A few days ago, Phil Hendrie was talking about the Westboro Baptist Church, and he played a clip of "Santa Claus Will Take You To Hell." Hendrie claimed that Westboro Baptist is a form of "urban guerrilla theater." In other words, the church members who appear at protests are actors, and the outlandish public positions taken by the church are carefully designed to strike a balance between being fringey enough to get attention yet not to so unbelievable that the public suspects that this is not a real church.

What Hendrie said sounded reasonable until I read (in Wikipedia) that Westboro Baptist's history goes back to 1955. It seems pretty unbelievable that a hoax like this could be sustained for 53 years!

If you are not familiar with the Santa Claus Will Take You To Hell controversy, see the following from Craig Adams:

Here's the latest twist from Olympia.

---Church wants to post "Santa Claus will take you to Hell" at Capitol---

“You’d better watch out, get ready to cry, You’d better go hide, I’m telling you why ‘cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell. He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet, but when you stand before your God He won’t help you take the heat. So get this fact straight: you’re feeling God’s hate, Santa’s to blame for the economy’s fate, Santa Claus will take you to hell.”

Read the entire article in the Olympian:

http://www.theolympian.com/377/story/694825.html

This so called church deserves no press from this day forward. They are really a wacked out bunch of people that has no (real) Godly message...none.

Fred Phelps' "Ministry".

"In July 2005 the Westboro Baptist Church declared its intention to picket the memorial service of Cpl. Carrie French in Boise, Idaho. French, aged 19 years old, was killed on June 5 in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where she served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion. Her death is seen by the church as divine punishment of the United States. Phelps Sr. was quoted as saying, "Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is [that] the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime."

If someone would kill Fred Phelps, I would see it as a reward from God.

This so called church deserves no press from this day forward. They are really a wacked out bunch of people that has no (real) Godly message...none.

Care to draw the line exactly where a Church becomes "whacked out"?

Make it clear in black and white so I can tell the difference between your Church and a "whacked out" one.

And none of that fuzzy Bible stuff either -- just a clear concise description of where that line is.

One of the websites critical of Phelps stated that in the 1960s, he and his church were big advocates of the civil rights movement. I can not think of anything more ironic.

I will only hold the sign that says...
"God loves Skep"

One of the websites critical of Phelps stated that in the 1960s, he and his church were big advocates of the civil rights movement. I can not think of anything more ironic.

Which is exactly why Broadway can't draw a line. A "normal" Church can just be a hair away from whacky.

It would be better if Churches and their congregations refrain from telling others how to live.

God is powerful enough to handle that part himself.

Agreed?

>>A "normal" Church

Your invited to any Evangelical church this Sunday to experience it.

>>God is powerful enough

Agreed!

Been there, done that.

I'll just worship Sagan (Carl, that is.).

His book "The Demon Haunted World" is my Bible.

A good read for Bible scholars too.

>>I'll just worship Sagan

someone who is dead? How about a living-loving God who created all there is and talks about it in His word...life's roadmap...the Bible.

Nope.

God has made it quite clear that we're on our own and that the time spent worshipping Him is better spent resolving woes we've created.

He also made it clear that He doesn't write books and He ESPECIALLY didn't ask for anyone to speak for Him.

Clearly the Church of Sagan is far less whacky than Churches reliant on His help.

And I think THIS is where the line is.

Well. Could be just an imaginary friend too. Think about it. Now that doesn't diminish anything, and it's not an attack either. It's just reality. Could be...

Seriously, lots of people attend lots of churches and do good things. That's all good. When that good is then leveraged to justify other things, like hating on gay people, or pressuring people into making choices, or the worst --legislating them, it's just wrong.

There is no balance either.

You can't go and save a million people then somehow say being bigoted, for example, is then ok somehow. It's never ok --ever.

I think these things get confused way too much. Religion is a construct of ours. It's faith. It then really isn't good or bad. The person expressing that faith is good or bad.

This works a lot like music does. The music itself is just music. It's not good or bad. How we realize that music can be good or bad, and behind that there is a person, with good or bad intent. (or they just don't know and that's interesting)

Isn't a shield either. Like the above example of saving a million people. If one has been saved, they have completed a rite of passage for their faith, and have accomplished some personal affirmation.

I completed that rite of passage once. Thinking as I do now does what exactly? (nothing) It still happened, I meant it at the time, and that life choice was simply replaced with another one. I seriously doubt I'm in any trouble over that.

At the end of the day, after we add it all up, said saved person has no less and no more entitlement than anybody else does in this life. If this were not true, then society would reflect that, and it just doesn't.

The next life, if there is a next one, is a point of discussion. This one is a settled matter however.

These guys are engaging in some theatre to express some of those ideas and many others. I think it's in poor form, but that's all it really is. I don't like how they pose the question, as it's inflammatory, but the core question itself is fair.

The bigot down the street makes churches in general look just as bad, and that's part of the point of it! This goes for organizations too. Look at the anti-gay Salvation Army. You gotta wonder. Are they doing so much good to dodge the very obvious question of why they support discrimination against other people, or are they doing good because it's just good?

Instead of focusing on that, it's far better to just focus on our own faith, whatever that is, and make damn sure it's on the good side of things. The more people that do this simple thing, the merrier!

--->I love Sagan too. Thought provoking. Ever see the movie "Contact"? It's excellent and right in line with a lot of the material he published. Makes you think:

Scientist: "Prove there is a god"

Pastor: "Do you love your mother?"

Scientist: "Yes!"

Pastor: "Prove it."

Good stuff!

That simple exchange details just what faith is. How it's realized in our personal lives is really more of a reflection of who WE are, than it is anything else.

(which is why saving people doesn't earn one a pass on bigotry, by way of example)

Sorry for the long post, but I see this a lot. Group of some kind takes some ugly position, but they do a lot of good work!

So then it's tough. There is a ton of friction on this. Wars, anger, hatred, who knows what else?

Much of the friction comes from people somehow trying to justify discrimination. If their faith does this somehow, then isn't that the same kind of relative thinking people like me and Skep are so often accused of?

(call it a friday muse...)

My absolute --in fact, one of the few absolutes I know of is equality. We are just people. Old people, young people, male people, female people, black people, stupid people, smart people, just people.

As people, we choose to believe things. In this we are equal. As people we need to be loved, respected, and free to be who we are.

Singling out people, for some words in a crusty old book, is wrong. Always will be wrong, always was wrong. Never was right.

That same crusty old book says we shouldn't judge. That's the part of the thing I like the best actually!

From that absolute, we can reason through a lot of things, and get to them via faith and simple rational thought. There is common ground here, and it's the bridge between the rational realm of science and the theological realm of faith.

If there is anything that allows us to hold faith, and be rational people (as in understand the sciences and be able to appreciate them as a work of God), it is equality. I don't think there is anything else.

(and I've looked HARD, BTW)

Perhaps this common ground is some kind of threat. It's almost as if we are all pawns out there, ripe for the taking. The faith with the most mindshare WINS! Sure feels like that, when I start talking about churches, and how one does this and another does that, and one is wrong and another is right.

"Two men say they are Jesus, one of them must be wrong!" -- Dire Straits, "Industrial Disease"

Sagan was one of these people willing to put that kind of stuff on the table. C.S. Lewis was another.

I think if we could have a conversation with those two, and others, equality would rise quickly to the top of those few absolute truths we possess. As such a rare item, it should be given one hell of a lot more respect than it so often does.

And that's the KSKD message of the month, I guess. If I had a pulpit, I would hammer equality home as many ways as I could, in the hopes that if people grok nothing else, they grok that. Common sense and compassion and empathy for one another gets us the rest of the way home.

These guys are clowns. They don't get it as much as they do get it. Inflammatory crap. I agree with those sentiments. But, that doesn't validate anybody else, and I'm kind of reading that "well I go to a REAL church" kind of thing, and I'm not so sure that actually contributes to the discussion.

The core of it is who WE are. Not what organization we claim to be a member of. No club membership justifies the stuff I posted about, so it then factors out, leaving us as people. All equal, all burdened with just being good people, and not harming other people.

IF Westboro Baptist is a satire of fundamentalist religions, then they are very effectively causing people in other denominations as well as society at large to show some of their own flaws and ideological inconsistencies.

Mention of the antics of Westboro Baptist inevitably causes some people from other denominations to try to distance themselves from "extremists," such as the ones who worship at Westboro Baptist. In doing so, these people often go beyond just saying something like, "The practices of Westboro Baptist are not ones that I would use in my faith" to something more like, "those people aren't Christians." The former statement is a non-judgemental statement of fact. Perhaps the person making such a statement attends a church that different teachings from those of Westboro Baptist. The latter statement, on the other hand, is very judgemental; here the speaker puts him or herself in the position of being qualified to gauge the authenticity of people and churches that claim to be Christian.

The fact that the media and society at large pays so much attention to what Westboro Baptist does shows that we love sensationalism and things that make us say, "hey, isn't that WEIRD?" Westboro Baptist are not terrorists; they are just a group that goes out of its way to be obnoxious. Somehow there is a ready supply of people who willingly take the Westboro Baptist bait. (Perhaps Phelps and his people are master baiters.)

Given the history of Westboro Baptist, I think that the effects that I just described are purely incidental (i.e. Phelps & company are not deliberately trying to manipulate others into looking like hypocrites and idiots).

"Contact"? It's excellent and right in line with a lot of the material he published.

It helped that he hand a hand in the making of the movie!

>>hypocrites and idiots

this group is not worth the effort of cut and pasting their name here. They really need to be ignored as the above copied.
THEY DON'T REPRESENT GOD'S PEOPLE!

Really?

Let's talk about a church here that has hills in it's name, for example. And that's just an example I know is true, not singling out today. Many members there openly advocate for anti-gay legislation. They say it's a sin and that God says so.

This is really, really close to "God Hates Fags".

The only difference is their presentation. These clowns are literally gonna hold up the "God Hates Fags" sign, and everybody knows that's not cool, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. Ugly, nobody likes it.

But it's hard to escape the sentiment. The smarter ones, with better presentation (many large mega churches), or that do good public works (Salvation Army), SAY THE SAME THINGS, and WANT THE SAME RESULT.

See how that works?

So, then do the nicer ones with the more high brow presentation represent Gods people then? If so, can you explain the difference to me?

And let's be clear, I want to focus on what differentiates Gods people here, not go off on a tangent about churches.

If you've got large religious groups pushing to discriminate against people, and the only practical difference is in their presentation, how do we understand that some of them represent God's people?

I'm very interested in your answer.

>>They say it's a sin and that God says so.
This is really, really close to "God Hates Fags"

Good grief...wheres a copy of Websters? Beyond reaching here. My current church I have been at for 5 years now has never addressed this issue from the pulpit or even with my pastor.
We just want to reach out to everyone just where they're at life...Christlike...

That's not true.

When you say "We", perhaps that's your congregation, but not all of them, who identify as "Christian". (and that's true for other faiths as well, I'm just making a point.)

There are many, who belong to churches, who hear these messages, and who advocate for the criminalization of who people are at worst, and denying them to just be who they are on an equal basis with everyone else at best.

So, let's take the "hates" and "fags" part out of it and refactor:

Homosexual behavior is a sin. There. That's cleaned up, pretty and not so onerous sounding right?

This is semantics man! The intent is the same. Emotional connotations aside, we've got strong advocacy from many churches on this topic, and the intent behind it is the same; namely, to deny gay people the same rights everyone else has.

I realize the church, or whatever it is, that is the topic of this thread is just gross. No question there. However, I fail to see the difference between the intent.

Many churches are nice about it, but they want the same result. So then, how are they not representing God's people?

Are God's people just nice about making sure gay people don't have the rights they are entitled to?

Is that what we are discussing here?

And I'm asking because I see this a lot. "Well my church doesn't do that!" Ok, fine! That's a good thing, right?

So how come your nice church doesn't get after these clowns that are? Allowing them to advocate that, and having them do it under the branding of your faith (whatever that is), is more or less an endorsement of the core idea; namely, gay people are somehow targets for discrimination.

That's the part that bothers me the most. Either you think this is ok, as in being gay is a sin, or you don't. If you don't, then why turn a blind eye toward those "nice" churches and organizations that continue to support discrimination.

I think it's easy to point to Phelps and say, that's not ok. It's not so easy to point to the "nice" and "presentable" church down the street, pushing for the same thing, is it?

There are a lot of mega-churches pushing this crap. Dobson pushes this crap. Salvation Army pushes this crap.

Discrimination is wrong. It violates equality. What gives?

>>Discrimination is wrong. It violates equality

yes...because of my age I have to wait 7 more years to get the senior coffee at McDonalds...well I'll just be nice about it and get on with my life.
Discrimination is a part of life everyday!
If the gay community wants to redefine marriage then they should invent a new word for it.

" Discrimination is a part of life everyday! "

" well I'll just be nice about it and get on with my life "

Yes. Do that. People who are discrimiated against should just be nice and get on with their lives.

Got it.

That's a different thing altogether. EVERYBODY who is not yet old has to wait for their coffee discount.

Not EVERYBODY, who wants to marry, can. And in fact, we amended a Constitution to remove rights for the first time in the history of the nation!

So then, you would have no problem with everything but the word?

It's not gay people either. There are plenty of ordinary people, who think this issue is discrimination, and who are straight. I'm one of them.

But, let's focus right on that word. So if it were called g-marriage, and differed only in the word used, would that be ok?

They get a license, they g-marry in their church of choice, get the tax and legal entitlements and responsibilities anybody else married has?

Is it really just the word?

And I'll accept your dodge for now. I noticed you punted on the who is representing God question. That's ok. Let's talk about the word for a moment.

Oh and if churches preach hate, people should just be nice to them and get on with their lives. Don't protest. Don't have any kind of reaction. Because churches can do no wrong. Because if they could do anything wrong, people would stand up and say something about...oh wait...crap. But that may mean I'm not being nice about it.

Shoot. Churches hold all the cards. I hate this game. I'd better go belong to a church so I can be right. It's the ultimate trump card. I love winning. At ANY cost.

Edit: Found this on Kos. It's written from an ex-evangelical, who is just troubled by this issue. This person is trying to find a way past the trouble and thought it would be good to post up some of the unspoken why's behind these kinds of issues. This person was an evangelical pastor.

It's below. Let's talk about it. There is common ground here, and I think it's interesting!

-----------------------------------------------------------


Why do evangelicals believe in God?

1. they don't want this life of working just to survive until you die to be all that their is to their existance.

2. they don't want their existance to end when they die after a life of toil for survival.

3. they don't want to burn in hell forever for not believing in God.

4. they want the life that they couldn't have here in heaven.

Now... who really can't appreciate why evangelicals believe in God?

Who doesn't want the same things? To have life of meaning beyond work and the possibility of a life of that is fullfilling and never ends. And if there was a hell to avoid it.

That is why evanglicals believe in God.

Why are they trying to stop gay people from getting married?

1. There's a condition to going to heaven for evangelicals. There are rules they have to follow in this life. They don't have to be perfect at following those rules, but, they have to believe in those rules and they have to make an honest effort to obey them.

2. Being gay is against the rules for evangelicals.

3. Evangelicals have a lot of rules about sex that amount to sex being something they feel guilty about.

4. Feeling guilty about sex never stopped anyone from engaging in it for very long. Evangelicals know this. And they are afraid of it.

5. Evangelicals attempt to shield themselves from sex by ignoring it and staying away from it.

6. Evanglicals are terrible at shielding themselves from sex. Cause you can't do it. It doesn't work. So they fail at this all the time. All the time.

7. They fail in secret. They don't tell anyone. They just fail and then promise themselves and God that they will try to not fail again.

8. They fail because they are human beings who need sex. Like water and food and affection and conversation. They need sex and their bodies finally push the brain aside and kick into animal think.

9. Animal think. The heat of the moment. Something you teach your kids about when you talk to them about sex. You tell them that they need to plan ahead for this. So that if/when they are in a state like this they are prepared. Maybe that means having birth control? Maybe that means putting on the breaks. But it means not letting themselves only think about sex when they are horney and not really able to think about much other than sex.

10. Evangelicals dont' learn to do this. Instead. They just try to resist sex altogether. But they fail all the time. But it just makes them hyper horney all the time. Then they find themselves arroused by any and everything that has to do with sex.

11. Gay people. That brings us to gay people. Evangelicals are afraid that if gay people get married that homosexuality will become a norm in society. This is a problem for evangelicals.

12. The problem is that these hyper horney sexually immature and repressed people are afraid that they will be turned on by gay people. Why? Because they are already turned on by gay people. And they are afraid of it happening all the time if gay people are everywhere.

13. Statistics. The fewer gay people their are, the less chance there is to get turned on by gay people and want to have gay sex... or sex watching porn... or sex thinking about gay sex. If your eye causes you to sin then pluck it out. That is their thinking here. The more gay people are accepted the more people will become gay and then gayness will be every where.

14. Gay sex will get you sent to hell unless you make an honest attempt to repent from it. Evangelicals are afraid of gay marriage because they are afraid that they or their friends or their family members will think that it's ok to be gay.

15. If you think it's ok to be gay then you will not repent from being gay and you will not meet the condition to go to heaven which is that if you do break the rules that you accept that it was wrong and you honest attempt to stop breaking the rules. If you don't think what you are doing is wrong, then you won't repent. If you don't repent then you will burn in hell forever.

Evangelicals dont' want themselves, their family, their friends or anyone to burn in hell forever instead of going to heaven.

This is the truth about why evangelicals are against gay marriage.

There are some who are using this politics. But they are a different story.

Most evangelicals just don't want to die and go to hell and they don't want anyone else to. They want to go to heaven and they want everyone else to.

But they preach so aggressively against homosexuality! That is just classic guilt trip scare tactic preaching. Like parents scaring their kids away from harm. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying what it is.

Evangelicals are afraid that if gay people get married that it will make it hard for them to tell people that they can't be gay if they want to go to heaven. And they are equally, but not as open to admit, that they are afraid that gay marriage will encourage people to be gay... people being themselves in particular.

They are sincere in their beliefs about this. I am not saying that it is right. I'm just saying what it is.

And it's important to say what it is, because there have been other things like gay marriage that the church has resisted for the same reasons such as divorce and women working outside the home.

I'm not saying that evangelicals are right. I hope that's clear. I don't think that they are. About any of this.

But they aren't evil people trying to stand in the way of good things for other people. They are people trying to stand in the way of what they see as bad.

I think it is important to see that about evangelicals.

If you just label evangelicals as bad people... you get to be enemies of 1 out of 4 people in this country.

Enemies of 1 out of 4 people in this country.

And they will return the favor. You make them your enemy and they will respond by making you their enemy.

And who wins?

The people who pit evangelicals against gay people for political power.

That is who wins.

But evangelicals can get divorced and evangelical women can get a job outside the home and that happened in my lifetime. Gay marriage may not be something that evangelicals are happy about, but it will be something they will learn to live with.

They will learn to live with it sooner if they learn that gay marriage is not a threat to them.

And that is the real issue for evangelicals. It's goofy, it's stupid the way they decided that gay marriage is a threat, but it's what it is.

And it can be overcome. I know it can. I grew up in an evangelical church and I know these people and they just need to be assured that they have nothing to worry about. They don't want to make gay people unhappy.

It's not fair that evangelicals get to make this an issue. It's not fair. But at least there is an end in sight.

In the end we can either have 1 out of 4 people in this country as enemies or 1 out of 4 people as neighbors who we shake are heads at sometimes.

I would prefer to just shake my head.

I don't see alot of people explaining why evangelicals are doing this. I do see a lot of people trying to say that the evangelicals they know aren't evil people, but not really being able to explain their actions. I'm not justifying them, just trying to help people see that there is something to work with here.

So how come your nice church doesn't get after these clowns that are?

Exactly. They don't. Leaving it up to people like me to police the Phelps of the world. In return I get branded an atheist, god hater, et al.

The fact of the matter, the Broadways of the world are hypocrites and chickenclucks.

Geez, how hard it is for organized religions to rent buses and truck their congregations to Westboro and choke the life out of Phelps's idiotic causes?

>>Not EVERYBODY, who wants to marry, can

oh yes my friend they can. It's ok to marry the opposite sex for a while now.

>>Being gay is against the rules for evangelicals

take it up with God...He made the "rules"

>>people like me to police the Phelps of the world

you know these people are so far off the chart as for validity of existence of humanity (as you can tell I don't value their motives much) the vast majority of Christians just write them off as beyond wacko's even satanic.

>>Because churches can do no wrong

Wrong...again Christians are not perfect...just redeemed/forgiven by a real living and loving God as revealed in His Word called the Bible and all of creation...can I say I'm just a messenger here...talk to Him about it...really...it's called prayer.

Is (should) marriage be strictly limited to only people of faith?

Should Athiests be allowed to "marry"?

There's a good question!

And there is a freaking foot of snow, so what else have we to do!

Some churches think gay is no big deal. Some of them are Christian too, and they look at the same bible the churches who say it isn't do.

Additionally, there are "nice" churches that include all of the above.

How then do we know some of them represent God's people. Are those the ones you agree with Broadway? If so, did God speak to you about that, and can we get that on the record?

Seems to me, those rules are what you church goers say they are. Have any information that can sort that out?

When I pray, I get the answer that we all are equal. God said so. Says he doesn't get all of you having so many problems with gay people either.

It's kind of between him and the gay people.

What do you say to that?

I liked the former Evangelical's list (posted above), but there is one observation that I have made that differs from his: the teachings of Evangelical ministries and pastors do provide an out for sexual desires. They say that sex is OK as long as it is only between a man and a woman who have been married to one another (presumably in an Evangelical church). Gay sex, specifically, can never be OK, according to their belief system.

The conclusion is spot-on. The Evangelicals fear that if homosexuality goes mainstream, there will be a lot of people who will at least experiment with it, not repent, and then go to Hell. If a lot of people go to Hell, then the Evangelicals will have failed in their role as Evangelicals. I think that many of them are very sincere in believing this.

So then it's the threat.

Really, they need to buy into the fact that it's not a choice, period, end of story. That will fix it eventually, IMHO.

Broadway, listen carefully and listen well.

Loving v. Virginia was a mere 40 years ago. It happened in spite of prevailing attitudes in churches all over this country. I can tell you first hand that even with that landmark Supreme Court decision, bigotry is still a routine experience for me and my true love. Ever been called a "nigger-lover" while buying a Christmas tree? Yeah, it happened to us in our sleepy little liberal city.

Jesus would not have supported racial discrimination, or Proposition 8. In his time, and well into American history, "traditional marriage" meant that it was prearranged by the families, involved unwilling kids and was strictly enforced by law. Women were property. Did you choose your wife? Did she choose you as well? Were you both adults? Yes? Then, it was not a "traditional marriage" at all.

Discrimination is a part of life everyday!

Yes it is, and primarily because we still allow so-called churches a voice in state matters. White evangelicals should stop pretending to be victims in their gilded palaces of polite prejudice. Keep ignoring the institutional hatred and eventually our largely agnostic country will have a "tax it or torch it" attitude toward what amounts to publicly subsidized bigot clubs with little or no value to society. It is up to Christians to keep Christianity tethered to reality.

Discrimination is a very sharp two edged sword. Wielding it has consequences.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps and, apparently, Westboro Baptist's media liason, was on the Phil Hendrie Show last night. As I would have expected, Phelps's demeanor was angry and fanatical. Some of Phelps's reactions to Phil's comments showed that it was completely beyond her how some people could take the church's extremist positions and actions as satirical in nature.

>>demeanor was angry and fanatical

not the spirit of a true Christian here. Christian means Christ-Like!
Merry Christmas All...off to family, food and gifts now...will recover later.

...and it's hard to imagine a Christ, worth my worship time, that would advocate discrimination IN ANY FORM toward his fathers creations.

A higher being should not have the same petty issues we do.

Merry X-Mas, and think hard about that.

I may have missed it, but is Hendrie on KCMD at all now?

Not yet. I was listening to KDWN 720, which runs the first hour of the show on tape delay, at 1:00 AM.

Ahh.

K.

>>A higher being should not have the same petty issues

Isaiah 55:8,9
"I don't think the way you think.
The way you work isn't the way I work."
God's Decree.
"For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Like I said, a higher being should not have the same petty issues.

Marion Ross 3:1977

"Sit on it Fonzie."

I've solved the gay marriage problem once and for all.

It's simple - eliminate legal marriage. Or rather - do a search-and-replace in the law, substituting "civil union" or whatever.

Any couple can have a civil union, and if you want to get "married", go to church! (Isn't a legal marriage a violation of the separation of church and state anyway?)

Simple, elegant. Case closed.

Any objections?

That's what I would prefer to see.

There will be serious objections though. All of the religious people will see that as a threat to their moral authority.

The biggest objection will come from the local/county governments.

They'll be missing out on the revenue (pronounced; tax) from the marriage licenses.

Churches already marry gay people, right?

Certain ones...most don't or have a request for it.

Governments can get revenue from Civil Union Permits.

So the idea is a go then?

The way it stands right now, the State does the marriage, and the Church just makes everybody feel good about it.

I'm quite sure churches, like the United Church of Christ, would be more than happy to oblige, given the chance.

Could it be the lack of requests is directly linked to so many churches making it clear such a request is a sin?

Thought so.

So then, leave it to the churches that don't think that, and since they all use the same Bible, everybody is happy!

http://reasonfaith.wordpress.com

"Nonprofit committed to connection between logic and faith-based belief"

I've looked very hard at exactly this. The same tools scientists use to apply reason to the natural world for greater understanding are the same tools theologians use to reach greater enlightenment.

There is only reason. We either reason or we don't.

Equality is common to both parties, and appears to be a truth. Reasoning then, with that shared truth, is where we begin the journey down the road of bridging that gap.

A fallacy is always a fallacy. To deny this, using the supreme being as a tool to resolve a fallacy as truth is a travesty of reason. The same can be said for secular reasoning that ignores some realities in favor of others.

Sorry this is wordy, but it's to support the moratorium on displays. It's either all or nothing, if we are to really step up and respect the law and role of government.

Nothing is cold, and not appealing to some of us. Everything clearly is worse! Nothing then is the better choice. If it were me, that is what I would do.

The trap we fall into on these things is accepting strong conviction as truth. They are not the same. In our personal lives, we are completely free to do this --act as if something is true because we believe it to be true.

That's what freedom of religion is!

However, also having to accept that another may live by some other conviction, and accept that conviction as truth, appears to be something most of us stand unable to deal with.

At first glance, resolving this appears simple. We shall see just who is who in the end, right?

Not so simple though, as all of us want to be right, and feel some ownership of our loved ones, thus making other positions a threat to what we see as our afterlife entitlement, having lived well or proper here.

We have wars over that little wrinkle in the thing!

I spend some considerable portion of my thinking time evaluating those few known absolute true things we know. There really are not that many, and those we have often are difficult to prove. Equality is one of those.

So far, I've not seen anything to contradict this. We either are people, or we are not. Some of us are lesser people, some are greater people, but we all share the same dilemma as people; namely, we just don't know enough to call all the shots, and must then choose our path and have conviction on that choice.

This conviction should come from within, we should be secure in our choices, live by them, share them. If more of us understood this, that faith is personal, then the display could stand with no one threatened, no one leveraging it to the detriment of others.

IMHO, the sign the atheists posted on that display, was an attack. It said religion is bad. Maybe it is, but the other displays simply affirmed various religions and their icons. This was bad form.

Perhaps the atheists don't have an icon, and that the inflammatory statements are that icon. Betcha they argue that as not inflammatory, but a mere artifact of their reason.

If so, they need to learn a lesson from the very best of the faithful, in that negative affirmation of our beliefs is never good. If something is just and true, we can live by it, show it with our lives, and that will stand on it's own, people will grok it, want to know about it, and be inclined to choose it for their own selves because it appears worthy, not because it diminishes the beliefs of others.

I think that's an absolute too, but I don't know that like I do with equality. Frankly, I think equality proves that out, in that if we are in fact just equals as people, then none of us can be lesser than the others in these ways, given our beliefs do not advocate material harm to others.

So, it's the right thing to do. Maybe it makes government a bit more cold. It does however also open the door for more faith advocacy, whatever that may be. People seek this, and they will find it. They will just find it from others, not the government common to all.

(that's why I like the marriage solution proposed above also)