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Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 5:08 am
by Vince
Malcolm wrote:But if I say I think it's a sin, they mount a public campaign to try to get me fired.
If you think it, they aren't going to do shit. I also hardly think anyone's going to try to take your job unless you've a very visible one subject to popular opinion, in which case you should probably watch what you fucking say if you like your job.
So you're okay with what they gaystapo did with Phil Robertson?
And how the fuck is that any different than a straight man saying they should stay in the closet. Hypocrisy at it's dizzying pinnacle.
Edited By Vince on 1403946611
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 5:42 am
by Vince
Malcolm wrote:Yes, you can think whatever you want. When you start saying and doing things someone doesn't like, they're entirely free to say and do things you don't like, and that can include getting you fired from your job. Leveling the charge of "sin" at someone is not something most folk take kindly to, even if they aren't members of your religion. Calling an action such is an act of disapproval. When it's applied to actions others consider to be typical, average, everyday, normal parts of their lives, it's accusing someone of chronically and willfully living against your beliefs. You permanently disapprove of something they do ultimately not because of anything related to them but because of some matter of dogma which is unarguable, probably derived from an ancient book written years after the facts it's trying to describe. And as you have pointed out, who you like to fuck isn't protected legally in the same way which supernatural superfriend you select is. So I can kind of understand why they're pissed off seeing as how who you like to fuck is ingrained behaviour and supernatural superfriends are supposedly your choice.
The gays are about the only ones I've seen get bent out of shape about this. Baptists think people that dance are sinning. That people that drink are sinning. Hell, Church of Christ think anyone that 's not Church of Christ is going to hell (or at least used to... don't know if that's changed). People don't try to get them fired. Because everyone else is a grown up and aren't in need of pulling their tampon out. I don't CARE that Baptists think I sin when I dance (poorly). Most people don't.
Bottom line, I think it's just a gay thing. Acceptance of their father, etc. Juxtapose the biological father with the heavenly Father and a therapist would have a field day.
I think Andrew Sullivan is one of the only adults I've seen on this that's acted like a grown up, and I rarely agree with him on anything.
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:05 pm
by TPRJones
Baptists think people that dance are sinning. That people that drink are sinning. Hell, Church of Christ think anyone that 's not Church of Christ is going to hell (or at least used to... don't know if that's changed).
Dancing and drinking aren't an ingrained core to someone's being and a key element of how they were born. This is in no way a fair comparison.
If a church were to start publicly decrying that being born black is a sin, or being born a woman is a sin, I'm sure you'd see exactly the same sorts of responses as to the being born gay being a sin thing.
So you're okay with what they gaystapo did with Phil Robertson?
Phil has no one to blame about what happened to him except for A&E. They are the ones who decided to fire him and no one else. It is absolutely within their rights for people to publicly state they are going to stop watching some show - or even an entire channel as long as that show is on - for any reason they want. And a lot of people doing something perfectly within their rights is no less fine than one person doing it. If A&E decides to take action on that point it is entirely on their shoulders.
Phil's mistake was not realizing that his continuing to have a show that puts him before the public means he has to not piss off enough people that A&E will decide to fire him. Being a public figure is a pain in the ass. Just ask Donald Sterling.
Edited By TPRJones on 1403971610
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 2:50 pm
by Malcolm
So you're okay with what they gaystapo did with Phil Robertson?
I also hardly think anyone's going to try to take your job unless you've a very visible one subject to popular opinion, in which case you should probably watch what you fucking say if you like your job.
He was a major figure on a huge cable reality show. That counts as "visible." If you've got a show like that, you are completely free to espouse your beliefs. If your beliefs hurt the bottom line enough, the producers will boot you. That's just biz. If he'd been endorsing something you consider truly outlandish, like say the writings of Karl Marx, I wonder if you'd be as supportive.
Bottom line, I think it's just a gay thing. Acceptance of their father, etc. Juxtapose the biological father with the heavenly Father and a therapist would have a field day.
Nowhere in the ball park, nowhere in the sport, nowhere in the ZIP code.
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:01 pm
by Vince
Dancing and drinking aren't an ingrained core to someone's being and a key element of how they were born. This is in no way a fair comparison.
If a church were to start publicly decrying that being born black is a sin, or being born a woman is a sin, I'm sure you'd see exactly the same sorts of responses as to the being born gay being a sin thing.
Okay, how about eating meat. There is no more personal and intimate act than eating. Taking something into your body for sustenance. Remember that time I cried and pissed my pants when the Peta guys said I was a murderer for eating meat?
Edited By Vince on 1403982189
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 7:42 pm
by Malcolm
Remember that time I cried and pissed my pants when the Peta guys said I was a murderer for eating meat?
I want to see you maintain that cool when they dump cow or pig blood on you, or when one of their members refuses to sell you something after finding out you're a filthy, <s>sinful</s> evil carnivore. Also, let's imagine that as little as fifty years ago it was common for meat-eaters to be beaten to death in the street if they were caught partaking of flesh in public, and pretty much everyone turned a blind eye. Let's also imagine it was treated as a mental illness or crime until halfway through last century.
Finally, PETA is a political organization and not a religion, unless they've organized without my knowing. They're trying to raise animals to goddamn near citizen status for emotional reasons, I'll grant, but at least they'll admit it comes from their own minds/spirits/souls/whatever. They are not claiming it as ancient law descended from on high. If you want to make the case PETA is the political arm of the Wiccans, then you get closer. Or, if you want to drop the religious angle from your argument and make it strictly political, you're also closer. But that second one means you can't use those particular holy books for reference material when making the claim.
Edited By Malcolm on 1403999820
Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 10:18 pm
by Vince
Malcolm wrote:I want to see you maintain that cool when they dump cow or pig blood on you, or when one of their members refuses to sell you something after finding out you're a filthy, <s>sinful</s> evil carnivore.
I'm trying to figure out the equivalent to this for the gays and the Christians. Would the Christians be pouring their heterosexuality on the gays?
And I'm not talking about anyone refusing service, I'm talking about someone saying it's a sin and the gays crying and pissing themselves over it.
Remember when Phil Robertson said adultery was a sin and all the folks with open marriages went all ape shit on A&E?
Again, you're showing your hard on for Christianity, which is fine. But the right to practice our religion is protected in the Constitution. Either change it or get over it.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:38 pm
by Malcolm
I'm trying to figure out the equivalent to this for the gays and the Christians.
Very easy. Let's pretend vaginal intercourse, even with a condom and birth control, was recently illegal. Procreation outside a lab was outlawed. Let's say it's because:
1) Population can be controlled.
2) Shitty parents and family situations can be screened.
3) Various medical conditions can be screened and fixed before birth. You can't trust those goddamned heteros not to spawn kids with genetic defects. Being born with an extra chromosome would completely, totally, irrevocably fuck up a kid's life. It could confuse them if they see everyone else around them developing successfully while they're still hanging around in Ralph Wiggum-ville.
Any children not born in that way (and their parents) are generally seen as somewhat outside of mainstream society and to have their own minority communities sympathetic to their views. This is because 90% of the population is homosexual and they have outmuscled or outvoted you.
Heteros were considered outcasts of society and pretty much every state and religion liked it that way. Everyone in a position of authority and most citizens happily looked the other way when one was found beaten or dead, including most elected officials in the country you lived in.
There's some sci-fi novel somewhere (I want to say a Heinlein book) where the protagonist heads back to Earth where this shit has taken place and there are various regulations to that effect.
Anyhow, shit's been that way for half a millennium. In the past 40-50 years, your country has lightened up a bit. 30 years ago, the last state law prohibiting your cock splitting some chick's vaginal uprights was struck down. "Straight Plan for the Gay Man" was a hit show only a decade ago but there are still real obstacles to you getting married, having children naturally, or receiving medical/death benefits for your spouse/partner, depending upon the stubbornness of the state in which you reside and how quickly the appeals process is going for them. There are also a number of people opposed to you having a kid even through the test tube process. That's due to a long-standing societal convention that one male and one female can't raise a kid together because they bicker and argue too much due to gender differences. Parents of the same sex have fewer misunderstandings and so offer a more harmonious environment for bringing up a kid, so goes the prevailing psychological theories of the day. A corollary of one of those theories also says it's easier to pick out the gender of the child for a same sex couple. Men raise the men, women raise the women. Simplicity.
I'm talking about someone saying it's a sin and the gays crying and pissing themselves over it.
Gays aren't pissing and moaning because of your holy books or what you say in church. In your temple, you can worship goddamned near anyway you want that isn't a blatant crime and promote whatever beliefs you want. The gays have a problem with it when it gets turned into a political reason to deny them recognition, rights, and services specifically because they want to fuck someone of the same sex.
Again, you're showing your hard on for Christianity, which is fine.
I'll happily call out fundie Muslims and hardcore Orthodox Jews for the same thing. Along with any other faith you can find whose god(s) seems to have nothing better to do than worry about who's butt-fucking or scissoring who on any given day. I have far, far more ammo on Christianity than any others because they spent over a decade of unsuccessful time trying to teach me their ways.
By the way, the Bible also says it's okay to execute certain classes of adulterers by pouring molten metal down their throat. Given the bajillions of rules and stories in that book, more than a few of which contradict each other, I find the subset that modern Christianity ends up with to be nothing short of baffling.
But the right to practice our religion is protected in the Constitution.
Actually, not in the absolute sense you're portraying. Religion has, and will continue to be limited in a certain sense because the state has stepped in and trumped it.
Background:
The Bill of Rights was the work of the Anti-feddies. They wanted an ironclad definition of the rights of the people. The feddies were worried about that specifically because someone in the future might think that's literally all the fucking rights there are and we'd be playing by the same rules centuries from then. Nearly everything in the BoR proceeds directly from that "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" line in the Declaration of Independence. You have every right to pursue yours within reason. "Within reason" means not fucking over someone else's. This is why you can't have religious organizations that worship with murder, rape, and theft, just to toss out some plain examples. It's why you can't run around shouting, "Fire," in a crowded theatre. It's the reason freedom of the press does not extend to reporters being able to break into people's houses and rummage through their private shit to get at the truth.
Back to the point at hand, I still don't see homosexuals laying siege to churches and preventing priests from holding mass. Your right to worship is not being infringed in any way. Neither a cable TV station nor a magazine interview is a place of worship. They didn't bug Phil's Sunday service without his knowledge. He said things of his own free will in an entirely non-religious setting. He ought to be aware his bosses might think twice about his employment status if he says things that could bring down heat on them.
My positions puts me a couple rungs from the bottom of the ladder where I work. However, if I'm seen on the local news by a company exec or important client spouting off about some unpopular viewpoint, religiously inspired or otherwise, I wouldn't be shocked if there were repercussions.
Edited By Malcolm on 1404094057
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 10:38 am
by TPRJones
Vince wrote:Okay, how about eating meat.
Nope. Not unless you were born unable to digest fruit and vegetables, then eating meat is also clearly and obviously a choice. Not that I'm on PETAs side on that one, because they are morons. But hey, keep practicing making those strawmen and you may yet make one that's convincing.
Gays aren't pissing and moaning because of your holy books or what you say in church. In your temple, you can worship goddamned near anyway you want that isn't a blatant crime and promote whatever beliefs you want. The gays have a problem with it when it gets turned into a political reason to deny them recognition, rights, and services specifically because they want to fuck someone of the same sex.
This. The homosexuals are in the middle of a bitter cultural war in which they are fighting for the right to marry, to not have their children ripped away from them, to not have their life-long partners die alone while they are kept away because they aren't "related", and a vast assortment of other evils. When you speak about sin and that shit, you are declaring yourself to be a combatant in that war and their enemy. It's not because you can't say what you want, but because you are stepping into a huge mess.
Once these people have the same basic rights as anyone else, they'll just won't pay any attention to that sort of ignorance. But as long as they are second class citizens, expect them to fight back when you attack them.
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:12 pm
by Malcolm
So Vince, in your ideal world, should a religious claim exempt people from these sorts of laws or not?
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:25 pm
by TPRJones
While there are certainly a whole suite of potential problems with burkas, that law is not going to make anything better. Now those women in burkas who are most in need of help will just never be allowed to leave the house at all. They've been made into prisoners.
Less freedom almost never makes anything better.