- The federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.
What a large amount of people seem to fail to realise is that religion shouldn't matter in politics. Because politics isn't about insuring moral standards are upheld. It's about ensuring peoples rights are protected. In the United States of America, in the First Amendment (one of the ten that make up the Bill of Rights) to the United States Constitution, the Establishment Clause has been interpreted to prohibit support of a religious idea with no identifiable secular purpose. Can anyone identify a secular reason to prohibit members of the same gender from being married to one another?
Not only is the DOMA unconstitutional by enforcing this religious ideal with no secular purpose, it also violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution. In fact it was created with the intention of overstepping the Full Faith and Credit Clause, by allowing states to not recognise marriages between same sex couples even if they are considered a marriage in another state.
The word 'politics' comes from the Greek word 'polis', meaning state or city. The Greek word 'politikos' describes anything relating to the city or state. The ideal of the founders of the USA was seperation of church and state, that's why the first amendment was written. Where is there anything outside of religion that says same sex partners shouldn'd be able to be married? Nowhere that I've seen.
Anywho, that's all I've got on that for now.
Laters,
Joshua.
Images within images into infinity.
This feeling's like no other,
I want You to know,
That I've never had someone,
That knows me like You do,
The way You do,
And I've never had someone,
As good for me as You,
No one like You,
So lonely before,
I finally found,
What I've been looking for.
Indigo, for You.
6 comments:
Very true...
It's really a shame that our founding fathers (Thomas Jefferson especially) were more socially evolved when it came to religion/politics than our current politicians (see '08 republican primary where a majority raised their hands stating they didn't believe in evolution).
Urgh... I want to go to a planet where culture has evolved past religion.
Steve
We haven't got past religion in the UK but many of our laws have!
Welcome to a land where you can have a Partnership with your gay partner.
I know that coz we've got one.
It's time the US got itself up to date. Great piece of blogging there!
If you want to get sick to your stomach, read the brief released two weeks ago by the Department of Justice that goes into detail as to why DOMA is perfectly constitutional, denies no one any rights, is good for the economy, and obviously was not written out of malice for homosexuals since all it does is protect "the ability of elected officials to decide matters related to homosexuality."
PUKE
I kind of agree, but to say religion should be avoided in politics is like saying culture should have no part of society.
Religion plays such a large part of the majority in the world that it's impossible to make a decision without God or anything in mind. Even if you're an atheist, those around you probably are not. If you're agnostic, well, same thing.
Our "Founding Fathers" were very religious people, and today, candidates are often criticized and sometimes praised for the religion they follow.
Also, marriage by the way is undeniably an act of the Church. But you probably know that already as does everyone else but I think people need to bring that up each time this "religion vs. government" argument comes up.
Jonathan.
@Jonathan
The reason people don't bring up the 'marriage is an act of the church' is because the government doesn't treat it that way. If marriage were absent from government entirely-- and there were only civil unions that offered equitable benefits to all-- then no one would have a problem. I don't think the semantics of the word is really whats controversial. It's that civil unions and marriages typically don't have the same benefits, et al.
Lastly, I don't think anyone is arguing the reality that religion is widespread and has great influence. However, that shouldn't be an excuse to stop trying to fight for what is right (logical, intelligent, etc.). The validity and authority of a particular idea or social norm has little correlation on its general acceptance and longevity. Slavery has been a common place practice throughout all of history. The same is true for war. This doesn't have anything to do with the appropriateness of either. In America there are now > 10% of people that identify as atheist or agnostic (I seem to remember this from an article, I may be wrong). One can only hope that this surge of rationality will continue, and in 100 years the argument over same-sex unions will seem as naive and barbaric as slavery does to us.
Much Love,
Steve
The DOMA is disgusting, I agree.
The infiltration of politics by religion, particularly by fanatical Christian religious elements is even worse.
Oh, btw, plz don't blame us Catholics. We're not fan of gays or abortion as a rule, but we still support Obama.
The truth about Obama is, supporting gay rights would destroy his presidency.
It's already too hampered by the economy.
Think about Clinton, and gays in the military.
Gay rights are the new third rail in American politics. Touch it, and die.
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