During or after the 1960′s civil rights era, was any church forced to accept black members?

Can we differentiate between black members who accept church doctrine vs black members who insist on “acting black”?

Because it’s important to note whether or not their rejection was because they are black, or because they insist on living a “black lifestyle”.

Are any churches out there doing gene tests screening for gayness? Because as far as I know, most churches accept gays who accept church doctrine, and only have a problem with gays who insist that the church must change its doctrine to fit with humanist teachings on gay sexuality.

Everyone has the right to practice their religion, but it’s not clear why anyone should have the right to preach Unitarian Universalist doctrine inside a Baptist church.

I am sure the Unitarians wouldn’t like a Baptist trying to proselytize or bully their congregation into rejecting UU/humanist values in favor of Baptist ones – ever heard of a thing called the “Golden Rule”?

The marital relationship is comprehensive. As a type of relationship it necessarily entails a bodily union. There is no same-sex behavior (sexual or otherwise) that qualifies a same sex friendship for bodily union.

The fraud is in the play acting and the abuse of marital nomclamenture.

The abuse is in the misappropriation of the special status of marriage for a decidedly nonmarital arrangement in terms of the ceremony and the type of relationship and the false moral and social equivalence promoted by the participants and the two named chaplains.

The supremacy of gay identity politics is pushed onto the military and society for no good reason. Good citizens: push back and stand against this abuse perpetrated by progay bigots.

Patrick,

I suppose it is a sort of optimism on my part, but I prefer to think of it as believing and trusting in American democracy. And one of the ways I maintain that belief and trust is by not paying a great deal of attention to LifeSiteNews!

But can’t you see how short of a step it is from declaring same-sex “marriage” a civil right, to forcing churches to honor that right?

No one has a “civil right” to be married in the Catholic Church. As I keep pointing out, the Catholic Church will not marry people who have been divorced and have not obtained annulments. This would include a never-married Catholic man (or woman) who wanted to marry a divorced Christian woman of another denomination. There are laws in many places forbidding discrimination based on marital status. Why has it not happened that the Catholic Church has not been forced to allow a Catholic to marry a divorced Protestant? That could be considered discrimination against a divorced person.

The fact is, nobody has a “civil right” to be married in a particular religion. I have heard stories of Catholic priests refusing to marry particular Catholic couples for various reasons, and the couples don’t sue. They either go shopping for a priest who will marry them or they do without a Catholic wedding.

In this particular case, as I have pointed out, the danger to religious liberty was that a Baptist supervisor who opposed same-sex unions might have refused to let a Lutheran minister perform a ceremony to which she and her denomination had no religious objection. I think it would be unconscionable for a military chaplain supervisor to impose his religious beliefs on members of other denominations that he or she supervises. A Baptist chaplain should not be able to force a Lutheran chaplain to adhere to the Baptist religion.

We accept that churches and other private institutions cannot discriminate on the basis of race, for example, so why indeed shouldn’t churches have to perform same-sex “marriage,” if once we admit that it is in fact a right?

The ability of the law to enforce nondiscrimination laws on religious organizations is (to oversimplify) limited to areas where the government doesn’t get into religious issues. For example, in the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the government. A teacher claimed she was fired by a Lutheran school because she had a disability, and she claimed discrimination. Based on the “ministerial exemption,” the court ruled unanimously that the teacher, because she had some minimal religious duties, wasn’t protected by antidiscrimination laws.

We accept that churches and other private institutions cannot discriminate on the basis of race, for example,

Are you sure about that? http://www.kentucky.com/2011/11/30/1977453/small-pike-county-church-votes.html

But can’t you see how short of a step it is from declaring same-sex “marriage” a civil right, to forcing churches to honor that right?

During or after the 1960′s civil rights era, was any church forced to accept black members?

But gays aren’t family. That’s the problem.

I don’t have any problem with them being lovers. But being related to someone is more than just liking them a whole lot. Gays can’t ever be related to each other.

This is where gays are not equal. It is biology that discriminates. There is no way for two people of the same gender to join two family trees together, except through lying. They aren’t even the same as an adoptive couple, because adoptive couples gain their legitimacy through the “child’s best interest” standard – an adoption that does not put the child’s interests first is not an adoption, it is the sale of a human being (trafficking), and gay couples by definition put their own desires and needs over the child’s best interest (as opposed to gay individuals who parent responsibly, by seeking out a member of the opposite sex and forming a “coparenting” relationship).

Gays aren’t family. That makes their relationship different in kind from married couples.

You are welcome to think the difference is insignificance, but it’s a lie to say there is no difference. And you don’t have the right to demand that I think the difference to be insignificant, because in fact the difference is very significant.

As the atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell, wrote, “But for children, there would be no need of any institution concerned with sex. It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution.” He was speaking on divorce law reform, but the point is of general application.

Your optimism is heartening, and I do mean that sincerely, but I find it difficult to be quite so optimistic myself. While you, strictly speaking, are correct when you say that this particular article itself does not explicitly suggest that Catholic chaplains will be forced to perform same-sex “marriages,” I do have to wonder why do you think that it never could happen?

Catholic chaplains up to now have been able to marry according to Church law because there is nothing in Church law that runs counter to (current) civil rights law. But can’t you see how short of a step it is from declaring same-sex “marriage” a civil right, to forcing churches to honor that right? Once same-sex “marriage” is enshrined in civil law as being equal to traditional marriage, the pressure on churches to perform them will be intense.

“As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality,” wrote Mike Weatherley, MP for Hove and Portslade. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/uk-gvmt-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage-before-2015(19 Sept 2011)

And those who would apply such pressure do have a point, don’t they? We accept that churches and other private institutions cannot discriminate on the basis of race, for example, so why indeed shouldn’t churches have to perform same-sex “marriage,” if once we admit that it is in fact a right?