DCJ

Yes, the benefits being future taxpayers. Seriously. The state's interest in marriage is having future productive members of society who also care for the aging population. What else could it be? Certainly not the "pursuit of happiness." We don't involve the state every time happiness is our goal. The obvious retort would be, "How would a piece of paper establish happiness?" And costly things to the state like tax breaks require an overriding state interest. Further, the distinctive features of marriage (two person, permanent, exclusive, ...) that the state enforces make no sense if only "happiness" is the reason.

Agreed. I would say the "demonstrable good" is the preservation of life, the first right recognized in the Declaration. And I'm not only talking about making law, but also building consensus, because the two go together. You think we should drop laws trying to impose same-sex marriage? There's certainly no consensus on that. In the process of making law, issues are discussed, and arguments pro and con are presented. As I've said, children are only protected when they move a few inches down the birth canal. Does this make sense? Not to me, because prematurely-born babies are protected, but a baby the same age still in the womb is not. Nothing is different about their humanity, only their location. Why should one be protected and one not because of an accident of geography? Any of the usual arguments ("it would be a burden," "it's unwanted," "it would be in a bad situation," ...) could equally apply to a newborn or infant, but no one seriously considers those questions at that stage. That's all I'm saying. These issues need to be thought through carefully.

All law is the imposition of a moral viewpoint. The current status quo is that children do not deserve protection until they move a few inches down the birth canal -- that's a moral point of view. And you're assuming that there's "no objective means of establishing when protected life begins," using your definition of "protected life." I've given fairly uncontroversial premeses: human life is worthy of protection, and pre-born human life is human. What follows is that pre-born human life is worthy of protection. It's no more a "glob of cells" than you or I are -- all are globs of cells with our own DNA. You mentioned the newborn's heart and brain as distinguishing characteristics. The heart is beating and the brain is developing by 7 weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. Is that life worthy of protection? It seems to me counter-intuitive to go with the logic that since we don't know when "protected life" begins, it's O.K. to kill it. Wouldn't it make more sense to err on the side of caution? If I'm out driving, and I don't know whether that pile in the road is some clothes or a child, am I going to just run over it because I'm not sure? Of course not, and we should use the same logic in the abortion case. But here we're even more culpable, because we know exactly what we're terminating: a human life in the early stages of development.

Not at all. Whether homosexuality is natural or not has no bearing on whether same-sex unions can be marriages. You've offered a dictionary definition of marriage, and pointed out some changing reasons people have had for getting married, but you haven't described what sets marriage apart from other relationships. Any discussion must address these issues: 1) In arguing for same-sex marriage, it seems obvious that marriage must include sexual attraction. But why? Why can't two close friends or siblings be married? If their emotional bond is just as deep as the sexually active couple, why should they be disenfranchised because their union isn't sexual? 2) If marriage is primarily about the legal benefits, why can't the friends or siblings above share in those benefits and have their relationship recognized as a marriage? 3) On what basis should a marriage be limited to two people? If three or more people find emotional fulfillment in polyamorous unions, shouldn't they have the legal recognition of a marriage? 4) Finally, if marriage is mainly about legal benefits or a deep connection, why should the state be involved at all in trying to preserve the union? The state doesn't do that with other close relationships. What interest does the state have in regulating emotions? Why should the state encourage fidelity, permanence, and make divorce so difficult?

I see. So using the criterion of "biological functionality of its species," what's the difference between the fertilized egg and a newborn? The newborn just lays there and cries. It's not "fully and independently functional" like the roach. It only has the "potential for life," no?

Please explain to me what the property of "personhood" is, and why the nascent human life would not already qualify. Why is personhood a property someone must acquire rather than something inherent in being human.

By God referring to "us" ("you" in the original verse), no distinction is being made between the pre-born "us" (including as a fetus) and the post-born "us", indicating a continuity of person throughout all stages of development. This verse speaks volumes about the value of the fetus. The Bible doesn't speak about a lot of scientific or philosophical concepts directly, but principles can be gleaned from its pages. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=abortion+bible A couple that jump out at me: http://www.catholicn...ainst-abortion/ http://www.godandsci...ne/prolife.html These expand on what I said under the first quote above. Sure there is. Any biology textbook will tell you that the conceptus is a distinct life form with its own DNA. From that point onward, all that changes is his size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency, none of which has any bearing on his value as a human being.

Try this one: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155

Crony capitalism is what we get when we allow the government to be generous with other peoples' money.

In addition to love, Christians have historically ascribed another attribute to God, namely justice. Just as it would be unjust for a judge to let a criminal go free without paying for his crime, so God would not be just if He let moral crimes go unpunished (and we all commit moral crimes, hate=murder as Jesus says). So how is this dilemma between God's perfect love for us and His justice resolved? The Gospel (good news) tells us that God took the punishment upon Himself in our place, thereby reconciling his love and justice.

Agreed.. so as you say, why not adopt that attitude, since you don't need the government to tell you how to act in moral situtations? No one is stopping anyone from sharing everything they have. Indeed, people can be very generous with their time, money, and material donations. However, people typically use "socialism" to mean using government muscle to take something owned by one group to give it to a different politically favored group. This, of course, is not "sharing" in any sense of the word, and certainly not what the early Christians did (they didn't need government to tell them either).

Yes, when one cheek is slapped. He didn't say if someone breaks into your house to rape your spouse, give them your child also. NOT having a weapon in such a case would permit violence to occur, whereas merely brandishing the weapon would likely prevent violence. Which do you think Jesus prefers?

I was a little skeptical about this, so I figured I'd look into it myself. The bill actually says nothing about when life begins; it presumably proposes to use "gestational age" when making the determination regarding the 20 week limit. The government site linked to by Wikipedia states, "Gestational age is the common term used during pregnancy to describe how far along the pregnancy is. It is measured in weeks, from the first day of the woman's last menstrual cycle to the current date." No nefarious plot to overturn Roe -- just a common way of measuring the length of a pregnancy that any pregnant woman who has visited her OB/GYN is already familiar with.

You'd think these were the rantings of some bigoted, arrogant, intolerant evangelical. But no, they're from a supposedly "tolerant" progressive. Fundamentalists come in all shapes and sizes, I suppose.

Other progressives here have claimed that Paul was indeed talking about homosexuality (though they said he was wrong). On what do you base your alternative interpretation? The topic of homosexuality in the Bible seems pretty clear to me, whether it's God instructing the young nation of Israel in the Old Testament, or Paul discussing general revelation in the New. With Sodom and Gomorrah, does the text say that God destroyed those two cities because of rape? Or attempted rape? Keep in mind that God had already decided to destroy them well before the attempted sexual assault of Lot's male visitors, because they practiced "abominations", going after "strange flesh". While rape is condemned in Leviticus, it is homosexuality that is described as an "abomination". And this one, from the lips of Jesus: "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?" The Bible does have something to say about marriage.