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Ross Thompson
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Ross commented on the article |Right, you claimed that churches were being sued for refusing to conduct weddings, and as evidence, you cited a case where a church was *not* sued for refusing to conduct weddings. Are you suggesting that it's quibbling to point out the difference between performing a marriage ceremony, and renting out land to someone?
You're correct that people making shit up and lying about it is a "hot button issue" of mine. We both know that no church has ever been sued for refusing to conduct a wedding, be it a Catholic with divorcees, or what have you. It's obvious that same-sex marriage isn't going to change that.
You're right that homosexuals sue when their rights are infringed, but I fail to see how that's evidence of a big, scary conspiracy, given that women, blacks, Christians and even heterosexuals have also been known to sue when they're discriminated against. However, the right to be married by the religious figure of your choice is not, never has been and never will be a legally actionably right.
Your claim was false. At this stage, it's been demonstrated to be false to such a degree that I can no longer extend an assumption of good faith, and must instead assume that you're deliberately lying. Otherwise, you'd be able to provide examples of "incidences where churches that refused to conduct marriages of same-sex persons have been sued", right?
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Ross commented on the article |
Shawn: I'll repeat: You claimed that churches were being sued for refusing to *perfom* ceremonies. You've provided no evidence to support this, insisting instead that refusing to rent out property for someone else to perform a ceremony is the same thing. It is not.
The church is not required to rent out their property for any purpose, you're right, but they're not allowed to discriminate in how they do rent it out; as public houses (which doesn't stop them being private property), they have a legal burden of hospitality that must be non-discriminatory. Just as a hotel can't refuse to rent rooms to people because of the colour of their skin, and a restaurant can't refuse to feed someone just because they're Jewish, the church can't refuse to accomodate people just because of their sexual orientation. They had frequently made the property availably for civil weddings, and so by refusing to do so purely because the celebrants were a same-sex couple was in clear breech of their duty of hospitality.
It's perfectly reasonable to question whether or not the church should be under this duty, but regardless, that is orthagonal to your original claim, which continues to go unsupported. If you like, I can point out that your claim was made in the plural ("incidents", "churches", "states") implying that this was not the only datapoint you were working from; perhaps if you can provide us with details of the others, they'll turn out to actually involve churches being sued for refusing to perform ceremonies.
This case has nothing to do with whether or not the church was willing to *perform* a same-sex marriage (as you claimed), as even the most cursory reading of the article would reveal. No church has ever been sued for refusing to perform any wedding, for any reason or for none at all, and this is not going to change with the coming of same-sex marriage.
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Ross commented on the article |
Shawn: You claimed that "There have already been incidences where churches that refused to conduct marriages of same-sex persons have been sued in states where it became legal". When asked to back this up, you cite this particular case.
However, the church in question did not refuse to conduct a same-sex wedding (they weren't asked to do so); they refused to allow a same-sex couple to use their land, which is an entirely different issue, covered by entirely different laws. Churches, like inns and hotels, are public houses and have a legal duty of hospitality, which the defaulted on in this case. However, they don't have to provide any services, and had they actually refused to perform a marriace ceremony, they would have been well within their legal rights.
This does not back up your claim that churches are being sued for refusing to perform same-sex marriages, any more than it proves that proves that churches are being sued for refusing to ordain homosexual preachers.
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Ross commented on the article |
In addition to Michael says, this is not about them refusing to marry a same-sex couple, but them refusing to rent property to a same-sex couple. Can you find any reference to a church being sued for refusing to *marry* a same-sex couple, or would you rather admit that you just made that up?
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Ross commented on the article |
"There have already been incidences where churches that refused to conduct marriages of same-sex persons have been sued in states where it became legal."
You're going to need to provide a citation for this. I am cartain that this has never happened, just as Catholic churches have never been sued for refusing to marry divorcees, Synagogs have never been sued for refusing to marry gentiles, and churches in general have never been sued for refusing to marry non-parishoners, if they so choose.
Judges and other *civil* authorities have been sued (or forced to resign) for refusing to marry people who have the legal right, but they are acting as an agent of the government. Religious weddings, on the other hand, are being performed by a private entity and are entirely at the whim of the church. Always have been, and same-sex marriage isn't going to change that.
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Ross commented on the article |
The is no way, through Hebrew, Greek, or English, to dismiss, or make favorable, the issue of cotton-poly bends in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.
The is no way, through Hebrew, Greek, or English, to dismiss, or make favorable, the issue of bacon cheeseburgers in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.
The is no way, through Hebrew, Greek, or English, to dismiss, or make favorable, the issue of shaving your beard in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.
And yet, somehow Christians all over the world seem to have "compromised their message" to the point that these things don't even raise an eyebrow. Why should homosexuality be any different?
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