(no subject)

[hermionesviolin]

Apparently today is Churches Oppose Gay Marriage Sunday or something. I whispered to my mother, "If i'd known that, i would have boycotted." But it ended up just meaning that Tim talked a lot at the beginning of the service about the upcoming vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment and stuff. One interesting thing he said was that politicians aren't gonna act unless pressured, so it's not the fault of the politicians, or the judges, or even the homosexual activists, it's the fault of the people of God for not telling the politicians what they want. First time i've ever heard someone with his beliefs on gay marriage saying something like that. Then he talked about various reasons why we should oppose gay marriage, all of which i found problematic of course. But then he talked about hate speech laws and i had one of those "Why do you have to make my side look bad?" moments. I keep insisting that separation of church and state will mean churches will retain their rights to refuse to perform same-sex marriages and to preach that homosexuality is a sin. But apparently there have already been cases (in Canada, i think -- which makes sense since i remember mentioning how problematic a new hate speech law there was) of pastors getting in trouble for saying homosexuality is a sin. I have such problems with hate speech laws. Even more than i do with hate crime laws.


PB's sermon on John 21:1-17 made me want Jesus/Simon Peter slash.

Comments

The most egregious Canadian case

[(Anonymous)]

occurred in 1991:

"[The ad] listed the references to four Bible passages, Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 on the left side. An equal sign was placed between the verse references and a drawing of two males holding hands overlaid with the universal nullification symbol – a red circle with a diagonal bar.

"Under Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of Regina, Saskatchewan, was found guilty along with the newspaper, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, of inciting hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500 Canadian dollars to each of the three homosexual men who filed the complaint.

"The rights code allows for expression of honestly held beliefs, but the commission ruled that the code can place "reasonable restriction" on Owens's religious expression, because the ad exposed the complainants "to hatred, ridicule, and their dignity was affronted on the basis of their sexual orientation.""

The ruling was later upheld by the Province's appeals court. A copy of the ad and more background can be found at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31080

My feeling is that you should be very, very slow to give your friends power that you wouldn't want to see in the hands of your enemies. After all, didn't straight people for years say that gay people should remain closeted because acknowledging their very existence affronted the dignity of straight people? And if straight people said that it did affront their dignity, it's hard to argue that it really didn't. In a free society, one must be willing to accept various affronts--else no one could ever say or do anything controversial.

RAS