The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    stillidealistic's picture

    Much Ado About Nothing

    By stillidealistic on Sat, 06/27/2015 - 10:20pm |

    The internet is blowing up with unhappy comments from Christians about the the SCOTUS decision on same sex marriage.

    I don't get it.

    What does it cost us as Christians to react to the news about the SCOTUS decision in the way this article suggests? I just don't get in any way shape or form why it is an assault on Christianity. NOTHING has changed in our ability to worship as we see fit. Nothing has changed regarding our ability to add to the legal document an additional religious covenant with God. Nothing requires us to do anything different in our marriages. It does not allow people to marry animals, or multiple people. All it does is provide the same legal benefits and obligations to committed same sex couples as are provided for committed opposite sex couples. Marriage has always been an option for opposite sex couples who do not believe in God. Whether or not you believe in God has never been a litmus test for a marriage license, so it cannot be a religious issue. Why then should it not be available for same sex couples? It seems like much ado about nothing in a country that was never designed to be a theocracy.

    And as someone on Facebook said, "good, now they can be as miserable as we are." That's a joke, friends.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-cheshire/supreme-court-ruling-and-...

     

    Comments

    I like this:

    Maybe now that we are not trying to stop others from getting married, we can finally take the time to figure out why our own marriages are failing; because, the argument that a gay-marriage is somehow soiling the sanctity of our third marriage, is as ridiculous as it sounds.

    I don't know what the fuss is either, stilli. I woke up the next morning and every damn thing in my life was exactly the same as the day before.

    But some people are threatening to move to Canada to get away from this assault on their freedoms, religions, whatevers.

    'Cept.... gay marriage has been legal in Canada for ten years already. Mexico is out of the question, too. Only they probably wouldn't move there anyway on account of Mexico being full of illegal aliens and all.

    They will have to find a different country, I guess. Here's where they can't move to...

     


    by wabby on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 10:53am

    On top of that, in Canada they have socialized medicine and gun control, so I'm thinkin' the move there isn't going to work so well for them...


    by stillidealistic on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 10:48pm

    They are just stamping their feet because no one really cares what they think.  Society changes with each generation.  This is not an issue that has much importance when there is global warming and hungry children. We have people who are sick and dying in states that can't get medical care because of the unchristian act of refusing Medicaid. Their hissy fit is on a non issue.  


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 4:00pm

    I'm trying so hard to understand where they are coming from, but I just don't. We are not now, and never have been a theocracy, yet you'd think it was and there was a rebellion to take over, when in fact, just the opposite is true.

    Religion has been slowly but surely taking over the government, and it needs to stop. The addition of "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the addition of "in God we trust" to our money were mistakes that never should have been made. Neither are sanctioned by the Constitution.

    I don't think there are 2 churches in the whole country that agree right down the line about what the Bible says and/or means. It all depends on whose interpretation you believe.

    We have freedom "of" religion - each of us is able to believe as we see fit. But we also have freedom "from" religion - we don't HAVE to believe anything. We do not have the right to impose our individual religious beliefs on any one else.

    Keep the government out of religion, and religion out of government. That IS in the Constitution.

    All Americans should have the same rights and responsibilities. No one group should have special rights carved out just for them.


    by stillidealistic on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 11:01pm

    It really struck me this having happened so soon after the murders in S.C. and the issue of the confederate flag coming out... this attachment to fear and hate.

    It made me consider side by side that there was a time that slavery was justified by people via their interpretation of religion... This interpretation that made them 'greater than' and how this feels similar when it comes to the rights for all people to marry.  The justification of subjugating a segment of people to your control because of your religious beliefs... and the 'hatred' that seems to accompany it is a pattern.  This is also applied to women, immigrants, etc.

    I am just grateful that my friends are more the 'let's all put the rainbow over our FB pic types, and hey everyone  is celebrating down on the mall, let's join them types.  Pride weekend is one of my daughter's favorite holidays after Halloween... Neither of us is gay but seeing people come out and be themselves and have fun is a good thing to celebrate.  Very American, I think.

     

    http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/a-30-second-guide-to-how-gay-marriage-ruling-affects-you/


    by synchronicity on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 4:12pm

    Great link, thanks!


    by barefooted on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 4:50pm

    I've lost friends for my views on religion and politics, but I think all the ones who are still around just accept that I have my views, and they have theirs. Until recently, I didn't realize that there are more liberal Christians out there than I thought. Someone here told me about "The Christian Left," on Facebook, and I think it saved my sanity. Was that you, duck? Anyway, whoever it was, thank you!


    by stillidealistic on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 11:04pm

    It isn't an assault on Christianity like they are making it out to be. It's just a particularly loud segment of Christians that are scared of....just about everything. Their spirit is caught between a hard mind and a wall of fear and they can't escape. It's like they can't help themselves and no amount of soothing words will set them free.

    I can't say that I pity them exactly, for having an arrested spirit. I don't know what I feel towards them, except, perhaps, confusion. Like momoe said above, there are other, more threatening things to be concerned about.


    by wabby on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 5:25pm

    It is a form of religious egotism, that presumes to believe that their God is our Country's God and any expansion beyond their narrow set of beliefs is a falling away from God's teachings and a betrayal of our Country's founding principals.  This egotistical smugness is hard to penetrate with any form of logical persuasion.   But to those friends of mine on Facebook that believe the events of the last week have marked a falling away from God, I would offer this salve:

    tanka haiku:

    When you define the
    world in a limited way,
    change will upset you.

    Know that possibilities
    are endless ... and God did that.

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 7:04pm

    Amen.


    by stillidealistic on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 11:05pm

    I'm not worried about gay marriage destroying the sanctity of my marriage, I'm not married. But in a few years some of those gay marriages will end in divorce. And that will destroy the sanctity of my divorce. wink


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 6:44pm

    Ocean, I cannot help myself tonight.

    I hereby render unto Ocean the Dayly Comment of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of you from all of me.

    hahhahahahahaha

    The sanctity of all my divorces...hahahhaah


    by Richard Day on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 12:49am

    All My Children...All Tomorrow's Parties...

    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 12:54am

    Mike Huckabee invoked Martin Luther King Jr as a person to emulate in resisting laws allowing Gays to marry. Conservatives love to invoke MLK despite knowing nothing about his philosophy.Huckabee is unaware that Bayard Rustin was a close adviser to Dr. King. While social pressures did not allow Rustin to be identified as the day to day March On Washington organizer, King, James Farmer, and A Phillip Randolph and others supported Rustin being a deputy organizer.

    http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/people/2015/01/19/bayard-rust...

    Huckabee would have been appalled by King's association with a Gay man.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 06/28/2015 - 9:38pm

    Are liberals really having trouble understanding conservative Christian's reactions or just feigning incomprehension? First it doesn't matter what they've accepted in Mexico or Canada - that's obviously a silly argument. Second, it matters what the Bible says for them, not the Supreme Court or a public poll or even what California or Massachusetts did already. Marriage has long been divided into religious and civil ceremonies - I myself was married in a civil ceremony in a courthouse - no need to mess up someone's church with my weird and unbelieving presence just to get pretty pictures. For the religious ceremonies, a civil form is still required for the state. It's not that strange that a religious group that saw a core religious ceremony co-ops for a type of lifestyle it finds anathema in scripture and historically. They have lost - why not just let them have their Internet moment of coming to terms with it without having to replay the record and wonder why oh why they don't just think like you with your logic?

    by Anonymous pp (not verified) on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 12:59am

    I'm shocked! Shocked by the reactions of conservative Christians. It's incomprehensible!

    Hmmm. Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd say I'm feigning. That just doesn't have a genuine ring to it.

     


    by kyle flynn on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 1:29am

    Are you talking bling or bo-ring, or genuine wedding cake? Did you feignt or just feint, or some other kind o' fake?


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 2:37am

    You're kidding, right? They have lost NOTHING. There has never been a religious litmus test for getting married. Atheists have been doing it all along. This is a made up issue. There is nothing about the ruling that takes ANYTHING away from us, it just gives EVERYONE the ability to enjoy the legal benefits and obligations of having a committed relationship. So, no, I'm not feigning incomprehension. There are lots of things to be pissed off at in this world, this just seems like a ridiculous one to be getting their panties in a wad over.


    by stillidealistic on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 9:32pm

    There have always been churches that wouldn't marry you if you weren't a member in good faith and at one point even the King of England was excommunicated and had to start a new church for his marrying ways. Maybe you're just not aware of the power of the church and its place in our society over the last 2000 years, but there were even times when people were racked and burned for behavior or even identity that didn't comport with church dogma. Homosexuality has had few cultures that specifically condoned, and even in the noted Greek halcyon pre-Christian/Muslim days, there was strictly allowed behavior (anal sex found repugnant) and the relationship was not a marriage but either a teen-in-training or an approved consort, nby no means a spouse.

    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 11:57pm

    I think about anal sex.

    I have never tried it.

    And yet, I have found myself repugnant  anyway.

    What was the question again?


    by Richard Day on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 12:38am

    As the say, what's the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal one? The taste.

    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 12:56am

    hahahahahahahahhah

    that is all i GOT.

    hahahahah

    You know, in the 1950's you could be put in prison for that statement.

    hahahahah


    by Richard Day on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 1:13am

    I'm going to assume you didn't mean that to sound as condescending as it does. 

    Thankfully, things change. Some day we'll either all be nothing but worm food, or off to either Heaven or Hell, and we won't know for sure until it's too late to do anything about our choices.


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 11:35am

    Peracles was reacting to my off color joke.

    I cannot read minds in this virtual reality.

    Peracles and I argue with each other and make fun of each other and....anyway, Peracles was tete-a-tating with me, not you.

    I agree with you 98% of the time on the issues and probably 50% of the time with Peracles.

    Anyway I did not intend any dispersions with regard to you or your blog.

    Have a nice Fourth. This was a fine blog.


    by Richard Day on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 12:18pm

    No, it was from a comment up further, not your's Arthur. No worries...but don't knock stuff till you've tried it. You never can tell...


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 5:18pm

    According to what I've read, it was only the passive partner in anal sex who was vilified. Although in the Robert Graves translation of Suetonius, the Roman seems to disapprove of homosexuality in general. Maybe that was Graves more than Suetonius.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 5:23pm

    This has nothing to do with nothing.

    haahahah

    Graves is a particular hero of mine. And I love Suetonius.

    I just recall junior high, and we would discuss the Greek culture so to speak. hahahah

    I mean Julius would screw anything that moved on its own volition. hhahahaha

    If you do not believe me just read a little Cicero. hahahahah

    That is enough today.

    hahahhaah

     

     


    by Richard Day on Thu, 07/02/2015 - 6:40am