[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;405745] It is about equal rights for all and following secular law. Your religious beliefs do NOT take precedence over
the rights of others.[/QUOTE]
Very very strong agreement.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;405745]A typical lie from the retarded religious right.[/quote]Calling me (or really anyone) a liar and retarded doesn't really bolster your argument, unless you believe others will be convinced by [I]ad hominems[/I].

Besides that, it is a matter of record that Holder has indeed taken the position I described, so your accusation of liar doesn't stick.

[quote]Thr right to practice religion does not include the right to cause harm to others, discriminate against
others or to ignore secular law because of those beliefs. When secular law requires providing medical
insurance for legal medical procedures, one's religious rights do NOT include the right to ignore such law.

You all think "religious freedom" includes the right to do anything your religion says.[/QUOTE]First, I do NOT believe that religious freedom includes the right to do anything one's religion says. To see some of the things I do believe, you can read[URL="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/134"] this section[/URL] from my scriptures. For more recent statements from my church on the subject of what religious freedom does include, you can check out the newsroom at lds.org.

Second, I agree it is generally wrong to harm others, discriminate against others, or ignore secular laws. Businesses open to the public should not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual preference, or a myriad of other irrelevancies. I don't support cake sellers who don't sell cakes to people holding gay marriages.

Third, I agree that when secular law requires providing medical insurance for legal medical procedures, one's religious rights do not include ignoring such law. But as the Supreme Court of the United States [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc."]ruled[/URL], when government interests can be furthered by less restrictive means, then religious freedom does come into play.

[QUOTE]No. It is about equal rights for all and following secular law. Your religious beliefs do NOT take precedence over
the rights of others.[/QUOTE]I never said that they do. Like only_human, I'm in "very very strong agreement".

But I also agree with the Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, that recently the government has taken the opposite track, letting secular law immediately take precedent over the religious rights of others, when there are rational and better alternatives.

I also worry that there are many who define "doing harm" so broadly that it would infringe on our rights of speech and religious practice.

[QUOTE=chappy;405741]and you still misunderstand the term ad hominem as it relates to arguments I see. :smile:[/QUOTE]Then educate me. What does it matter whether or not Scalia is a hypocrite?

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;405751]Calling me (or really anyone) a liar and retarded doesn't really bolster your argument, unless you believe others will be convinced by [I]ad hominems[/I].
[/QUOTE]

I did not call you a liar. I labelled a statement that you made as a lie.
It is too bad that you are too stupid to know the difference.

And you continue to misuse the expression 'ad hominem".

[QUOTE=Brian-E;405743]I'll say that there is nothing self-centred about campaigning for the right to love who we love.[/quote]What do you mean that this was a campaign about the right to love? This was never about that. Indeed, in the words of the founders of the United States, the right to love is an inalienable right, endowed to us by our creator. It can neither be given to us by government, nor taken from us.

Perhaps you meant the right to participate in sodomy. But no, that was already decided by Lawrence v Texas.

No, this was never about the right to love or even the right to sexual activity. It was about the right to governmental recognition of those sexual relations.

Why do I make this distinction? Because, historically, government interest in recognizing marriage was centered around normalizing those relationships which provided the safest and best environment for the raising of children.

The very fact that you see this as a campaign about the "right to love" is a demonstration of what I'm talking about. The focus is on the adult self, rather than the children.

That those who campaigned for such things think this an act of altruism, does not negate the fact that they have now made marriage all about the rights of adults. That you think it is an act of altruism on your part to support polygamy does not negate the fact that you are ignoring what effects this change would have on children or their rights by making it all about "recognizing love".

I've received a complaint about a post in this thread.

I'm a junior newbie mod and I've never locked a thread nor have I deleted any posts other than copies of a few posts that I made and then deleted when I found a way to mess-up splitting a thread. All of the original posts remained intact. And I reverted my own accidental double post to a single post.

Quite recently I added a few sentences into someone else's post and changed a verb into plural form for grammatical correctness after the insertion of the word [I]snakes[/I]. I must say that when I did this I felt that I had overreached but also felt undoing the changes as if I had never done them in first place would be a greater error.

So now I find myself reluctantly considering these stonger moderation methods. My thinking is everyone here is honestly saying what they believe which is a valuable thing. On the other hand I try to steer things away from being too personal nor do I want to dismiss feelings of posters or inhibit their willingness to post in the future.

On a personal note I have felt that the Soapbox has been very quiet recently and some of my actions have aimed at letting letting people be less inhibited in speaking their minds. I've been encouraging a more open freedom strictly for the Soapbox than would be wise for the internet at large or for many other forums. Many of the people here are professional people who do not deserve the barroom chatter that I encourage here be considered a reflection of character outside of the Soapbox.

I'm going to copy this message into Soapbox Discussions thread where anyone can speak their thoughts to this message or to Soapbox Discussions in general.

As for my actions on this thread I am going to do nothing. I think very highly of all of you and do not want to be too intrusive. I'll come back in a little while and if this thread seems too heated or personal I may lock the thread for a short time to cool it down.

I have found it desirable lately to fall back to lurking, myself.

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;405754]...
Because, historically, government interest in recognizing marriage was centred around normalizing those relationships which provided the safest and best environment for the raising of children.
...[/QUOTE]I do not agree, government recognised union of people has started as a way to establish inheritance rights (and dominance of man over women.) Slaves and peasants (serfs) would not marry because the government was not interested since there was nothing to inherit.

To illustrate : the requirement of a priest for a marriage dates from the 1500's in the Christian church. And in the Catholic church marriage is a sacrament that the partners perform or execute themselves : it is not the priest who marries people but he is witness to it.

For a long time in Europe population records were held by the church only.

In a lot of cultures (and countries) people form a union and raise children without formalising that union with the state and still they talk of themselves as being married.

As far as I can see government interest in marriage is recent and historically the raising of children was not amongst the preoccupations of government with regard to marriage.

Jacob

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;405753]I did not call you a liar. I labelled a statement that you made as a lie.
It is too bad that you are too stupid to know the difference.

And you continue to misuse the expression 'ad hominem".[/QUOTE]

A distinction without a difference - saying to someone that they have told a lie is precisely equivalent to calling them a liar.

If you want to point out that someone has promulgated a falsehood without implying intent to do so, you say e.g. "that is incorrect" or "you are mistaken".

But this misapprehension by you may explain a lot of why flamewars frequently erupt wherever you post - you likely also believe that e.g. characterizing something which someone has written as "a truly moronic utterance" is very different from calling them a moron. Again, if you truly wanted to point out the falseness of the statement without adding the ad hominem - and I don't see any problem with zeta-flux's use of the term - you would say e.g. "a patently false claim."

So, in the one brief 3-line riposte quoted above, you

1. Called the poster a liar;
2. Called the poster stupid;
3. Incorrectly asserted the poster has misused the term 'ad hominem'.

A direly low S/N ratio, even by your well-known execrably low standards of restraint in discourse.

I suggest an apology is in order.

One is ad libertatum to make ad hominem attacks ad nauseum.

Until one is banned for poor forum decorum.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;405770]A distinction without a difference - saying to someone that they have told a lie is precisely equivalent to calling them a liar.
[/QUOTE]

On the contrary. To say that someone is a liar is to say that they do so on a regular basis.
To say that someone told a lie is to say that they did it once.

You are not a native English speaker. There is a distinction.

And the speaker did misuse the term "ad hominem", despite your claim to the contrary.