RetiredGySgt
Diamond Member
I agree our rights derive for our social contract and not the government. The government is just the vehicle we use to render our rights enforceable. The issue I have isn't philosophical, Quantum Windbag -- it's practical. I fail to see why the entire nation must or should be organized so that everyone's conduct is either RCC-approved or else criminalized.
This quest for political power on the part of any organized religion (RCC, or Mormon or whatever) is obnoxious to me because it is antithetical to the American Way: an open, diverse society governed by laws that value no faith over another -- or none at all.
What should we base our conduct on? Should we use the standards of the atheists governments, and treat human beings as nothing more than cogs in a government machine, and assign them based on needs, not capability or desire?
We have to base our moral code on something, and love your neighbor as you love yourself is the best code ever articulated. The fact that it came from a religious person is irrelevant to its effect, at least it should be. Would you feel better about it if it had been said by Aristotle? I think that makes your problem more philosophical than you thought.
The last thing you have to worry about is all the Christians getting together and agreeing on a way to run things that keeps them all happy. Concentrate on the real problems, not the ones you make up.
I am not making up the problems posed by the Religious Right, and you know it. But for the RCC and the Mormon Church bankrolling a massive campaign of disinformation, Prop 8 never would have passed in California and the Pope has very clearly said, banning gay marriage is a Catholic agenda item for the RCC.
And that's exactly my point. Why not be satisfied to withhold the sacrament of marriage from same-sex couples who are Catholic? Why is it desired to end gay marriage ceremonies performed on Lutherans, etc.? The RCC's heirarchy is a bunch of officious intermeddlers with boundary issues, IMO.
What a load of horseshit. I REPEAT, cite for us a relevant passage from the Constitution or our laws that BAR religion from participating in the political arena. Or admit YOU want to do EXACTLY what YOU are complaining about, shutting up people you disagree with.