Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Approves Gay Marriage in Church Constitution

a reply to: Seamrog

You have noted an anti-religious chip on my shoulder? Good catch!

Did you miss the huge neon sign over my head stating both my atheism and anti-theism unequivocally?

My conceptualization of reality (i.e. my beliefs) or your opinion of same have no bearing on the accuracy of statements I've made here.

Of course you are stating your own interpretations of RC tenets. You are not the Pope.

The shiftiness of retroactive annulment is apparent. When a marriage ends by decree, that is a divorce whatever it is called.

You're right I have no respect at all for your Church. She has nestled the worst ilk of abusers and liars to Her bosom for over 1700 years.

An absence of respect, however, is hardly bitterness. An appreciation of fact despite sacred semantics isn't either.

Enjoy Climbing Every Mountain til you find your dream! Don't fall into any Von Trapps ...

Ta.

a reply to: Mousygretchen

I really hope that was a sick attempt at humor. Things don't come across well in text (satire, sarcasm).

Regardless, your post is one of the major reasons the Supreme Court MUST weigh in on marriage. It has nothing to do with religious "mumbo-jumbo" and everything to do with the rights of the people.

Can people honestly think that a family cannot love and raise a child simply because they are homosexual? How shallow can a mindset be?

Should a family not be together as a loved one is in a hospital bed dying simply because they identify as a different gender? How does one bring their mind to that conclusion?

The legal aspects of marriage that are denied to people everyday based on nothing more than what you or I take as a private matter should offend you, yet many champion it's cause.

We as a people would rather let children go without parents entirely, before we would see them in the loving home of someone whose bedroom practices we do not share. How can anyone wrap their minds around that?

OP, sorry for the rant. I know I posted my opinion and others posted theirs. I read this yesterday and it's be weighing on me and I could not have my thoughts "lumped in" with any such as the above (as often happens). Doesn't matter to many, but it matters to my slightly damaged brain

a reply to: 200Plus

Thanks for this post! I'm a bit confused by it though ...

So, earlier, your concern with the Presbyterians sanctioning marriage equality mainly had to do with your issue that one can't legitimately call themselves Christian AND support something like marriage equality?

a reply to: Gryphon66

My earlier post was about changing the established belief system of Christianity to fit a "modern world view".

A religious marriage and a legal marriage are two vastly different things. I stated right away in my first post that I support marriage equality and I do.

Once there are enough pieces/laws torn away from the Christian faith it is really no longer Christianity, so why call it that. If it's time for a new set of beliefs it should be time for a new name as well.

People can call themselves whatever they like. If they do not follow the values of an institution then are they really what they claim though? Judge not and all that I know.

However, if I went down to Cobo Hall in a Blackhawk jersey, with my Blackhawk hat, sat on my Blackhack seat cushion, and waved my Blackhawk banner, could I really stand up and say I was a PROUD Redwings fan? (Hockey analogy)

originally posted by: Seamrog

originally posted by: NavyDoc

This. If the Church finds it has to modify their stances to "stay relevant" then perhaps it was all o bunch of made up bull# all along.

A billion and a half (and growing!) Catholics don't happen to share your view, Doc.

I was raised Catholic and the "billion and half and growing Catholics" are not in the US where the Church is flip flopping in order to be "cool" but in Latin America and other places where they retain the older traditions to include (and this is where the "growing" comes in) proscriptions against birth control.

Another example of the dynamism of the American religious scene is the experience of the Catholic Church. Other surveys - such as the General Social Surveys, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago since 1972 - find that the Catholic share of the U.S. adult population has held fairly steady in recent decades at around 25%. What this apparent stability obscures, however, is the large number of people who have left the Catholic Church. Approximately one-third of the survey respondents who say they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic. This means that roughly 10% of all Americans are former Catholics. These losses, however, have been partly offset by the number of people who have changed their affiliation to Catholicism (2.6% of the adult population) but more importantly by the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S. The result is that the overall percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic has remained fairly stable.

If you can't keep 'em, you breed them elsewhere and then import them.

religions.pewforum.org...

The Roman Catholic Church (No. 1) and the Southern Baptist Convention (No. 2) are still significantly larger than all other North American denominations, but Catholics posted minimal growth of less than 1%, and Southern Baptist membership fell for a third straight year, according to the 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churchespublished this week.

a reply to: 200Plus

I hear and acknowledge your contention here:

Once there are enough pieces/laws torn away from the Christian faith it is really no longer Christianity, so why call it that. If it's time for a new set of beliefs it should be time for a new name as well.

But where or more accurately when would that renaming best take place? I would argue that the Great Schism and the Reformation both changed the fundamental natures of what was previously a more unified "Christianity" than mere questions about a legal contract offered at the state level between two individuals subject to due process ... or the interminable (not to mention fairly trival) matter of whether the Christian God likes or dislikes homosexuals.

Honestly, I could care less what the Christians call themselves, but, nonetheless, Christian churches on both sides of the issue still continue to name themselves Christian.

Whatever floats their boats.

As far as your hockey analogy, (which is quite honestly an overloaded question), I'd say we'd figure it out when we see what's left after the real Redwings fans get done with you. LOL.

originally posted by: mOjOm
So is this like official meaning that all Presbyterian churches will now follow this???

No. I believe an individual church or clergy can opt out, so to speak. The wording of the amendment allows that marriage is between two people, traditionally, a man and a woman.