about all the heterosexual intercourse that clearly isn't intended for reproduction?

There are those who say that sex should be completely limited to reproductive purposes (and teh Bible sez so!!!1111), but I think they're crazy.

EDIT: And Tyran's absolutely right about separation of church and state.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

No it doesn't. There is no mention of a seperation of government and religion. All that says is that the government shall not interfere in the laws already in place in religious organizations.

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Which just so happens to be what you propose doing.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

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Um, no. Marriages don't have to take place in religious places. If the government of the United States starts granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, those same-sex couples can go to anyone who is certified to perform marriages, including a Justice of the Peace or whatever. If the U.S. legalizes same-sex marriage, individual people who are certified to perform marriages can still refuse to perform individual marriages, just as they do now.

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Only if you don't consider marriage to be religious in nature.

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Originally written by Ephesos:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

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Um, no. Marriages don't have to take place in religious places. If the government of the United States starts granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, those same-sex couples can go to anyone who is certified to perform marriages, including a Justice of the Peace or whatever. If the U.S. legalizes same-sex marriage, individual people who are certified to perform marriages can still refuse to perform individual marriages, just as they do now.

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Only if you don't consider marriage to be religious in nature.

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There's a flaw in your argument here... not everyone in the U.S. does consider marriage to be inherently religious. Particularly with the volume of government benefits bestowed upon married couples, it could almost be considered a governmental institution. I mean, the only real benefit you get from a religious perspective is the privilege of being married in a church/mosque/synagogue/place of worship, and many people (same-sex couples in particular) are willing to forego that benefit in order to get treatment that all other married couples get.

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Originally written by Wikipedia:

In one form or another, marriage is found in nearly every society. The very oldest records that refer to it speak of it as an established custom. Despite attempts by anthropologists to trace its origin (such as the hypothesis of primitive promiscuity), evidence is lacking.

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Originally written by Ephesos:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

Tell me: Where does the idea of marriage come from if not religion?

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Sigh... here we go.

It's an evolutionary benefit from way back when some sort of mate-bonding system was the best was to raise the kids and keep them alive. Really, it's not quite as essential as it used to be, but that's most likely where it came from.

And there's a natural reason for governments to want to encourage this sort of thing, since they want to keep up a stable population base, so they should encourage the evolutionary trick that's so good at raising well-adjusted kids (in a basic, "we can cope with the culture around us" sort of sense). So you see, it doesn't have to be religious at all in origin.

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Originally written by Tyran:

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Originally written by Wikipedia:

In one form or another, marriage is found in nearly every society. The very oldest records that refer to it speak of it as an established custom. Despite attempts by anthropologists to trace its origin (such as the hypothesis of primitive promiscuity), evidence is lacking.

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Originally written by Thin Air:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

[QUOTE]Tell me: Where does the idea of marriage come from if not religion?

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No-one has yet explained why homosexuality is a sin (at least in Christianity). Spilling the seed, maybe, but then what about lesbians? (Who involuntarily "spill" their seed every month anyway.)

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Originally written by Thin Air:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:
[QUOTE]Exactly, involuntarily. I rest my case.

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So why can't lesbians get married??? I don't mean union here, I mean marriage.

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From the Australian Constitution:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

Replace the word an with the and you get your interpretation. As it stands it says that it will not impose upon any religion, not it will not impose upon the state a religion.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

That wasn't an argument for why not doing so is silly. It was an argument for why doing so is necessary.

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Originally written by Neologism of God:

Infernal, you can try to split semantic hairs about the meaning of the establishment clause (and the free exercise clause that follows), but hundreds of years of interpretation have made it very clear that the Bill of Rights expressly forbids legislation imposing religion. "No law respecting" means "no law with respect to." (That's not entirely true, because religions can be subjected to control when religion and civil law conflict, but laws can't be passed solely about religion, I believe.)

"A wall of separation between church and state" is explicitly stated in a 1947 Supreme Court decision anyway.

In my opinion, the state has no business dealing with marriage. A purely legal and contractual agreement between two partners for any reason they'd like would work quite well and not rile up the religious. Call it whatever you like.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

Replace the word an with the and you get your interpretation. As it stands it says that it will not impose upon any religion, not it will not impose upon the state a religion.

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I just realized why you're mis-reading this. When it talks about "an establishment," it's not talking about the Church or something — that is, it's not an establishment in the sense of a thing that has been established. It's talking about the act of establishing. These are both definitions of the word "establishment," but the latter is the definition intended, as we can tell from context.

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Originally written by radix malorum est cupiditas:

That wasn't an argument for why not doing so is silly. It was an argument for why doing so is necessary.

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Er, doing what, exactly?

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