Intellectually, I'll pose the question to you LDS liberals and the few apostates here

[fusnik11]

Originally Posted by Venkman

The reason you didn't hear anything five years ago is because five years ago, there wasn't a federal constitutional ammendment being considered. Five years ago, when the issue was on the table in California, the church made their stance known.

Questions:

What does a gay couple getting married do to your family?

What does it do to the family in general?

How does it attack the traditional family?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by fusnik11

I said the family is under attack, but to say that homosexuals are the ones ruining marriage with their desire to be married, is highly misleading. Thus my suggestions earlier, if the church really wants to protect the family, get more proactive about saving our communities. Does the church do volunteer work? Yes, but could it do lots more? I believe so.

I doubt doing more volunteer work will save families, as families must save themselves through application of successful principles. The Church does this through example of its members and education. Service important but it alone will not or principally save the family. This is a naive organizational belief that simply makes no sense.

Service shows you care so somebody might listen and change himself. People who believe the Church doesn't render enough service aren't looking in the right directions.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by fusnik11

Questions:

What does a gay couple getting married do to your family?

What does it do to the family in general?

How does it attack the traditional family?

Red herring alert, red herring alert.

You pose some strawmen then knock them down? Good for you.

Gay activity violates chastity. Anything diminishing chastity affects the public's view of sexuality which in turn negatively affects those who wish to become sexual and eventually married.

The ambience of accepting any ole arrangement people can concoct shows that man gets to make them up and that tradition be damned.

Will it necessarily affect those properly taught? Probably not significantly. But the milieu will affect those without the Gospel and will make them probably non-receptive to the Gospel.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Red herring alert, red herring alert.

You pose some strawmen then knock them down? Good for you.

Gay activity violates chastity. Anything diminishing chastity affects the public's view of sexuality which in turn negatively affects those who wish to become sexual and eventually married.

The ambience of accepting any ole arrangement people can concoct shows that man gets to make them up and that tradition be damned.

Will it necessarily affect those properly taught? Probably not significantly. But the milieu will affect those without the Gospel and will make them probably non-receptive to the Gospel.

First of all, red herring and straw man are two different fallacies. Second of all, neither of them are present here.

The church's argument is that gay marriage harms families. Fusnik merely asked why, and you start claiming there is a fallacy involved in asking the question (though oddly you then semi-attempt to answer the questions he asked).

[fusnik11]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Gay activity violates chastity. Anything diminishing chastity affects the public's view of sexuality which in turn negatively affects those who wish to become sexual and eventually married.

The ambience of accepting any ole arrangement people can concoct shows that man gets to make them up and that tradition be damned.

Brigham Young seems to agree that your tradition be damned....

'Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of Heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire. That empire was founded on the banks of the Tiber by wandering brigands. When these robbers founded the city of Rome, it was evident to them that their success in attaining a balance of power with their neighbours, depended upon introducing females into their body politic, so they stole them from the Sabines, who were near neighbours. The scarcity of women gave existence to laws restricting one wife to one man. Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.

The Congress of the United States have lately passed a law to punish polygamy in the Territories of the United States and in other places over which they have exclusive jurisdiction. In doing this, they have undertaken to dictate the Almighty in his revelations to his people, and those who handle edged tools, unless they are skillful, and apt to cut their fingers; and those who hand out insult to the Great I Am, in the end, are apt to get more than they have spoken for.

Why do we believe in and practise polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practiced it. "And is that religion popular in heaven?" It is the only popular religion there, for this is the religion of Abraham, and, unless we do the works of Abraham, we are not Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise. We believe in Jesus Christ the Mediator of the new covenant, who has introduced the Gospel for the benefit of the human family, to happify, exalt and glorify them in the presence of the Father, not to make them miserable, not to torture them, nor cause them to walk in the gloomy path of grief all their days. We rejoice in this Gospel, it is all glory, hallelujah, peace and comfort. We believe in following the admonitions and instructions of the ancient Prophets and Apostles, and of all good men in this our day.'

I think it might be fair to say that Brigham would view 'traditional' marriage as about as valid as homosexual marriage. (since we are introducing chastity, morality and tradition into the discussion)

[Archaea]

If you believe polygamy and gay marriage are morally equivalent, then you and I have no common ground.

One allows the building up a seed unto the Lord. Perhaps, it was just a bunch of misguided perverts getting their rocks off. You decide.

Gay marriage lets two gays get their rocks off. Wow. That achieves nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Jacob allowed for polygamy in this life for limited purposes.

BY did become quite vocal about polygamy, and usually upon reading that stuff I usually just roll my eyes, as I do, when I read BRM's stuff on the priesthood.

BY had a lot of sex. Good for him.

Gays do whatever they do. You can too if you want.

I no longer care.

I believe homosexual sex is a sin. Any sexual sin detracts from the proper exercise thereof. You disagree. Good for you.

Nobody has ever shown me a benefit of gayness to society. Well, unless dimunition of competitors for gals is a benefit.

Are there other problems? Where does identification of one problem exclude the possibility of other problems? This is a misdirector.

Politically other problems are not manifesting themselves. Well, phoney claims of man's contributions to climatic changes are arising.

Basically, for reasons unknowable to me, some members wish to attack the Church for not revoking the declaration that gay sex is sin. And because it has chosen this, of the few political battles it fights, to make a statement, our leaders are fallen leaders.

If on a matter that once was almost indisputable, we cannot get member consensus, what will happen if they ever request something difficult that actually affects us?

They won't get any compliance. You'll be complaining they're just voicing their opinions, they never speak for God, and we'll have tremendous division in the ranks.

The Church has basically failed. We as members are a failure.

The reason I speak of failure is looking at the baptismal rate. We have purportedly a noticeable membership, but baptisms have fallen off dramatically. We aren't finding anybody. The Church is falling behind. We're a smaller percentage of the world population than we were two decades ago. We aren't innovating.

And our members don't believe any more.

When the M/X missile position came up, I changed my personal view, because I was asked to. The Church successfully killed something, apparently expensive and bad.

Now, we don't get people changing their views, just crying, "false prophet."

[fusnik11]

Who said gay sex isn't a sin? Sans Robin, I am pretty sure most here would say that gay sex is wrong and in direct contradiction of the laws of God.

Who said the church was being led by a false prophet?

I can believe gay sex is wrong, and at the same time think they should be allowed to get married. Allowing them marriage doesn't they are expunged from sin.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by fusnik11

Who said gay sex isn't a sin? Sans Robin, I am pretty sure most here would say that gay sex is wrong and in direct contradiction of the laws of God.

Who said the church was being led by a false prophet?

I can believe gay sex is wrong, and at the same time think they should be allowed to get married. Allowing them marriage doesn't they are expunged from sin.

So they should reap financial eenefits and be made comfortable in their sins? I don't understand the logic, but so be it.

Actually, although argument is fair game here, if there were no financial impact, I certainly wouldn't even argue about it, provided they weren't so in your face.

Yet there is financial harm by expanding benefits to even a relatively discreet group. I stand, perhaps alone, against benefit expansion. No more benefits for special interest groups.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

So they should reap financial eenefits and be made comfortable in their sins? I don't understand the logic, but so be it.

Actually, although argument is fair game here, if there were no financial impact, I certainly wouldn't even argue about it, provided they weren't so in your face.

Yet there is financial harm by expanding benefits to even a relatively discreet group. I stand, perhaps alone, against benefit expansion. No more benefits for special interest groups.

So why is it that you are "following the prophet" and others are not? You appear to reject the premise that homosexual marriage is per se bad and state your principle reason for supporting the amendment is financial. That ISN'T the church's principle reason (something that is abundantly clear from the Proclamation). Are you only being asked, in your view, to accept the measure and not accept the reasoning too?

In your dogmatic universe, shouldn't you also accept that you must adopt the reasoning? You continually suggest that people who don't support this amendment are fallen from grace and apostate, and yet you now suggest that, if not for the financial aspect, you too would disagree with the amendment. In other words, your conservativism appears to be more of a driving force to you than your religion (exactly what you are accusing of me and others of doing with liberalism).

Your posts are very difficult to follow. You continue to slip into a discussion of homosexuality in general when the actual discussion revolves around homosexual marriage. "Getting their rocks off" is no more prevalent with gay marriage than it is without it. You apparently recognized this fact, and then supported the amendment for financial purposes (which appears flawed, to me, based on my first paragraph).

I also don't understand where you are going with your "the church has failed" language. If you believe it to be a divine institution, is it possible for it to fail? Has God failed?

PLEASE NAME ONE THING THAT IS SUCCESSFUL AND GOOD IN THIS WORLD!!! Please!!! It will do you some good!

Every time I read a post of yours, I hope there aren't any weapons in your house. You appear to be the most depressed person I have ever conversed with. You come across as a strange hybrid of Eeyore and Data from Star Trek.

[Archaea]

My personality is nothing like my persona here.

There are many things which appear negative to others that I don't find negative.

For example, the existence of pain. It's a nonsequitur.

The demise of a country. It may wreak havoc, but it is an event.

Mormons seem blithely unconnected to many of the harsh realities around them. They have a uniquely noncynical view of government, trust in authority outside of the Church and don't protect themselves enough.

We don't practice what we preach. Neither does any other large group, so be it.

A part of my personal view embraces stoic nihilism.