I hope the republicans go with Giuliani. He's certainly the least bad candidate in the republican line-up. If a republican gets in he's the least of the evils.

Then I hope he loses due to lack of experience and some pretty bad views that he does actually hold.

Interestingly, he's running based on his press from 9/11. But, he does NOT have the support of the New York City Fire Departments.

Rudy is at least somewhat socially liberal on some issues that matter. I don't see him being as hawkish as McCain on foreign policy. I like Chuck Hagel- straight shooter with upper management written all over him BUT I am not down with any hardcore bible thumpers who will pander to the evangelicals.

According to Senator Brownback's supporters, his position that homosexual activity is "immoral", is supported by the Bible and Koran, 2,000 years of Christianity, Orthodox Judaism and natural law, the moral beliefs of virtually every society to the present, and the laws of every state before the 1960s. Up to 1973, psychiatrists treated it as a disorder. Nations where homosexuality is rampant have been regarded as decadent.

But aren't they supposed to say how great homosexuality is? That's the line that the media and American liberals want us to espouse no matter what our beliefs, right? Aren't we supposed to accept it as an alternative norm?

We're suppose to believe a deviation from the norm isn't that at al because the norm is "bad," right. Too bad the politicians know that people in general are sick of hearing about gay issues and have turned the corner on blind acceptance. Toleration doesn't make immorality moral.

Perhaps a better question to be asking candidates out to replace the current crop of neo-whacko Republicans is, whether or not they believe incinerating Iraqi children in the name of democracy, freedom and the American free enterprise way, is immoral.

The Republicans got elected in 2000 through 2004 with the various state marriage amendments. This issue of homosexuality has been a gold mine for the Republicans and I suspect that this whole issue and questioning is a Republican plant to make this the issue for 2008 since they are at such a disadvantage on the other issues(e.g. Iraq and etc.) Senator Brownback may be able to mine this issue to be the candidate. There are obviously other important issues, but apparently, this is of interest to many people as well.

"Toleration doesn't make immorality moral."?

How about this? The republicans embrace their original values: less government intervention in people's lives. Regardless of what one does in their private life, we should ALL have access to the same rights. Race, gender, religion or sexual orientation shouldn't bar anyone from the right to marry, serve in the army or be a productive member of society. It's about fairness.

Or how about separation of church and state. You can say whatever you want to say in your religous services or think what you want when you read the bible, Koran, etc. At the end of the day, religious views should have NO place in political discourse.

Jessica: Do you agree with that position?

Thurston: I don’t know that I agree with you. I think they did not get elected in 2000 and the jury is still out on 2004.

lundy73: Good points. I couldn’t agree with you more.

I think this WAR is much, much more immoral than the issue of homosexuality. Our soldiers as well as innocent Iraqis are dying on a daily basis. We need to repeal the Don't ask-Don't tell policy and allow Gays & Lesbians to serve openly in the Armed Forces.

Why the question of what is more immoral?

I never understood why homos are so interested in marriage, which is really a religious tradition. It too bad that religion can never really be seperated from the State; the traditions are too deeply embeded. Of course that is different matter from church and state, but I'm sure the moonbats are screaming.

I guess the homos are really about the $$$ in benefits

Actually, marriage in the US is far more about the State than about religion, for people can get married in the eyes of the State without marrying within a religion, but people cannot get legally married within a religion without having the permission of the State (by way of a marriage license). Thus, for better or for worse, marriage is a matter of citizens' rights within the State, and should therefore not be denied to citizens on the grounds of race, religion, sexual preference or the like.

Dave,

Marriage changes the legal relationship of the couple in profound ways. For starters, when one member is ill, the spouse is the next of kin, not the parents, siblings, cousins, or even children if there are any. This means very different things for visitation rights and life and death decisions. This is probably the biggest reason that people want to marry.

Especially in the LBGT community, a significant percentage are ostracized from the family of their birth and want such decisions made by their loving family at home. Even people that have loving and close relationships with their birth families, are still closest to their spouses (spice?) and would likely prefer these decisions to be made by them.

I’m heterosexual and married and would prefer that my wife make these decisions for me. I love the rest of my family. But, no one knows me as well as my wife. Why should we deny this same benefit to the LBGT community? Wouldn’t granting these rights to them merely be an acknowledgement of the radical idea that they are human beings? Or, better yet, that they are Us and there is no Us and Them?

Me thinks "Dave" needs to get off this site and head back to FOX News, Limbaugh, Drudge, et al. He could catch AIDS if he lingers around here too long with the "Homos".

Asking a politico whether this or that is `immoral', is like asking GW Bush to describe his business acumen.
Scoundrels running for office have no moral base except that which will offend the least voters. The question is apriori, absurd & irrelevant to political discourse, & was asked by reporters, hoping to come up with more BS fit for tabloids.

Ames Tiedeman,

A civilization that tolerates people, a K-selected species, breeding like rabbits, an R-selected species, will not survive long.

That said, I think that neither your last post nor this one has any relevence to this thread of conversation.

It can appear that the gay movement is not progressive, but supporters of American Imperialism. Or it can also appear that gays are especially blood thirsty and they want to join the military to go kill Moslems because Islam is especially harsh on gays. This is revenge. Or, why do the gays want to support the American Empire? I have lost respect for the movement. They appear to be just another tool of American Imperialism in subjugation of third world people to the international capitalist's chains.

Rosalind,

Huh??!!?

I must've missed something here. I think there are some gays that want to join the military. I'm not sure what their reasons are. Many people feel that they are entitled to the right to join the same way anyone else may. I'm personally surprised anyone volunteers. I don't exactly see what "movement" you're talking about though. Is there a particular gays in military movement? Do you mean some vague gays in general movement? And, who are "the gays"? Do you believe that all gays agree on anything? Any more so than any other humans?

I really don't get your post at all.

jimmyb said: Scoundrels running for office have no moral base except that which will offend the least voters.

Ah, how true! Would that more people (especially Republicans) realized that their golden boy politicians aren't *really* Bible-thumping, morally-grounded "respectful" "Godly" citizens, but are dirt-eating, schmoozing human beings (just like the rest of us who admit to it, aka liberals) OUT FOR THE MONEY AND THE VOTE! Hell, if the bible said "Kill all the earthworms," McCain, Bush, Brownback, etc. would wage a war against all things that creepeth along the earth.

That having been said, Rosalind's post gave me a giggle. As a gay man, I can confirm your suspicions, Rossie. We all ("the gays") are so fed up with neocon overlordliness that we are going to vent our frustrations by lobbying to gain acceptance into the military so we can kill us some Iraqis.

Get real. If that's all we wanted, we'd just enroll and not come out as gay! (Oh, and btw, I don't support the American Empire, so...)

To address someone else's misguided comments;

"homosexual activity is "immoral", is supported by the Bible and Koran" The Bible supports many things, including slavery, death by stoning for many "sins", decaring that a married woman was her husband's property, and a multitude of other statements that do not seem to matter as much to people. How odd homosexuality is singled out.
The Koran also has some pretty harsh punishments that many consider "outdated" for a reason. "Natural Law" actually supports homosexuality, as it exists very widely in nature.
The "moral beliefs" standard, up until recently, allowed slavery and did not allow women to vote. Blacks were also denied entrance into the Military and were considered unfit to fight. They were only reluctantly allowed and were made to be in all black regements. Marriage was also denied to "Mixed" couples until quite recently.

How soon we forget. Would you regard allowing these to be changed as decadent or immoral?

I do agree that asking these direct questions only plays into the hands of the Neocons. People are too easily controled by their religion and hatred for anything different. As a people we used to try to elect those whom we felt were smarter than us. Now, it seems to be more about who they would want to sit with to drink a beer and talk religion.

Nicole,

Truly excellent points. Of course, this brings up the question of whether religion is moral. Perhaps so, in cases where no one gets hurt. But, religion hurts so many people so often that perhaps the whole concept should be declared immoral. Certainly, even in the case where no one is actively being hurt, the morals of the believer are severely twisted such that acts where no one is harmed and everyone is consenting appear to be sin, whatever that is.

Nicole, you are right, the Jewish Bible certainly does allow the Jews to have non Jewish slaves because the Jews are the "chosen" ones. The Jews codified their beliefs in the Talmud, rabbinic Judaism. Thank God for Jesus, he changed all of that you referred to. The chains fell off under the liberation of Jesus Christ, hence we get the concept of "liberation theology." Jesus spent his time speaking out against the Jewish religious establishment, the Pharisees with their many rules. Concerning the Jewish rule on stoning, Jesus's rule was to forgive and not to stone(the women caught in adultry). Christ brought a higher rule.

Fernando, are you saying that ALL the plantation owners of the antibellum American south were Jews? Because I'm pretty sure they were CHRISTIAN SLAVE OWNERS who used their CHRISTIAN bible to justify their slave holding society. I'm not sure this argues against your point, since I'm pretty sure the man, Jesus Christ, would hardly recognize the religion that came of his life.

The slave owners used the Jewish Bible. The Christian abolitionists, the yankees, used the Christian Bible(New Testament), to inspire them to go die for freedom. The following passages are from Rabbi Raphael's book Jews and Judaism in the United States a Documentary History (New York: Behrman House, Inc., Pub, 1983), pp. 14, 23-25.
"Jews also took an active part in the Dutch colonial slave trade; indeed, the bylaws of the Recife and Mauricia congregations (1648) included an imposta (Jewish tax) of five soldos for each Negro slave a Brazilian Jew purchased from the West Indies Company. Slave auctions were postponed if they fell on a Jewish holiday. In Curacao in the seventeenth century, as well as in the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica in the eighteenth century, Jewish merchants played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies, whether French (Martinique), British, or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated."

Fernando,

Isn't it possible that they used the same inate morality that humans have without the need for the corrupting influence of either the bible or its sequel?

The founding fathers certainly made great strides forward and most were about as non-theistic as you could legitimately be at the time, i.e. deist. They were certainly against all forms of organized religion. Many spoke out vehemently against Christianity.

I think the very fact that you can place a different moral value on one bible over another implies that your morals do not come from the bible. Certainly, the Catholic Church has NOT renounced the old testament. So they manage to deal with the internal conflicts.

And, it was Christian hatred for the Jews despite Jesus having been Jewish that allowed for the Inquisition and the Holocaust. Yes, I know Hitler's Catholic beliefs are in question. The church was clearly still acting as if he were Catholic in good standing. And, as late as 1941, he was still claiming he'd be a Catholic until he died.

In short, morals derived from the bible are still highly twisted when compared with the morals most of us are born with. Yes, some people are probably born with defective morals processing units in their brains. But, most people have better inate morals than can be derived from the bible, the bible part 2, or the koran.

Actually, the American founding fathers were Bible thumping Christians, they were just against a state sponsored church like the Europeans had. The thirteen states had in their own laws the requirement that one be a Christian to hold office. Much later they allowed the Jews to vote. Hitler and the Nazis were pagan, they followed the preChristian religions. The Brown Shirts were significantly homosexual. Justin Martyr (circa 100 to 165 CE) and Irenaeus of Lyon (circa 130 to 200 CE) stated that the promises made to the Jews have become invalid and that the Christian church (including any ethnic Jews who have aligned themselves with it) is chosen instead. Pope Pius XII also re-affirmed this doctrine in his encyclical Mystici Corporis (June 29, 1943). Jesus was diety personified, not a mere racist man. He went beyond racisim. The Inquisition was against the protestants by the State. The abolitionists used the New Testament Scriptures against the racists.

This is all moot, because like you said, the American founding fathers were against a state sponsored church. That means - STATE =/= CHURCH.

The question of whether being gay, lesbian, bi or transgender is immoral, when the scale of morality is clearly based on (traditional) Judeo-Christian belief, has no place in any federally-funded program. That's why it's tragic and wrong that Gen. Pace (and Brownback, and Bush, and ... well, I'll save my breath) have chosen to enter their own personal "projected morals" (not natural mores) into the political arena.

That's why I don't have respect for politicians. None of them. Nor the media. (Mother Jones excepted, of course, you'r e lovely!)

I agree Austin, Christ said "render onto the king the things that belong to him and onto God the things that belong to him." Christ believed in a separation of church and state because the church can get corrupted by associating with the state as you well known and history attests. Affairs of church and state should be separate for the benefit of the church. Unfortunately, Bush and company have attracted some pastors that like to associate with the king. The pastors should stay in their pulpit and the politicians should stay in D.C. and the two should not mix. Whenever the clergy takes their eyes off their mission and go after fame and power, they become corrupted by the politicians. You can't legislate morality. These Christian Zionist pastors will get us into a war with Iran.

Sorry Fernando,

You say, "the American founding fathers were Bible thumping Christians."

However, their own quotes say quite the opposite. Here try a few of these on for size and see if you still believe your statement.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/madison.htm

http://atheistempire.com/greatminds/ -- This has a mix of quotes. But, the first two individuals quoted are Jefferson and Madison.

Sorry Fernando,

You say, "the American founding fathers were Bible thumping Christians."

However, their own quotes say quite the opposite. I am unable to post links for some reason, but feel free to google Jefferson and Madison quotes and you'll see how mistaken you are on this point. In fact, you'll see that the most common sources of their statements are various atheist organizations because their remarks so strongly support atheism.