Tony Perkins is the head of the Family Research Council. The organization is, to put it bluntly, Ultra Conservative, Ultra Christian, Ultra Homophobic. He and they would love nothing more than to see America ruled by cross wielding religious fanatics who’d replace the Constitution with the Bible, and make the Inquisition look like summer camp.
Recently Tony raged against the overturning of Prop 8 in California. He made these two statements:
Recently Tony raged against the overturning of Prop 8 in California. He made these two statements:
"The fact that homosexuals prefer not to enter into marriages as historically defined does not give them a right to change the definition of what a 'marriage' is."
"FRC has always fought to protect marriage in America and will continue to do so by working with our allies to appeal this dangerous decision.
http://www.frc.org/newsroom/frc-criticizes-court-ruling-warns-against-the-roe-v-wade-of-same-sex-marriage
“Protect marriage”? Protect it from what exactly? My marriage doesn’t require his protection, whose does? I understand protecting children from clergy pedophiles, but how does one protect a word or concept from evolving, and why?
Like all religious extremists Tony is living in denial. The "historic definition" of any word in the English lexicon evolves. I suppose he’s still wringing his hands over the evolved “historic definition” of the word "gay." He and his ilk must have accepted it, since I don't hear any of them saying things like "I'm feeling quite gay today." I imagine they stay up nights bemoaning the evolution of the word “awful,” which once meant “deserving of awe.”
Sorry Tony, but just like language, cultural mores evolve. Women can now own property – historically & biblically they couldn't. People can’t own slaves – historically and biblically they could. Inter racial couples can now marry - historically they couldn't. Being gay, committing adultery, and working on the “Sabbath” is no longer punishable by death - historically & biblically it was. Inter racial marriage was once deemed to be in violation of God's plan. You'll get used to gay marriage, Tony, just like you've gotten used to, or at least grudgingly accepted, these other examples of cultural evolution..
I keep asking why religionists insist on forcing selected / cherry picked ancient Hebraic admonishments on society. How does the evolution away from these things directly negatively affect their lives, their freedoms? Why don't they rage just as much against people wearing mixed fiber clothes (Lev. 19:19), or boiling a kid goat in it's mother's milk (Exodus 23:14-19) and demand constitutional amendments to enforce them? In the absence of a satisfactory response the only answer I can come up with is hypocrisy and hate born of the religious virus.
http://www.frc.org/newsroom/frc-criticizes-court-ruling-warns-against-the-roe-v-wade-of-same-sex-marriage
“Protect marriage”? Protect it from what exactly? My marriage doesn’t require his protection, whose does? I understand protecting children from clergy pedophiles, but how does one protect a word or concept from evolving, and why?
Like all religious extremists Tony is living in denial. The "historic definition" of any word in the English lexicon evolves. I suppose he’s still wringing his hands over the evolved “historic definition” of the word "gay." He and his ilk must have accepted it, since I don't hear any of them saying things like "I'm feeling quite gay today." I imagine they stay up nights bemoaning the evolution of the word “awful,” which once meant “deserving of awe.”
Sorry Tony, but just like language, cultural mores evolve. Women can now own property – historically & biblically they couldn't. People can’t own slaves – historically and biblically they could. Inter racial couples can now marry - historically they couldn't. Being gay, committing adultery, and working on the “Sabbath” is no longer punishable by death - historically & biblically it was. Inter racial marriage was once deemed to be in violation of God's plan. You'll get used to gay marriage, Tony, just like you've gotten used to, or at least grudgingly accepted, these other examples of cultural evolution..
I keep asking why religionists insist on forcing selected / cherry picked ancient Hebraic admonishments on society. How does the evolution away from these things directly negatively affect their lives, their freedoms? Why don't they rage just as much against people wearing mixed fiber clothes (Lev. 19:19), or boiling a kid goat in it's mother's milk (Exodus 23:14-19) and demand constitutional amendments to enforce them? In the absence of a satisfactory response the only answer I can come up with is hypocrisy and hate born of the religious virus.
But it doesn't matter. In 5 or 6 years gay marriage will be legal in all 50 states. And in 100 to 300 years the Christian churches will apologize for their homophobic hysteria , just like they apologized for Galileo's persecution, burning of heretics, the Inquisition, and the impact of Martin Luther's anti-Semitism on Europe. It just takes them that long to catch up to humanity.
25 comments:
I don't understand the "Protect Marriage" angle anyway...protect it from the fraction of the population that happens to be gay and wants to get married, while it the same time allowing half the heterosexual population to divorce and re-marry as many times as they like?!
If they really wanted to protect marriage, they would outlaw divorce, not gay marriage.
Compassionate... You'd think that would be the logical approach. But logic is not a mainstay of religiosity.
But in truth it's not marriage they are "protecting," they know that. Its simply about keeping homosexuals 2nd class people because they can't legally kill them like the Bible directs them to.
Hump said...
And in 100 to 300 years the Christian churches will apologize for their homophobic hysteria , just like they apologized for Galileo's persecution, burning of heretics, the Inquisition, and the impact of Martin Luther's anti-Semitism on Europe. It just takes them that long to catch up to humanity.
I think its more likely that when gay marriage is accepted as commonly as abolition and civil rights are today, churches will be claiming that they supported gay marriage all along and that they led the fight for it and if it weren't for them, gay marriage might still be illegal.
The religionists are always screaming about how secular our country has become and the problems we have now are because we have turned away from god. I think their fear is real and in some ways justified. The fear arises because they know they are losing CONTROL over the way people think. They thought Elvis and the Beatles were the devil! They still want to edit and sensor the media. Some churches preach against even owning televisions and computers. They want to control our politics and legislate our morality. The reason they fear so much and fight so hard is because the more society evolves away from the bible, the more irrelevant they become. Marriage is another area that they don't want to lose their death grip on.
I think the courts will be ahead of the public on the issue of gay marriage as they have been on many civil rights issues. Hopefully, the courts will do the right thing, but the religionists will still be screaming for decades to come! Hopefully, fewer and fewer will be listening
Save Marriages. If you have 2 you get the 3rd one free.
This whole anti-gay marriage sentiment is, to me, a perfect illustration of why the concept of religion itself is ultimately harmful. In a word, it makes people selfish.
We have a natural fear of death; it serves as a survival instinct. It's simply easier to believe that death isn't the end of life than to accept one's own mortality. The thinking usually says "What's the point of life if I'm going to die eventually?" You see the inherent selfishness in this question? People of this mindset are only thinking of themselves. They aren't thinking about the billions of other humans who won't die when they do, and the billions who will be born in the coming years. To me, those other people are the point of life.
So, this selfishness leads these folks to strive to alter the world to fit their narrow view, because it's easier. These people find homosexuality icky (unless the two chicks are hot, huh-huh), and rather than learn to accept the personally icky for the sake of the greater good, i.e. more love and more stable relationships, they seek to eliminate it, and the Bible offers them a convenient justification. Ultimately, it's not about marriage, it's about their own selfish squeamishness and their inability to simply DEAL WITH IT.
Tony Perkins, didn't he play Norman Bates in the Psycho movies? Anyway, 100-300 years until a possible apology from the church is just as crazy as the reasons that may bring them to apologize. Let's split the difference and say 200 years. Hump, in your opinion, what are the chances that religion will be long gone in 200 years?
As usual, the right wing and the religious will do anything and say anything to try to get their way. Their lies are now standard practice.
Angus...ah! you may be right. They tried to say that slavery was banned because of xtian activism. While some sects/denominations were abolitionist, the majority of good Xtians in the southern US were pro slavery and used the bible to justify it.
Theynwill lie and distort history for their benefit wheneverpossible.
Longhorn.. yup. They fear their fantasy's irrelevancy..and they are right to do so.
Andrew... you nailed it. TY for that. Here in NH we had a state representative talk about the filth of anal sex as her reason for opposition to gay marriage. In and email to her I suggested she might want to worry less about the feces in ones ass, and more about the feces in her head.
Motor..LOL. Yeah, different Tony Perkins.
Religion will be around forever. But the grip of religion on government, and society in Western and Industrialied countries will be long gone in the next 80 years. The trend has already been confirmed.
NEBob... lying is a Christian sacrament.
I suspect a lot of the anti-gay paranoia stems from fear of the erosion of the pecking order, among those whose insecurities are assuaged by being able to feel "above" someone else.
"If we can't discriminate against those evil fags, who can we discriminate against?"
Ultimately the marriage fight isn't about "preserving" heterosexual marriage, which they know perfectly well is awash in problems which have nothing to do with gays. It's about being able to exclude a despised group from a respected status, so as to be able to go on despising them.
we had a state representative talk about the filth of anal sex as her reason for opposition to gay marriage.
Someone needs to inform these people that a lot of gay males don't engage in anal sex, and some heterosexuals do.
I support your using comment moderation, by the way. I've always used it and it's well worth it.
I think the religionists in the anti-gay anything/anti-gay marriage lot who protest the loudest are a bunch of self-loathing closeted hypocrites. And I'll say again--the Bible is the most popular book but the least read. LOL!
Hump said: " You'll get used to gay marriage, Tony, just like you've gotten used to, or at least grudgingly accepted, these other examples of cultural evolution."
Including interracial marriage--which I happen to be a part of. LOL! When did it become legal again? Sometime in the 60's? And people still aren't marrying their dogs or trees. LOL!
300 more years of that corrupt catholic church????? Say it isn't so, we do need to be rid of it completely way sooner.
Infidel, thanks for the input. we agree.
Bob Loblaw... it's ok..the population of catholics by then will be much smaller than now. Tey'll be able to issue their belated apology by email to all their faithful ;)
Hello Hump,
I just did a posting on the best selling author, Anne Rice, officially quit being a Christian.
http://www.engineerofknowledge.blogspot.com/
Enjoy :-)
thks for the heads up Eng. I commented. Good article.
I have to admit I don't understand the whole guy attracted to guys thing... but I agree marriage is simply a word definition..
What's crazy though is that this guy blatantly says...
"Marriage is recognized as a public institution, rather than a purely private one, because of its role in bringing together men and women for the reproduction of the human race and keeping them together to raise the children produced by their union"
It amazes me that Christians cannot see the hypocrisy in that statement... What about couples (man and woman) who can not, or choose not to have kids? Is their marriage then null and void?...and should we only have sex for procreation.. in the missionary position only no less? What the heck?
Dan,
It's hypocrisy to the thinking. To the deluded it's just plain god's word. "Be fruitful and multiply" is the edict they follow. They don't care about over population, the impact on the environment, the consumption of resources. They don't give a fiddlers damn about any of it, as long as children are produced.
But their procreation argument is a smoke screen when it comes right down to it. Like I said above...homosexuality is an abomination according to scripture. Thus, to allow them to marry and be happy when they'd prefer to stone them to death as prescribed, is just one more insult to their religious beliefs.
A "traditional" marriage was a union between a man and a woman to fulfill economic and diplomatic extensions between families. The word marriage was redefined to encompass romantic love, as opposed to a predetermined economic and diplomatic pact.
Shelly... very good.
In essence religionists have hijacked the definition of marriage to mean "union for procreation." I guess it's ok for them to hijack definitions for their pown purposes.
Thanks for that very important claroifcation.
Good points made here. No need for me to repeat them.
Reading this I came to think of this Christian guy who loudly declared that Christianity had given away on so many issues to try to shape it self to society.
"But enough is enough" he said.
"We will not give in on gay marriage. We will never accept it" he declared.
What you said about former biblical "customs" not longer allowed made me remember Hump. I shouldn't have let my girlfriend at the time drag me away. These would have been interesting points to present to him. Did you give in on slavery? Did you give in on woman rights? and so on.
(sign) Missed opportunities:)
Enjoyable reading as always Hump.
Wow. This post is one of your best.
Remember who else was "Ultra Conservative, Ultra Christian, Ultra Homophobic"? Ted Haggard.
Thks, Rasti...
Thats an interesting quote from that Xtian. But this "giving in" to the evolving mores of society isn't even a choice for them. Its a matter of survival.
Unless they adapt and evolve their doctrine they will be come less and less relevant to their followers. So they evolve with society in order to remain a viable institution.
It just takes them longer because they and their adherents do not evolve at the same pace .. they are far from the leading edge of progressive thought.
Analog, thanks.
and yes... Haggard is perfect example. One can only wonder if the more Ultra they are, the more likely they are to be that which they profess to dispise most.
"We will not give in on gay marriage. We will never accept it" he declared.
Actually -- nobody's asking them to, nobody cares whether they do. This is all about civil marriages recognized by the state. Religions will always be free to define marriage however they want, so long as they don't try to impose their taboos on the state's definition of civil marriage.
There are probably still religions which don't accept interracial marriage (some Christian "universities" prohibit interracial dating, or did until recently). Nobody cares, so long as the state recognizes it.
Hump said - .Andrew... you nailed it. TY for that. Here in NH we had a state representative talk about the filth of anal sex as her reason for opposition to gay marriage. In and email to her I suggested she might want to worry less about the feces in ones ass, and more about the feces in her head.
@Hump " feces in her head" LMAO!!!
@Andrew - you did nail it!
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