Indiana Next on the Chopping Block

[JamesSavik]

[Chris James]

To some degree I think the gay community is ignorant in their response to all this religious freedom nonsense...but I can understand why...it does seem like an attack. In this time before the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage emotions are running high and the fanatical Christian side of the argument is in a panic...what if gay marriage becomes the law of the land?

Here's a reasonable article with historical perspective on the subject because...yes...we have been there before.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/same-sex-marriage-christian-history_b_6990864.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Religion does not own marriage, never has, never will. Sure the Catholic Church made it a sacrament and part of their dogma. But since they didn't create it they co-opted it much like they did Christmas, re-tasking that good old pagan festival of winter. Just saying this is ours is absurd because, according to the article, unions between same sex couples was once theirs as well. Oops, did I just see the Pope blush?

[Cole Parker]

Surprising article!

C

[Camy]

Chuck Wendig, who was to be part of the faculty of this years Midwest Writers Workshop in Indiana, this July, has pulled out. This is why: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/04/02/i-will-not-be-attending-the-midwest-writers-workshop-in-indiana

[Nigel Gordon]

Religion does not own marriage, never has, never will. Sure the Catholic Church made it a sacrament and part of their dogma. But since they didn't create it they co-opted it much like they did Christmas, re-tasking that good old pagan festival of winter. Just saying this is ours is absurd because, according to the article, unions between same sex couples was once theirs as well. Oops, did I just see the Pope blush?

Actually at one point in the early church priests were barred from performing marriage as the church did not recognize marriage regarding it as a purely civil status that had no standing in church doctrine. It was only when the church realised that they were losing property through the civil rules around marriage and the spouses of priests claiming the property gifted to the parish, therefore, to the priest, upon the death of the priest or the break up of the marriage that the church got involved.

The need to protect church property was dealt with in two stages, first marriage was made a sacrament under the control of the church. This meant that the church could draw up and oversee the marriage contracts. It appears that it became common with contracts involving clergy to stipulate that property given to the priest was not to go to the wife upon the priest's death but to the church. The next stage was the introduction of celibacy within the priesthood. Contrary to the meaning placed on the term celibacy these days its introduction was not intended to bar priests from sexual congress, celibacy does not mean chastity, it originally meant refraining from marriage. The concept of chastity amongst the priesthood did not really arise till the a couple of centuries later and, to be honest, never really caught on.

The matrimonial rights between same sex couples were, it appears, were mostly carried out between parties in holy orders. Indeed at one period it was seen that for a priest to marry his curate or deacon was a way of ensuring that property was passed on within the parish upon the death of the priest. Once celibacy is mandated within the catholic church it is clearly impossible for a marriage to be performed between any parties where one of the parties is a member of a holy order. As such the practice ceases in the western catholic church around the 11th century, though it continues to exist in the eastern churches where the rules on celibacy are imposed differently, basically in the orthodox churches a priest could be married provided he was married before being ordained and a married priest could not become a bishop. So we see some instances of same sex matrimonial rituals being performed until quite late.

[DesDownunder]

An atheist's Discussion Points

The Denson article really only touches the basics in same sex relations. This is not surprising as the author states he is only looking at the Christian perspective, leaving a more detailed historical analysis aside. I don't have a quarrel with this, but there is danger in this approach which leaves the adaptive evolutionary factors out of the discussion.

Again, this is not surprising, as we really don't have a lot of anthropological information about our primitive ancestors. I hasten to add that more is being discovered, and I suspect Denson knows about them from the hints at the end of the article. It is important to look for origins earlier than the civilisations of antiquity.

There is, I think, some concern with going down the path of conciliation with religious views, in that it will hinder our consciousness to fully appreciate reality. Even so, such a delay would certainly be preferable if it inhibits current threats of homocide. (Have I invented a new word?)

Anthropologically, we might well propose a speculation that long before language, even perhaps earlier than grunts, our primitive ancestors formed intimate and sexual relationships in the circumstance of their needs to survive; where the young were shown how to hunt, gather, and find shelter. Such activity may well have been the foundation for desire to live with one another with affinity for natural expressions of affection.

What we can say is, that if those ancestors did not form relationships, and with compassion for the less fortunate, then we would probably not be here to discuss them. I would also submit this is where natural morals were born with conscience, and were later co-opted by religions as their moral laws after the beginnings of tribal language.

From the atheist, or non-believer, point of view, if we find ourselves justifying cultural customs of superstitions involving the supernatural to gain acceptance as LGBTQ people, we may well delay our evolving cognitive reality. Remember that there is no demand biologically, for us to actually develop our ego-consciousness beyond adaptation to our life circumstances.

Self-awareness brings with it the question of what is Consciousness: life, death and the whole magnificent catastrophe? I would contend, that questioning curiosity under the strict rules of evidentiary scientific investigation is the means to our discovery and appreciation of reality, and is in fact hastened by the omission of religious irrational faith which has no further use once we realise that everything works without it.

On the other-hand, loss of such faith cannot be demanded, and does not in itself pose a threat so long as it is not used to indoctrinate or force itself on others. Ego-consciousness is an adaptive process, one in which it can no longer be acceptable to use ignorance as an excuse to eradicate people who differ from one another in ethnicity, belief or sexuality. How the various cultures cope with such adaptation will influence human endurance, existence, evolution, or our extinction.