PJ Media

> Listen trombone, I think your injection of religious justifications for not allowing gay marriage and your linking of homosexual activity with sin is a disservice to the argument.

I haven’t been justifying my opposition to gay marriage with religious objections. My objections are legal and constitutional: I don’t wish to be forced to approve of something I don’t to approve of.

Now, my *reasons* for not wanting this are based on my conscience, and my conscience is instructed by my religious beliefs, but my arguments are much simpler than that: there is nothing in the Constitution requiring anybody to give approval of gay marriage, and my practice of religion is explicitly protected by the First Amendment.

Do you not bring ideas of what is good to these discussions, to the polls, to your political contributions, to any and all of your participation in public life?

Of course you do. You are as much a moralist as I am, in your own way. Why should you worry about whether my viewpoint does a “disservice” to the argument, unless you thought it was doing harm — and if you think something is doing harm, then you must prefer doing good. And now the truth is out: if you’re talking about “the good”, you are expressing a moral vision.

Same as me.

> I believe the majority has the right to define marriage in any way they want as long as it does not infringe on a protected class of people.

At the moment, it is not the majority I am concerned about. Or did you not hear about the latest Gallup poll on the subject?

But that’s interesting. What do you mean by “protected class of people”? Are we all not supposed to be the same under the law?

> However, you take it a step further by insinuating that even if the majority decided in favor of gay marriage your rights would be infringed as a Christian. That logic is faulty and broken.

I believe it would be, yes, but let’s talk about why you think it wouldn’t be. What other behaviors do you think the government ought to be able to force everyone to approve of?

If the majority decided to force everyone to approve of reading the Bible, do you think that would be okay? It’s the majority, after all — vox populi, and the whole bit. What’s the harm, after all? Reading the Bible is good, isn’t it, you don’t have to read it yourself, after all. Expands horizons and such. And what if there were a special gene that makes some people believe the Bible, why they just can’t help the way they are. And consenting adults who love to read the Bible, well, it’s good we don’t persecute them anymore, but they just can’t be happy until everyone approves of what they’re doing.

You don’t think that’s a good thing? Then tell me, why do you hate Bible-readers so much? What made you such a Bible-phobe?

But, more seriously, I was asked earlier why I thought it was a sin, and I explained. If you find it off-putting, why, it breaks my heart, but I can see no shortage of moralizing from your own soapbox. Sorry if you think I’m working your side of the street.