[QUOTE=Anonymous;135401]Because it infringes on the right to freedom of religion, as defined in the 1st Amendment. If you want to practice homosexuality, that's your problem, just don't make the Christians and others who believe it to be a sin be forced to recognize and condone it legally. As stated numerous times already in this thread, such a law would infringe on, say, a church's right to preach that homosexuality is a sin based on the doctrine that it is founded upon. Or on their right to refuse to perform a gay marriage ceremony. Et cetera...

This alone is enough to declare this recent act of state legislation unconstitutional: the U.S. national constitution, in which the right to religious freedom is defined, trumps state legislation and even state constitutions, according to U.S. law.[/QUOTE]It is just as unfair to say that because you are of a certain religion you have the right to keep someone else from doing something because you believe something that they do not. Your rights and beliefs should not give anyone the ability to disallow something for others.

In my opinion, Nelson and Anonymous here are simply almost horrified and scared that something they believe to be immoral will actually be accepted by society and become a non-issue so the world will change to be less hateful despite organized religion wanting to tell people how to live with the threat of eternal damnation.

[quote=wblipp;135419]It clearly IS constitutional to add sexual orientation to the list. The part of questionable constitutionality is the prohibition of publishing or displaying certain things. My reading of the snippet is that it doesn't prohibit anything new, but the fear mongers are proposing that it can be interpreted much more broadly.

William[/quote](..in relation to the Colorado anti-discrimination bill)
Thankyou, that's good to hear. It seems to be a general worldwide phenomenon that sexual orientation is the last category on grounds of which it remains legal and acceptable to discriminate. But your reading of the situation in your last sentence sounds exactly right, and the intellectual poverty of the arguments offered here so far for continuing to discriminate is in my opinion well summed up by Jwb52z:

[quote=Jwb52z;135466]In my opinion, Nelson and Anonymous here are simply almost horrified and scared that something they believe to be immoral will actually be accepted by society and become a non-issue so the world will change to be less hateful despite organized religion wanting to tell people how to live with the threat of eternal damnation.[/quote]
I hope very much that this change will quickly become the rule rather than the exception in the USA. I do think that the Christian religion often acts as a powerful resistent to the needed change, but even this can change: I now hear of Bishop Gene Robinson's wedding in New Hampshire last weekend with his partner Mark Andrew. Of course this christian church leader has views which are far from mainstream in god-worshipping America, but I also hear that he has a huge "flock" and is highly influential, and not just in his part of the States.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;135424]Nelson,

You seem to be massively ignorant of U.S. law. Please don't preach to us about "violations of rights" until you've actually learned what the constitution actually says and at least tried to understand the particular bill under discussion.

... and by failing to educate yourself about this matter properly, you merely spread your misunderstanding of what the columnist wrote.

You have not yet shown us that you even understand the functions of U.S. courts, much less your expertise in matters of rights under U.S. civil law.[/QUOTE]

"Legislating from the bench" is the terminology that religious morons such as
Nelson like to parrot as a substitute for logic. They fail to understand that
it is the JOB of the courts to interpret laws and to strike down any laws
that are unconstitutional. In ruling that gay marriage is legal, they are
doing their job. They are not passing laws. They are enforcing EXISTING
constitutional law.

That they take this view is not surprising. Cretins such as Nelson believe
that his right to "practice religion" gives him the right to deny rights to
others if such rights violate his petty prejudices.

He makes me nauseous.

[quote=Jwb52z;135466]In my opinion, Nelson and Anonymous here are simply almost horrified and scared that something they believe to be immoral will actually be accepted by society and become a non-issue[/quote]To be fair, the same (so far) could be said of me and (I presume) you -- that either of [I]us[/I] would be horrified and scared that something one of us believes to be immoral (which would be something other than this thread's topic) will actually be accepted by society and become a non-issue.

[quote]so the world will change to be less hateful despite organized religion wanting to tell people how to live with the threat of eternal damnation.[/quote]Well ... that's a rather unflattering attribution of motive. I'm fairly sure that someone could attribute unflattering motives to [I]me[/I] for my views, or you for yours.

I propose trying to restrain ourselves (I know I sometimes get too emotional) to commenting on our relative differences in a less provocative way when possible.

I think that organized religion is well-intended by many of the folks involved, but some of its adherents need to be made aware of how some of their religion's tenets are in fact not consistent with reality and are unnecessarily hurtful to others. Another factor is that organized religion, like many other sufficiently complex organizations, is susceptible to being used by power-oriented people for purposes that are hurtful to others. In some cases, explaining and exposing such manipulations is all that would be required to motivate good-hearted adherents to correct the matter within their organization.

Another factor is that modern psychology has begun to explain, in scientific terms, some of our emotions and motivations that religions have previously attributed to various supernatural causes. Some of the religious can or do perceive this as a threat to the foundations of their faith. It's a current and ongoing matter to spread the benefits of modern psychology to those who have been given only supernatural explanations.

Had I been exposed only to the supernatural explanations given to me by religion, then when as a young adult I first became deeply depressed, with suicidal feelings, I probably would have killed myself.

I distinctly remember thinking, however, that I expected that I could find some cure because I had already begun to learn about psychology, and had experienced the power of rationality to find solutions to problems.

- - -

Readers,

Please do not interpret the above to mean that I think psychology "has [I]all[/I] the answers" or should simply and totally replace religion.

All fields of science, including the very young field of psychology, have the ability to explain various aspects of nature better than older supernatural beliefs, because science, unlike religion, has systematic methods to avoid fooling ourselves about what's real and what isn't.

But IMO an honest scientist recognizes that there is some reality reflected within many religious beliefs (else they would not persist so in human beings), and it's a matter of finding and interpreting the reality there and separating that from the unreality, not of mindlessly destroying or supplanting religion.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;135501]Of course this christian church leader has views which are far from mainstream in god-worshipping America, but I also hear that he has a huge "flock" and is highly influential, and not just in his part of the States.[/QUOTE]

Don't make the mistake of thinking mainstream is aligned with newsworthy in this era of infotainment. Religion in America isn't as uniform and right wing as the media like to portray it. I live in the liberal northeast, so my local environment isn't typical either. But as a anecdote from my region, this weekend my wife and I briefly visited a gay pride street party in town to see what booths were set up. I was surprised to see the "Welcoming Congregations" booth listed nearly a score of local churches as members. "Welcoming Congregations" is a process churches go through to make themselves explicitly more open to gays - I knew of several and would have guessed six, but was surprised at the large number.

A closer reading of "typical America" is probably my family - staunch Methodists living in Kansas. I celebrated High School and College graduations with them recently. I learned that a few years ago a Methodist minister in one of the most rural states banned a gay couple from "his" church - something that was permitted by church law. The Kansas region (not the same region as the banning) was incensed and immediately changed the regional church law to make this impossible in their region.

My reading of mainstream religion in America is that two waves of gay acceptance are sweeping though it. Acceptance of gays as congregants has already swept through the central mass and is starting to batter the fringes. Acceptance of gays as clergy isn't nearly as far along - it's just now sweeping from the ultra liberal to the liberal. But it is inevitable, too.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;135509]They are enforcing EXISTING constitutional law.[/QUOTE]

I support gay marriage, and I think gay civil unions, such as my state legislature passed several years ago, are an acceptable temporary alternative.

But this business of a right to gay marriage having existed since July 9th, 1868 feels fishy to me.

[QUOTE=wblipp;135523]I support gay marriage, and I think gay civil unions, such as my state legislature passed several years ago, are an acceptable temporary alternative.

But this business of a right to gay marriage having existed since July 9th, 1868 feels fishy to me.[/QUOTE]That seems to be how New Hampshire intends to cope with the situation:[URL="http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/05/31/nh_no_longer_asking_calif_court_to_delay_marriage_ruling/"]http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/05/31/nh_no_longer_asking_calif_court_to_delay_marriage_ruling/[/URL][Quote]
CONCORD, N.H.—New Hampshire no longer is asking the California Supreme Court to delay finalizing its ruling to legalize same-sex marriage.

In a friend-of-the-court brief filed late Thursday, New Hampshire and nine other states said they have an interest in the case because they would have to determine if their states would recognize the marriages of gay residents who wed in California.

However, on Saturday, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte announced that New Hampshire was withdrawing from the request because the state addresses the recognition issue in its civil union law.

She said under the law, New Hampshire will recognize a legal gay marriage from California as a civil union.[/Quote]As for fishy rights, I am often leery of sweeping too many things under the rubric of [I]rights[/I] like the long and ugly history of spousal rights to sexual intercourse.

Today, more evidence that male homosexuality not only is partly inherited, but also is genetically related to greater female fecundity. Another nail in the ideas that homosexuality is a sin and cannot be the natural result of evolution.

My posting in the "Evolution: The Scientific Evidence" thread is here: [URL]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=136133&postcount=393[/URL]

about an article titled "Why Gays Don't Go Extinct" at

[URL="http://www.livescience.com/health/08...sexuality.html"][COLOR=#22229c]http://www.livescience.com/health/08...sexuality.html[/COLOR][/URL]

which ends with:

[quote]...

The research may shed light on a complicated and controversial topic: whether homosexuality is a choice, or whether it is caused by factors beyond a person's control.

"I think this is an example where the results of scientific research can have important social implications," Camperio-Ciani said. "You have all this antagonism against homosexuality because they say it's against nature because it doesn't lead to reproduction. We found out this is not true because homosexuality is just one of the consequences of strategies for making females more fecund." [/quote]

There is less and less rational excuse for discrimination on the basis of affectional preference as time goes on, folks. The sooner you admit it, the sooner you'll stop piling up your sins against homosexuals.

[url]http://www.livescience.com/health/080617-hereditary-homosexuality.html[/url]

Your link does not work cheesehead.

[quote=Fusion_power;136173]
Your link does not work cheesehead.[/quote]
It works in his posting in the evolution thread. [URL="http://www.livescience.com/health/080617-hereditary-homosexuality.html"]Here it is again[/URL].
It's a very interesting article, thanks to cheesehead for posting it. It would be really nice if this research could be confirmed and the constant burden of trying to convince people that we don't choose to be homosexual could be lifted from us! :smile:
Edit: Sorry, I see you posted the correct link as well, Fusion_power. Never mind, my comment still stands.