It's Getting DARK...U.S. Churces being forced to allow use for homosexuals

[Torie]

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Perhaps you need to read the texts that Dribble, BRTD and I put up about this again more closely. I don't think any of us want to get into broken record territory here.

You also vacillate between churches becoming gay bath houses with pets and the issue of the process by gay marriage is slowly becoming the law of the land. I think it fair to say that you are rather lonely here in your insistence on conflating the two.

[John Dibble]

So, let's say, either by written law or by court ruling, gay marriage becomes the law of the land...do you REALLY think churches are going to be allowed to forbid gay marriages?!

Divorce is allowed the law of the land written by law, but do you know of any churches that don't approve of divorce that have been forced to marry divorcees? Interracial marriage marriage being allowed became the law of the land by court ruling in many places, but do you know of any churches that don't approve of interracial marriage that have been forced to marry an interracial couple?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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Perhaps you need to read the texts that Dribble, BRTD and I put up about this again more closely. I don't think any of us want to get into broken record territory here.

You also vacillate between churches becoming gay bath houses with pets and the issue of the process by gay marriage is slowly becoming the law of the land. I think it fair to say that you are rather lonely here in your insistence on conflating the two.

Point 1) Tori, from the every first page of this thread, I never stated that a church was being sued on the basis on this new law.  Rather if you read from the beginning, I only took issue that the lawmakers took care to exempt clergy, but purposely did not exempt churches…therefore this law, even as interpreted by the US district judge, opened churches up to being sued.

You can check the posts yourself, as I have not gone back and edited them.  Also, while you are reading them, note those who attempted to say this was only in regard to church who had accepted public money, and also note that despite their false claims, my responded from 1) the article, 2) the judges ruling, 3) the pdf of the law as signed by the governor.

Point 2)  YOU were the one who didn’t read the article, thus you were confused by my posts because I do NOT post in a way that will be fully understood by those who didn’t read the article, rather my point of posting is to discuss the DETAILS of the article, ruling, and law.

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So, now that we have taken care of the “slippery slopes”, let’s see who is standing on firm ground:

Question 1:  Do you deny the goal, whether by legislation or by court ruling, is homosexual marriage equality?

Question 2:  Do you not think, once homosexual marriage equality is reached, that the homosexual activists will not attempt to force churches to accept homosexuality?

[afleitch]

Question 2:  Do you not think, once homosexual marriage equality is reached, that the homosexual activists will not attempt to force churches to accept homosexuality?

Are womans rights activists attempting to force the Catholic Church to marry divorcees?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So, let's say, either by written law or by court ruling, gay marriage becomes the law of the land...do you REALLY think churches are going to be allowed to forbid gay marriages?!

Divorce is allowed the law of the land written by law, but do you know of any churches that don't approve of divorce that have been forced to marry divorcees? Interracial marriage marriage being allowed became the law of the land by court ruling in many places, but do you know of any churches that don't approve of interracial marriage that have been forced to marry an interracial couple?

no, I don't know of any.  Nor do I know of any kiss-ins by divorcés staged to disrupting Catholic Church services.  Nor do I know of any kiss-ins by interracial couples aimed by disrupting.

Some people, but obviously not all, are descent enough to respect the freedom of religion, even if they are offended by certain aspects of a particular religious viewpoint.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Question 1:  Do you deny the goal, whether by legislation or by court ruling, is homosexual marriage equality?

Of course it is. Quite right, too.

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The ones in the churches will. Otherwise I don't imagine they'd care very much, once the churches stopped leveraging political power on this issue.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Question 2:  Do you not think, once homosexual marriage equality is reached, that the homosexual activists will not attempt to force churches to accept homosexuality?

Are womans rights activists attempting to force the Catholic Church to marry divorcees?

Some people, but obviously not all, are descent enough to respect the freedom of religion, even if they are offended by certain aspects of a particular religious viewpoint.

[afleitch]

I'm a gay marriage activist. I'm not out there trying to force churches to accept gays; they have to do that from within. You don't really know much about us do you?

[Torie]

Question 1:  Do you deny the goal, whether by legislation or by court ruling, is homosexual marriage equality?  Yes, as is their Constitutional right, and whose agenda I happen to agree with as a matter of public policy, as you well know.

Question 2:  Do you not think, once homosexual marriage equality is reached, that the homosexual activists will not attempt to force churches to accept homosexuality?  A few may, or professional anti-thesists, but they won't get very far, before the courts, or in the case of rogue trial judges, the appellate courts, slap them down.

Are we done now? 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I'm a gay marriage activist. I'm not out there trying to force churches to accept gays; they have to do that from within. You don't really know much about us do you?

apparently, I know more than you think, as this is not even a new issue:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2007/aug/07082104

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[afleitch]

I'm a gay marriage activist. I'm not out there trying to force churches to accept gays; they have to do that from within. You don't really know much about us do you?

apparently, I know more than you think, as this is not even a new issue:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2007/aug/07082104

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Um. Brittain already talked about this one;

I'm with brittain on this one; why does such an exemption need to be codified? Do Catholic churches regularly get hit by lawsuits because a divorcee wants to use the chapel hall for her wedding?

This is a question that I'm eager for jmfcst to answer. How often are churches required to host weddings they don't recognize?

The only exception I know is of an oceanfront pavilion in Ocean Grove, NJ that took substantial state funds for restoration, claiming they were a public space and public accommodation, but which then tried to cite religious reasons for excluding same-sex couples.

http://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2012/01/13/judge-rules-in-favor-of-same-sex-couple-in-discrimination-case

He exaplained why they won their case; they took public funds, claimed they were a public space and then tried to bar same sex couples despite taking public funds.

[Torie]

I'm a gay marriage activist. I'm not out there trying to force churches to accept gays; they have to do that from within. You don't really know much about us do you?

apparently, I know more than you think, as this is not even a new issue:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2007/aug/07082104

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The Church appears to be operating the campground as a public accommodation, which probably would not even be tax exempt. And therein lies the difference. The same would obtain if a church opened a restaurant. If the Church does not want gays around, it should operate the campground as a private club, you know like the Bohemian Grove "campground" or something, which bars women, so men can be men and let their testosterone run free without constraint.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It's getting dark, people

Dark? Man, you must be frighten of.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Question 1:  Do you deny the goal, whether by legislation or by court ruling, is homosexual marriage equality?  Yes, as is their Constitutional right, and whose agenda I happen to agree with as a matter of public policy, as you well know.

well, at least on this point, you're not in denial.

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Question 2:  Do you not think, once homosexual marriage equality is reached, that the homosexual activists will not attempt to force churches to accept homosexuality?  A few may, or professional anti-thesists, but they won't get very far, before the courts, or in the case of rogue trial judges, the appellate courts, slap them down.

we already concluded it only takes one case.  So what makes you think we're not 1 or 2, if any, new SCOTUS justices away from that day?

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Are we done now? 

Yes, but I may recall you to the stand after I call Airmen O'Malley and Rodriguez of Andrews Air Base.

[wildfood]

The OP is akin to those "the govt will use mass disaster preperations to control the masses" hypes in that it takes a far fetched scenario and gives credence to it.

So a church can be sued by someone they deny the use of their facilities to. So they do not have blanket immunity and the issue can be taken up in a court shoud it ever arise...

This is somehow dark?

No, this is not dark, this is rule of law.

A dark day would be granting institutions carte blanche to some action with no recourse to the courts.

The only institutions I know of with carte blanche to their actions with no recourse to the courts is the military's actions with regard to their members (who cannot sue military doctors for for malpractice for instance).

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Um. Brittain already talked about this one...He exaplained why they won their case; they took public funds, claimed they were a public space and then tried to bar same sex couples despite taking public funds.

...instead of listening to Brittain, you should read the article he posted - they did NOT take public funds.  Rather, as part of being tax exempt, the state of New Jersey required them to abide by New Jersey's equality laws and drop their religious objects to having homosexual couples from uses their property:

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http://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2012/01/13/judge-rules-in-favor-of-same-sex-couple-in-discrimination-case

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as has been stated many times - church teachings against homosexuality will be attacked based on their tax exempt status.  Brittain, not only doesn't understand the articles he himself posts, he also made my case for me!

[afleitch]

So you think that religious organisations should be allowed to be excempt from paying income tax and excempt from following state and federal equality legislation? Why should religious choice be valued over equality?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

This is somehow dark?

No, this is not dark, this is rule of law.
A dark day would be granting institutions carte blanche to some action with no recourse to the courts.

Sorry about that, "it's getting dark" was a scriptural reference and also is a reference to a thread on the Religion Board.  In fact, I intended to post this thread on that board.  When I make such mistakes, I usually delete the thread and start over on the intended board, but didn't notice my mistake until some people had responded to this thread, so I decided to leave it here.  And I didn't want to ask the extraordinary polite Mods of this board (who, BTW, have been so kind to me in this thread) to move it because I hate those "MOVED' tags and I was already running out of characters in my title.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So you think that religious organisations should be allowed to be excempt from paying income tax

>95% of church's don't have an "income" to speak of...the tax exempt status is really for the benefit of those who give to the church.

But I am more than willing to lose my tax exempt status in order to keep the doors open so that people can come and hear the truth.

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and exempt from following state and federal equality legislation?  Why should religious choice be valued over equality?

because the founders of this great country considered religious freedom to be the greatest right of all.

That's why the Bill of Rights begins with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

[afleitch]

because the founders of this great country considered religious freedom to be the greatest right of all.

That's why the Bill of Rights begins with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

But freedom to what exactly?

[Torie]

Yes, there is no Constiutional right to tax exempt status, and in my world, churches would have no such exemption actually. But this does not involve religious activity in any event, but rather recreational activity.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

because the founders of this great country considered religious freedom to be the greatest right of all.

That's why the Bill of Rights begins with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

But freedom to what exactly?

I know religion has never been one of your strong points, but it means freedom to believe, to practice, and to preach.

[afleitch]

because the founders of this great country considered religious freedom to be the greatest right of all.

That's why the Bill of Rights begins with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

But freedom to what exactly?

I know religion has never been one of your strong points, but it means to believe, practice, and preach.

Absolutely. That is why I'm working with the Faith in Marriage group to allow the law here in Scotland to recognise gay marriage; these churches and faith groups are being disallowed from paracticing their belief, and their desire to solemnise gay marriages because of the law. The same is true for churches in the USA I am sure.

How does having the state recognise gay marriage restrict the ability of religion to 'believe, practice, preach'; does having easy divorce restrict the Catholic Church?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Yes, there is no Constiutional right to tax exempt status, and in my world, churches would have no such exemption actually. But this does not involve religious activity in any event, but rather recreational activity.

regardless, 1) there is legal precendent for homosexuals suing a church for refusing to cater to homosexuals, and 2) there have been cases where the state came after the church for refusing to allow church property to be used for homosexual purposes, and 3) these "gay rights" have been used as a trogan horse to go after churches...basically, everything I have been saying.

[Torie]

Yes, there is no Constiutional right to tax exempt status, and in my world, churches would have no such exemption actually. But this does not involve religious activity in any event, but rather recreational activity.

regardless, 1) there is legal precendent for homosexuals suing a church for refusing to cater to homosexuals, and 2) there have been cases where the state came after the church for refusing to allow church property to be used for homosexual purposes, and 3) these "gay rights" have been used as a trogan horse to go after churches...basically, everything I have been saying.

And all of which has been addressed more than once by myself and others. So we as per usual will just have to agree to disagree. Life will go on. Having said that, the notion that gay rights is a "trojan horse" to F with churches is just way, way out there. I would think most gays would think that forcing churches to host gay weddings and your host of horribles is simply bizarre, and certainly not what they want or desire. I bet if you put up a poll on this admittedly very gay friendly site, you would find almost unanimous agreement that churches should not be forced to host gay weddings. Really. Put it up and find out if you want.