Should Christians be allowed to marry each other?

[nancylebov]

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/07/11/let-them-marry/#comments

Christianity is not a disease. Christians, even though they are disliked or mistrusted by many, are normal people and should have the same rights as everyone else, as if they were, let’s say, homosexuals or computer programmers.

Ok, it's preaching to the choir, but I still think it's a pretty good parody.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It seems to me extremely disrespectful to Judaism to allow "Christians" (a Greek mystery cult slathered with a bit of misunderstood text stolen from an offshoot of the Jews) to claim that their "marriage" nonsense has anything to do with traditional marriage.

[madfilkentist]

One of the comments on that post was really disturbing: "Seriously, I see little difference between fundamentalist Christians torpedoing SB 1000 (Oregon’s civil unions bill, just passed by the Oregon Senate), and Islamist terrorists blowing up the London transit system."

I wonder if he'd be willing to say that to the face of someone who's lost a family member to the killers.

Differences and similarity

[unix-vicky.livejournal.com]

While there are obviously differences, there are smiliarities too. Both derive from hatred inspired by religious extremism, and both treat large numbers of people as if they had no worth. Obviously, not being able to be married (on in a civil union) isn't killing someone, but it can go beyond mere "inconvenience". Not being able to get the same visitation rights as family in a hospital setting can cause anguish for both parties in a stressful time. Not getting health insurance can cause financial hardship or even untreated illness or injury. Many agencies won't allow adoptions by "unmarried" couples. Anyway, I don't know what the Oregon bill did and didn't include, so I can comment with specificity, but you get the idea. Death comes to us all eventually, it would be nice to be given some respect in the meantime.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

The original spanish text says 'católicos' not 'cristianos', and therefore refers to Catholics, not Christians in general; poor word choice on the part of the translator. The rest of the text is true to the Spanish.

Re: Differences and similarity

[madfilkentist]

It's handy to paint one opponents as utter monsters, but not very useful for comprehension. The word "hatred," for instance, is a very stretchable word.

Many religious fundamentalists regard homosexuality as a sin. The criterion of sin (meaning wrongness as determined by religious authority) shouldn't be used for making laws, but it's not the same as regarding homosexuals as if they had no worth.

I'm not saying I agree with these people. But if you treat your opponents as if they're beyond reasoning, that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Differences and similarity

[unix-vicky.livejournal.com]

To me, what makes someone a religious fundamentalist/extremist is that they put their religious beliefs beyond the reach of reason. They don't care whether their beliefs fall outside "common sense". It's what they believe, regardless of what the rest of the world believes, or the consequences. People who say they "love the sinner but hate the sin" are really just winking at the extremists who go around burning churches (http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/chuck_currie/2005/07/united_church_o.html) or killing transsexual men and women (http://www.rememberingourdead.org/). It would be a lot easier to forget these extremists were they not so well represented (http://santorum.senate.gov/public/) in our government.