Dear Tony,

Like a cake without sugar (or other sweeteners), a garden without plants or a bed without a mattress, monasticism without devotion looks to me like a military camp or a prison.

Suit yourself, but is this what you advocate?

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Dear David,

True, its just my gut feeling from reading the comments here, especially as none of the homosexuals I know cares about being married, so lets take an honest survey among gay-marriage supporters:

1. Would you support the legal marriage of two celibate monks (or two nuns)?
2. If homosexuality was still illegal and you found that the church was secretly performing religious marriages of homosexuals, would you inform authorities?
3. If a certain small percentage of the population had a bucket-fetish, would you currently support them legally marrying a bucket?
4. Would you change your answer to #3 if you knew that the church is strongly and dogmatically opposed to marrying a bucket?

Dear Yuyutsu,

I think you said it all when you said that it's your gut feeling.

There was no basis in fact for your statement.

From Wilson, Edward O., The Meaning of Human Existence by E. O. Wilson:

"The great religions are inspired by belief in an incorruptible deity - or multiple kinds of deities, who may also constitute an all-powerful family. They perform services invaluable to civilization. Their priests bring solemnity to the rites of passage through the cycle of life and death. They sacralise the basic tenets of civil and moral law, comfort the afflicted, and take care of the desperately poor. Inspired by their example, followers strive to be righteous in the sight of man and God. The churches over which they preside are centers of community life. When all else fails, these sacred places, where God dwells immanent on earth, become ultimate refuges against the iniquities and tragedies of secular life. They and their ministers make more bearable tyranny, war, starvation, and the worst of natural catastrophes.

The great religions are also, and tragically, sources of ceaseless and unnecessary suffering. They are impediments to the grasp of reality needed to solve most social problems in the real world. Their exquisitely human flaw is tribalism. The instinctual force of tribalism in the genesis of religiosity is far stronger than the yearning for spirituality. People deeply need membership in a group, whether religious or secular. From a lifetime of emotional experience, they know that happiness, and indeed survival itself, require that they bond with others who share some amount of genetic kingship, language, moral beliefs, geographical location, social purpose and dress code preferably all of these but at least two or three for most purposes. It is tribalism, not the moral tenets and humanitarian thought of pure religion, that makes good people do bad things.

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Unfortunately a religious group defines itself foremost by its creation story, the supernatural narrative that explains how humans came into existence. And this story is also the heart of tribalism. No matter how gentle and high-minded, or subtly explained, the core belief assures its members that God favors them above all others. It teaches that members of other religions worship wrong gods, use wrong rituals, follow false prophets, and believe fantastic creation stories. There is no way around the soul-satisfying but cruel discrimination that organized religion must practice among themselves. I doubt there ever has been an imam who suggested that his followers try Catholicism or a priest who urged the reverse."

So your gut feeling is that the aim of those who support same sex marriage is to crush religion.

It might be a very good thing to crush religion, but I doubt that those who support same-sex marriage have that noble aim.

"I have already expressed my thoughts on marriage equality many times on this forum, and still no one can really tell me how allowing gays to legally marry will affect anyone else at all. "

Maybe there is a positive side to the whole issue for Christians, Suseonline?

'Accepting' of same sex marriage could be an easy way to guarantee redemption for them. Remember [and this is quoting Jesus!] the two verses after the 'Lord's Prayer'...

"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." [Matt 6:14-15]

Seems like baking a wedding cake is one way to get into Heaven?

Dear David,

This is why I was very careful to state that my gut-feeling (which has not changed so far and comes as a result of reading OLO comments), is that the true aim of those who support same sex marriage is to crush WHAT-THEY-PERCEIVE-AS-RELIGION, rather than religion itself (which most of them either have no clue about or believe that it doesn't exist).

Rites of passage can be performed in either a religious spirit or a tribal spirit. I admit that it might look the same to the naked eye, thus while I care little about the tribal aspect, I find it of utmost importance to allow all tribal expression, even such expression which I personally find disgusting or outrageous, for this very reason that gems of true religiosity can be so easily overlooked.

Yuyutsu,

How does one objectively determine what is "true religiosity" and what is not "true religiosity"? And how do you know that what "they-perceive-to-be-religion" is different from what actual religion is?