Anti-gay NY town clerks must step up or step down
Posted on Friday, October 07, 2011 at 10:00 AM
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| NY town clerk objecting to the law of the land |
Why? Because they follow a greater law than the law of the land (which, obviously, they were not hired to pursue). I'm sure they made no mention of this higher law, of course, at their job interviews.
But now, by refusing to process marriage licenses for gay couples, because it conflict's with their Christian faith, they have effectively decided who constitutes a New York citizen and who does not.
Now three of these town clerks - all women - have joined a new organization called the - wait for it - Anti-Marriage Defamation Alliance (which apparently doesn't mind the damage heterosexuals do to the institution nearly as much as the gays).
This dilemma has a simple solution: if Rose Marie Belforti loves her job she should perform it. Rose does not get to randomly decide who she will and will not help. If she starts to Rose needs a new job.
No one actually cares who Rose Marie Belforti thinks she's 'endorsing' or not. Rose took an oath of office, she swore to uphold the laws of the state of New York and the United States. The oath did not ask her to uphold only those laws she personally deems to be valid.
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eiriamach | Oct 10, 2011, 08:21 AM EDT
Phaenius, you are free to preach against what you consider "abomination" from any pulpit or in any forum in the US. Today there are many venues on offer for you to exercise your freedom of speech (cf: Amendment 1, US Constitution). But if you were to succeed in writing your notion of a "liberty" that cancels out others' liberty into the law that governs us all, you would kill our freedom, our autonomy, our "greatest gift" from the Creator, and the best hope that humanity has ever had of progress toward becoming free children of God. When I oppose such attempts to cancel out our moral freedom, I have centuries of American political tradition behind me. Unless we Americans have finally become wimps, I expect we will not fail to defend our moral freedom, as we always have defended it, against particular religious views like yours of "that which is right" and that which is "abomination." Although it is a self-consciously secular document, the US Constitution may be humanity's best attempt to secure for posterity the 'freedom of the children of God' extolled in the writings of St. Paul.
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eiriamach | Oct 10, 2011, 07:28 AM EDT
The fact that the founders of the republic drew on the philosophy of John Locke in setting things up does not mean that they embraced his notion of Christian free will. They had a broad set of influences, including the ideal of autonomy (from the Gk. 'autos,' one's self 'nomos,' law): the truly free person is one who can give the law to himself or herself by exercise of reason and conscience (see Kant also). This has become a remarkably conservative idea, which today motivates folks like Tea Partiers: "I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that is the kind of government which they will have"-- Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau also knew freedom, and he would have been appalled at the theocracy of AB Timothy Dolon's doublespeak about law and the American family.
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eiriamach | Oct 10, 2011, 07:14 AM EDT
"The greatest gift that God in His bounty made in creation, and the most conformable to His goodness, and that which He prizes the most, was the freedom of will, with which creatures with intelligence, they all and they alone, were and are endowed" —Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). As Dante knew and demonstrated with extraordinary gifts of imagination for readers of "The Inferno," the human will can and does often choose evil. Freedom means the power to choose right and the power to spurn right and choose wrong. However-- and this Dante's point-- unless we are free to make EITHER choice, neither choice holds merit or blame for us. We are not to be blamed when the law compels us to choose evil, nor are we to be praised when the law compels us to do good. Unless the choice flows from that "greatest gift," free will, it simply does not count as a moral choice. This understanding of the roots of virtue guided the US Founders to set up a legal system that maximized freedom, rather than trying to compel citizens to be virtuous according to imperfect 18th century notions. A system that maximizes freedom treats us as adults capable of reasoning and of caring about our neighbors, and the experience of freedom teaches the value of it and makes it likely that free citizens will preserve and extend their freedoms rather than using the law to coerce their idea of virtue out of everyone else. That coercion is not freedom but tyranny. (Phaenius, IC boxes have a length cap.)
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Phaenius | Oct 10, 2011, 12:17 AM EDT
Eiriamach, I had an answer for you but this site refuses to put any more of them up. But concerning your "we the people" quote, understand that the founders of America's fragile Republic did NOT set it up for the libertine's raw freedom, but LIBERTY, which was set at variance against LICENSE, where license was set against innocent life, bad things such as suicide for instance, as per John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, and the proper definition of Liberty was the freedom to do that which is right (and for the Christian who is aware of the proverb: "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the ends thereof are the ways of death,"...), that which is right in the eyes of God. Homosexuality was not only an abomination to God, but proved to be a DEATHSTYLE as opposed to a lifestyle. A self governing constituency who looked over their shoulder at an omniscient and omnipresent God had little chance to look around the corner in lookout for the constabulary. When governments do NOT require a draconian policeforce, then what folk do in the privacy of their own home is not in danger of some BIG BROTHER. But the overt demand for the perverter of a pathological sex act to have his deathstyle acknowledged as a legitimate protected past time was NOT to be tolerated...which is what this homosexual marriage slap in the face of God and rational men is. The sound of your quoted "blessings of Liberty" flows melodiously well with the definition that it is a freedom to do that which is right, especially what is right in the sight of God who ordains governments to be the authority in the lives of men, especially when the magistrates (rulers) are not a terror to good works but to the evil (Romans 13:3).
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Gearoid4 | Oct 09, 2011, 11:01 PM EDT
The US Constitution while showing no favor to any particular religion respected the benefits derived from religious belief and maintained a healthy respect for the free promulgation of the beliefs and worship that are associated with religions. This includes freedom of conscience to dissent from legislation that would be detrimental to the above.
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eiriamach | Oct 09, 2011, 04:14 PM EDT
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ***secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,*** do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America" (Preamble). How anyone can invoke the US Constitution for the purpose of excluding any group from "the blessings of liberty" is quite beyond my limited powers of understanding. Religious groups that seek to restrict social institutions such as marriage to only those whose sexual lives they approve of will fail-- or they will dismantle the US Constitution in succeeding.
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Gearoid4 | Oct 09, 2011, 02:09 PM EDT
The belief of Christians or adherents of other Faith groups that marriage is solely reserved for one man and one man and open to procreation, is being disingenuously confused by some here with hatred of a particular minority by warped ideologues. Nothing could be further from the truth as this conviction is expressed in charity and without rancor towards anyone.
The age old belief in marriage that they proclaim cannot be compromised by secular legislation to change the nature of it. The nature of marriage is what it is and this should be respected through the freedom of conscience as described in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
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eiriamach | Oct 08, 2011, 10:26 AM EDT
@Phaenius: Christ never condemned homosexuals, but spoke harsh words about people who brand them sinners. The Pharisees were a conservative political group that gained influence over the Jews through pious shows like your bible quoting. They encouraged the Jews to think of themselves as special people who should reject anyone at all "different." During Roman occupation, their message resonated with people looking for outsiders and sinners to blame for their low status; stoning sinners and driving out Gentiles became popular pastimes. At Matt. 23, Jesus explained that it was not the ones the Pharisees condemned who brought down the wrath of God, but the Pharisaical manipulators themselves, who gulled people into believing that God cared about the outward show rather than the spirit within. He called them hypocrites who knew the bible but shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. By condemning "sinners," Pharisees made them "twice as much a child of hell" as the Pharisees themselves. They were righteous in easy matters but "neglected the more important matters of the law—- justice, mercy... You should have practiced the latter.... You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.... You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?" This town clerk is only a noisome gnat, while your pious condemnation of homosexuals asks us to believe that equal rights brings God's punishment. You try to shove a camel down our throats, but we recognize that scam.
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JohnE67 | Oct 08, 2011, 01:03 AM EDT
What happened to love the sinner, hate the sin?
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Phaenius | Oct 07, 2011, 11:16 PM EDT
Righteous public servants that Paul in Romans 13 calls ministers or servants of God for the good of the righteous in government or the authority God ordains over the lives of righteous men to submit to must do good, no matter what the perversion of man that they invent to subvert righteousness. When they are ultimately punished for doing good, as Peter notes in his letters, then we submit to that punishment for it is better to be punished for doing good then to be punished for doing evil. This ought to be a slam dunk answer for all of this drivel about the public servant going against that which is righteous because it is called law. Here is John the Baptist's answer to three classes of people...one the general people the others are righteous public servants expected to do what he says following their question as to what should they do.
Luke 3:10-14(KJV)
10And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
11He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.
12Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?
13And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.
14And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
That last verse is an amazing answer to those Wisconsin Public Works Unions.
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Phaenius | Oct 07, 2011, 11:08 PM EDT
Rebleforce? I would say that they consider what will be their fate when God tells us in his word, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Do you think the things that we are suffering today in America is not without some reason? I think you do yourself no favors when you prevail upon the Men of God in America who try to bring to our attention the sins that we do that seems to bring us calamaties.
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mrkennedy | Oct 07, 2011, 11:05 PM EDT
Yes hollabackgurl, you are correct Jesus preferred to spend time with sinners,but remember he was trying to commit them to his moral teachings!!
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Phaenius | Oct 07, 2011, 10:58 PM EDT
hooabackgurl? God created gay people...not on your life. The Bible says that "God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Ecclesiastes 7:29. And God's love is expressed in His death to enable the Father to give mercy to those sinners facing eternal death...AND THEN HE EXPECTS THEM to repent from their sins (of which Homosexuality is not a thing to be born with but an act manifesting the perverted lust in the hearts of evil people). He asks the same of the adulteror and the fornicator and even murderers. Homosexuality is a death style and Jesus came to this earth to give LIFE, and while He may live among them in order to confront them of their sin, he expects them, like he did the accused adulteress, to go and sin no more. Your so called outward pious are those He calls SELF RIGHTEOUS, and what is a self righteous person? It is that person who does not feel a need to be saved because they believe their own good works are sufficient for their own righteousness, something to be noticed by God as merit for their eternal life, denying God's Son's sacrifice to give them mercy and impart His righteousness on them to cover their sin that He forgives. There is no room here for the Homosexual claiming some righteousness to continue with their perversion...that is why you see so little true virtue among them, and what you see they stink up with that perversion so as to make even their good works abominable to God and man. All you Homo folk reading this...God is capable of loving you in order to rescue you from your bondage to that lust which you feel you must express in the perveted sex acts you do. Yeah...Heterosexuals sin as well in their illicit relationships as well...but that still does not relieve you of the responsibility to turn away from your sins. We struggle as well in our own versions of sins, but I testify that God is good to give us strength to overcome them, and mercy when we fall back into it.
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mrkennedy | Oct 07, 2011, 05:17 PM EDT
Murph46, yes indeed RENDER THEREFORE TO Caesar and also to GOD!!!
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