Consider this a response to your various jabs against the LDS "faith". I think I have elsewhere laid out distinctions between "faith" and "logic". Do "religious" people have any "rights" at all to use their natural human rights to establish a legal structure compatible with their ideals? Why should anyone else have civil rights of that kind. . . . to exercise political franchise to establish laws after their own ideals?
Our American founding fathers actually had some discussions about the need for making a claim of higher authority, or higher moral authority, than a simple claim that humans have a right to do what they please, in establishing a political structure. They realized what no one here has mentioned. . . . If the claim is merely that people are free, there is a problem with that.
They accordingly invoked the moral authority for their revolution of a Supreme Being, an absolute moral authority that is "higher" than man himself.
If we construct a set of laws based merely on what we are, on what we wish, or on what we choose, we face the problem of what I laughingly call the Nietzchean Nightmare. If we enact "law" based on our own authority, why should anyone hold it in any regard? Does one man, or set of men, have higher authority than another? Does a State have higher authority than a rebel?
I am fundamentally against agenda pushers with their special ideas forcing their way on others, just as I am against those "others" who have exercised their majority perks to force their ways on others in the past.
What our founders did, while invoking the authority of "Nature's God" in proclaiming the "self-evident" human right to replace governments abusive of human liberty, was a radical departure from the Western Tradition flowing from a Christianity that embraced statism some thirteen hundred years earlier. They took Biblical ideals about inherent human values derived from an anthropocentric "God" that had handed down a Law, a Law that was based on the existence of an absolute Law Giver giving man specific duties and rights and defining "righteousness", and merely asserted that a set of understandable human rights exist because that fact is supported by the Ultimate Authority.
Scientists use the same foundation when they pursue their Scientific Method, with the understanding that the Universe is fundamentally ordered, and understandable. The Scientific Method I embrace refers to an inherently independent self-existing reality that exists on its own authority and nature, not on a "politically expedient" human agenda we can create or choose for ourselves, as it has in some respects been degraded to today.
What is going on now with various anti-religious movements is a problematical assertion that there is no underlying reality and that we are entitled to define and establish the "reality" that we wish to create.
This is, and always will be, a fool's errand.
We do not want a State empowered to play Fool with our lives.
whatever we believe or wish for our personal life structure, our culture, or beliefs. . .. we do not want to create this monster. . . . . A State that can define these things and give them the force of law, is the very Devil we are trying to rid ourselves of.
Whatever beliefs and social relations we want, we need to assert our "rights" without giving government the power to define them. If you want liberty in any regard, you need to accept a liberty that allows others to select for themselves their own ways as well. Generally speaking, that means you need to limit government's power by mutual agreement, not indulge in a public brawl or debate about who among us is going to win our way, and then use government authority to enforce it.
I argue that there is a self-existing reality to human nature that will determine the results of our actions. That reality determines the value of our sexual relations or actions. That reality places a premium value on heterosexual unions, and on long-term committments to a family structure. Some values can be achieved with other structures if we choose to go that way, or if for any reason that is what we are inclined to, but the premium value is propagation of our species in the face of all the challenges to our continued existence.
I agree with Dutch that "marriage" is a concept owned by it's creators, the followers of a religious tradition. It is an attack on that religious tradition to try to give government the power to define it. If we want religious freedom in any kind of "tradition", if we want freedom to claim any relation is sanctified by our beliefs, we should keep government stripped of all power to define it or regulate it.
what I would do is seek an amendment to our Constitution that removes States from all power to license or define personal relationships. I admit some value for state licensing of say building contractors, professionals, and commercial enterprises, although even those are often harmed more by State regulation than "helped". This is a radical idea. It is the same idea our founders had when they decided to be rebels, and replace their government with one that was not so inclined to play Fool and overlord us.
Gameface, religion is all about our right to believe and act as we are pleased to imagine God wants. If you want respect from others, and toleration from others, for the things you are pleased to value, you will make your case better by supporting the same rights for others.
