That’s nice. A nice sentiment. But since we are talking about a national group devoted to taking away your ability to feel happy about your relationships, completely irrelevant

Regarding the “minority rights” argument, and whether there should be votes to give rights to minorities

Just want to disagree violently with the implicit premises here. Rights aren’t “given” by some higher power, they are innate. Similarly, there is no such thing as “minority rights”, that is, there isn’t a special package of rights that pertain only to gays or whomever, there are only the Rights of Man that pertain to every human individual, and it’s just that not everyone seems to get that message.

After this event, perhaps it would be more appropriate to refer to them as “NOMMED”.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Everyone forgets about Vermont! We legalized same-sex marriage by ballot, not through the courts. Though it DID have to be passed by overriding a veto from our (then-) governor.

Yes, that may be but remember that’s not good religion but bad religion -as well as reflecting the worse side of Humanity rather than the better side.

The homophobes misusing and distorting religion by attempting to justify their prejudice on religious grounds are overlooking stuff like this that’s in the Torah / Old Testament Bible

So in other words, whenever someone does something good in the name of religion, that shows how great religion is, but whenever someone does something bad in the name of religion, that is a misuse and distortion of religion? Can anyone say “no true Scotsman”? What’s next, begging the question?

I’m not going to dredge this whole thing up again, but once more I will state that you are judging ancient cultures and their writ by your own modern standards, not theirs.

I’m not sure why you seem so keen to downplay and minimise the obvious meaning and strength of these verses.

Because the “meaning” is an ancient one. A man kissing another man, swearing love and allegiance with God as a witness, is not a sign of a homosexual relationship in Iron Age Levantine civilizations! It’s a symbol of loyalty, nothing more. That this allegiance is “more dear” than the love of a woman only reinforces the low status of women in this society, it has no implication about romantic or physical love between the two men. Again, Messier, stop reinterpreting the Bible based upon your own modern points of view.

Homosexuality (& committed gay and bisexual relationships) has always been around and these & marriage been treated differently in different cultures and different ages. But then you already know that, right?

Yes, I know that. And I know that homosexual marriage did not exist in the Levant. Ancient Egypt is the only society (that I know of) that presents historical evidence for such a sanctioned arrangement, and even that is only evidenced among the elite of society nearest to the pharaoh. There just isn’t any evidence for it anywhere else.

Religion is what you make of it, but its historical roots are what they are. You cannot rewrite a text and claim “that’s what they meant.” You can only state, “Here’s how I reinterpret that text today.”

Enough already.