Since California’s Proposition 8 passed, gay advocates have accused Christian groups of hate, hypocrisy, intolerance, misinformation, violating equal rights, and of not supporting the separation of church and state.
It seems the pot is calling the kettle black.
This YouTube.com video clip shows gay advocates berating and intimidating an elderly lady in Palm Springs, California, peacefully bearing a cross. This YouTube video clip shows an outrageous scene at the LDS Temple in West Hollywood, California.
The disappointment of anti-Proposition 8ers is understandable, after all it was a hard fought and emotionally charged issue. However, it’s also safe to say that gay rights advocates have definitively and irreversibly forfeited any pretense of tolerance, rightness, and moral superiority on this issue.
The great philosopher, anonymous, once said, “What you say about others says something about yourself as well.
In fact, perhaps nothing is as revealing of a person’s character as how they respond to setbacks; that’s when people’s true colors show through.
The Mormon Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in particular has been the target of vicious retaliation by enraged gay rights advocates. In addition to condemning LDS Church members in the media, over the Internet, and face to face, all over the country LDS buildings are being vandalized, and white powder is being mailed to places like the Salt Lake Temple in Utah, and the Los Angeles Temple in California, and at least 1 white powder mailing, earlier this year to FBI offices Salt Lake City, included hate letters.
Prior to the passing of Proposition 8, LDS Church leaders took great care to instruct its believers to treat others with civility and respect. Likewise, after the passing of Proposition 8, the LDS Church issued the following statement:
“Most likely, the election results for these constitutional amendments will not mean an end to the debate over same-sex marriage in this country.
“We hope that now and in the future all parties involved in this issue will be well informed and act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility toward those with a different position. No one on any side of the question should be vilified, intimidated, harassed or subject to erroneous information.”
Curiously, the popular search engine, Google, does not include lds.org in its search results for this quote, even though it is clearly and prominately posted on lds.org. Google instead only lists several news agencies that carried the quote. Yahoo’s search engine, by the way, with the same search criteria, lists lds.org no problem. That is especially interesting given that Google’s founders are famously liberal Californians who personally donated six-figure contritutions to the effort to defeat Proposition 8. Likewise, Google’s executives and employees are overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning, with 98% of their political contributions during the last campaign going to one party. Additionally, Google has a controversial history of purging conservative leaning websites from search results. Likewise, conservative groups have complained that Google censors their advertisements as well. Google, of course, has no problem serving up other “constitutionally protected free speech” such as pornography, liberal ideologies, or how to make a bomb for that matter.
The whole world knows that had California’s proposition 8 failed, LDS Church leaders would not have organized protests in front of gay bars, nor would they have resorted to the acrimony, labeling and hate-mongering that we are seeing from those who did lose.
And while gay rights advocates may yet vilify, bully and manipulate their way into overturning proposition 8, they cannot change the unimpeachable fact that marriage is not theirs to define.
What shockingly few people seem to understand is that marriage is not a right, nor is it a government entitlement. Marriage is a religious practice. It always has been.
Secular doctrine teaches that mankind evolved from animals, some of which mate for life but none of which marry. It is RELIGIOUS doctrine that conceived of marriage.
Religion, including the institution of marriage, seriously predates the founding of this country and its constitution. Marriage is by no means a U.S. government institution, nevertheless, it has long been the object of a hostile takeover.
The nation George Washington governed recognized Martha as his wife, but their marriage would be illegal in the nation George Bush governs!
When our nation was born, marriage was a religious rite that didn’t concern the government. Then, in the 1800s, states began passing laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Eventually, they allowed interracial marriage, but only with a government issued license, hence the birth of the American marriage license.
That’s right. Ironically, from the very beginning, the reason government was involved in marriage at all was as a means to discriminate against some people.
For untold centuries, marriage survived without controversy as a religious institution. It was the secular hijacking of marriage by the United States government that started our current conflict.
The Federal Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act of 1923 prompted every state in the Union to adopt marriage license laws, perhaps the largest invasion of religious rights by “the state” in the history of the United States.
During the Great Depression, the U.S. Government became intensely interested in taxing incomes, and income taxes differentiated between single Americans and married couples. Likewise, the Norris Laguardia Act of 1932 gave power to organized labor, leading to employer’s benefits which likewise treated married people differently. Little by little, for monetary reasons (the root of all evil?), the Federal Government co-opted marriage from religion.
And as the great philosopher, Ringo Starr, once said, “Everything the government touches turns to crap.”
But while the United States may have tied taxes and other things to marital status, constitutional constraints forbid the government from annexing religion and its practices as its own. To do so would violate the First Amendment of the Constitution reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Like it or not, marriage is and always has been a religious practice, not a government program, entitlement or right, therefore it is not a voter’s prerogative to define it.
This is not a matter of homophobia, hate, intolerance, hypocrisy, or any of the other labels the spin doctors are using. It is simply a matter of fact.
Marriage is and has always been, since long before the United States was born, a religious rite, not a constitutional right.
Consequently, what gay advocates are demanding with marriage is that government elections should be used to tell religions what their doctrines and practices should be. Could there be a more blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution?
The fact that so many people could with such brashness and indignation insist that government seize for its own the free exercise of religion is a testament to just how powerful the forces against religion in this country really are.
Civil unions may well be a protected right of all people, but marriage certainly is not.
In fact, to insist otherwise is, to borrow the labels and rhetoric of the opponents of Proposition 8, blatant “bigotry and intolerance” … of the rights of religious peoples.
But if the day ever comes when the free exercise of religion falls victim to populist political pressures, I seriously doubt you will see the LDS Prophet, the Catholic Pope and Protestant Clergy on Google’s YouTube website berating and intimidating little old ladies in front of gay bars… further illustrating that, in more ways than one, gay rights advocates are just flat wrong on this issue.
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