The Role of Government Regarding Marriage

I can see a need to limit the number of people the government recognizes as being in a marriage for taxation and economic reasons. Beyond that, I think Separation of Church & State limits the state's interest since the concept of marriage originates in religious beliefs. Also, there are various religions which hold many different tenets regarding marriage, some actually opposing, so the state can not further any interest regarding marriage without violating Separation of Church & State and basically imposing one religion's beliefs upon another's.

Living in AZ for over 20 years, I've had several Mormom friends & neighbors. They are good people. There are many denominations and some of them are in plural marriages. While that's not my cup of tea, it works for them. I don't see why they can't legally marry according to their beliefs. The state may wish to limit how many people in the marriage they recognize as being married- but they should be able to marry as many as they wish. Likewise, gay people have churches that do not believe that homosexuality is a sin, & religious leaders who wish to marry them. Yet, the government favors one set of religious beliefs over the other? It has no secular reason to support these laws. No economic rationale to support them.

The government's recognition of marriage should be limited to it's secular & economic interests. It should not favor one religious belief over another. The government's role is to establish an environment in which all different kinds of people, with different religious beliefs, can live freely and peacefully amongst each other, without favoring one religious belief over another.

"The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference of one religion over another or the support of a religious idea with no identifiable secular purpose." http://www.uslaw.com/us_law_dictionary/e/Establishment+Clause

The government has no secular or economic interests regarding marriage beyond limiting the number of people involved that it recognizes. The only reasons left for these laws are religious.

Yet, we have laws against polygamy and homosexual marriages. So much for "rendering unto Caesar..."

It Boggles the Mind

It boggles the mind:

We can support over 700 military bases in countries we have no business being in, but not health care.

We can send millions and billions of dollars to other countries to help them out, but we resent helping our own.

We can fund a war but not a proper educational system.

We can go from having a surplus to a tremendous deficit in less than 10 years.

Only 5% of the American population control 90% of the countries wealth, but they resent not being able to have it all.

We can export our jobs yet call people lazy for not having one.

We have a number of people who are suppose to be working for the good of the people of the country but are only looking out for corporate interests and their own.

We gave corporations legal status and power as individuals without also giving them legal responsibilities toward the communities and societies within which they operate and toward their employees.

Why is anyone having to go without medical care in the United States in this day and age?

We can fund war and death but not life?

There's something seriously wrong here.

Banning Gay Marriage Is Wrong

Why does it matter to the state which two people are married? Suppose we took all the gay couples and lined them up boy-girl and married them. No one would think twice. But, if we put them back as they couples they are-- the same people would be married. I can see the state being interested in the number of people they recognize as married, but I fail to see how or why the state should care which two.

And if there are churches -- legally recognized religious institutions who have broken away from the mainstream churches -- not cults, not religions that have sprung up overnight and are not legally recognized -- whose religious beliefs hold that homosexuality is not a sin, with legally recognized religious leaders that wish to marry homosexuals (and there are!) -- I fail to see how we can possibly consider imposing mainstream religious beliefs upon them. Doesn't that violate both Freedom of Religion and Separation of Church and State?

Religious beliefs and personal opinions aside, banning gay marriage is wrong.

Christ's Most Radical (and difficult) Commandment

The commandment to love your enemies may be Christ's most difficult commandment. With the torture debate raging across America, this article addresses the question of whether we should follow Christ's teachings only when it is safe and easy, or all the time.

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Antifungal drug can prove helpful for asthma patients, study

According to a British study, itraconazole (an antifungal medicine) may prove helpful for those patients with sever asthma who are also sensitive to some fungi.

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Bush Admin Officials Will Be "Indicted For War Crimes"

Media coverage of the disclosure of the "torture memo" authored by Bush Justice Department official John C. Yoo has been mostly a deafening silence. But on this morning's Chris Matthews' show........

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Cardboard box wins UK green contest

Via SkyNews: This is the £50,000 winner of a contest to find the world's greenest invention - a solar-powered oven made from cardboard. The cooker took the FT Climate Change Challenge crown after beating 300 other creations, including a...

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Cook Shares Tips For Award-Winning Chocolate Cake

Michele Cobarrubio of Lodi won first place with this recipe in the Ghirardelli Chocolate Championship at the California State Fair.

Maricopa County Halts Sheriff Arpaio’s Immigration Fun

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona has voted to postpone the acceptance of $1.6 million from the state to help pay for County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s controversial immigration enforcement tactics. Observers said the decision could signal that the board is concerned by federal inquires into Arpaio’s practices, which allegedly include d

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Abortion bill puts women's health at risk | Guest opinion: A

The Arizona House has gone too far. Rep. Nancy Barto and her cohorts are trying to deny women access to vital health care services and information. During debate on HB 2564, out-of-touch lawmakers made many inaccurate statements. As Arizona physicians and Ph.Ds. in health fields, we feel it is important to correct these. Said Rep. Frank Antenori,

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Sarah, Greta, Scientology -Pt 2: Greta Doth Protest too Much

: Geoffrey Dunn. There are some serious journalistic conflicts of interest taking place here, and Van Susteren is either being duplicitous or disingenuous to characterize them as "silly."

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Obama Signs Wilderness Bill

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday setting aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness.Obama called the new law among the most important in decades "to protect, preserve and pass down our nation's most treasured landscapes to future generations."

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If Everyone Cared by Nickelback with Lyrics

I just love this song.

Potato Soup

Just made the best potato soup I ever made using a new (for me!) cookbook-- "The Dunkard-Dutch Cook Book: Nearly Five Hundred Turn of the Century Pennsylvania Dutch Dishes" copyright 1965. I'm typing the original recipe with my own changes/additions in parenthesis:

Potato Soup

  Fry 7 or 8 potatoes and a small sliced onion (I used onion powder and added celery salt and pepper) in a sauce pan in some butter or drippings (I used butter and bacon grease) or stock-pot fat is most excellent for this purpose. When they are a little colored, put them in 2 or 3 pints of hot water (plus 1 cup of chicken stock), add also a large heaping tablespoonful of chopped parsley (and pepper, salt, paprika, a dash more onion powder, and garlic powder). Let it boil until the potatoes are quite soft. Put all through the colander (but I didn't smoosh all of the potatoes). Return the puree to the fire and let it simmer 2 or 3 minutes, add plenty of salt and pepper (already did), add the beaten yolks of 2 or 3 eggs (I skipped the eggs and added 1 can of drained white corn instead. I also melted 1 tablespoon of butter in the saucepan I fried the potatoes in and added 2 tablespoons of flour and a cup of broth; when that was smooth I added it to the soup). Do not let the soup boil when the eggs are in as they would curdle.

I'll probably try to use the eggs at some point, but my daughter wanted corn in it and I don't like to mix eggs and corn. Enjoy!

Obama's Marijuana Mistake - Harvard Professor & Ron Paul

3/26/2009 Obama ignores the People and liberty by ignoring the negative externalities of prohibition.

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Obama's Organic WH Garden Puts BigAg's Panties in a Twist

In the aftermath of breaking ground on the new, 1100 sq. ft. WH garden, Michelle Obama named chef Sam Kass to head the WH Food Initiative. And we know how Kass feels about food. All of this positive PR for organics feels very threatening to Big Ag. So one group, the Mid America CropLife Association, has sent an email defending chemical ag ...

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Shampoo in water triggers growth of drug-resistant bacteria

Fabric softeners, disinfectants, shampoos and other household products are spreading drug-resistant bacteria around Britain, scientists have warned. Detergents used in factories and mills are also increasing the odds that some medicines will no longer be able to combat dangerous diseases.

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Make Your Own Cardboard Furniture

The Ponoko blog has a good roundup of incredible cardboard furniture, much of it from a collective of cardboard furniture makers in France known as Les Cartonnistes. Some of the work of Les Cartonnistes is quite extraordinary, one would never recognize it as cardboard. Ponoko also points us to an instructables, where Eric Guiomar teaches how you ca

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Separation of Church & State vs. Gay Marriage

I'm not gay, and I am a Christian. I know what my church teaches about homosexuality, but I've known too many gay people and have too many gay friends to be able to say I believe what the church teaches. And this issue has alienated me to the point I no longer feel affiliated with any church.

I don't see this issue so much as a civil rights issue (although I'm sure it is); I see it as an endrun around the separation of church and state, and that scares me. I don't want anyone's religious belief forced upon me, not even my own church's. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a religious belief of someone else's church legislated upon me. And as I understand it, there are churches and religions, as well as businesses and corporations, that support gay families. Excuse me, but isn't that the purpose of separation of church and state -- to protect each of those religious beliefs while promoting a community that allows both to exist in peace and harmony?

Why can't we have a government that refrains from legislating religious beliefs? Why not give marriage both a civil standing and a religious standing? Let the state marry whatever 2 people that wish it (because taxes and economical reasons support limiting the number) while allowing churches to marry whomever and as many as they wish?

We shouldn't be banning ANY marriages by the state unless- and ONLY unless - the marriages make the tax and economical considerations impossible or the marriage promotes a threat to the community in some way (and offending someone's religious beliefs does not constitute a threat to the community). Nor should the state force any religious institution to marry anyone (exception: a religious leader in a community without anyone else available to perform such a ceremony could be required to marry someone- acting as a justice of the peace, outside of his church). The state should be working toward a solution that respects everyone. Isn't that it's primary function?

Freedom of religion in no way means freedom from religion. But it does mean that we must practice tolerance, and keep separation of church and state inviolate.

We're a big country, with lots of different kinds of people and different points of view. It's one of the things that makes America grand, to my way of thinking. It would be a sorry place, I think, if we were all the same. But we have to respect each other, and get along even when we disagree. If we can build upon the things we have in common, rather than trying to make everyone the same and believing the same things - if we can do that, overcoming our differences will be much easier, don't you think?

The right to choose who we are, what we believe, what principles we value, what religion we practice (life, liberty & pursuit of happiness)-- is one of God's most precious gifts (you've heard of free will, right?) to us (another familiar phrase: endowed to us by our Creator). And no one has to the right to take it from us, not even "for our own good" - providing our exercise of free will does not harm anyone else.