| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Ananias917" |
| Date: |
19 Dec 2005 04:07:13 PM |
| Object: |
ACLJ Fighting CT Same Sex Marriage! |
http://www.aclj.org/news/read.aspx?ID=2023
--
"And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house;
and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the
Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way
as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost."
- Acts 9:17
Christian Legal Service:fighting for Christian issues:
http://www.aclj.org/Issues/Default.aspx
Home page: http://www.aclj.org
Also see: trueorigin.org & godandscience.org
.
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| User: "• Ninure Saunders" |
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| Title: Re: ACLJ Fighting CT Same Sex Marriage! |
20 Dec 2005 08:16:39 AM |
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From:
DETROIT NEWS, April 18, 1997
(Fax 313-222-6417, print run 481,766)
(E-MAIL: Letters@detnews.com)
**************************************
Civil rites: Arguments against same-sex marriage mirror those that kept
the races apart
**************************************
By Deb Price / The Detroit News
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a prison sentence.
Throughout most of our nation's history, interracial couples in most
states broke the law if they dared to marry.
Judges, long seeing the supposed crime of interracial marriage as a threat
to the natural order of things, reacted with stern sermonettes that today
give us a window back to a human rights controversy that in many ways
parallels the current legal battle for same-sex marriage.
"The amalgamation of the races is not only unnatural but is always
productive of deplorable results. Our daily observations show us that the
offspring of these unnatural connections are generally sick and
effeminate," a Georgia judge declared in 1869, forbidding a white
Frenchman and a black woman to marry.
"Such connections never elevate the inferior race to the position of the
superior, but they bring down the superior to that of the inferior. They
are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good," he
added.
Taking racism even further, a Missouri judge handed down an 1883 ruling
based on the preposterous notion that human racial groups are so different
biologically that, like horses and donkeys, certain combinations produce
sterile offspring: "It is stated as a well authenticated fact that if the
(children) of a black man and white woman and a white man and a black
woman intermarry, they cannot possibly have any progeny, and such a fact
sufficiently
justifies those laws which forbid the intermarriage of blacks and whites."
Such lectures didn't end with the 19th century, though. In 1959, Judge
Leon Bazile sentenced Richard and Mildred Loving for evading Virginia's
law against white-black marriages by marrying in Washington, D.C.
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and
he placed them on separate continents," Bazile declared. "And but for the
interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such
marriages."
The how-dare-you rulings against interracial couples that were handed down
by judges confident that God shared their prejudices have a familiar ring.
That's because they're so similar to justifications concocted to try to
keep gay couples from taking the step from love to marriage. Members of
Congress who last summer railed against gay couples before passing the
anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act sounded as if their speechwriter were the
19th century judge who denounced "alliances so unnatural that God and
nature seem to forbid them."
Yet the most vocal foes of same-sex marriage act as if this country has
never before struggled with the question of which couples should have the
right to wed. They'd have us think there is something obvious, sacred,
constitutional and timeless about drawing the marriage eligibility line
exactly where it is today.
In fact, though, for nearly two centuries the idea that allowing
interracial couples to marry is right -- both in the eyes of God and in
the precepts of the U.S. Constitution -- was not obvious
to a majority of Americans. It wasn't until 1967 that the Supreme Court,
after repeatedly ducking the issue, declared laws against interracial
marriage unconstitutional.
Once the Supreme Court ruled, public support for criminal laws against
racially mixed marriages dropped sharply -- from 48 percent in 1965 to 35
percent in 1970 (Gallup).
(In 1958 -- the first time interracial marriage polling was conducted --
opposition was far greater than it is to same-sex marriage today.
Ninety-four percent of whites disapproved of
interracial marriages (Gallup). By contrast, in November 1996, just 56
percent of adults opposed same-sex marriage in a Human Rights Campaign
poll.)
In the century leading up to that historic ruling, which was triggered by
the Lovings' challenge of their Virginia conviction, the arguments against
interracial marriage foreshadowed those
used by opponents of gay marriage:
God objects. Children will suffer. The majority will be tarnished.
(Virginia's law banning whites from marrying nonwhites was introduced in
1924 as "A bill to preserve the integrity of the white race," a title not
unlike that of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.) A state may refuse to
recognize any marriage that offends it. Most states and most people are
offended by such unions. And the 14thAmendment's guarantee of "equal
protection" doesn't apply to them.
When the U.S. Supreme Court finally faced the question of interracial
marriage squarely, a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled
that Virginia's "white supremacy" marriage law and similar interracial
marriage prohibitions in 15 other states did indeed violate the 14th
Amendment. Decreeing that marriage is a "fundamental" civil right, the
court told the nation that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person
of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the
state."
Before that decision, only California's top court -- in a 4-to-3 decision
issued in 1948 -- had ruled racial restrictions on marriage
unconstitutional.
Other courts, state and federal, had handed down an unbroken string of
rulings upholding race-based marriage laws.
Now as we wait for Hawaii's top court to make the Aloha state the first to
legalize same-sex marriage and for the state-by-state battle for
recognition that's sure to follow, we can take heart from the parallels to
the successful struggle to make interracial marriage legal nationwide.
Those parallels are strong, numerous andencouraging.
They're also instructive. We've much to learn from the way that earlier
marriage-rights battle was eventually won -- especially from the reluctant
but ultimately decisive role played by the Supreme Court in making good on
our Constitution's promise of equal protection for all.
The Supreme Court lacks the power to enforce its own decisions -- no
jails, no battalions, no purse strings. Its power resides solely in
getting the nation to respect its rulings as the law of the land. So
justices tend to be wary of getting so far out of step with the public on
a contentious issue that they jeopardize their moral authority.
Internal court documents indicate that the court became nervous about
interracial marriage cases in 1954, immediately after its breakthrough
Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Segregationists
claimed that the court's real goal wasn't integrated classrooms but the
"mongrelization of the white race."
Three civil rights justices -- Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice William
O. Douglas and Justice Hugo Black -- nevertheless wanted to tackle racist
marriage laws in 1954, justices' notes show. But from then until 1967, a
majority refused to jeopardize enforcement of the court's desegregation
decisions by taking cases that would allow them to overturn interracial
marriage bans. Three times the court ducked the issue.
Interracial marriage hadn't suddenly become a hot button issue in the
1950s, though. Just as the prospect of gay marriage now sets off alarms
among heterosexuals fearful of losing their favored status, interracial
marriage long accentuated white fears of minority advancement.
Just as nominally gay-friendly President Clinton signed the Defense of
Marriage Act -- limiting federal marriage rights to mixed-sex couples --
earlier politicians felt compelled to emphasize that there were limits to
their own advocacy of racial progress.
Abraham Lincoln said that he "a thousand times agreed" the races should
not intermarry. "I do not understand that because I do not want a Negro
woman for a slave I must necessarily want
her for a wife," he declared.
A century later, former president Harry Truman, who had integrated the
armed forces, was asked in 1963 whether interracial marriage would become
popular. He replied, "I hope not. ... Would you want your daughter to
marry a Negro?"
Forty-one states once outlawed some or all interracial marriages.
(Michigan's ban was in effect until 1883.) In their obsession to maintain
the imagined purity of the white race, lawmakers came up with bizarrely
intricate racial definitions.
For example, anyone whose ancestry was white except for one great, great
grandparent was legally white in Florida but black in neighboring
Georgia. Mixed-race Arizonans were once barred from marrying anyone, even
another mixed-race person.
The primary social function of interracial marriage bans was to put a
government stamp of approval on the notion that the majority is somehow
superior, biologically and morally. Yet
repealing racist marriage laws never ranked as a priority for the NAACP.
In 1944, Thurgood Marshall, then the NAACP's lead attorney, urged the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
to avoid marriage challenges. Other issues were considered more pressing,
other goals more achievable.
Likewise, national gay rights groups long viewed marriage lawsuits as
unwinnable and potentially counterproductive.
So the task of going to court to challenge the legitimacy of
prejudice-based marriage limits has fallen to individual couples. That's
true today in Hawaii, where same-sex marriage rights will
likely first be gained because three couples refused to quietly accept
being turned away for licenses in 1990. It was true in race cases as well.
Sentenced to two years in prison, Tony Pace and Mary Cox, who lived
together but couldn't legally marry, challenged the Alabama laws that
punished interracial sex more severely than
same-race sex. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the laws, saying it
saw no racial discrimination because the couple's "offense" was not the
same as intraracial sex. Lower courts then used Pace v. Alabama to uphold
interracial marriage bans.
Although the Supreme Court's notorious 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision in
favor of "separate but equal" public accommodations was not a marriage
case, that ruling flatly stated, "Laws forbidding the intermarriage of the
two races...have been universally recognized as within the police power of
the state."
A half-century later, Linnie Jackson, a black woman serving two years for
marrying a white man, challenged the assumption thatstates may
constitutionally restrict the right to marry based on race.
Her state of Alabama countered that every state has the right to "impose
such restrictions upon (marriage) as the laws of God and the laws of
propriety, morality and social order demand."
That was November 1954, only six months after the Supreme Court's
explosive Brown v. Board desegregation decision. Twenty-eight of the 48
states still had anti-miscegenation laws. The court's young law clerks saw
the importance of the case but urged caution.
"If students cannot be segregated on the basis of race, what of spouses?
.... Perhaps someday the court will have to (rule) on these questions. But
review at the present time could only seriously aggravate the tensions
stimulated by last term's segregation decision," Chief Justice Warren's
clerk advised.
A clerk to Justice Harold Burton similarly warned that "because of the
political repercussions of the segregation decision, it would not be
feasible politically to take this case at this time."
Except for unusual cases that the Supreme Court is required to take, a
case is turned away unless four justices vote in private conference to
hear it. Only three voted to take Lennie Jackson's challenge.
The next year, a slightly different marriage case confronted the court.
Ham Say Naim, a Chinese national, was challenging Virginia's
anti-miscegenation law. His white wife of 15 months, Ruby Elaine Naim, had
relied on that law to get an annulment. In upholding the annulment,
Virginia's highest court said it saw nothing in the U.S. Constitution
prohibiting a state from regulating marriage "so that it shall not have a
mongrel breed of citizens."
Court rules required the Supreme Court to take it. But the justices
avoided an immediate decision by ordering it back to the trial judge for
more evidence. Virginia's top court refused to send it down, though, and
the case was soon back before the justices.
The court had no graceful or legitimate way to duck a real decision then.
As a clerk to Justice Douglas noted, "It will begin to look obvious if the
case is not taken that the court is trying to run away from its obligation
to decide the case." Yet the court did duck, deciding in a 1956 private
conference by a one-vote margin to announce that the case was "devoid of a
properly presented federal question."
The court ducked yet again in 1964 when it knocked down a Florida law
making it a crime for an interracial couple to live together. The court
stated it wasn't passing judgment on interracial marriage bans.
By the time the Lovings' case arrived at the court, the political climate
had changed dramatically from 1954. Congress had outlawed race bias in
jobs, housing and public accommodations. Less than one-third of states --
16 -- still had anti-miscegenation laws. (In Florida, Mississippi and
North Carolina, interracial marriage could result in a 10-year prison
sentence.)
The court finally was ready to act. The justices voted unanimously in
private conference to hear the Lovings' case.
By then Mildred and Richard Loving had three children.
The Lovings' attorneys stressed the "outrageous civil effects" of laws
against interracial marriage: Children don't have two legal parents.
Automatic inheritance rights are lost. All marriage-based federal benefits
are denied -- Social Security spousal benefits, for example, and special
immigration rights. (Gay partners are similarly denied all marriage rights
and benefits today, although no state law makes it a crime for couples to
try to wed. Such an attempt in the military, however, can lead to criminal
prosecution and discharge.)
"Whether or not this court has been wise to avoid this issue in the past,"
the Lovings' attorneys argued, "the time has come to strike down these
laws; they are legalized racial prejudice, unsupported by reason or
morals, and should not exist in a good society."
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down those laws.
Only five years later, the court brushed aside its first and to-date only
same-sex marriage challenge, saying the desire of two Minnesota men to
marry did not raise "a substantial federal question."
But our nation's rich history tells us that it is not so easy to brush
aside the rightful dreams of our people. If Hawaii's top court approves
gay marriage as expected, it will raise key federal questions demanding
action by the Supreme Court. Even if the malicious Hawaii legislature
manages to undermine the court's authority and blocks gay marriage, a
federal challenge would open up. Similarly, the Defense of Marriage Act --
which proposes to pick and choose which legal marriages will be recognized
-- will ultimately wind up before the justices.
Just as with interracial marriage, we can expect to temporarily have a
checkerboard of laws where gay Americans' rights change when they cross
state lines. But if the past is any guide, time is on our side. However,
we'll have to wait until a majority of justices see same-sex marriage as
not only constitutionally correct but politically wise.
First comes love. Next will come marriage.
* * *
Deb Price's column appears Fridays in "Accent."
You can write to Deb Price at
--
Pax Christi,
• Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
Jesus is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay
http://Ninure-Saunders.tk
My Yahoo Group
http://Ninure.tk
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
http://www.MCCchurch.org
The Bible Site - help provide free scripture
http://www.thebiblesite.org
To send e-mail, remove nohate from address
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| User: "Ananias917" |
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| Title: Re: ACLJ Fighting CT Same Sex Marriage! |
20 Dec 2005 02:17:29 PM |
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On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:16:39 GMT,
Ninurenohate@Rainbow-Christian.tk (• Ninure Saunders)
spake thusly:
From:
DETROIT NEWS, April 18, 1997
(Fax 313-222-6417, print run 481,766)
(E-MAIL: Letters@detnews.com)
**************************************
Civil rites: Arguments against same-sex marriage mirror those that kept
the races apart
**************************************
By Deb Price / The Detroit News
A load of crap! Being black is not a choice and isn't
a perverse thing. Homosexual acts are both.
--
"And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house;
and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the
Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way
as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost."
- Acts 9:17
Would a loving God send people to Hell?
http://godandscience.org/apologetics/hell.html
.
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| User: "Glenn \Christian Mystic" |
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| Title: Re: ACLJ Fighting CT Same Sex Marriage! |
27 Jun 2006 08:00:12 PM |
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"Ananias917" <_-_Ananias917_-_@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:llpgq1puu3q66ioqopi2hun7j9adfui69f@4ax.com...
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:16:39 GMT,
Ninurenohate@Rainbow-Christian.tk (. Ninure Saunders)
spake thusly:
From:
DETROIT NEWS, April 18, 1997
(Fax 313-222-6417, print run 481,766)
(E-MAIL: Letters@detnews.com)
**************************************
Civil rites: Arguments against same-sex marriage mirror those that kept
the races apart
**************************************
By Deb Price / The Detroit News
A load of crap! Being black is not a choice and isn't
a perverse thing. Homosexual acts are both.
If you grew up with one, you would have a different opinion, homosexuality
isn't a choice (unless you are a *bi-sexual*), my brother tried very hard
not to be one, it could not be done.
--
"And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house;
and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the
Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way
as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost."
- Acts 9:17
Would a loving God send people to Hell?
http://godandscience.org/apologetics/hell.html
.
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| User: "Gene Poole" |
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| Title: Re: ACLJ Fighting CT Same Sex Marriage! |
28 Jun 2006 09:03:00 AM |
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Biblical marriage: a bad source for debate
By Vaughn Roste
We've heard a lot about "biblical marriage" lately, largely as a
defensive reaction against same-sex marriage. I read one letter to the
editor written by a Lutheran pastor that claimed "the Bible
clearly teaches that marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one
man to one woman." How very applicable to the contemporary situation, I
thought. If the Bible really teaches that (and in such modern language
too!), then we all should be paying the Bible a lot more heed.
So I picked up my Bible and looked up all the passages that have
anything to do with marriage (I had help: I used a concordance). I
examined the scriptural use of all the words I could think of
related to marriage: marriage, marriages, marry, marries, married,
wedding, weddings, wed, husband, husbands, wife, and wives.
All told, I looked up over 800 references. Exempting the references that
are narrative (e.g. "Adam named his wife Eve" Gen 3:20) or
metaphorical (Christ's marriage to the church, Rev 21:9), I was able to
distil those 825 verse references into 12 general principles: 12 Biblical
"rules" or guidelines
regarding marriage that encompass the gamut of scripture. I hereby present
the list, with the applicable references.
12 Biblical Principles of Marriage
Marriage consists of one man and one or more women (Gen 4:19, 4:23, 26:34,
28:9, 29:26-30, 30:26, 31:17, 32:22, 36:2, 36:10, 37:2, Ex. 21:10, Judges
8:30, 1 Sam 1:2, 25:43, 27:3, 30:5, 30:18, 2 Sam 2:2, 3:2-5, 1 Chron
3:1-3, 4:5, 8:8, 14:3, 2 Chron 11:21, 13:21, 24:3).
Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines in addition to the wife
or wives he may already have (Gen 25:6, Judges 8:31, 2 Sam
5:13, 1 Kings 11:3, 1 Chron 3:9, 2 Chron 11:21, Dan 5:2-3).
A man might choose any woman he wants for his wife (Gen 6:2, Deut
21:11), provided only that she is not already another man's wife
(Lev 18:14-16, Deut. 22:30) or his [half-] sister (Lev 18:11,
20:17), nor the mother (Lev 20:14) or the sister (Lev 18:18) of a
woman who is already his wife. The concept of a woman giving her
consent to being married is foreign to the Biblical mindset.
If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she
shall be stoned (Deut 22:13-21).
A rapist must marry his victim (Ex. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29) - unless she
was already a fiancee, in which case he should be put to death if he raped
her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town (Deut.
22:23-27).
If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow (Gen 38:6- 10,
Deut 25:5-10, Mark12: 19, Luke 20:28).
Women marry the man of their father's choosing (Gen. 24:4, Josh.
15:16-17, Judges 1:12-13, 12:9, 21:1, 1 Sam 17:25, 18:19, 1 Kings
2:21, 1 Chron 2:35, Jer 29:6, Dan 11:17).
Women are the property of their father until married and their
husband after that (Ex. 20:17, 22:17, Deut. 22:24, Mat 22:25).
The value of a woman might be approximately seven years' work (Gen 29:14-30).
Inter-faith marriages are prohibited (Gen 24:3, 28:1, 28:6, Num 25:1- 9,
Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30, 2 Cor 6:14). Divorce is forbidden (Deut
22:19, Matt 5:32, 19:9, Mark10:9-12, Luke 16:18, Rom 7:2, 1 Cor 7:10- 11, 7:39).
Better to not get married at all - although marriage is not a sin
(Matt 19:10, I Cor 7:1, 7:27-28, 7:32-34, 7:38).
How many of these Biblical principles are followed by Christians
today? Not a single one [with the possible exception of number 3 - some
Christian women may still have no choice in their marital
partner!] Nowhere in the Bible does it say, "Marriage is the God-
ordained covenantal union of one man and one woman;" in fact, it
says explicitly to the contrary! The Bible lists at least 15
polygamists (not including Herod, who is known from the historical - but
not Biblical - record to have had 9 wives), and in not a single place does
polygamy carry with it any sense of opprobrium.
Unfortunately, the pastor mentioned above would have been far more correct
to say that "the Bible teaches that marriage is a covenantal union of one
man to as many women as he might want and can afford."
So the next time your favorite politician or preacher claims to use the
Bible in support of traditional marriage, ask him or her which of these 12
principles he or she is actually advocating. Probably none. Anyone who
claims to use the Bible in support of a strictly monogamous union of one
male and one female based on love,
mutuality, and commitment will be hard pressed to find 2,000 year- old
Bible verses in support of that very modern position. In fact, I daresay
they cannot. The Biblical view of marriage is not
monogamous: it is not necessarily based on love, or on any amount of mutuality.
Most Christians would consider these Biblical principles of marriage to be
misogynistic and repulsive - and judging by today's
standards, they'd be right. Views have changed since Biblical times, as
has our concept of marriage. Some would claim that this is the result of
the Holy Spirit working in our world; most agree that just about all of
the changes are a good thing. But if we concede that our concept of
marriage has evolved, is it not potentially arrogant to summarily discount
the possibility that marriage should continue evolving, or even that it
might be God's will that it do so?
From the looks of the above list, it's a good thing our perspectives have
changed from the Biblical model. Thus as we continue to dialog and
prayerfully discern God's will in the area of same-sex
marriages, we obviously cannot consider 2,000-year-old statements
made in other cultures and contexts to be all that is important.
Please do not misinterpret that I am claiming that the Bible is not
important - of course it is. It is central to my faith, as it should be
for any Christian. But to rely on solely the Bible is to
dangerously ignore two millennia of progress in the areas of
science, technology, and human rights, a sin which we dare not let
ourselves commit if the church is to remain relevant to contemporary
society at all.
To rely solely on Scripture for church policy is to ignore the
possibility that the Holy Spirit has been active at all in the
sixteen centuries since the canon was closed in 405 CE. Indeed, we need to
consider that the Holy Spirit may be actively encouraging us today to move
beyond a literal reading of the Bible and to refuse to become modern
Pharisees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The son of two Lutheran pastors, Vaughn Roste has since worshipped and
worked in Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches, but his
current employment is in a United Church. Holding degrees in
theology and music from two different church institutions, he
currently freelances as a writer and musician in Edmonton.
--
Faithfully,
Gene Poole
http://grace.break.at
God is still speaking
http://www.stillspeaking.com
=============
Remove your hat to e-mail me.
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