RE: Gay rights within the template of religion proves flaws in "religion"
October 12, 2014 at 7:40 pm
(This post was last modified: October 12, 2014 at 7:56 pm by CristW.)
(October 12, 2014 at 1:14 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: To the OP's poll: there are no natural rights in a nation, anyway. Rights are abstractions, and granted (or seized) by people. Nature grants no rights at all, not even the right to breathe.
Well, actually my last option would allow the right of "gay" expression outside of the current and modern definition of "natural rights".
Yes, gays should be allowed to get married and have (adopted) children. The churches, or any religious center, have all the right to NOT accept them in their churches nor marry them. Of course, these rights do not originate from "nature" but the changes within the social environment and social interactions (Progressive trend). It seems the idea from Thomas Jefferson is true when he says the SEPARATION of Church and State:
“...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Observation:
1. Thomas Jefferson did not say the rights of conscience derives from nature like other legal writers of his time because of the extension of "social duties". The reason is because being gay is part of the "rights of conscience" because it does not derive from nature. There is a distinguishing characteristic within thinking and evolved sentient beings to make a decision. Parts of the many decisions is to be gay or straight or follow "a belief system or none at all"(which he has expressed in another statement).
2. The separation of Church(religion) and state(government) is needed for any functioning democratic society. If not then it could be defined as a theocracy.
