In this context, the proper word is not "principals" but "principles" (conservative principles).

Also, "then", not "than". Use the dictionary! If we allow language to stray we will soon be unable to communicate.

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His little analogy about his Uncle was such a perfect example of his misguided thinking. His story essentially amounted to 'My uncle lived through a personal hell, and part of that was not having sex, and that's what I want for gay people - so much so that I'll deny them the right to have their relationships recognized by the law'.

How very Christian of him.

I enjoyed reading this interview. Thanks for interviewing Ronald Siders.

I know this is hard to do but you need to watch your typing,there are many mistyped words in his comments that make it hard to make out what he really said or meant.

Thanks again and have a great day!

Donut,

Your reading of the story about the uncle is telling. It's the exact opposite of what he said. He said despite the fact that his uncle did not have sex for 30 years, he lived a good life and was a good person. He did not say that his uncle's life was a living hell.

However, you proved his point by saying exactly what he said is the misconception in our society--that sex is necessary to having a good life.

And yes, it is very Christian to believe that true joy comes from self-control and sacrificial love.

My est friend is a consecrated virgin; she is 37 and has never kissed someone. She is also the happiest person I know. We spend a great deal of time in our culture chasing happiness in all the wrong places, especially, in indiscrimate sexual pleasure.

Carolyn

Now if only Uncle Jerry or Carolyn's friend would be making these statements about joy without sex, then it might have some relevance. Otherwise its a conclusory statement used to "prove" one's argument. I hope the Manhattan Group steps into the spotlight to challenge Uganda's on-going witch hunt against gays, pushed by the evangelicals who call for execution of male homosexuals. That would help prove they are interested in everybody's civil rights. Better yet, why doesn't the Manhattan Project call for federal legislation in the U.S. the grants civil unions to all in the LGBT community or at least support the federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act that would let us keep our jobs without fear of being fired for who we are.

I enjoyed reading this interview. Thanks for interviewing Ronald Siders.

I know this is hard to do but you need to watch your typing,there are many mistyped words in his comments that make it hard to make out what he really said or meant.

Thanks again and have a great day!

Sorry, I did not mean to post twice. your javascript lead me to believe that the initial comment did not make it in.

Sorry, I did not mean to post twice. your javascript lead me to believe that the initial comment did not make it in.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

"Don't you think it will be equally embarrassing in forty years' time to think two adults were not allowed to enter into this civil contract?"

Yes, were it only a civil matter. From a secular point of view, that's all that it is. But, in fact, it's not. We're talking about two different things: 1) marriage as a civil contract and 2) marriage as a sacrament of the church. They're easily confused.

No one wants to deny homosexuals their civil rights. Most Americans--God bless 'em--are firmly on the side of equal rights for all. The question is how to do that without forcing the church to redefine an important sacrament. In Christian doctrine, the word, marriage, has a narrow technical meaning. Change it and you are well on the way to making the practice of orthodox Christianity a "hate crime". Freedom of speech and freedom of religion is what is at stake here.

The state is gradually blurring the line marking the separation of church and state, where, previously, it had respected those differences. If it wants to create a civil means by which homosexuals share the same legal rights, that's one thing. But if it starts insisting, as it has, that no exception can be made for religious differences and conscience, that is another entirely.

This issue should be of interest to all who value freedom of speech and worry that the legal barriers that have so long protected the public from the oppression of the state are dissolving.

If you thing this is a non-issue, I recommend the UK to your attention and absurd hate crimes legislation.

We're talking about two different things: 1) marriage as a civil contract and 2) marriage as a sacrament of the church. They're easily confused.

No one wants to deny homosexuals their civil rights.

Except for the part where this guy in the interview wants gays to be denied the ability to enter into a civil contract that similarly-situated couples can enter into.

Which, whether you like it or not, is a denial of civil rights.

I think the ones getting civil and religious marriage confused are people like you and like Ronald Sider. Religious marriages aren't by themselves legally binding, just as I didn't become a legal adult at my Confirmation. The person performing the marriage has to be authorized by the state to make the marriage legally binding. Just because it's performed in a church doesn't mean it's not a civil marriage.

But because many civil marriages *are* performed in churches, those opposed to extending the right to enter into civil marriages to gay couples start assiduously blurring the lines between civil and religious marriage, shrieking that the state will force them to marry queers! The idea!

Of course, that's complete bullshit. No church has to marry anyone, no member of the clergy suffers any legal consequences for picking and choosing whom to marry. You think a Catholic priest who's not a military chaplain will marry a couple in which both parties are non-Catholics? Hell, a couple I know had a hell of a time finding a rabbi to perform their wedding because they are an interfaith couple.

By contrast, a justice of the peace has to take all comers with a valid license and no compelling reason (already married, too close a relation, etc) not to marry. Which is why that guy in Louisiana who refused to marry the interracial couple got in trouble. He was required to marry them; had he been a minister, he could have refused on some (probably bullshit) religious grounds.

Really, the Europeans have the right idea: no clergy are authorized to perform civil marriages; instead, couples go to the marriage bureau and *then* off to the church.

"Even though gay people are not practicing what I believe is the proper sexual relationship, I think they should be protected by the constitution and have all of their civil rights. It doesn't follow that we shouldn't follow gay marriage."

Completely correct. The analogy to interracial marriage is so wrong and overplayed. The purpose of that case was to get rid of anti-miscegenation laws which were a holdover from the days of slavery. The case had almost nothing to do with marriage as an institution and for gay marriage proponents to frame it as marriage as a "fundamental right" for all those who want it is so wrong. I wish the Supreme Court would take up this issue and follow jurisprudence and show once and for all that this is not a civil rights argument.

The separation of church and state is also a crap argument. The state is disallowed from seeming to elevate any religion to that of the official state religion. By disallowing gay marriage, which NO major religion recognizes, the state is not acting unconstitutionally since it is not promoting a jewish, christian, muslim, etc. state. There is no constitutional argument FOR gay marriage. Thus, there is no abrogation of rights.

Its an emotional search for societal acceptance and legitimizing gay relationships. There are definitely gay relationships that are great and solid and all that but they will never rise to the ideal hetero marriage where love can create life. That is not a religious argument - that is fact. Two loving men or two loving women have NEVER created life. That is not to disparage gay relationships - its just a fact.

Too bad you didn't ask Dr. Sider how the writers and signers of the Manhattan Declaration (against equality) plan on carrying out their threat -- will they do what Christians in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda are doing - arresting, torturing and murdering gay men and lesbians, or will they continue getting enough signatures to get bigot ballots to tyrannical theocRAT voters? Or will they join forces with the RNC Purity police?

"we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."

The Elephant in the room on this debate is worldview. The reality is, if you believe that there is a God who defines marriage as solely between a man and woman, you will oppose gay marriage. If you are a relativist, who does not see sexual ethics as a universal standard, you will most likely support gay marriage.

The relativist will never convince the Evangelical to support gay marriage by using merely humanistic arguments, nor will the Evangelical convince the secularist using theological arguments. It is like speaking two different languages.

What caused this sort of public debate is not primarily an ethical shift, but an epistemological one. The reason why gay marriage has been illegal for the last 2 centuries is because there was a general agreement that God is the source of morality, and therefore defines sexual ethics and marriage. The Bible prohibited it, cased closed.

As Nietzsche admitted, if you take God out of the picture, people will inevitably take his place. For the Evangelical, I would suggest you be honest as to why you can never support gay marriage. Not because of any civil reason, but b/c of a theological one. To the pro-gay marriage folks, I would ask, Are you sure you are ready for a world where we make up our own rules of morality? Whether you like it or not, you will open Pandora's box. Has it not already begun?

The real issue here is the tyrannical theocRAT delusion of the writers and signers of this Declaration Against Human Rights that their god has given them the power to decide the rights of other human beings.

Like the Europeans who joined the Nazi party, these Declarers believe they have the right to decide that only the people they approve of, agree with, accept, tolerate or respect are ENTITLED to equal human rights.

They have DECLARED that because they don't approve of a woman's reproductive rights, they get to decide that women who seek an abortion must die, either by having an unsafe abortion, or by criminalizing a medical procedure, charging women who have abortions with a capital crime, and putting them to death for "killing" an unborn fetus.

They even believe they have the right to DECLARE that a late-term abortion will cause pain and suffering for a fetus that is aborted in an unsafe manner.

They have DECLARED that if stem-cell research will save millions of lives, their god tells them they have the right stop this science. Only they get to DECLARE that people who have Parkinson's disease or leukemia will have to suffer. How many people who signed this Declaration will suffer, too if stem-cell research stops?

They DECLARE that only people who interpret their bronze age sun revolves around the flat earth, slave-owner manual bible the way do are ENTITLED to religious freedom. Anyone they don't agree with must live under their rules, because their god tells them so. Any Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Agnostic or Atheist must live under their laws, because "under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."

They DECLARE that only heterosexual people are ENTITLED to have the civil rights of marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v Virginia, "Marriage is one of the basic civil rights." This is why Loving v Virginia is relevant to the issue of marriage equality for same-gender couples - because marriage is a basic right. Yet the writers and signers of this Declaration believe only they get to determine who is allowed to enjoy this "basic right" of civil marriage.

If gay and lesbian human beings should not be entitled to this basic right, what other basic rights will the writers and signers of the Declaration decide their god has given them the authority to deny? We know what rights are denied in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria -- the right to exist at all. We know what rights were denied by Europeans under Nazi rule, to gay and lesbian Europeans and to Jews, who Europeans arrested and murdered.

Where does this slippery slope go next, from tyrannical theocRAT bigot ballot boxes to prisons to carrying out biblical punishments of stoning to death anyone these Declarers believe their god gives them the right to kill?

Ask Dr. Sider who gives him the authority to declare that he decides the rights of other human beings, based on his agreement, approval, acceptance, tolerance or respect. Ask him if that is how he wants others to do unto him?

planetspinz, you have a way of spewing hate with a flare of hysterics . you can't seem to even make valid analogies. the nazis you like to compare christians to have very little to with those like dr sider. your arguments do very little except to scare people. The nazis were atheistic elitist that tried to do alot of immoral things like social engineering.....much like the homosexual activist today. so sad.

Why is it always the gay thing? The religionists are also against abortion, and stem cell research. Gay marriage seems pretty minor. Nobody is stopping grownups from living together in whatever arrangement they desire. I personally don't believe in marriage and think we should get on with murdering the zygotes and harvesting their organs.

I want to know how this pompous ass -knows- what his beloved uncle did his private moments. How can he possibly know that the man went completely without sex for 30 years?

Everything else is just more christoid crap. "Our way is best because we say so, and your way is wrong." F*** 'em.

I have read and signed this declaration. As a christian, it reflects my beliefs perfectly. I am proud of it. Obviously it is inspired by God.

jm
When attempting to refute another's erudite point of view, it might be best to employ propper grammer, it makes you at least seem smarter. Your right to swing your bronze-age sky god ends where my civil rights begin.

Bronze age sky God he is not. He is necessary, and transcends causation. He lives in the truth of the implicate order, enfolded from sight except through prayer, grace and miracles. He encompasses all things including quantum physics and evolution. His love is indestructible, and he loves every atheist and their silly little tantrums.

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the "explicate" or "unfolded" order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders

Is anything perverted today?

If homosexuality is not perverse... then is pedophilia perverse? Is necrophilia... or beastiality perverse?

Where does a society draw the line?

If your answer is that none of the above are perverse... then you expose your twisted depravity. Let us see it for what it is.

If you say that homosexuality is OK (and not perverted)... and should be state-sanctioned through marriage... but that pedophilia, etc. are not OK (and are perverted)... and you are critical of people like myself (who do not want to see our society eroded further by endorsing perverse behaviour)... then you draw the line on perversion... like us... but at a different place. It is simply a race to the ballot box (or courtroom) to see who will win. But we will all lose in the end if you succeed.

Be aware... homosexual marriage is not the end-game objective. It is simply a first-down!

Perversion has no boundaries... and will expand its borders in the next round... to our children... to mutilation of corpses... to the very dehumanization of our society and ourselves.

Where do you draw the line?

Man, you gotta' watch out for those "satatanic liberal agendas." I've been doing a lot of research on satatan. He's like even worse than satan. Like a satan who's spent even more time at a tanning bed. If satan's a lobster, then satatan is a lobster covered in habanero sauce.

Kudos to the writer to alerting his readers to satatan's presence.

We must all be on the alert!

There's a larger issue that no one seems to be examining. It's all well and good if two people want to commit themselves to each other in whatever tradition or practice suits them. However, LGBT men and women can already do that. The reason they're pushing for legalized marriage is because they want to take advantage of the 1,100+ legal and financial privileges that are only available to married people. That begs the question: Why is any segment of our society entitled to 1,100+ legal and financial perks?

A whopping 50.8% of households in this nation are single-headed households. Some 43% of Americans are unmarried at any given time. Why should this vast minority be treated like an underclass--taxed at a higher rate, denied the same benefit compensation for the same work, forced to subsidize discounts to married couples with higher insurance premiums, travel fares, and the like? Singles have much less purchasing power because they must provide for themselves on one income, yet marrieds, who have double the economic power, are then further assisted with all kinds of extra breaks.

If this kind of discrimination was perpetrated against people of color or of a certain religion or with some handicap, this would be unthinkable. What makes it okay to do this to people who are not married?

@ Singletude,

I don't know. I think there's a fallacy somewhere in that argument.

I think the word "discriminate" in this context is a bit of a weasel word.

You seem to be suggesting that singleness is a state of being that a person has no control over, just like someone's race or their handicap.

Why not take it further?

Teachers only get paid a max of 50,000 a year, but doctors and lawyers get paid much more. Therefore, teachers are being discriminated against because they don't get paid as much.

You may argue that singleness is not always a choice, and, therefore, why penalize those who are single?

But the same can be said of teachers. It's not always a choice. I've heard a lot of talk about teaching being a calling, so if some people are made to be teachers-they have it in their blood-then why should they be penalized by not getting the financial perks of doctors?

Some people just aren't smart enough to be doctors or lawyers. Some people are scared of blood. Should they be forced to eek out a living on their meager income just because they're not wired to be doctors or lawyers?

Now, if your argument is primarily on behalf of the LGBT movement, then it carries a bit more weight because they don't have the option to get married.

But if your main point is that society is unfair for rewarding marriage because it is discrimination against the unmarried, I respectfully disagree.

Using that word in such a context dilutes its meaning.

The Manhattan Declaration is just more bunk based on polemics and the presumption that the signers know what God wants.

It's no surprise that these people deny there is a parallel between laws that banned interracial marriage and gay marriage.

"It's not the same thing" is a cry that has been heard over centuries to justify persecution and denial of equal rights.

As for DOMA, only an idiot can believe that it's constitutional. The fact is that DOMA violates the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.

In my life, most of my concern has been about racism, economic justice for the poor, environmental issues, climate change, and so on. I am known in the Christian evangelical world as liberal. I'm a registered Democrat. My book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, is a blistering call for Christians to combat poverty. That's what the emphasis of my life has been.

"...but since 9/11..."

The notion that the 14th Amendment prohibits legal recognition of male-female differentiation is absurd. (Section 2 specificallyh refers to male citizens.) If the androgynous interpretation of "gay rights" revisionists were valid, then there would have been no need for the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.

Also, I'm sickened by the fact that Sider and so many other "progressive Evangelicals" voted for the most stridently pro-abortion president in US history, especially since McCain was the first ever pro-life and pro-environment presidential candidate. If he had won, we could now have a pro-life (and pro-constitution) majority on the Supreme Court. Instead, Roe v. Wade will be entrenched for decades to come, and millions more unborn babies will be slaughtered, likely with federal abortion subsidies mandated by health care "reform" legislation. Sider's alleged "pro-life" committment is flimsy; signing this declaration is a day late and a dollar short.

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