Equal Rights for the LGBT Community?

[Mandalore]

Burz, why would you even ask your children who they want to marry when they grow up? Would you love them any less if they were homosexual? And no, I don't feel that the liberal churches should be thrown into the group of bigots...because they aren't bigots. And I don't believe Christians have done much for society. The first positive changes, in western europe, were conducted by Secular/deist/atheist/agnostic philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot, etc. 90% plus of the highest orders of science in America and Britain are non-religious. And I don't see how it's a sin. I honestly don't. If you can't make the logical choice and view that as [poo], I pity you. Religion was just made to order society in a relatively primitive age
As to the "lol world population will diez" argument. There are six billion people on this Earth. Growth rate is still astronomically high in some areas of the world. Also, as the rest of the world advances and their standards of living and they live longer, the population will still increase. Even if the entire world legalized and supported same sex marriage it would not lead to a negative rate of change for the population of the human species.
As to the "slippery-slope" argument of "Well, if we legalize it everyone will just go gay! Where will it stop? Will you marry a piece of pie next?" Have you ever eaten a hamburger? Yes? Great! Let's go eat some human ribs now since it's all just meat! Viewed in that light, isn't that just a stupid argument?
As to the "lol gawd dun want" argument. If he did not want this, he would not have allowed it. Some will argue "lawl free thought." I want to fly ten thousand feet in the air for an hour without any aid from machines of any sort. Where's my freedom now? If you believe in God, obviously he didn't want me to fly without mechanical aid so he took that choice away from me.

P.S. Why is it that the farther north on most continents you go on the more liberal/secular it gets (with the exception of Africa and Asia is a bit of a mess in the fact that Russia of all places is more liberal than most countries on that continent perhaps besides India)
P.S.S. If Thomas Jefferson lived today I feel he would be absolutely appalled at the enormous political clout that churches have in today's America. In fact he said "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." He had a lot of quotes about religion but I've always felt this was the best.

[WD-40]

Burz, why would you even ask your children who they want to marry when they grow up? Would you love them any less if they were homosexual? And no, I don't feel that the liberal churches should be thrown into the group of bigots...because they aren't bigots. And I don't believe Christians have done much for society. The first positive changes, in western europe, were conducted by Secular/deist/atheist/agnostic philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot, etc. 90% plus of the highest orders of science in America and Britain are non-religious. And I don't see how it's a sin. I honestly don't. If you can't make the logical choice and view that as [poo], I pity you. Religion was just made to order society in a relatively primitive age
As to the "lol world population will diez" argument. There are six billion people on this Earth. Growth rate is still astronomically high in some areas of the world. Also, as the rest of the world advances and their standards of living and they live longer, the population will still increase. Even if the entire world legalized and supported same sex marriage it would not lead to a negative rate of change for the population of the human species.
As to the "slippery-slope" argument of "Well, if we legalize it everyone will just go gay! Where will it stop? Will you marry a piece of pie next?" Have you ever eaten a hamburger? Yes? Great! Let's go eat some human ribs now since it's all just meat! Viewed in that light, isn't that just a stupid argument?
As to the "lol gawd dun want" argument. If he did not want this, he would not have allowed it. Some will argue "lawl free thought." I want to fly ten thousand feet in the air for an hour without any aid from machines of any sort. Where's my freedom now? If you believe in God, obviously he didn't want me to fly without mechanical aid so he took that choice away from me.

P.S. Why is it that the farther north on most continents you go on the more liberal/secular it gets (with the exception of Africa and Asia is a bit of a mess in the fact that Russia of all places is more liberal than most countries on that continent perhaps besides India)
P.S.S. If Thomas Jefferson lived today I feel he would be absolutely appalled at the enormous political clout that churches have in today's America. In fact he said "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." He had a lot of quotes about religion but I've always felt this was the best.

Mandalore...I tried...but I have absolutely no idea what the hell you just said or what the point was. I guess I need Crib notes. Sorry man.

[burzerker]

Y amandalore I don't get what you are on about either.. Voltaire was a positive influence with his Anti-semitism??? The other's I'm not familiar with so I don't know how much influence they had. As for the secular influence in general, more evil has been done by secularists in the last century than has been done in the world before that, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler.. just to name the obvious. The biggest change in Christian attitudes I am pretty sure came about with Martin Luther and his start of the reformation. As for Thomas Jefferson, he wasn't a Christian, but he certainly was an ethical monotheist, in fact after his letter talking about the separtation of church and state (a much wrongly understood statement in itself) he attended a church service at the captiol, doesn't sound like something that an atheist would do.

Oh ya, as for asking who my daughters will marry, I never meant that I would be asking them, I meant as in a schoolyard setting. I'm pretty sure that girls discuss future marriage plans far more than boys do and it would seem logical that if same sex marriage were allowed that it would become normal to ask such a thing.

[Mandalore]

Hitler wasn't secular for one. He was Catholic.
And to say that any of those people did what they did FOR their atheism is ridiculous. There will always be good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things. But good people only do bad things for God and Country.
And I was just responding to a variety of posts that I hadn't gotten to earlier.
And to call out Voltaire's anti-semitism but then to bring in Luther? He advocated throwing every Jew out of Germany and was later quoted in a speech by the "atheist" Hitler who mentioned divine providence year after year and who was always a member of good standing with the RCC.

[Chin]

MADFNMAAGRJKLEWTJ5366666666666666666666666666422222222222 YES. wait you mean lesbian as in, living on the island of lesbos? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_(disambiguation)

and by gay, i guess you mean happy? WHY SURE WHY SHOULD WE DESCRIMINAETA GAINST PEOPLE BASED ON BEING HAPPY OR SAD OR WHERE THEY LiveWTF/>?.,/,.AFASFASFAF

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... d=0CBMQkAE

[burzerker]

Hitler may have been Catholic, but never did his evils in the name of Catholicism, in fact he did more trying to show the pagan connection of the Roamn gods and the Aryan race than he held any connections to Catholicism. If you still insist that this is not so, the other secularists more than make up for this. You don't think that these attrocites were carried out in the name of secualrism?.. For one thing that's hard to prove as there is no single book or single leader to point to saying that they got their anti-theistic views from. These groups did however round up religious people and slaughterd them, Hitler, Stalin, Mao.. if it wasn't in the name of secularism, then what was it for? And to point to secualrism as some great thing for the homosexual community come on.. the pink triangle is a direct result of what Hitler did to them and I guarantee that the other dicators of the other regimes did the same sorts of things.

[Mandalore]

Hitler may have been Catholic, but never did his evils in the name of Catholicism, in fact he did more trying to show the pagan connection of the Roamn gods and the Aryan race than he held any connections to Catholicism. If you still insist that this is not so, the other secularists more than make up for this. You don't think that these attrocites were carried out in the name of secualrism?.. For one thing that's hard to prove as there is no single book or single leader to point to saying that they got their anti-theistic views from. These groups did however round up religious people and slaughterd them, Hitler, Stalin, Mao.. if it wasn't in the name of secularism, then what was it for? And to point to secualrism as some great thing for the homosexual community come on.. the pink triangle is a direct result of what Hitler did to them and I guarantee that the other dicators of the other regimes did the same sorts of things.

id w

1. Hitler's extermination of the Jews was in part motivated by, and certainly aided by, the Roman Catholic Church/Catholics. He made several speeches using terminology to the effect of "Christ killers-I am the avenging hand of God and so what I do is good." This rhetoric of "Christ killers" was one that he inherited in the Catholic tradition. Also, it's not like Hitler single handedly killed all the Jews. He did it with the support of the people who were by and large Catholic/Protestant.

2. They slaughtered everyone. Not just religious groups. Mao and Stalin did what they did in the name of a dogmatic and doctrinaire Marxism. And Mao didn't really have a lot of monotheists to slay in China so I don't get why you throw him in there. He was a tyrant, yes, but most deaths attributed to him are through bad policies rather than.

3. By and large persecution on homosexuals has come from religious groups (especially the monotheistic three). The secularist dictators oppressed everyone, not just the gays and I'm sure they weren't willing to grant any civil liberties other than the bare minimum to anyone. The fact that the homosexual community has had to fight for so long to even get close to equal rights in the United States of America should tell you how much of a chance they stand in a country without civil rights.

[burzerker]

Yes the reason that they have advanced as far as they have is precisely because they live in a Judeo/Christian society that has given great freedoms to society as a whole. It is the secularists that have created the oppression of people. As for Hitler his Aryan race is a direct link to Roman history, he used the symbols and terms that tried to connect the two. He did use the Catholic church to help him gain some power, but once he was in control I guarantee you he wasn't in Sunday mass, unlike a theocratic leader like in Saudi Arabia would be.

[Mandalore]

The great freedoms bestowed on them by the Judeo-Christian society? Surely you jest. As recently as 1858 the RCC seized a child of Jewish parents because he had been baptized by a Catholic maid. The freedom to worship the Christian God and only the Christian God?

[burzerker]

As recently as 1858?? That's a bit of a strecth I think (the recently part) not to mention that the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same, not to mention that Christianity is has a Jew as it's saviour.. And as for the speeches by Hitler, I totally forgot about the Pope's Christmas homilies about the Christ killers.. sounds like Hitler was very good at listening in Mass