Dave Rattigan is a British-Canadian writer and editor. Now an ordinand in the Church of England and a Franciscan in the Anglican Greyfriars, he has been writing about religion and LGBTQ+ issues for almost 20 years.
Yes, I caught that much.
How did he enter the equation?
He is gay or ex gay… married? A Russian getting ready to Invade… used to live on an iced cap, that is melting?
there goes the neighbourhood.
just kidding, when we were allowed civil union ( same graveyard different bus) the Australians invaded, it caused floods in northland and the price of real estate dropped……….
but looks good on my c.v
the kids were happy though.
A huge part of this new administrations job (under the able leadership of Barack Obama) will be to build a strong and impenetrable wall between religion and the Federal Government and to teach the American people that this is the only way to keep our country safe and that our constitutional rights are protected from the tyranny of the majority. The people need to hear that a lot and to begin to let it sink in. That is what our founding fathers believed and intended for our nation and that is something that the Christian Right has succeeded in almost dismantling over the past decade or more. The paradigm shift is happening. Many of the Evangelical Churches and many other religions in America (the bullies) will rant, scream and rave about it. They’ll try all they can to change that but it is the duty of Americans to not put up with their immaturity, their tantrums and baby fits. Just ignore them and move forward leaving their dogma in the dustbin of history.
Ahh.. I didn’t realize he was the one who posted this… everythign is clear now! I didn’t catch that…
That is supportive of him!
Dan tips his hat to Wil Wheaton aswell!
Ok…question. Lets say for the sake of argument that homosexual marriage is past. What’s to say that marriage between a man and 2 women or a women and 2 men is next? Once he say marriage isn’t between a man and a woman. That changes what marriage means and what it stands for.
And here is another thought…Divorce is already a big issue; if they add homosexuals on to the divorce numbers. What will that do to our country?
Here is another thought… Lets look at Canada. If you say that you don’t agree with the homosexual life style, that is considered a hate crime. IF OUR government pass the homosexual hate crime act, those who think it is wrong will not be able to say that with out major repercussions. There goes the freedom of speech.
Lastly, in reply to the separation of church and state comments above… Our forefathers were talking about taking keeping the government out of the church. Think about why people came to America. It was so they could believe what they want, and say what they want about what others believe. (NOTE: Now they didn’t say that it was ok to become violent with those we don’t agree with. I don’t think that its ok to beat someone up just because they don’t agree with me.)
Joy, you seem to be very misinformed. I’ll start top-down with you. First off, the act of marriage is based on social moores, and the trend with time tends to be increasingly liberal views in all parts of society. We now allow divorces, different races, and different ranks of social class to marry. Arranged marriages can no longer be enforced, women have rights separate from their husbands, and we don’t stone people to death for living together before marrying. Back when Jesus walked the earth the idea of not stoning people was abhorrent and the idea of that might lead to men marrying men and women marrying women. Now we’re debating the idea of gay marriage leading to polygamy and marrying toasters. I won’t placate you by saying that might not happen, but it’s unlikely to happen within your or my lifetime, that will be up to the generations after us. You cannot, however, attempt to relegate the morality of the future by punishing the minorities of today. If you claim that is your right, then you are saying that the generations past have the right to relegate your morality today, and that would mean you, as a women (I assume from your name) would have no rights and be considered the property of your husband. You would not be able to choose him, it would be arranged for you, you could not divorce, vote, have much of any say in the household, could not marry someone of a different race, could be stoned to death if you’re raped. You would be property. Is this the kind of society you want to live in, because if we apply the moral standards your stating here to those of generations past, this is the life you would be living.
Your second paragraph talks about the divorce rate. Gays and lesbians are people too, there’s no reason their divorce rate would be higher than straight couples, and places where gay marriage is legal have shown that it’s either equivalent or less. Since divorce rate is a percentage of people, you would not see a change, 47% of straights + 47% of gays would equal 47% of the married population. It’s possible we might even see this number go down since if I remember correctly gays and lesbians seem to have a lower divorce rate (someone else correct me if I’m wrong), so you might even see the sanctity of marriage improve by letting gays and lesbians wed.
Your third paragraph is nothing but baseless fear mongering. It’s clear you are either trolling here or blindly spouting talking points from deranged individuals trying to push an agenda through you. We have a right to free speech in this country. You are totally free to use that right to speak out against blacks voting if you so wish, or about interracial marriage. You could debate exporting the mexicans out of this country, even though race is a protected class, and are free to do this in a public space. You are not free to fire mexicans, blacks, or white women who marry mexicans or blacks, and you are not free to racially slur them. Do you see the fallacy of your logic here? If gays are made a class protected from discrimination you will still have your right to debate exporting all the gays, you will have your right to free speech in regards to them just as you have your right to free speech against any other protected class, there will be no duality here, this is a fallacy created to manipulate you into doing what others want you to do.
And finally, in regards to the separation of church and state, you are sorely mislead here as well. If you read the treaty of tripoli is states explicitly that we are not a religious nation, if you read the jefferson papers you will find explicitly that he was at best a Deist and likely an Atheist. If you look at the jefferson bible you will find his moral code, but no reference to miraculous things because he cut up a bible to prove his point. Most of our founding fathers were like this, and separation of church and state deals with keeping the *church* out of the *state* because the *state* does not prefer one religion or the other. If it were the other way around, then the state would still prefer one religion over the other by act of law keeping the state out of that particular religion. Further, the immigrants who came here did so initially under persecution of england. The idea of separation of church and state was to keep religion from having that kind of hold again, if religion could be in state but state could not be in religion then that kind of persecution is all to easy to have happen again.
I’d like to add that you have no fear of polyandrous relationships becoming codified under the legal derfinition of what marriage is, no matter what genders are covered under it. This is because it is a contract between two consenting adults, no more and no less. And since nobody in the gay community is advocating for such contracts, it would be up to the polyandrous community to take that step.
Ok…question. Lets say for the sake of argument that homosexual marriage is past. What’s to say that marriage between a man and 2 women or a women and 2 men is next? Once he say marriage isn’t between a man and a woman. That changes what marriage means and what it stands for.
Almost all, if not all, the state constitutions in the United States, state that marriage is between two people – in most states that means one man and one woman. The gay community is arguing that, if it is between two people, then gender should not be an issue.
Marriage is not DEFINED in most state constitutions, if not all, in that the PURPOSE is not stated only the two parties involved: one must have male genitiles and the other female genitles (with the exception of Conn. and Mass.). Because the PURPOSE of marriage differs with each couple, the state governments have been wise to legally state what the PURPOSE of marriage is. That is left up to the two parties involved.
So, one could marry to procreate, to raise children, but one could also marry for money, for social status, for economic reasons, for citizenship, for companionship, and even for love. (And, of course, a combination of the above mentioned can also be at play).
Since TWO people have the right to form a union and be united financially and united in responsibility (in that one is responsible for the other and vice versa), and to receive the priviledges for making such a union, gays are being denied that right because they are of the same gender.
If TWO people are allowed to make such a union, then why is the gender an issue? Only if the state governments make it law stating the PURPOSE of marriage by chosing one or more legitimate reasons for two people to merge in such a union can it be determined if a couple who are of the same gender have the right to marry. So, if the state governments state that the PURPOSE of marriage is for procreation, and state specifically how this procreation is to be done (the man in question impregnates the woman in question through the sexual act), then it could be argued that a gay couple may not have that right. But it would also have to acknowledged that a male-female infertile couple or a male-female couple that simply refuses to reproduce would also not have that same right, or a male-female couple that are past their reproductive years are not eligible to marry.
No state has yet to pass a law stating specifically the PURPOSE of marriage and to what means the two parties involved have to do in order to carry out those means.
And here is another thought…Divorce is already a big issue; if they add homosexuals on to the divorce numbers. What will that do to our country?
My personal theory is that divorce will go down in some cases because CLOSETED GAYS and those in EX-GAY MINISTRIES & THERAPIES won’t be marrying those of the opposite sex in order to try to get “cured.”
But the other fact is, we as a society as a whole have to seriously look at the causes of divorce and see what we are doing as a society that creates such a high divorce rate. It’s a matter of looking in the mirror and not exactly liking what we see.
For me personally, I’d rather see a high divorce rate than disfuctional couples and families. Divorce is not always an evil thing. Perhaps the PURPOSE of why two people married in the first place determines whether they are so easy to get divorced.
Here is another thought… Lets look at Canada. If you say that you don’t agree with the homosexual life style, that is considered a hate crime. IF OUR government pass the homosexual hate crime act, those who think it is wrong will not be able to say that with out major repercussions. There goes the freedom of speech.
Not necessarily. Ever seen Minutemen protests? Ever since KKK and Klu Klux Klan demonstrations? The W Baptist Church of Topeka does a great job in defending their freedom of speech. Because I am whiter than a ghost, and only 1/4 Mexican, Anglo people out here in So Cal love to tell me their viewpoints on Mexicans, or as they call them “wetbacks” with an “f” word to start their description. They feel very confident in their freedom of speech.
Lastly, in reply to the separation of church and state comments above… Our forefathers
were talking about taking keeping the government out of the church. Think about why people came to America. It was so they could believe what they want, and say what they want about what others believe.
Yes, but our forefathers also came from a time when the Roman Church was very dominate in Europe, and the fear of having a Church rule the government was still in the back of their minds. The Church of England was kept in its place by Parlament in England precisely so church would not interfere with state, and our forefathers knew that all too clearly. That’s why they did not declare ANY one single church the OFFICIAL church although the Episcopal Church would certainly have been chosen had they done so.
Why trot out the same canards again and again? It really gets tiresome.
The subject is gay marriage. If you don’t have an opinion about gay marriage, it is perfectly all right to say nothing. If you have an opinion about polygamy, divorce or some other subject, maybe it would make more sense to raise these issues in posts that pertain to these issues, rather than dragging them up in an unrelated context.
If we had a post about bubble gum, would you raise the issue of polygamy and divorce??
I just wanted to point out, as someone who lives in Canada, that it is not a hate crime to disagree with the “homosexual lifestyle” (whatever that is). I’m sure you are referring to Bill C250, which many Christian propaganda sites have claimed would “outlaw the Bible”. But the fact of the matter is that C250 specifically protects people expressing honestly held religious beliefs from prosecution. What C250 did was add “sexual orientation” as a protected class to already existing hate propaganda legislation–which covers an offense so narrowly defined that charges have only been laid a handful of times in its 30+ years of enactment.
People in Canada freely express their religious objections to the “homosexual lifestyle” all the time without any legal consequences of doing so.
Joy, I encourage you to make sure of your facts before you work yourself up into a baseless fear.
Joy, please stop with the propaganda. The slippery slope is so old it’s beyond boring. We don’t have to legalize polygamy, bestiality, incest etc. merely because we give same-sex couples marriage equality. The issues are nothing alike and equating them is preposterous.
As to divorce, don’t try to deny us rights because heterosexual couples have such high divorce rates. We’re not in any way responsible for that so why should we be penalized for it? Futhermore you can’t deny us rights because you presume we may raise divorce rates while neglecting to address the problem in the heterosexual community (with a ban on divorce, for example). It’s simply unconscionable.
Now, would you deny us the same hate-crime protections you enjoy? There is no such thing as a penalty for saying “the Bible says being gay is a sin” or “my religious beliefs are that being gay is wrong”. Anybody who claims otherwise is being disingenous. I find it so cruel that people think they should be able to say and do anything in the name of religion, but then turn and cry “religious persecution” when called on it.
And Separation of Church and State goes both ways. One of the main reasons churches get tax-exemptions is so the IRS can strictly monitor their involvement in politics and politicking from the pulpit. If the churches get into politics in violation of regulations they can lose their tax-exempt status. Separation means separation, not churches get to put their fingers in everything but the state has no say or powers at all. You simply want it both ways but you can’t have it.
Cool! ;- )
This just proves gays shouldn’t marry, just look at the destruction it’d cause.
I never envisioned we would be in a position to give Wesley Crusher a hat tip, lol. Nice catch, Rattigan.
I must admit, David, that was all part of the appeal.
LOL…. that is funny, but sad at the same time.
Wesley Crusher… am I missing something?
Wesley Crusher was the character played by Wil Wheaton on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Yes, I caught that much.
How did he enter the equation?
He is gay or ex gay… married? A Russian getting ready to Invade… used to live on an iced cap, that is melting?
He’s straight and married, I believe, but he supports marriage equality. He posted this on his blog, and I gave him a H/T.
there goes the neighbourhood.
just kidding, when we were allowed civil union ( same graveyard different bus) the Australians invaded, it caused floods in northland and the price of real estate dropped……….
but looks good on my c.v
the kids were happy though.
A huge part of this new administrations job (under the able leadership of Barack Obama) will be to build a strong and impenetrable wall between religion and the Federal Government and to teach the American people that this is the only way to keep our country safe and that our constitutional rights are protected from the tyranny of the majority. The people need to hear that a lot and to begin to let it sink in. That is what our founding fathers believed and intended for our nation and that is something that the Christian Right has succeeded in almost dismantling over the past decade or more. The paradigm shift is happening. Many of the Evangelical Churches and many other religions in America (the bullies) will rant, scream and rave about it. They’ll try all they can to change that but it is the duty of Americans to not put up with their immaturity, their tantrums and baby fits. Just ignore them and move forward leaving their dogma in the dustbin of history.
Ahh.. I didn’t realize he was the one who posted this… everythign is clear now! I didn’t catch that…
That is supportive of him!
Dan tips his hat to Wil Wheaton aswell!
Ex-Ex Gays speak out at:
https://www.metropolistv.nl/?p=737&lang=en
Thank you, John, for the link to that excellent video.
Ok…question. Lets say for the sake of argument that homosexual marriage is past. What’s to say that marriage between a man and 2 women or a women and 2 men is next? Once he say marriage isn’t between a man and a woman. That changes what marriage means and what it stands for.
And here is another thought…Divorce is already a big issue; if they add homosexuals on to the divorce numbers. What will that do to our country?
Here is another thought… Lets look at Canada. If you say that you don’t agree with the homosexual life style, that is considered a hate crime. IF OUR government pass the homosexual hate crime act, those who think it is wrong will not be able to say that with out major repercussions. There goes the freedom of speech.
Lastly, in reply to the separation of church and state comments above… Our forefathers were talking about taking keeping the government out of the church. Think about why people came to America. It was so they could believe what they want, and say what they want about what others believe. (NOTE: Now they didn’t say that it was ok to become violent with those we don’t agree with. I don’t think that its ok to beat someone up just because they don’t agree with me.)
Joy, you seem to be very misinformed. I’ll start top-down with you. First off, the act of marriage is based on social moores, and the trend with time tends to be increasingly liberal views in all parts of society. We now allow divorces, different races, and different ranks of social class to marry. Arranged marriages can no longer be enforced, women have rights separate from their husbands, and we don’t stone people to death for living together before marrying. Back when Jesus walked the earth the idea of not stoning people was abhorrent and the idea of that might lead to men marrying men and women marrying women. Now we’re debating the idea of gay marriage leading to polygamy and marrying toasters. I won’t placate you by saying that might not happen, but it’s unlikely to happen within your or my lifetime, that will be up to the generations after us. You cannot, however, attempt to relegate the morality of the future by punishing the minorities of today. If you claim that is your right, then you are saying that the generations past have the right to relegate your morality today, and that would mean you, as a women (I assume from your name) would have no rights and be considered the property of your husband. You would not be able to choose him, it would be arranged for you, you could not divorce, vote, have much of any say in the household, could not marry someone of a different race, could be stoned to death if you’re raped. You would be property. Is this the kind of society you want to live in, because if we apply the moral standards your stating here to those of generations past, this is the life you would be living.
Your second paragraph talks about the divorce rate. Gays and lesbians are people too, there’s no reason their divorce rate would be higher than straight couples, and places where gay marriage is legal have shown that it’s either equivalent or less. Since divorce rate is a percentage of people, you would not see a change, 47% of straights + 47% of gays would equal 47% of the married population. It’s possible we might even see this number go down since if I remember correctly gays and lesbians seem to have a lower divorce rate (someone else correct me if I’m wrong), so you might even see the sanctity of marriage improve by letting gays and lesbians wed.
Your third paragraph is nothing but baseless fear mongering. It’s clear you are either trolling here or blindly spouting talking points from deranged individuals trying to push an agenda through you. We have a right to free speech in this country. You are totally free to use that right to speak out against blacks voting if you so wish, or about interracial marriage. You could debate exporting the mexicans out of this country, even though race is a protected class, and are free to do this in a public space. You are not free to fire mexicans, blacks, or white women who marry mexicans or blacks, and you are not free to racially slur them. Do you see the fallacy of your logic here? If gays are made a class protected from discrimination you will still have your right to debate exporting all the gays, you will have your right to free speech in regards to them just as you have your right to free speech against any other protected class, there will be no duality here, this is a fallacy created to manipulate you into doing what others want you to do.
And finally, in regards to the separation of church and state, you are sorely mislead here as well. If you read the treaty of tripoli is states explicitly that we are not a religious nation, if you read the jefferson papers you will find explicitly that he was at best a Deist and likely an Atheist. If you look at the jefferson bible you will find his moral code, but no reference to miraculous things because he cut up a bible to prove his point. Most of our founding fathers were like this, and separation of church and state deals with keeping the *church* out of the *state* because the *state* does not prefer one religion or the other. If it were the other way around, then the state would still prefer one religion over the other by act of law keeping the state out of that particular religion. Further, the immigrants who came here did so initially under persecution of england. The idea of separation of church and state was to keep religion from having that kind of hold again, if religion could be in state but state could not be in religion then that kind of persecution is all to easy to have happen again.
Here’s a link I pulled up in under 30 seconds of googling to find some information on our founding fathers and why they were for keeping the church out of the state:
https://blog.au.org/2008/02/18/george-washington-and-the-religious-right-theocratic-movement-seeks-to-recruit-founding-fathers/
I’d like to add that you have no fear of polyandrous relationships becoming codified under the legal derfinition of what marriage is, no matter what genders are covered under it. This is because it is a contract between two consenting adults, no more and no less. And since nobody in the gay community is advocating for such contracts, it would be up to the polyandrous community to take that step.
Joy said:
Almost all, if not all, the state constitutions in the United States, state that marriage is between two people – in most states that means one man and one woman. The gay community is arguing that, if it is between two people, then gender should not be an issue.
Marriage is not DEFINED in most state constitutions, if not all, in that the PURPOSE is not stated only the two parties involved: one must have male genitiles and the other female genitles (with the exception of Conn. and Mass.). Because the PURPOSE of marriage differs with each couple, the state governments have been wise to legally state what the PURPOSE of marriage is. That is left up to the two parties involved.
So, one could marry to procreate, to raise children, but one could also marry for money, for social status, for economic reasons, for citizenship, for companionship, and even for love. (And, of course, a combination of the above mentioned can also be at play).
Since TWO people have the right to form a union and be united financially and united in responsibility (in that one is responsible for the other and vice versa), and to receive the priviledges for making such a union, gays are being denied that right because they are of the same gender.
If TWO people are allowed to make such a union, then why is the gender an issue? Only if the state governments make it law stating the PURPOSE of marriage by chosing one or more legitimate reasons for two people to merge in such a union can it be determined if a couple who are of the same gender have the right to marry. So, if the state governments state that the PURPOSE of marriage is for procreation, and state specifically how this procreation is to be done (the man in question impregnates the woman in question through the sexual act), then it could be argued that a gay couple may not have that right. But it would also have to acknowledged that a male-female infertile couple or a male-female couple that simply refuses to reproduce would also not have that same right, or a male-female couple that are past their reproductive years are not eligible to marry.
No state has yet to pass a law stating specifically the PURPOSE of marriage and to what means the two parties involved have to do in order to carry out those means.
My personal theory is that divorce will go down in some cases because CLOSETED GAYS and those in EX-GAY MINISTRIES & THERAPIES won’t be marrying those of the opposite sex in order to try to get “cured.”
But the other fact is, we as a society as a whole have to seriously look at the causes of divorce and see what we are doing as a society that creates such a high divorce rate. It’s a matter of looking in the mirror and not exactly liking what we see.
For me personally, I’d rather see a high divorce rate than disfuctional couples and families. Divorce is not always an evil thing. Perhaps the PURPOSE of why two people married in the first place determines whether they are so easy to get divorced.
Not necessarily. Ever seen Minutemen protests? Ever since KKK and Klu Klux Klan demonstrations? The W Baptist Church of Topeka does a great job in defending their freedom of speech. Because I am whiter than a ghost, and only 1/4 Mexican, Anglo people out here in So Cal love to tell me their viewpoints on Mexicans, or as they call them “wetbacks” with an “f” word to start their description. They feel very confident in their freedom of speech.
Yes, but our forefathers also came from a time when the Roman Church was very dominate in Europe, and the fear of having a Church rule the government was still in the back of their minds. The Church of England was kept in its place by Parlament in England precisely so church would not interfere with state, and our forefathers knew that all too clearly. That’s why they did not declare ANY one single church the OFFICIAL church although the Episcopal Church would certainly have been chosen had they done so.
Joy,
Why trot out the same canards again and again? It really gets tiresome.
The subject is gay marriage. If you don’t have an opinion about gay marriage, it is perfectly all right to say nothing. If you have an opinion about polygamy, divorce or some other subject, maybe it would make more sense to raise these issues in posts that pertain to these issues, rather than dragging them up in an unrelated context.
If we had a post about bubble gum, would you raise the issue of polygamy and divorce??
correction (sorry didn’t catch it in time)
the state governments have been wise to legally state what the PURPOSE of marriage is.
the state governments have been wise to NOT legally state what the PURPOSE of marriage is.
I just wanted to point out, as someone who lives in Canada, that it is not a hate crime to disagree with the “homosexual lifestyle” (whatever that is). I’m sure you are referring to Bill C250, which many Christian propaganda sites have claimed would “outlaw the Bible”. But the fact of the matter is that C250 specifically protects people expressing honestly held religious beliefs from prosecution. What C250 did was add “sexual orientation” as a protected class to already existing hate propaganda legislation–which covers an offense so narrowly defined that charges have only been laid a handful of times in its 30+ years of enactment.
People in Canada freely express their religious objections to the “homosexual lifestyle” all the time without any legal consequences of doing so.
Joy, I encourage you to make sure of your facts before you work yourself up into a baseless fear.
Wow, finally a graph that gets it right!
Joy, please stop with the propaganda. The slippery slope is so old it’s beyond boring. We don’t have to legalize polygamy, bestiality, incest etc. merely because we give same-sex couples marriage equality. The issues are nothing alike and equating them is preposterous.
As to divorce, don’t try to deny us rights because heterosexual couples have such high divorce rates. We’re not in any way responsible for that so why should we be penalized for it? Futhermore you can’t deny us rights because you presume we may raise divorce rates while neglecting to address the problem in the heterosexual community (with a ban on divorce, for example). It’s simply unconscionable.
Now, would you deny us the same hate-crime protections you enjoy? There is no such thing as a penalty for saying “the Bible says being gay is a sin” or “my religious beliefs are that being gay is wrong”. Anybody who claims otherwise is being disingenous. I find it so cruel that people think they should be able to say and do anything in the name of religion, but then turn and cry “religious persecution” when called on it.
And Separation of Church and State goes both ways. One of the main reasons churches get tax-exemptions is so the IRS can strictly monitor their involvement in politics and politicking from the pulpit. If the churches get into politics in violation of regulations they can lose their tax-exempt status. Separation means separation, not churches get to put their fingers in everything but the state has no say or powers at all. You simply want it both ways but you can’t have it.
Looks like Joy was a driveby troll. What a shame.
Looks like Joy was a driveby troll who couldn’t spell.
Past? Past? I ask you!
TRiG.