Religious conservatives press GOP to pass gay marriage amendment

So who do the Republicans represent, their constituents or the NFC and NOM? The Strib Poll shows clearly that the majority of Minnesotans oppose this amendment regardless of their views on same sex marriage.

Come on GOP, it’s time to set aside the bullying and display some grace in leadership.

Praise Jebus, God hates an enlightened leadership, Amen.

“The only ones served by putting this vote off are gay marriage advocates, not Minnesota voters or Minnesota families.”

Actually, gay Minnesotans are voters who have families. This statement is just more evidence (as if any were needed) that these people don’t consider gays to be legitimate citizens (or humans, for that matter), who have the same fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as everyone else. Un-Christian; un-American.

We need to expose the financial contributions of religious corporations. Then we can nail them to the wall.

Who will it be after the gays? Will this christianist- extremist bunch be able to abolish the full citizenship of which group of Minnesotans next? Old people? Women? Brown people? Not adequately extremist enough? What did YOU do to stop it?

Marriage USED to be for everyone. It was redefined already. Lets restore it. Some history they dont want you to know.

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay “wedding” is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus,2 two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (512 – 518 CE) explained that, “we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life”. This is not a case of simple “adelphopoiia.” In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the “sweet companion and lover” of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as “erastai,” or “lovers”. In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell3, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, “Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union”, invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to “vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints”. The ceremony concludes: “And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded”.

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union”, uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope’s parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, “taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together” according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell’s academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a [Christian] god-given love and commitment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

“… in the evening the youth came to him [Jesus], wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.” —The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Other Bible, Willis Barnstone, Editor, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1984, pp. 339-342. St Sergius and St BacchusA Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay “wedding” is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus,2 two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (512 – 518 CE) explained that, “we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life”. This is not a case of simple “adelphopoiia.” In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the “sweet companion and lover” of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as “erastai,” or “lovers”. In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell3, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, “Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union”, invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to “vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints”. The ceremony concludes: “And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded”.

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union”, uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope’s parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, “taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together” according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell’s academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a [Christian] god-given love and commitment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

“… in the evening the youth came to him [Jesus], wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.” —The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Other Bible, Willis Barnstone, Editor, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1984, pp. 339-342.

http://www.christianity-revealed.com/cr/files/whensamesexmarriagewasachristianrite.html

Who are these people trying to manipulate Minnesota politics? Check this out.

http://nomexposed.org/homepage-splash/

I’m pretty sure “salt and light” involves being nice to people and spreading the gospel, and definitely NOT spending the next year and a half wasting everyone’s time and money on a provision that would benefit nobody at all, but only necessitate another ballot fight in a very few years to undo it. (Unless, of course, the Supreme Court strikes it down first.)

While in New York about 2/3rd of the donations to the Pro Marriage Equality campaign there have come from wealthy Republicans:

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/05/republicans-donate-.html

Hopefully a sign the extreme religious right is losing it’s stranglehold on the GOP.

the Minnesota “Family” Council has no real interest in families, just in getting their agenda rammed down everyone’s throat. Unfortunately, it will be the Republican party who will suffer in the end by continuing to be branded as the party of hate. There were many such groups who pressured elected offices to fight integration and it ruined many political careers and brought shame to families of those people for several generations. I suggest that Republicans drop this discriminatory stand and readopt American values.

The Bible says: “Love does no harm to it’s neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” How have YOU been harmed because one of your neighbors was in love with someone of the same sex? I have NEVER heard someone who was able to answer this question.

What a sad commentary on where we’ve gotten as a country with regard to politics and religion. The first presedential candidate I ever campaigned for was Barry Goldwater, when I was 7. Now granted, it was because my parents were Republicans, and I changed my stripes in time to vote for Carter in ’76. But it’s interesting to look back on what the “Godfather of Conservatism” thought about breaking down the wall separating church and state.
http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Goldwater.html

Will NOM be required to show a Photo ID? Is Jesus registered here? He’ll need a Photo ID also.

@Wendy
“A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel.”

Mt. Sinai is in Egypt, not Israel. With such a glaring error in the very first sentence, it does not speak well at all of the quality of scholarship and research that follows.

Boswell’s been peer reviewed and roundly debunked, BTW.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as “…a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

We know which one the Republicans legislators and the The Minnesota Family Council are feeding!

Mike Cullinan wrote, “Boswell’s been peer reviewed and roundly debunked, BTW.”

So have the three major religious traditions of that region. But that hasn’t stopped their perpetuation.

Praise Jebus, God hates the enlightenment, Amen.

@Carl
“So have the three major religious traditions of that region. But that hasn’t stopped their perpetuation.”

“Praise Jebus, God hates the enlightenment, Amen.”

Yes, let’s eradicate religions and the religious and replace them with enlightened atheism that is free from the myths and fables of bygone days, such as that which they enjoyed under Stalinist Russia, for example.

Re: Mount Sinai in Israel, the first thing I would check is the date when this information was posted to the webpage; chances are that page had not been updated since then. After all, the Sinai Peninsula was under varying degrees of Israeli control from 1967 to 1982.

Personally, I think Mike’s suggestion to do away with religion in general is an excellent idea; maybe we’d all learn to get along with each other for once. As for linking enlightened atheism with Stalinist Russia, that is like linking Roman Catholicism with Hitlerite Germany. *rolling eyes here*

@Mike Cullinan-

You imply the only options are Atheistic Communism or Theocracy. But I suggest there is an easier solution to be found in Democracy. We should respect people’s right to believe whatever goof and voodoo they wish but prevent their fable based ethos from being imposed on the enlightened public you would denigrate. We already include this protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution so both sides might rest well knowing they are protected from the other by it’s enforcement.

Unless of course those same fablers intwine the Constitution with their mythology making it neigh on impossible to separate the two. Then maybe we do need to start over with a fact based Democratic Constitution which clarifies the role and responsibilities of religion in a modern Democracy. Namely, prove your religion is true or be subject to the same taxation and fundraising restrictions of any political entity.

Praise Jebus, God hates the inquisitive human mind, Amen.

@Lane

–Re: Mount Sinai in Israel, the first thing I would check is the date when this information was posted to the webpage; chances are that page had not been updated since then. After all, the Sinai Peninsula was under varying degrees of Israeli control from 1967 to 1982.

First of all, there was no world wide web before 1982, so rule that out.

Boswell’s book, History of Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, upon which the web page is based, was not published until 1994.

Therefore, there is not even the merest fig leaf of an excuse for what should be a major embarrassment. It screams “sloppy.”

–Personally, I think Mike’s suggestion to do away with religion in general is an excellent idea; maybe we’d all learn to get along with each other for once.

What do you suggest we do to make sure that when all the believers die, their beliefs die with them? Take their kids away and raise them in camps so the parents can’t inculcate their religion in them?

–As for linking enlightened atheism with Stalinist Russia, that is like linking Roman Catholicism with Hitlerite Germany. *rolling eyes here*

Much of what I hear is about how the religious cause problems in this world, and that if only religion went away, everything would be fine. Judging from the blood-soaked atheistic regimes of our recent past, it’s not all that simple, is it?

I really hate idiots. The Sinai Peninsula…. In 1967, Israel invaded and took control over the entire peninsula. The Suez Canal, the east bank of which was controlled by Israel, was closed. In 1979 Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty. Israel pulled out of Sinai in several stages, including the removal of its settlements which ended in 1982.

Just because Lively and Gallagher and Brown and PerKKKins agree on a subject (or any other fundamentalist-extremist) doesn’t mean it is “peer-reviewed” or “debunked”

http://www.gaychristian101.com/Gay-Marriage.html

Given the seriousness of equal access to civil marriage for loving, committed same-gender couples and their children, if any, you’ll have to excuse me for not allowing myself to be distracted by the likes of people like Mike Cullinan, Nachman and Tim, having given up applying my usual academic rigor to debunk their unrelenting nonsense.

Mike would do well to understand that atheism is merely acknowledgement of the non-existance of a god/higher power/supernatural supreme being/flying spaghetti monster – and should not be confused with ideologies, politics, greed, bigotry, prejudice, self-serving agendas, religious faiths, regimes, dictators, democratically elected leaders and so-called leaders, etc.

Personally, parents that “inculcat[e] their religion [including prejudices, bigotry, hatred and other assorted evils] in [their children]” such that their children are incapable of growing up into responsible, respectful members of greater society are guilty of bad parenting and child abuse. Meh.

I weary of you, Mike.

@Wendy Leigh
Comment posted May 17, 2011 @ 1:59 pm
–I really hate idiots. The Sinai Peninsula…. In 1967, Israel invaded and took control over the entire peninsula. The Suez Canal, the east bank of which was controlled by Israel, was closed. In 1979 Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty. Israel pulled out of Sinai in several stages, including the removal of its settlements which ended in 1982.

Yes, I know the history. We’re talking about something written nigh on to 30 years after the fact, not 1983.

–Just because Lively and Gallagher and Brown and PerKKKins agree on a subject (or any other fundamentalist-extremist) doesn’t mean it is “peer-reviewed” or “debunked”

A Groom of One’s Own?By Brent D. Shaw

[Brent D. Shaw, currently at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, teaches history at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta.]

Given the centrality of Boswell’s “new” evidence, therefore, it is best to begin by describing his documents and their import. These documents are liturgies for an ecclesiastical ritual called adelphopoiesis or, in simple English, the “creation of a brother.” Whatever these texts are, they are not texts for marriage ceremonies. Boswell’s translation of their titles (akolouthia eis adelphopoiesin and parallels) as “The Order of Celebrating the Union of Two Men” or “Office for Same-Sex Union” is inaccurate. In the original, the titles say no such thing. And this sort of tendentious translation of the documents is found, alas, throughout the book. Thus the Greek words that Boswell translates as “be united together” in the third section of the document quoted above are, in fact, rather ordinary words that mean “become brothers” (adelphoi genesthai); and when they are translated in this more straightforward manner, they impart a quite different sense to the reader.

More at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060507014622/http://www.learnedhand.com/shaw_boswell.htm

The mainstream of medievalists and church historians was approving, said Professor Hexter, a longtime friend of and intellectual collaborator with Professor Boswell, who is seriously ill and not available to be interviewed. But James Brundage, a professor of history and law at the University of Kansas, said the response was “interested but skeptical, very skeptical.”

Professor Brundage, the author of “Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe” (University of Chicago Press), said, “The mainstream reaction was that he raised some interesting questions, but hadn’t proved his case.”

NYT book review
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/bosrev-steinfels.html

Whatever medieval ceremonies of union he may have found, Boswell has not remotely established that they were originally homosexual in our romantic sense. Their real meaning has yet to be determined. Sacrilegious misuse of such ceremonies may indeed have occurred, leading to their banning, but historians are unjustified in extrapolating backwards and reducing fragmentary evidence to its lowest common denominator. The cause of gay rights, which I support, is not helped by this kind of slippery, self-interested scholarship, where propaganda and casuistry impede the objective search for truth.

From The Washington Post, July 17 1994
Review of John Boswell, Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe
by Camille Paglia.

Mr. DANIEL MENDELSOHN ( Princeton University ): I thought that Boswell’s book was extremely problematic.

ADLER: Daniel Mendelsohn is a writer who also teaches classics at Princeton University . He says the ceremony that Boswell describes, called the Adelphopoiesis, the making of brothers, was never meant as a marriage.

Mr. MENDELSOHN: People have always known about this ceremony, which he presented as this spectacular, new, earth-shaking find. It had always been satisfactorily explained as a sort of official blood-brother ceremony used to reconcile, say, the heads of warring clans.

Did Gay People Get Married in the Past?
Margot Adler, on NPR News (Feb. 23, 2004)
Found at: http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/3789.html

There’s lots more. I just got tired of copying and pasting.

[...] signing as part of The Minnesota Family Council & Institute Annual Dinner 2011 celebration. The MFC has been an instrumental mover of a marriage inequality amendment that would enshrine discrimination in Minnesota’s state [...]

Mea culpa. As Mike correctly pointed, it is indeed VERY SLOPPY on my part to suggest checking when that webpage was created given the WWW as we now know it came into being with the introduction of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 AND the 1994 publication date of Broswell’s book. I offer no excuse for this except physical fatigue the past two days AND fatigue at the ongoing homophobia that I constantly confront each and every day of my life ever since I knew I am gay while a young lad with that fatigue brought to a new level by the recent GOP actions in the Minnesota Legislature. Sorry for being such an idiot, my dear Wendy Leigh!

All things considered, it is good to know about these same-gender unions in the distant past in distant lands as well as the ongoing academic debate as to exactly what these union are even as I still do not appreciate Mike’s attempts to hijack this particular discussion to rationalize his unrelenting homophobia, to continue denying the current reality that same-gender households (which may include children) do exist here and right now in Minnesota, that they encounter harm every single day that equal access to civil marriage with all its rights, benefits and responsibilites are denied.

BTW, Mike, copy-pasting cherry-picked this and that indicates lack of careful thought and credibility on your part.

Right now, I am having this mental picture of yours truly garbed in dusty Western gear right down to practical leather chaps and well-worn boots with slightly bent spurs standing languidly in front of Mike Cullinan, the black-garbed Ninja, with his ferociously whipping and twirling katana. Exhausted and impatient, I quickly drew my trusty Colt .45 and shot him quite dead – right in between the eyes. Just be glad for the advent of the WWW and its life-saving qualities, Mike!

[...] the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The MFC have been rather furvent in this, pressuring the Republicans by threatening to redefine any effort to stall the bill as a vote against it, and the National [...]

@Lane
–BTW, Mike, copy-pasting cherry-picked this and that indicates lack of careful thought and credibility on your part.

Notice that I cherry-picked from right-wing media bastions such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and National Public Radio. Unlike the website from which the article came these sources don’t have a bald agenda to promote.

As for my “lack of careful thought and credibility” you have absolutely no idea how much time I spent collecting and poring over material from divergent sources. I didn’t just pull it up on the spur of the moment, but studied the matter in depth some months previous and had the material handy.

Obviously, the space is limited in this forum, but I made links available for anyone who cares to read the lengthier articles.

BTW, that skeptical classicist in the NPR interview, Daniel Mendelsohn, is openly gay.

http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0699/mendelsohn/interview.html

Still not owning up to your homophobia, eh, Mike? Why else would you spit out “Unlike the website from which the article came, these sources don’t have a bald agenda to promote”?

I just did a quick wiki on Professor John Eastburn Boswell, a prominent historian and professor at Yale University who helped organize what is now the Research Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies there. His studies focused on homosexuality and religion – especially Christianity. He died of complications from AIDS in 1994, leaving behind a mixed legacy with medievalists and queer theorists questioning his work and conclusions while other scholars continue to build on his work.

If I wanted to, I am sure I could spend a lot of time collecting and poring over material from divergent sources including “right-wing media bastions” cherry-picking favorable articles, opinions and book reviews, but for what? I’d rather directly confront homophobia in the here and now.

@Mike Cullinan:

Precedent alone is not a valid reason for law. Boswell’s research is called into question. So a mistake was made. Does that invalidate the many other records of cultures that have recognized homosexual marriage?

But even if every one of those is debunked, who still cares? Again, that’s precedent – but for thousands of years, slavery was precedent as well, and THAT didn’t make it right.

If you oppose same-sex marriage, provide some legally-admissible secular reasons why it should not be legalized – and I’ll be glad to debunk every one of them.

There’s a reason why NOM and other anti-marriage equality groups absolutely refuse to take the stand in any court of law to support their statements – because they can’t do it without perjuring themselves, or without admitting that all of the arguments are invalid in a secular sense.

Well put Josh D! In fact this amendment’s authors even refused to defend it in committee. They have no argument that doesn’t reveal an attempted violation of the First Amendment. Callous cynicism by the Lord’s sheep. Baaaa.

Praise Jebus, God hates the honest evangelist, Amen.