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"Protestors [sic] of Proposition 8 in California (the marriage amendment) shoved aside a 69-year-old woman who was bearing a cross. They reportedly spit on her and stomped on her cross. They then aligned themselves in a human barricade, blocking the media from getting to or interviewing the woman." I don't believe this Norris, and I don't think you do either. Sounds like a bunch of "reported" bull to me.

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Re: TruthTank. How do you know what the earliest civilizations defined marriage as? Were you around then to conduct a survey? And you would do well to study a little Greek history yourself. You might find that the thinking of other folks a long time ago went a lot further than you can go even now, thousands of years later. A footnote for you and Norris: Democracy, at least under the U.S. Constitution, does not mean mob rule. The protections placed there and in the California Constitution as well, included respect for the rights of minorities even when the majority can't come up with the humanity to show it. That is why Prop 8 should not even have reached the voters in the first place and will be held unlawful by the California Supreme Court. Go home and focus on your own marriage and stop trying to tell other people how to live their lives.

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Sir; ...We have anarchy.... Our whole economy is anarchy... The whole thing denies the authority to regulate, and govern...So we have multiple producers of automobiles producing for the same market, and when the ability of the market to absorb production is exhausted, then you have a glut, or depression... Now, you seem like a clown confusing majority rule with democracy... Democracy is not rule of any sort, but self government... It is too easy to pervert majority rule, and all but impossible to pervert democracy, because there a person's power is limited to himself; and it is there fore only good for defense, and only adequet as an expression of public will to supply a general need.... The use the religious right has put its vote, to deny equal rights to the homosexuals is a far worse perversion of rights than homosexuality is... Every successful society defends rights for all. All belong to the society we call the United States... If you want a smaller community that protects some special right, then form it...No doubt, that is the reason for the gay community: to defend rights.... But equality is no special right, but an essential to justice, to true democracy, self government, and to citizenship... If I were Gay, I would be angry too...And I wouldn't take any crap from any religious right... The United States is our common country... And the religious right would absolutly feel the same if rights were denied to them on the basis of a majority vote... If societies, communities, defend rights, it is with the understanding that no right can be right if it causes injury... It is not by right that people deny rights, but only out of necessity....Thanks...Sweeney

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Sir;... The more I read your article, the more I believe you are a lost cause because so much seems obvious after a little reading that will never be obvious to you without reaching out, and doing the hard work of learning and understanding...You know I am not educated... I have a copy of the New Testament I am reading called the interlinear Greek English New Testament... Along with that I am working on a workbook called Basic Greek In 30 minutes a day... And, in addition, I have a substancial investment in Greek English lexicons, New Testament Greek, and a Greek Grammer... Now, don't think this investment of time is to preach the word, though the word of Christ is no mean thing, but is to understand better philosophy, and very often, reading old philosophy from the Greeks, there will be literal translation for word like Soul, and one must wonder of the state of education where people can actually learn phlosophy and not learn Greek, or learn the Bible, and not learn Greek; and that so much of what we take we take on faith, from mouth to mouth, never going back to the original source, just accepting on earthly authority... I make an investment of time because I want to know, and need to know; but it is no less than what I have done to learn about primitive societies, and how they survived having nothing... And folks like your Christian friends who are very socialistic, sharing resources, sharing community, actually protecting each other politically, do not know their own roots, and how Christianity came out of the division of Judea and Judaism between the rich and the poor...Democracy may be new as a concept...Before it was concieved it was universally what developed along natural lines as it would in any extended family trying to hold together and survive... Is survival so certain for you republicans and Christians that where ever you go, you can affored to divide your societies??? Jesus said as much, that he would break up families... Is that what you guys want to do, to cut yourselves off from society by cutting others off from you??? Do you guys have some conception -that you do not need us to respect your rights??? Do you just depend upon respect??? DO NOT...We keep the peace together, by common consent... All democracies, true democracies sought consensus because they found it essential...It is a liar, or liars who have said we can have a society with the majority shoving it down the throats of the minority... That is just more division, and having division, that line has been exploited as a weakness until nearly every district in America is very evenly divided in order to deny a voice in government to great numbers in each... And even in safe districts, no republican is safe from fringe power groups beating him in the primaries, and inevitably pushing the politics of the country into an ideological divide that makes government powerless to do the basics for the people...Do you think people do not see how the Supreme Court overwhelmingly follows the fringe, and represents religions rather than reflecting the general consensus of the people??? You have made it your tool, and it has ruined its objectivity, and marked itself as the enemy of the people... The more success you folks know the more brazen you become in defense of ideology and the more abusive you become of true democracy, which cannot exist in an atmospher of inequality of rights... There are books there man... Don't be a Palin... Open a book and shake out some facts... What we call democracy is democracy in name only...WE cannot elect people as fast as they can be corrupted, and even the election is corrupting...And; I don't think your rights are anymore negotiable than my own.. But if you folks do not recognize any natural limits why should anyone???Thanks...Sweeney

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Sweeney, If you get the chance during your Greek lessons, see if you can compare and contrast the difference between democracy and republic. Does any one still remember the Pledge of Allegiance? ...And to the REPUBLIC, for which it stands,... The United States of American is not a democracy. It is a republic. Democracy does not mean you can revert to a state of nature. Since the earliest civilizations, society has defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Please inform me of any significant society that recognized homosexual unions as marriage in history. I'm not speaking of modern, post-world war II history. I don't think the majority of Americans (religious and non-religious) are against homosexual civil unions that grant all the same legal protections of marriage. I also think, given the state of the institution of marriage, that most Americans would not be opposed to civil unions between a man and woman.

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Re: TruthTank; ....If you are talking about civilization, you are talking about a very late development of society.. Before that, to use an example close to home, a male Indian who took a male wife was thought not worse, or strange; but only lazy, for wanting his wife to both hunt the game and cook it....Clearly the Catholic priests who came into contact with homosexual natives were scandalized... The natives didn't think twice about it... If a girl wanted to play with a bow they let her... If a boy wanted to wear an apron, they gave him one... For the same reason essentially, that they did not beat their children... Ones children will some day be ones equals, and enemies and horses are beat, but if your life may some day depend upon the one standing next to you, then for the best, he should have some reason to hold you dear...Now, it is a great presumption upon faith to say we will not some day be threatened, and need the brains and brawn, and loyalty of every member of society... It is a political mistake to exclude, and a moral one... And I am not talking about going back to a state of nature... Rather, one must realize that the Roman Republic which we took for our model, was already on the verge of failure, and Caesar rode the wave of inequality, and discontent into power, so that the inequality of society, which was, and remained its weakness, was the key to his strength; and you should think of the suffering of civil war that occured between the propertied class, and the common dispossessed citizens... Their situation was not far different from our own... Something else...Try to consider why the Christians were persecuted... They would not make a sacrifice of a pinch of incense to the gods of Rome and the Genius of the Emperor... In this way they excluded themselves, but because they were morally superior, at least, until they took power, so they gained by the persecution... Now, if it can be seen, and it can, that Christians support any immorality that suits them, pollution, high profits, exploitation of the environment, denial of rights, and war -only because they love having power, then they lose as much as they gain every time they win... Rather than win, they ought to do as Jesus did, and reject power... We all support the free expression of faith, but we do not all do so thinking this gives the denominations any right to attack all rights -which they depend upon as much as we.... They can make the moral argument, but the problem with people taking power in the name of morality, is that once they they have the power to coerce they quit making the moral argument, and rely upon the force, which is a positive evil... They have the power to influence... They should use that power where they think necessary, and not resort to the crass displays of power, or the sowing of division and hate to reap more power... It is unchristian, and it denies the equality of all mankind... Now, I know that philosophers from the three Western faiths have all argued for force, -that the intelligent and the moral should rule the strong... What good has come of that, since as soon as democracy is denied, it is gone for good...We cannot deny equality, and still have democracy... The churches are the enemy of democracy, and they are the enemy of equality ....Thanks...Sweeney

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Thanks, Chuck, another hard-hitting and necessary article. Certainly Christian and indeed all responsible parents should have every possible safeguard in law to protect their children from predatory sodomites, such as Michael Swift (dec'd, formerly of the paedophile group BLAZE) who declared back in 1987 "We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity...tremble, hetero swine...." The danger is real. Your own Family Research Institute in the US concluded after extensive studies that "Overall, perhaps 2% of adults regularly indulge in homosexuality. Yet they account for between 20% to 40% of all molestations of children." See Dr Paul Cameron's pamphlet Child Molestation and Homosexuality. Thorough research over here has yielded similar results. Dr Trevor Stammers of Family and Youth Concern has stated that "35% of paedophiles are homosexual whilst only 2% of adult men are homosexual." These results indicate that a 'gay' male is well over 20 times more likely to molest children than a 'straight' male. The British Home Office produced figures in line with these results way back in 1973, as highlighted by researcher Stephen Green in his detailed work on 'gay rights' published 1992, entitled The Sexual Dead End. The words "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination" Leviticus 18:22, KJB, are as relevant now as when Moses penned them nearly three-and-a half thousand years ago, or more so. Clearly, elevation of 'parents' rights' over 'gay rights' as expressed by Michael Swift et al. will not combat all paedophilia but it is an essential step, nevertheless. Continuing to pray for you, Chuck (as is a Christian friend in Florida).