On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 00:34:24 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

Last I checked, separation of church and state was still the theoretical
policy in the US.

Separation of Church and State is not constitutional language. It's
popular theoretical policy today, but it has also become shorthand for
promoting the effective primacy of State over Church, which no
constructionist favors.

That's the thing many of these people fear, that the growing influence
of secular humanism in the U.S. will obviate their points of view. And
that's not a form of "homophobia" nearly as much as it is a form of
anti-federalism.

I don't find religious conviction to be a valid
motivation for lawmaking

Placing you in one minority group, albiet a particularly well-placed
one, these days. Honest religious conviction informs even your
opinions, Peter; even if you just don't *call* it religious
conviction, the worship of human reason is still based on a couple of
unprovables. Piety doesn't have to be directed at judaeo-christian
deity to be piety.

and in any case, the religiously convicted fall
smack in the "homophobe" camp.

And that's the demagoguery. Do the Scientologists or the Unitarians
fall into this "homophobe" camp? In any case, I and many like me were
pleased to permit behavior and keep company with people of all stripes
and preferences wherever they intersected with ours. But agitating for
political change so quickly is not a good idea. You gloss that with
your next paragraph:

Ahh...the old "change is bad" philosophy.

No, it's not "the old 'change is bad' philosophy", which is another
bit of demagoguery anyway, a reiteration of the "what are you afraid
of?" challenge, reducing it to being equivalent to "homophobe".
"Change is bad" is not a philosophy.

It's markedly more accruate to say that the *position* (not the
philosophy), is more like "rapid agitative change is disruptive to an
ordered society," which is true.

Easy divorce was one such change in the institution of marriage that
many people now feel was a bad move, citing single moms, deadbeat
dads, latchkey kids, double households, and other such evidence as
proof of the mistake. Now, people are calling for yet another change
in the institution with similar preparation and reasoning.

If we're gonna make such a change, we must, in my opinion, think
through all the ramifications of it, and carefully implement it in
stages, checking our work all the way. We haven't done that, in my
opinion. All we've done so far in the last 30 years is toss epithets
calling each other sub-human.

I've yet to hear of anyone
supporting these "no gay marriage" bills for whom that's their reason.
Please, show me someone whose reasoning is based on that.

You've responded to one.

More
interestingly, show me a single person involved in pushing for these bills
(i.e. not just someone saying "yeah, it's a good idea...I'd vote for it")
whose reasoning is based on that.

Members of my extended family, in connection with California Prop 22,
canvassed their own neighborhoods with flyers. I wrote to state
representatives and state senators expressing this line of reasoning.
Is Bill Clinton a "homophobe"? He signed the "Defense of Marriage Act"
into law.

Rob