Comments on: California’s Gay Marriage Decision

By: Michael Ejercito

Michael Ejercito — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:15:31 +0000

“the state continues to have a strong and adequate justification for refusing to officially sanction polygamous or incestuous relationships because of their potentially detrimental effect on a sound family environment” (p. 79).
The exact same argument is used to justify bans on same-sex marriage.
How diod the court miss that?

By: researcher

researcher — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:14:38 +0000

sexual identity is a mystery yet.
maybe in a past life a person was the opposite sex and now identifies with that sex.
not usually a choice but a desire based on desire for same sex.
much to learn about human behaviour.
out of ignorance we call it sin.
I dont care what bible says bible also says kill those that work on sunday or is it sat.

By: Joel Betow

Joel Betow — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:51:14 +0000

Where are the strict constructionists when it comes to eminent domain or the reservation to Congress declaration of war.
Except for a few conservatives and most libertarians, attacks on court decisions are addressed almost exclusively toward liberal judges, when conservative appointees have done just as much to transfer power from legislative branches to the judicial branch.
For some of the “faithful” Christianity seems to be limited to the issues of abortion and homosexuality.

By: Joel Betow

Joel Betow — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:01:05 +0000

If the point were to constantly proclaim oneself as a believer and others as heretics, then it makes sense to come up with “the” definitive Christian plan. Or we could be honest and admit that all Chrisians struggle with living by a faith that is truly in immitation of Christ. One of the reasons we have constant church and denomination hoppers (and I’ve switched once myself) is a shallow demand that others offer us perfection instead of a generous and agape-based giving to the community we are apart of. This allows a person to inject their ego into insisting that gay marriage will ruin the church but that gambling is perfectly acceptable. If we took the approach instead that it is a humble mutual and community, as well as individual quest to understand and live by Christ’s commands, Christians could offer true support and encouragement to each other in the faith.
Conservative evangelicals have often mocked mainliners, but they are now finding younger evangelicals rejecting standards and measurements that they think have been skewed toward a few social issues while missing the larger picture.
Southern Baptists in Oklahoma have now experienced several years in a row of declining baptisms. Finally, they, too must look inward as opposed to just favorably comparing themselves to other denominations.
For years, the mantra was that liberals were driving young people away. In recent years, though, many younger evangelicals say it is the harsh judgmentalism, the haughty air of superiority among older conservative evangelicals that is sending them elsewhere.
The main thing that has undermined the Christian faith is greed, and that is written on far less than other topics, from what I can remember.

By: Alan K. Henderson

Alan K. Henderson — Sun, 18 May 2008 07:19:10 +0000

The odds of Obama and Hillary appointing strict constructionists are zero-point-zero. McCain’s odds are greater than that – how much, I do not know.
If a California governnor has to get some kind of legislative approvall for judicial nominations, I’m surprised that CA’s Supreme Court has any strict constructionists.

By: Pieter Friedrich

Pieter Friedrich — Sun, 18 May 2008 03:20:24 +0000

It should be noted that 3 of the 4 deciding justices were appointed by Republicans. Werdegar and George are Wilson appointees and Kennard is a Deukmejian appointee.
This is highly reminiscent of when the U.S. Supreme Court heard Planned Parenthood v. Casey and upheld Roe by a 5-4 decision. The 5 deciding justices were ALL Republican appointees.
And yet Republicans will STILL insist that we need to vote for McCain in order to get good justices on the bench.

By: Joel Betow

Joel Betow — Sat, 17 May 2008 17:45:43 +0000

The institution of marriage once was rooted in the Christian faith, but isn’t any more. It is a mostly secular event that has little connection to either the church or to Christ. An aside to some wedding directors: please quit telling me that the communion table needs to be moved to accomodate your decorations. George Barna has reported that “divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.”

By: Alan K. Henderson

Alan K. Henderson — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:07:17 +0000

Foltz,
Apples and oranges. The sole justification for voter registration is fraud prevention.

By: Foltz

Foltz — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:08:57 +0000

How can something be a right if it requires a license?
You have to register to vote.
To be fair, I wouldnt call mariage a fundamental right, but many rights require licenses.

By: Eric Seymour

Eric Seymour — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:31:51 +0000

I have long disagreed respectfully with Josh’s “separatist” stance on Christian vs. secular marriage, insofar as it implies that Christians’ values shouldn’t affect the basic structure of their society. In fact, while the primary meaning of being “salt and light” in society is to evangelize people on a personal basis, I believe it also includes opposing things like state lotteries and casinos, prostitution, gay marriage, and polygamy.
Also, I doubt that C.S. Lewis had gay marriage in mind when he endorsed “two distinct kinds of marriage.” Furthermore, since there are now denominations which endorse gay marriage, some gay couples would be able to claim that they *are* married “in a Christian sense.”