Reading this post by Senator Paull Shin (h/t) on his vote against the marriage equality bill, this really bugged me:
My adopted family raised me as they raised their own children, with strong Christian values. To this day, I cherish those values and try to live my life in accordance with their teachings. Therefore my vote against passage of this bill was one that was deeply personal.
Senator Shin is free to find his values wherever he wants, of course. And if he lives his life according to those values, well great. But the job of state senator is to represent our secular, multi-religious, multicultural state and our secular, multi-religious, multicultural country. Those values should inspire legislation, not the values of any one faith.
The other bad thing about that argument (although he walks it back later in the piece) is that it implies that there’s only one way for Christians to vote. That Christians should unthinkingly all agree on public policy in 2012, in America, based on a book written thousands of years ago. That they should all agree with the most regressive version of Christianity not just in their personal lives but in public policy. As if the main Senate sponsor, and the governor who pushed it weren’t Catholics. As if most of the people who voted for it weren’t Christians.
If you want to make horrible arguments for a bad vote, go ahead. But don’t tell me Jesus made you do it.
Stop! Gawd stop!! Nooooo!!! Stop god!!! No! No! No! Ayieiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!
thus Edith today’s lesson.
Wait a minute, where does the New Testament say bossing other people around is a Christian value?
Yep! The church needs to stay out of the state and the state needs to stay out of the church.
There were Christian and Jewish (and maybe others, but I didn’t see and signs from the neo-pagans in the crowd) groups that support gay marriage and lobbied for gay marriage. I’m not sure if they argued for gay marriage from a religious or secular point of view.
@2
It says something about walking softly in the footsteps of the lord in there somewhere. That doesn’t sound like bossing people around is the way to go to me.
Take This Job And Shove It Dep’t
“Dayton, Ohio,
“August 7, 1865
“To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
“Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
“I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, ‘Them colored people were slaves’ down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
“As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
“In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
“Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
“From your old servant,
“Jourdon Anderson.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....s-headline
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The old colonel was one of the original Cheap Labor Conservatives; and if Mr. Anderson is correct that, “Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire,” he’s going to have a lot of company wherever he ended up, as those Cheap Labor Conservatives just keep a-comin’.
Best quote on the Tea Baggers ever.
As a Christian, I find the opposition to gay marriage to be utterly senseless. Jesus Christ was/is a lover. Wingnuts are haters. It’s pretty easy for me to decide which side I’m on.
@7 Pretty easy for me, too.
Btw, where’s our old pal puddy? Has he been banned?
@ 9
I doubt it. He’s either in a mental hospital or has become so frustrated with constantly being called out on his psychotic nonsensical blather that he’s given up on coming in here.
Either way, good riddance.