“Laguna Beach, long a gay-friendly community, followed Los Angeles’ lead as one of the first cities to reject a ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage,” according to the L.A. Times.
What about the City of Santa Ana? Our City Council is almost majority Democrat. There is only one Republican on our City Council – lame Clowncilman Carlos Bustamante. Why hasn’t Mayor Miguel Pulido asked his fellow Clowncil Members to do what Laguna Beach just did?
Could it be that Pulido is staying away from this issue because his buddy Bustamante won’t support it? And what about Clowncilman David Benavides? He graduated from Biola University and used to be a minister. Perhaps Benavides is not too happy about gay marriage?
Why isn’t mayoral candidate Michele Martinez, who is supposed to be a progressive, making a big stink about this? Shouldn’t she be taking the lead on uniting the Clowncil against Prop. 8? Doesn’t she believe in allowing gay marriage?
Back to Pulido – how does he expect to garner the endorsement of his party, the DPOC, if he can’t or won’t stand up for gay civil rights?
Kudos to the Laguna Beach City Council. Too bad the Democrats on the Santa Ana City Clowncil – and their GOP ally Bustamante, can’t get their act together with regard to gay civil rights.
junior –
Sorry to inform you but intolerance for intolerance under the veil of religion is certainly not persecution. Persecution is when one group is hellbent on destroying another. Gays and lesbians are not attempting to destroy anything; they just want equality.
As I said before, your religion has a right to define its own rites, which is why I don’t like the word marriage to be included in any legal unions, but on the flip side, don’t all people deserve equal rights?
SMS
Newsong is obviously of the “love the sinner, hate the sin” school of Christianity.
Gustavo, there is no other “school” of Christianity.
By stating they think same-sex relationships are sinful, or any sexual relations outside of marriage as sinful, then going on to oppose (like you) homosexual marriage, that implicates homosexuals as sinners. There’s just no way to parse any other meaning from it.
Gustavo, there’s no parsing going on their statement. You’re injecting meaning that isn’t there, and drawing implications that don’t logically follow. Newsong states its position very clearly. It’s entirely consistent with orthodox Christian belief: we are all sinners, but simply being one way or another isn’t sinful.
If that’s not enough for you, Newsong later states, “Do we have a place for all misfits or just some in particular?” That’s a crass way of stating gays are abnormal; ergo, gays are sinners.
You are using tortured reasoning to make that statement mean what you want it to mean, not what it plainly says.
And your defense of Ahmanson’s statement is strange–are you claiming moral relativism? I thought only lefties do that!
No, it’s not moral relativism. I’m telling you what I think Ahamanson is saying, inn light of other statements he has made about homosexuals and homosexuality that are the opposite of the sinister pall you cast over him.
But recognizing the difference in what is considered moral during different ages, and between different cultures, is quite distinct from subscribing to a philosophy that there is no such thing as right and wrong.
Not only that, but given Ahmanson’s longtime advocacy of Reconstructionism, his statement sounds much more sinister than your benign spin.
I don’t know what Reconstructionism is, so I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
One more time: do you think Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. is still a “stellar conservative”?
Yes, I have said before, I do. He’s one of the relatively few men of means on the Right who actually puts his funds into the fight because of what he believes.
‘Gustavo, there’s no parsing going on their statement. You’re injecting meaning that isn’t there, and drawing implications that don’t logically follow. Newsong states its position very clearly. It’s entirely consistent with orthodox Christian belief: we are all sinners, but simply being one way or another isn’t sinful.‘
Sorry Matt, but my cop-out alarm is going off like crazy!
SMS
“From these posts it seems as if religious persecution is back in vogue.”
Persecution of gays, pro-choice supporters or anyone else who does not agree with their narrow minded view of the world has never been out of vogue amongst the religious right.