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Originally posted by lurkette
Granted, the consitution, like the bible, is open to interpretation based on the mores and norms of the times, but it seems pretty clear that they had in mind a secular state. Not necessarily a secular NATION but a secular government at least.
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Sure, in primary character the state is secular. However, how do you account for the fact that the underpinnings of the majority (especially when you examine who votes) remain christian (oir at least religious)?
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And that's where the key problem is right now - we're going from being a largely homogeneous Christian society to being a very diverse one in which a plurality of opinions have to be respected.
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Are we moving so far away? I think it might be a matter of a simple reversion to a previous model. In any case, is it right to force acceptance on people when they think such a thing is wrong?
It's also worth noting that if you refer to America as the homogenous society that the country was founded due to religious (admittedly all-christian) persectution,
Does respect for plurality of opinion lie in every example?
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The big problem with marriage is (as others have stated here) that its religious aspects and its civil aspects have been completely collapsed. There are many people who are married civilly but have no interest in the religious underpinnings of marriage. And the state recognizes those marriages with legal door prizes (automatic medical power of attorney, inheritance rights, etc.). It seems downright hypocritical to deny similar rights to similarly civilly connected people just because they don't fit the religious definition of a marriageable couple according to many religions. However, it's difficult if not impossible for some people who believe they have a monopoly on truth (and till recently have had a monopoly on government as well) to admit that as a country we are moving toward a more broad-minded and objective perspective.
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There still has to be some boundary as to who can marry, right?
Children, animals etc... How do we now decide a basis for what things we should recognise as deserving of equality and what remains criminal.
Remember sexual laws are essentially a fashion. To the ancient Greeks, it was acceptable (nay, expected) that a boy (~14) be initiated into adulthood by a Man. This is clearly illegal by our standards.
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The other big problem with this controversy is that people are not thinking rationally, they are thinking ideologically. Some people simply can't stand that other people don't think the same things they do.
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Rational basis for argument is well and good, but this is a pure moral issue, and so it depends a great deal on ideology. Your (and I might add My similar) ideology of acceptance and equality can not truly be said to be any more rational than any other perspective. It depends on no empirical basis.
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Their beliefs are threatened by science (most scientists agree that homosexuality is in fact a largely biological and not a purley psychological phenomenon) and by constantly being confronted by Others Who Do Not Believe As We Do.
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Anecdotal scientific "evidence" aside, the theory of the origin of homosexuality is, in my opinion, equally as irrelevent as the question of the "natural" quality of homosexual sex. Whether physchological or physiological, it is, to my mind not important, as we are far from the natural creatures we started out as.
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It's these people, a small but vocal minority, who can't stand the cognitive dissonance of having a gay couple be accorded the same status as a hetero couple.
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Let's be fair. Some people oppose homosexuallty on a rational basis. They consider sexual intercourse to be restricted to procreation. They are neither backwater technophobes nor bigoted fools. They are people with an opinion, just not the one many others share.
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I think we're on our way to a more rational, tolerant society (at least that's my hope) but it's just going to take people time to adapt to this idea, the way it took time to adapting to the idea of civil rights for blacks and equal rights for women.
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Neither ethnic minorities nor women have reached equality. Indeed it could be argued that the whole experiment in Political Correctness has led to greater inequalities in certain areas while a backlash grows in those who do not fit into a useful category.
Society is, and will to my mind never be, a rational entity. humanity is not rational on an individual basis, so why expetc the net result to be rational?
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I hope that someday people will recognize that love is love is love, whatever it looks like, and there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with that.
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Within certain boundaries, I agree...