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comment by steve
steve  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Religious Freedom - HELP ME

    Who would Jesus allow to get married?

This is a GREAT question. And I'll give you my honest answer:

Anyone should be able to marry any other consenting adult. But I really believe that a minister shouldn't be forced to marry anyone that violates the doctrine of his/her church. But I think that sounds like hate speech to some people.





briandmyers  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Anyone should be able to marry any other consenting adult.

This is a whole other can of worms, but I think you just endorsed plural marriage, dude ;-)

steve  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I did indeed. If people want to do that - go for it.

briandmyers  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I agree with you - but there are legal entanglements and advantages/obligations conferred by marriage (mostly tax-related) that need to be clearly sorted out.

kleinbl00  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The best argument I've ever heard is that marriage should be abolished as a civil institution and all tax and citizenship benefits should be transferred to civil unions, which are wholly separate from marriages.

"Marriage" should be whatever you and/or your church want it to be; "civil union" should be between two consenting adults.

rob05c  ·  3092 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's a wholly semantic issue. Marriage is part of law, because marriage is a cultural thing, and a human thing; religion simply codified it. Pair-bonding is older than humanity. The problem being, of course, many people believe not only that religion invented 'marriage,' but their religion in particular.

I agree with you. They're wrong, as a matter of fact. But if it makes them less antagonistic, let them have it. I value people more than words.

steve  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I support this idea 100%.

WanderingEng  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Jumping in here, it doesn't sound like hate speech to me. The line I draw is between requiring someone to believe something and requiring them to do something.

A church is a non-public institution providing services to its members. As such, the church is not expected to provide services, including membership and marriage services, to whomever requests them. A metaphor might be a private country club. I can't play golf there, and a hay couple can't have a wedding with a catholic priest.

When a gay couple orders a wedding cake, they are not asking the baker to approve of their wedding. The baker provides services to the public as a whole; they aren't a non-public institution. Therefore (to me, a non-religious person), the baker should be expected to provide the service, barring any non-protected reason preventing them (e.g. if they're booked solid, so be it). The baker is expected to do but not expected to believe.

briandmyers  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think it really depends on if the minister offers marriage services to the public, or only to his congregation. If the latter, then okay, discriminate away, and ban those sinners from your church - but if those services are offered to the public (for profit or not), then such discrimination should not be allowed.

steve  ·  3093 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"Religious Freedom" does seem to sound a little like "Allow us to discriminate because we believe God told us we can".

And while I think it's more nuanced than that, I can see how it looks, smells, and walks like a duck.