Comments on: Should we be culture warriors? Thoughts on church and state

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:48:09 +0000

Oh Warren…. I’ve been sick since then, gimme a break! I cannot remember specifics. But I do know it started off when for some reason I ran across the blog of some complete homophobe and you were one of three persons he had links on his frontpage. So I pointed out your amelioration in thought and he removed your link! That gave me a chuckle… but then I thought that I should have let the guy live with his delusions concerning your outlook.
I think the others I remember were the Constitution Party and some of the likes (not saying these specifically) of PornoPete, the AFA and others. Some of whom may have reordered pages and removed links to many of your pages but left some that they felt supported their positions, such as “I do exist.” I just remembered seeing you more prominently displayed on their pages than you have been in the last year (that being the year before my unfortunate incarcerations in the medical instittions of SW Indiana these last 10 months.).
And as to:

I was hoping to get some of the folks who take Mrs. Kern’s view to comment and get some discussion going but it is not happening so far.

How can you expect that when all those sites which espouse views like Ms Kern have removed links to your blog!? ;~)

By: Warren

Warren — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:23:46 +0000

Hey Lynn, that is an interesting observation about links to my website. Perhaps you could name some names…
I was hoping to get some of the folks who take Mrs. Kern’s view to comment and get some discussion going but it is not happening so far.

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:37:39 +0000

Lynn David,
Yeah – I agree. The polarization over this issue has made a mess of things. There are so many varying opinions on what gay means that we are trying to legislate it’s definition.
I really don’t know what is the answer. I do know that I had better protect the rights of others if I am going to maintain mine.

By: jayhuck

jayhuck — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:21:32 +0000

I agree with you Lynn 🙂

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:53:45 +0000

jayhuck…. That remark of mine was meant to be rather naive. We get along because we live in a country/countries with a system of laws that have come to be called democracies. In the USA we have the good fortune of having a constitution by which to judge our laws and determine our freedoms – aka rights. We don’t have to “live in perfect harmony” in the USA, we just have to respect each other’s ~~god-given~~… er, natural-born rights.
Except we have this argument going about the gay…. just what is such a person and thus what are their rights – natural born or that other thing….. god-given. As has been pointed out by many a person, discovery of homosexuality to be “natural born” does not mean rights are due from a constitution which Ms Kern considers to be a derivation of a mode of civilization set forth by the Christian god and must be “conserved” in its pristine condition.. But that pristine condition included slavery, didn’t it? So my personal view is that the Constitution is a document which is meant not to follow any particular faith (ie. Ms Kern’s brand of Christianity), but to be interpretted from the viewpiont of reason. Reason which includes new ways of thinking brought about by the discovery of new factual evidence.
So in part the American Constitution is a document grounded in faith but determined in reason. And I look at our Founding Fathers and see the very same demeanor. Even in the Declaration, Jefferson wrote in a way of compromising faith and reason when he said that “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them” They were men of faith or spirituality, not necessarily Christian, but also Deists and agnostics (still looking for that spiritual atheist like myself). But they were also men of reason, they were of need of reason most of all because they were embarking upon an experiment in which the power of government was derived of the people and were in need of encoding that, thus our Constitution.
I look upon that act of “encoding” as an act of reason. Certainly the Founders thought of the document as flexible, a number of persons in the Constitutional Convention desired the abolition of slavery, but a comprimise was effected. Certainly those men of reason saw a future in which slavery would be outlawed, to fit the original intent in our country’s founding document, “We hold these truths to be self evident.”
For most all gay people, our self-evident truth just does not match up with the likes of Ms Kern. I simply point out that reason should be operator in American governmental society and less that of the faith of Ms Kern an others like her. Here in a Switzerland of the culture wars, I believe Dr Throckmorton to be an able arbiter among the various viewpoints. Unfortunately, many on the side of Ms Kern seem to think Dr T a traitor, I have seen links to his websites disappear over time.
So were does that get us when faith is so steadfast in the face of reason? 5-4 decisions in the Supreme Court, I guess. And that too is what motivates us….