Bush's Hypocrisy, the Vietnamese, and Gay MarriageFollow

Bush Welcomes Vietnamese Prime Minister to White House

Vietnam Human Rights Record Under Fire in US Congress

China, Vietnam vow to boost economic ties

VIETNAM: RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION INTENSIFIES

Bush calls for gay-marriage amendment

Bush demands Mid-East democracy

I was listening to the news today and heard that Vietnam is proposing to join the World Trade Organization with the support of our President. A country that has close ties was China and has come under fire from numerous human rights organizations for religious, political, and social oppression.

We are currently engaged in a war with a group of people who are guilty of the same thing Vietnam has been accused of. Our troops are dying to give a country "freedom" while our government is supporting a country that is guilty of the same things Sadam Hussein is. On top of that, the Vietnamese government has close ties with the Chinese, whose actions have also been denounced by the President.

I also find it amusing that the President, being a devout Christian, is supporting a country that persecutes Christians. This is the man whose religious beliefs have "guided" him in all of his decisions.

So how does this all tie together? Let's look at the points again shall we:

1. Bush supports the Vietnamese.

2. The Vietnamese is a government with close ties to China.

3. Bush supports democracy in Iraq and around the world.

4. Vietnam and China are both religiously, politically, and socially oppressive communist nations.

5. Bush is a devout Christian, who lets his religious beliefs guide his decisions.

6. The Vietnamese and Chinese are opposed to Christianity.

Where does gay marriage come in Capek?

I am glad you asked. Bush has proposed numerous times an amendment to the constitution that bans gay marriage. His basis behind this is religious belief. He has the firm belief that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman.

So I pose this question? When is it alright to be a part-time Christian? Last time I heard, worshipping false idols and carrying out animal sacrifice was against the bible, but yet people do that everyday in this country. When is Bush going to propose an amendment banning that?

Also, how come it is ok to storm into a country waving the flag of freedom, but yet support a country who does not believe in freedom?




Edited, Tue Jun 21 19:13:01 2005 by Capek

Around the last 20 years probaly.

And people wonder why nobby started this thread?

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=4&mid=1119308967719113408&num=58

I'll bite. While I completely disagree with the guys argument, it's not as "wrong" as you might think so.

We live in a democracy (ok. sort of). Therefore, the social norms of the people as a whole will tend to be reflected in our laws, regardless of the source of those norms.

He's telling you why *he* personally disagrees with Gay marriage. "It's against God's Law" is a perfectly valid reason for any individual to believe that gays should not marry. Certainly, you are not suggesting that a private citizen cannot form or hold their own opinions on an issue based on their religion? That would *clearly* be a violation of church and state, since you'd effectively be saying that people can only form opinions and beliefs as long as they aren't religious based. Totally flies in the face of freedom, much less religious freedom.

Thus, he's correct in arguing that the "opinion" for opposition against gay marriage is legitimate. While the government cannot pass laws respecting an establishment of religion, it most certainly *can* pass laws based on the social norms of the people, regardless of where or why they hold those norms.

We see this all the time. How many counties have laws prohibiting the sale of alchohol on Sunday? That's clearly a religious based law, but no church created it. The people living in the area all agreed that alchohol should not be sold on Sundays, so they passed the law. Where they got the idea that drinking alchohol on Sunday should be prohibited is completely irrelevant. The law does not require that one attend a particular church, or hold any particular religious view. It simply says you can't buy alchohol on Sunday.

Gay marriage is similar. Clearly, the issue of what constitutes a legitimate marriage (ie: one that should be sanctioned by our government) is going to be based on the views of the majority of the citizens of the country. It's a social issue. And if the majority don't believe that gay marriage should be recognized and sanctioned by the government (ie: gays don't qualify for marriage licenses), then there is *nothing* inherently unconstitutional about making that belief the law.

I don't happen to agree with his argument, but I don't think it's wholely invalid from his point of view. How he derives his opinion really doesn't matter (and actually leagally *can't* matter). What matters is what the current social norm is. And if that happens to be that gay marriage should not be recognized by the state, then there's nothing inherently illegal about making that the law.


See the problem derives from a flawed view of the doctine of separation of church and state. While the government cannot pass a law *because* of a relgious value, it also can't invalidate a law purely because it happens to also match a particular set of religious values. It's a fine line to be sure, but I think it's a bit unfair to say that this guys beliefs, no matter how much you and I may disagree with him, hold *zero* value simply because he got them from his religion.

I agree with you to a certain extent.

While it is true that even though his opinion is derived from a religious belief, it is still a valid opinion. I am not denying anyone's ability to form their judgments based on any outside resource. What I am doing is trying to expose the hypocrisy of the conservative Christian. These people will fight their battles based on what they can win and not necessarily on what is right. While that is usually an admirable trait, I don't believe God allowed for his rules to be bent according to the current political disposition of a country. I am pretty sure if God asked David how the return of the ark was going, he would not take a response such as, "Well, you see God; we decided not to engage the Philippiansistines because a small but loud minority of people are whole-heatedly against it, but we have stopped all the ****** from marrying!". Conservative Christians today operate the same way. Instead of fighting issues like the oppression of Christianity and the spread of atheism, they decide to block all the ****** from engaging in a legal union of two people.

Unfortunately, the issues of gay marriage is not based on:



as you put it. It is based on a very loud and efficient minority who happens to be the number one asset to the major political party in this country during the present day. Many states have denied gays the right to marry in the supreme court, (i.e. MA), only to have a review turned down in the Federal Supreme court by 6/9 judges that were nominated by republicans. Republican leader Bill Frist has been quoted as saying



http://www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lweditorials034.htm

My problem is not with their argument; it is their lack of cohesion.

And this, ultimately, is why you're going to run into problems. You're essentially saying it's ok to form your own opinions, but I'm going to argue that your opinions aren't valid because I don't agree with the source. This is going to be (and is!) interpreted by said religious person as an attack on his beliefs.

And that's where the issue gets funny. I'm not religious by any means. I'm also not a secular liberal. But what I'm seeing is the secular liberals claiming that the mere existance of the religious people's beliefs is a violation of their own beliefs on how society should make choices, and the religious folks arguing back that the secular liberals beliefs are an attack on their religions and constitute relgious persecution. And in a way, both sides are right. And both sides are wrong.

Can you see that when you attack a person's ideas because of their source, you are doing *exactly* the same thing he is. He's saying that his beliefs are right because they are religious based, and you are saying that they are wrong because they are religious based. You're both being equally irrational about it from my perspective. And certainly, you're never going to get any kind of solution if you attack the guy's faith. While that may be fun to do on occasion, it's just not going to be very productive IMO.




But that's because they see that as an extension of the "oppression of Christianity". For exactly the reasons I listed above. Given your stated "goal" (showing them that their opnions have no value because they're based on a flawed faith/ideology) is expressed very clearly as an attack on tbeir beliefs, how on earth can you be surprised when they think it's a form of religious persecution? And when all they see is that people who are constantly trying to argue that their faith is stupid, or wrong, or flawed, are the same people who are pushing for gay marriage bills, why are you surprised that they choose to fight against them?

I could argue that secular liberals operate the same way as well. Instead of find common ground between themselves and other members of the society they live in, they attack the beliefs many other's use to form their social values, forcing them to attack back. Why can't we find a way to allow gays to have their rights while still respecting the beliefs of the religous folks? Wouldn't that be a more sensible solution then going right for legistlation designed to **** off all the religious people in the country? Yeah. I think it is...



I could argue the same. Gay marriage is being argued *for* only by a very lound and efficient minority (in the other party in this case). In both cases, the majority is kind of on the fence, with two minority groups pushing the agenda back and forth from the sides. And as far as the legal battle is concerned, I'm not aware of any US supreme court decision on the issue deciding one way or the other, so that votes still out.


You also have to remember that it's not the conservatives pushing to make gay marriage illegal. It's the liberals pushing to make it legal. And it's not really correct to say legal and illegal either. For the entire history of the US (up until very recently) all state laws required a set of condition on two people before issuing a marriage license. One of those conditions has always been that they be a union of one man and one woman.

Without arguing the "rightness" of that position on marriage, the fact is that that has always been "the law". So the change is coming from the left, not the right. Of course, the religious folks are going to feel threatened by it. Why assume anything else? But the issue is a lot more complex then just blanketly saying that it's a gay rights issue. It's also an issue of states rights. It's an issue of what the purpose of marriage is as it applies to the state (not the same as the social contact of marriage, or the religious sacrament of marriage). It's an issue of determining if marriage is a "right". Is there a fundamental right for any couple to be recognized by the state as a married couple? Is there a fundamental right to whatever benefits that status may incur? What exactly is the reason the state grants benefits to married couples? Heck. What exactly *are* the benefits from the state itself? Do those benefits makes sense when applied to a gay couple? Does the reason those benefits were granted originally from the state to married couples make sense if we change the definition of marriage to "any two people who apply for the license". If we allow this change, what other changes can be allowed? Can we still legally justify outlawing Polygamy/Polyany? What reasons do we have to make those illegal, but not gay marriage?


As you can see from just this list (off the top of my head), there are a hell of a lot of ramifications to the issue, that go well beyond the very simplistic "I'm for gay rights" position. My concern is that in our haste to push agendas from the far right and the far left, most of these (IMO far more important!) issues are being ignored. The real discussion that should be going on prior to a social change of such magnitude are simply not happening. Instead, we're getting arguments that consist of bashing the other side because they're for or against something that I personally disagree with (for my own biased reasons).

To me, that's a **** poor reason to make a legal change of any kind. But then, I'm a "real" conservative. Not a religious right. Believe it or not, there's a lot of us in the Republican party.




There's nothing wrong with lack of cohesion. It means that not everyone agrees on everything. That's a *good* thing IMO. Remember, if you're talking about Republicans, they are the defacto conservative party. Conservatives are about maintaining status-quo and/or slow and well thought out changes at the very least. So disagreement does not mean hyporicy at all. Disagreement means that there will be argument, and discussion (hopefully), and in either case slows down the rate of change. To a conservative, the time to be concerned is when you have a large number of people all in agreement on something. That's when fast and poorly thought out sweeping changes get enacted that we often regret but are stuck with for decades to come.

Again. If you think lack of cohesion/agreement on social issues is a problem for the Republican party, think again. We welcome disparate ideas.

You say that out of the 11 states who wanted to ban gay marriage, all 11 did it?

Amazingly enough, all of the 39 states who didn't vote to ban gay marriage didn't ban it.

Yes. But we can't say anything about the numbers for or against in those states that didn't hold a vote. We *can* say that out of the 11 that did, an average of 2/3rds of voters opposed gay marriage.

The point is that it's hardly fair to say that it's just a vocal minority arguing against gay marriage, since the *only* time the issue has ever gone to a large scale vote, the exact opposite has been the result.

If this were a poll, a 20 million person sample size of "likely voters" (reasonable since they all voted) opposing gay marriage at a 2 to 1 rate would represent an *overwhelming* likely majority if the vote were taken on a large scale. We can guess that maybe the numbers are radically different in those other 39 states, but that would just be a guess. And a hopeful one at that.

Except that in this case, they are voting to maintain the status quo, not the other way around. Remember, from the perspective of those voting in these states, the "status quo" is that gay marriage is not legal. They are reacting to a change in laws in other states that threatens to change that status quo in their state as well. Sure, they're technically changing their own state law, but they're doing it to prevent a change, not to create one. Huge difference.

Yet, despite your predictions, they did apparently come out in droves.

There's more to this then just voter apathy.

No...you're wrong.

The status quo is that gay marriage isn't legal....but it isn't explicitly banned either. Do you see the difference?

If the status quo were really that gay marriage is illegal, why the Defense of Marriage Act? Why did Bush want a constiutional amendment for it?

No...gay marriage wasn't explicitly illegal in those states until they voted it that way. It was in a vague legal status, as it is in most states currently.

This is not purely semantics, there IS a difference between not being legalized and being outright banned.

How does gay marriage affect anyone but the 2 involved, and possible children? Gay marriage has no effect on outside parties, unles the outside party wants it to.

On another note, when is Bush going to propose a constitutional amendment to require all states to take up the strictest emmission testing on vehicles. After all a person driving their car from Texas, that had next to no emissions testing, is polluting the air while driving in other states. This has to be more important since it has a greater affect on others.

Nah. It is semantics. The average joe doesn't care whether the "status quo" is the result of something being banned or not being banned but never having been legaly before. You're arguing a really fine line there, which IMHO is a distinction that most people don't make.

All the voting public really cares about was that for the last however many years in their state, gay couples could not legally be considered to be married. Now, due to a change in the laws in *other* states, suddenly that may not be true anymore.

The exact direction of the law (ie: not granting versus specifically exluding) is totally irrelevant to the viewpoints of the people in this case. They don't care about that. They care about keeping their state "rules" on marriage the same as they've been for the last couple hundred years. Thus, the primary motivation is to "prevent" change, not to create it. Even though they are specifically adding a change to the law, in their minds, all they are doing is passing a law specifically defining a status as they believe it's always been defined in the past.