defriendings

[fpb]

I have defriended asakiyume and sartorias over their repulsive reaction to the defeat of their party on Proposition 8 in California. Their reaction was to blame it all on the supposed interference of a particular religious group. The truth, in fact, is that all major religious groups in the state campaigned aggressively for the proposition, and that voters against it included a large majority of black voters. However, to blame Catholics is unfashionable, to blame Jews un-PC, and to blame Muslims unhealthy. So these ladies, in common it seems with a lot of their kind of persons, managed to find the perfect novel religious scapegoats: the Mormons. Now I have no sympathy for Mormonism as a religion, but I can tell scapegoating when it offends my nostrils, and I was utterly revolted to find people whom I really believed decent human beings indulge in this kind of talk. Any other person on my f-list subscribing to Mormon conspiracy theories, please defriend yourselves and save yourselves some grief.

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

Fabio, apologies if you have been through this before, but I would be interested in knowing if you object to the use of the word Marriage or the recognition of gay partnerships in social terms.

To my mind marriage is a religious sacrament which has secular advantages and responsibilites attached to it by the state. It is therefore for the churches to make their own decisions on who can and who cannot get married.

Should the state wish to provide the same, or a sub-set, of the secular advantages and responsibilities to unmarried couples then that is a matter for the state. That is why I would support Civil Partnerships allowing the same tax, insurance and inheritance rights to gay couples or hetrosexual couples who do not want to go through the sacrament of marriage. I personally feel that there should be additional tax advantages given to those couples who bring up children, married or not, simply because in the end we will all depend on those children to pay for our pensions and health services once we retire.

Marriage I would leave up to Churches.

To be fair to the ladies you mention here, it appears than the Morman Church did spend an enormous amount of money campaigning on proposition 8. The question that arises from this is over their tax free status. I've read quite a lot suggesting that this is involvement in politics and therefore should cost churches involved in this type of campaign their tax exemption. I would not agree with that position. Campaigning on single-issue votes like this s not politics, and I would have thought that Churches, which espouse moral positions, are almost required to make comment on moral issues of this type.

Where they move into politics is where they personalise those positions and make comment on who their followers should vote for. A subtle distinction to be sure but an important one. Thus in my view it is acceptable for a tax exempt body to say - Gay marriage is wrong, you should vote against proposition 8. It would not be acceptable for a tax exempt body to say you should vote for Mr So and So as he agrees with all of our positions. A line has been crossed.

But then again, if a body that feels that a political statement is a moral imperative, then that should be more important to them than their tax exempt status.......

[fpb.livejournal.com]

To repeat what I said, which perhaps you did not notice, ALL religious bodies except for the odd bit of "liberal" pseudery invested heavily in Proposition 8. So, on the other side, did Hollywood, most of the Californian plutocracy, and every politician in the state. To single out the Mormons is repulsive scapegoating, made worse by the fact that the real decider was the support of blacks and Latins, whom "liberals" do not want to mention. This is the updated version of "the Jews/Catholics are behind this" and I will not tolerate it on my f-list, for the same reason why I will not tolerate Jew-bashing.

As for marriage, it is not necessarily a religious concept, but it is certainly a firm and universal one. The point is that its core is not the permission for two people to fuck, but the birth and recognition of children. Which makes "gay marriage" so much nonsense.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I may not have been answering the question raised. After all I had not read the comments made by your former F-listers - my fault (could you point me to them?). I was reacting to comments made in the media today arround the issue of tax-exemption for Churches involved in 'politics'. I must admit had I been writing about this off my own bat I may have used the Mormans campaign over Proposition 8 as an example.

If the complaint was anything other than arround tax-exemption then I fail to understand what criticism can be made of any body campigning for something they believe in. Freedom of speach is only freedom of speach when it applies to your opponents as well as those who support your position.

Actually proposition 8 and the various single-issue votes are the most interesting part of the election. There appears to be a distinct difference between support for the 'Liberal' Democratic Party and support for individual liberal social policies.