I ask the question: Why have none of the organised religions come out against Bushs proposition to ban gay marriages?

Don’t they realise that the Government is taking away their right to dictate who is married? I understand that most churches don’t agree with gay marriages anyway but really shouldn’t it be the churches decision who is married in the eyes of God and not the states?

I don’t understand why one Religion would care who another Religion would marry anyway. Since in order for you to do that then you must give some credence to their teachings? Now it is my understanding that if you are of a particular Christian Church then technically the members of another Christian Church (though of similar belief) are heretics. Now I know in modern days that the average Christian doesn’t care so much about this since we are all Christian and it doesn’t matter that there are a few theological differences here and there.

But if a church was to make such a grave move from what most Christian believe, no to Gay Marriage, then you have to ask yourself the question: Is that particular Church still a Christian church? If not then well hell they’re pagans and why do we care who they marry? If so then you have to ask the question with such a great division in our belief structure how united are we?

Now if the major religions came out against this proposal then that would be a green light to any church that wished to marry Gays wouldn’t it? They would take it not as, ‘that the religions oppose the Government taking its charge of who to marry away’, but as a, ‘the major religions are in favour of gay marriages’. So I believe they are keeping quiet on the issue of the government taken away their rights for this reason. That or they really hate Gays and are happy that someone in office is finally making life a little harder for them . What does everyone else think?

Note:- this is not to debate the validity of Gay Marriages, but to debate whether the Government should be dictating who the Church can marry in the Eyes of God?

Edit :- Typo


[edit on 30-11-2004 by ChatholicGodBoy]

this is not to debate the validity of Gay Marriages, but to debate whether the Government should be dictating who the Church can marry in the Eyes of God?

I think you will find a church can marry anybody if they want to, however, this has not credence with the government. Only a state marriage certificate is proof that you are married. The church certificate is purely ornamental.

So lets talk about why the state is trying to ban gay marriages.

Seeing that the American constitution was founded with Christian principles and America 'still' claims it is a Christian country, it is not surprising at all that the administration is trying to ban gay marriages.

I ask the question: Why have none of the organised religions come out against Bush’s proposition to ban gay marriages?

According to a new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the majority of Americans -- 55 percent -- believe homosexuality is a sin. Fifty-nine percent oppose gay marriage -- that's up from 53 percent in July. And Americans with the highest levels of religious commitment reject gay marriage by a margin of six to one.

The majority of Americans are in support of the churches stance on gay marriages.

As a catholicgodboy, you should be familiar with the writings of the catholic church and their definition of 'marriage'

The word marriage may be taken to denote the action, contract, formality, or ceremony by which the conjugal union is formed or the union itself as an enduring condition. In this article we deal for the most part with marriage as a condition, and with its moral and social aspects. It is usually defined as the legitimate union between husband and wife. "Legitimate" indicates the sanction of some kind of law, natural, evangelical, or civil, while the phrase, "husband and wife", implies mutual rights of sexual intercourse, life in common, and an enduring union. The last two characters distinguish marriage, respectively, from concubinage and fornication

Marriage certainly as a concept is a contract between two people for the sole purpose of naturally having and raising children as the above definition proposes. If there is now a union between male and male and female and female then the definition of marriage has been broken so indeed it is theoretically impossible for gays to be married as it breaks the definition of the word. Go figure. Possibly if they came up with a different word or concept it could work. I am not familiar with the states definition of marriage. Someone might be able to fill me in.