Hello everybody

[Ben Kenobi]

You previously made the ludicrous claim that your 'faith' was persecuted in Canada.

No previous about it. I made the claim and I continue to do so.

This seems to depend upon this Reverend representing the whole of Roman Catholicism in Canada- which as far as I know, he doesn't.

No, it rests on the fact that the man was brought before a human rights commission for the crime of expressing the Christian belief that homosexuality is sinful. End stop. There is no reason that he ever should have been harrassed by the human rights commission for exercising his Charter rights to religious freedom.

Could he continue in his ministry ?

Being brought before a human rights commission is harrassment and persecution. The case should never have gotten that far in the first place.

You're a liar, Ben. Not just a liar, but a liar who makes hysterical unsupported claims.

Heh, so far you're 0 for quite a few in this thread. Everything I post here can be proven, unlike you who fails to accurately express my argument.

[Ben Kenobi]

Is a person who opposes blacks having voting rights, a bigot, or just someone who has a legitimate, different opinion?

Is marriage an individual right, like voting?

[Ben Kenobi]

No one actually addressed it in an intelligent manner, however.

Hmm? I addressed it saying that love is not sufficient to overcome bans on bigamy, on consanguinity and on age restrictions. Ergo saying that you 'love' someone isn't sufficient grounds to overcome these restrictions.

[Ben Kenobi]

Marriage != have kids, no matter what Ben tells you.

The argument is that marriage should be open to children, not that children are the sole purpose of marriage.

[Ben Kenobi]

Would that be like when pro-life people shout about baby killing and then clinics get bombed and doctors murdered?

What's your opinion on Nelson Mandela?

[dannubis]

So what?

That right there makes you a horrible human being and in extenso a horrible christian.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes Ben, obviously its not just that educated people hold certain stances, its that they must have been brainwashed by liberals. ****wit. No-one is 'pro-abortion'.

If you support abortion, then yes, you are pro-abortion.

If people who attend higher education are more likely to hold a particular view, and that view grows stronger with every year that a person attends, then yes, it's a reasonable presupposition that this view is taught by higher education.

[Jon Miller]

I've been trying to get you to elaborate and clarify your ridiculous statements. You appear to be refusing to do so. I am left to make assumptions and to guess what it is you are on about.

The link between education and your unsubtantiated claims re the causes of hate motivated crimes remains to be made. Perhaps you should get on with establishing it.

I don't go put words in your mouth, that dishonest tactic is yours alone.

I have pointed out sociological and genetic factors which make population groups to be resistant to change. This has been based on research, and documented in scholarly articles. The biggest sociological impact for gay marriage is the sociological factor that makes people embrace change.

It is all there, if you are willing to think about it.

Or go ahead and continue and demonize everyone who doesn't buy into the argument that to not extend marriage to homosexuals is homophobic prejudice.

It is a lot easier when you can demonize your opponents. It allows you to hate them.

You are engaging in hate speech against a class of people (those genetically inclined (or sociologically inclined) to resist change) due to them being different than you and being unable to accept that they might be different than you. You engage in even more hate speech due to their hate speech, and use that as 'rightness' for your hate speech. Yet you do not understand how your hate speech might cause hate speech on the side you do not understand.

And without a question there are bigots there too. But you are painting all with the same brush. Just like some homosexuals are promiscuous but it is hate speech to maintain that all homosexuals (or even that the majority) are promiscuous.

JM

[Jon Miller]

But gays should meekly go along with having their rights trampled on to make sure they don't offend any bigots?

Where do I say that?

Please, think a bit before you post.

I just said "don't say that everyone who is doesn't think that not extending marriage to man-man relationships is bigotry, because it isn't true". I didn't say "don't fight for gay marriage/etc".

JM

[Jon Miller]

It seems a lot of people in this thread have a problem with the situation where people who disagree with them or think differently than them are not evil bastards.

It is the same sort of thing (along with politics) which caused people to fight about religion/etc.

It is really disappointing to see.

JM

[dannubis]

If you support abortion, then yes, you are pro-abortion.

If people who attend higher education are more likely to hold a particular view, and that view grows stronger with every year that a person attends, then yes, it's a reasonable presupposition that this view is taught by higher education.

1. No. Not really. I do not support abortion as an easy way out. However, I do defend a woman's right to have that option.

2. No. It is not. It is called the development of independent thought. I understand that this is of course the mortal enemy of organized religion where you need a bunch of uninformed people following the leader lemming, and so I also understand that this is the first thing you will attack to suppport "morals."

[Ben Kenobi]

1. No. Not really. I do not support abortion as an easy way out. However, I do defend a woman's right to have that option.

So you are pro abortion. Would you say that those who didn't support slavery as an easy way out, but defend the right of slave owners to own slaves were not 'pro slavery?'. "Don't like slavery, don't own a slave!"

2. No. It is not. It is called the development of independent thought. I understand that this is of course the mortal enemy of organized religion where you need a bunch of uninformed people following the leader lemming, and so I also understand that this is the first thing you will attack to suppport "morals."

So the fact that higher education teaches people to support abortion, is evidence of 'independent thought', or is it just the contrary?

If the study showed that those who were more religious were less likely to support abortion - would you conclude that religion was brainwashing these people?

[molly bloom]

No previous about it. I made the claim and I continue to do so.

Yes- well mentally ill people make ludicrous claims all the time- they too lack any proof or evidence for them.

harrassed by the human rights commission

Harassed ? He was harangued in the street, bombarded with offensive emails, pelted with rotten fruit in the pulpit, or Christian-bashed by the Human Rights Commission ? Or asked to appear in line with well known procedures....

Being brought before a human rights commission is harrassment and persecution.

No, it's part and parcel of the Commission's remit as far as I understand it, and you hysterically and inaccurately labelling it 'harassment' and 'persecution' don't make it so.

This is from ACAS in the United Kingdom:

These terms are used interchangeably by most people, and many definitions include bullying as a form of harassment. Harassment, in general terms is unwanted conduct affecting the dignity of men and women in the workplace. It may be related to age, sex, race, disability, religion, sexual orientation, nationality or any personal characteristic of the individual, and may be persistent or an isolated incident. The key is that the actions or comments are viewed as demeaning and unacceptable to the recipient.

Bullying may be characterised as offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, an abuse or misuse of power through means intended to undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the recipient. Bullying or harassment may be by an individual against an individual (perhaps by someone in a position of authority such as a manager or supervisor) or involve groups of people. It may be obvious or it may be insidious. Whatever form it takes, it is unwarranted and unwelcome to the individual.

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=797

Just because you don't like the fact that the Reverend was asked to appear before the Commission because other people found his rantings objectionable doesn't mean the Commission was harassing him.

Other people who aren't of the Reverend's particular form of religious persuasion or even necessarily gay or lesbian may have found his screed offensive. That is one of the roles of the Commission, isn't it, to investigate such complaints ?

http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/discrimination/sexual_orientation-eng.aspx

Everything I post here can be proven

You haven't done anything like 'prove' your argument so far- you stated that your 'faith' was persecuted- and the sole 'proof' of this is an intolerant clergyman being asked to abide by the provisions of an Act which applies to every other Canadian too. I'm fairly sure that the Act doesn't exempt religious bigots, so really there's no 'harassment' or 'persecution' involved. At least not as those terms are understood in the English language...

unlike you who fails to accurately express my argument.

You're so inadvertently amusing.

[molly bloom]

She (Elizabeth I) was excommunicated for executing priests that performed the sacraments.

Firstly, where's your 'proof' for this ridiculous claim ?

Secondly, the Papal Bull 'Regnans In Excelsis' appeared the same month as the last conflict of the failed 'Rising Of The Northern Earls'- an attempt by disaffected Catholic grandees in the north of England to remove Elizabeth I from the throne and replace her with Mary I Stuart and the Duke Of Norfolk.

As the Earl of Sussex put it on November 25 1570:

'They (Westmorland & Northumberland et al.) pretended, for conscience sake, to seek to reform religion, where indeed it was manifestly known many of them never had care of conscience, or even respected any religion, but continued in dissolute life, until at this present they were driven to pretend a popish behaviour, to put some false colour upon their manifest treasons.'

He knew them personally, so he's not just reciting propaganda.

In fact Elizabeth had been (given the religious turmoil elsewhere in Europe) remarkably tolerant of Roman Catholics- she had a well-known recusant on her Privy Council (Edward, Earl of Derby), the Roman Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury had been President of the Council of the North, and another Roman Catholic was Lord Steward of the Household and had been appointed High Constable of England for her coronation. These are not the acts or attitudes of a religious fanatic- in fact, the Papal Bull made the situation worse for English Roman Catholics, because it made them in the eyes of Protestant hardliners such as Cecil presumed traitors even if they were not guilty of any offence.

Philip II of Spain disapproved of the Bull because he had hopes of winning over Elizabeth- which makes your unsupported claims seem even more absurd.

It's worth comapring Elizabeth's toleration with that (not) found in Spain, France and Italy, the Low Countries and Germany at the time. There were of course no similar Protestant councillors or nobles to be found advising the King of Spain, or the King of France- let alone Jews or Moriscos in the former case, or Huguenots in the latter.

[Nikolai]

The papal bull does not say she killed them. But it does say she denied them to perform the sacraments and persecuted them.

POPE PIUS V'S BULL AGAINST ELIZABETH (1570)

Pius Bishop, servant of the servants of God, in lasting memory of the matter.
He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven and earth, has committed one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, to one alone upon earth, namely to Peter, the first of the apostles, and to Peter's successor, the pope of Rome, to be by him governed in fullness of power. Him alone He has made ruler over all peoples and kingdoms, to pull up, destroy, scatter, disperse, plant and build, so that he may preserve His faithful people (knit together with the girdle of charity) in the unity of the Spirit and present them safe and spotless to their Saviour.
1. In obedience to which duty, we (who by God's goodness are called to the aforesaid government of the Church) spare no pains and labour with all our might that unity and the Catholic religion (which their Author, for the trial of His children's faith and our correction, has suffered to be afflicted with such great troubles) may be preserved entire. But the number of the ungodly has so much grown in power that there is no place left in the world which they have not tried to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines; and among others, Elizabeth, the pretended queen of England and the servant of crime, has assisted in this, with whom as in a sanctuary the most pernicious of all have found refuge. This very woman, having seized the crown and monstrously usurped the place of supreme head of the Church in all England to gether with the chief authority and jurisdiction belonging to it, has once again reduced this same kingdom- which had already been restored to the Catholic faith and to good fruits- to a miserable ruin.
2. Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics. She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects. She has dared to eject bishops, rectors of churches and other Catholic priests from their churches and benefices, to bestow these and other things ecclesiastical upon heretics, and to determine spiritual causes; has forbidden the prelates, clergy and people to acknowledge the Church of Rome or obey its precepts and canonical sanctions; has forced most of them to come to terms with her wicked laws, to abjure the authority and obedience of the pope of Rome, and to accept her, on oath, as their only lady in matters temporal and spiritual; has imposed penalties and punishments on those who would not agree to this and has exacted then of those who perserved in the unity of the faith and the aforesaid obedience; has thrown the Catholic prelates and parsons into prison where many, worn out by long languishing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives. All these matter and manifest and notorius among all the nations; they are so well proven by the weighty witness of many men that there remains no place for excuse, defence or evasion.
3. We, seeing impieties and crimes multiplied one upon another the persecution of the faithful and afflictions of religion daily growing more severe under the guidance and by the activity of the said Elizabeth -and recognising that her mind is so fixed and set that she has not only despised the pious prayers and admonitions with which Catholic princes have tried to cure and convert her but has not even permitted the nuncios sent to her in this matter by this See to cross into England, are compelled by necessity to take up against her the weapons of juctice, though we cannot forbear to regret that we should be forced to turn, upon one whose ancestors have so well deserved of the Christian community. Therefore, resting upon the authority of Him whose pleasure it was to place us (though unequal to such a burden) upon this supreme justice-seat, we do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ.
4. And moreover (we declare) her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown and of all lordship, dignity and privilege whatsoever.
5. And also (declare) the nobles, subjects and people of the said realm and all others who have in any way sworn oaths to her, to be forever absolved from such an oath and from any duty arising from lordshop. fealty and obedience; and we do, by authority of these presents , so absolve them and so deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown and all other the abovesaid matters. We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.
6. Because in truth it may prove too difficult to take these presents wheresoever it shall be necessary, we will that copies made under the hand of a notary public and sealed with the seal of a prelate of the Church or of his court shall have such force and trust in and out of judicial proceedings, in all places among the nations, as these presents would themselves have if they were exhibted or shown.