LDS Freedom Forum

It wasn't the church that brought this issue to the forefront. It was the pro-gay-marriage coalition that tried to legalize gay marriage, first with proclamations from the San Francisco Mayor, then through the courts.

mchlwise wrote:

obamohno wrote:For me, I care more about a sound monetary system and a humble foreign policy than same sex couples wanting to be called Mr and Mr.

If these things were to appear on the ballot, it would be interesting to see if the church would make similar statements. They won't ever be on the ballot, of course, so we'll never know.

It wasn't the church that brought this issue to the forefront. It was the pro-gay-marriage coalition that tried to legalize gay marriage, first with proclamations from the San Francisco Mayor, then through the courts. The coalition supporting Prop. 8 and the other similar propositions in the state before it (this has been going on in California for YEARS) brought Prop. 8 in response to the pro-gay-marriage agenda and decisions made by the courts.

It is interesting to think about what we could do if were were to all get together and demand that the Fed be audited, or that Wall Street be reformed, or any number of other issues.

If the whole debate were just about gay rights, it would be different. However, when the gov't legally accepts gay "marriage", then it will be able to force everyone to accept it. That includes churches. And then the churches will be liable for "hate crimes" if they preach that homosexuality is wrong. I have seen the GLAAD agenda for what it really is....open promotion of the gay lifestyle...in church, in schools, everywhere and we won't be able to do a thing about it.

kathyn wrote:In other words, if you take this issue to its logical conclusion, you know it's another satanic tool. And many gays are merely pawns in this power struggle.

kathyn wrote:If the whole debate were just about gay rights, it would be different. However, when the gov't legally accepts gay "marriage", then it will be able to force everyone to accept it. That includes churches. And then the churches will be liable for "hate crimes" if they preach that homosexuality is wrong. I have seen the GLAAD agenda for what it really is....open promotion of the gay lifestyle...in church, in schools, everywhere and we won't be able to do a thing about it.

If you study Hitler and his ties to the occult, you'd realize that homosexuality is a large part of it. You might think that gays were persecuted by the Third Reich, but it was only the effeminate ones. If you were manly, the most manly thing you could do was have another very manly partner. It's the same thing with the PTB today.

In other words, if you take this issue to its logical conclusion, you know it's another satanic tool. And many gays are merely pawns in this power struggle.

FYI... The real agenda.

What same-sex "marriage" has done to Massachusetts
It's far worse than most people realize

October 20, 2008
by Brian Camenker

Anyone who thinks that same-sex “marriage” is a benign eccentricity which won’t affect the average person should consider what it has done in Massachusetts. It’s become a hammer to force the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality on everyone. And this train is moving fast. What has happened so far is only the beginning.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its Goodridge opinion, ruling that it was unconstitutional not to allow same-sex “marriage.” Six months later, homosexual marriages began to be performed.

The public schools
The homosexual “marriage” onslaught in public schools across the state started soon after the November 2003, court decision.

At my own children's high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex “marriage” in early December, 2003. It featured an array of speakers, including teachers at the school who announced that they would be “marrying” their same-sex partners and starting families either through adoption or artificial insemination. Literature on same-sex marriage – how it is now a normal part of society – was handed out to the students.
Within months it was brought into the middle schools. In September, 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, MA, told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the floodgates for teaching homosexuality. “In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.' If somebody wants to challenge me, I'll say, `Give me a break. It's legal now,'” she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires. For example, she said she tells the kids that lesbians can have vaginal intercourse using sex toys.
By the following year it was in elementary school curricula. Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.

Second graders at the same school were read a book, “King and King”, about two men who have a romance and marry each other, with a picture of them kissing. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt-out their child.
In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!

Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!
In 2006, in the elementary school where my daughter went to Kindergarten, the parents of a third-grader were forced to take their child out of school because a man undergoing a sex-change operation and cross-dressing was being brought into class to teach the children that there are now “different kinds of families.” School officials told the mother that her complaints to the principal were considered “inappropriate behavior.”
Libraries have also radically changed. School libraries across the state, from elementary school to high school, now have shelves of books to normalize homosexual behavior and the lifestyle in the minds of kids, some of them quite explicit and even pornographic. Parents complaints are ignored or met with hostility.

Over the past year, homosexual groups have been using taxpayer money to distribute a large, slick hardcover book celebrating homosexual marriage titled “Courting Equality” into every school library in the state.
It’s become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to prominently display photos of their same-sex “spouses” and occasionally bring them to school functions. Both high schools in my own town now have principals who are “married” to their same-sex partners, whom they bring to school and introduce to the students.
“Gay days” in schools are considered necessary to fight “intolerance” which may exist against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender appreciation days”. They “celebrate” homosexual marriage and move forward to other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality. In my own town, a school committee member recently announced that combating “homophobia” is now a top priority.

Once homosexuality has been normalized, all boundaries will come down. The schools are already moving on to normalizing transgenderism (including cross-dressing and sex changes). The state-funded Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth includes leaders who are transsexuals.
Public health
The Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is “married” to another man. In 2007 he told a crowd of kids at a state-sponsored youth event that it’s “wonderful being gay” and he wants to make sure there’s enough HIV testing available for all of them.
Since homosexual marriage became “legal” the rates of HIV / AIDS have gone up considerably in Massachusetts. This year public funding to deal with HIV/AIDS has risen by $500,000.
Citing “the right to marry” as one of the “important challenges” in a place where “it’s a great time to be gay”, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health helped produce The Little Black Book, Queer in the 21st Century, a hideous work of obscene pornography which was given to kids at Brookline High School on April 30, 2005. Among other things, it gives “tips” to boys on how to perform oral sex on other males, masturbate other males, and how to “safely” have someone urinate on you for sexual pleasure. It also included a directory of bars in Boston where young men meet for anonymous sex.

Domestic violence
Given the extreme dysfunctional nature of homosexual relationships, the Massachusetts Legislature has felt the need to spend more money every year to deal with skyrocketing homosexual domestic violence. This year $350,000 was budgeted, up $100,000 from last year.

Business
All insurance in Massachusetts must now recognize same-sex “married” couples in their coverage. This includes auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
Businesses must recognize same-sex “married” couples in all their benefits, activities, etc., regarding both employees and customers.
The wedding industry is required serve the homosexual community if requested. Wedding photographers, halls, caterers, etc., must do same-sex marriages or be arrested for discrimination.
Businesses are often “tested” for tolerance by homosexual activists. Groups of homosexual activists often go into restaurants or bars and publicly kiss and fondle each other to test whether the establishment demonstrates sufficient “equality” — now that homosexual marriage is “legal”. In fact, more and more overt displays of homosexual affection are seen in public places across the state to reinforce "marriage equality".

Legal profession
The Massachusetts Bar Exam now tests lawyers on their knowledge of same-sex "marriage" issues. In 2007, a Boston man, Stephen Dunne, failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer the questions in it about homosexual marriage.
Issues regarding homosexual “families” are now firmly entrenched in the Massachusetts legal system. In many firms, lawyers in Massachusetts practicing family law must now attend seminars on homosexual "marriage". There are also now several homosexual judges overseeing the Massachusetts family courts.
Adoption of children to homosexual “married” couples
Homosexual “married” couples can now demand to be able to adopt children the same as normal couples. Catholic Charities decided to abandon handling adoptions rather submit to regulations requiring them to allow homosexuals to adopt the children in their care.
In 2006 the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) honored two men “married” to each other as their “Parents of the Year”. The men already adopted a baby through DSS (against the wishes of the baby’s birth parents). According to news reports, the day after that adoption was final DSS approached the men about adopting a second child. Homosexuals now appear to be put in line for adopting children ahead of heterosexual parents by state agencies in Massachusetts.

Government mandates
In 2004, Governor Mitt Romney ordered Justices of the Peace to perform homosexual marriages when requested or be fired. At least one Justice of the Peace decided to resign.
Also thanks to Gov. Romney, marriage licenses in Massachusetts now have “Party A and Party B” instead of “husband and wife.” Romney did not have a legal requirement to do this; he did it on his own. (See more on this below.)
Since homosexual relationships are now officially “normal”, the Legislature now gives enormous tax money to homosexual activist groups. In particular, the Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth is made up of the most radical and militant homosexual groups which target children in the schools. This year they are getting $700,000 of taxpayer money to go into the public schools.
In 2008 Massachusetts changed the state Medicare laws to include homosexual “married” couples in the coverage.

The public square
Since gay “marriage”, annual gay pride parades have become more prominent. There are more politicians and corporations participating, and even police organizations take part. And the envelope gets pushed further and further. There is now a profane “Dyke March” through downtown Boston, and recently a “transgender” parade in Northampton that included bare-chested women who have had their breasts surgically removed so they could “become” men. Governor Patrick even marched with his “out lesbian” 17-year old daughter in the 2008 Boston Pride event, right behind a “leather” group brandishing a black & blue flag, whips and chains!

The media
Boston media, particularly the Boston Globe newspaper, regularly does feature stories and news stories portraying homosexual “married” couples where regular married couples would normally be used. It’s “equal”, they insist, so there must be no difference in the coverage. Also, the newspaper advice columns now deal with homosexual "marriage" issues, and how to properly accept it.
A growing number of news reporters and TV anchors are openly “married” homosexuals who march in the “gay pride” parades.
Is gay marriage actually legal in Massachusetts?
Like everywhere else in America, the imposition of same-sex marriage on the people of Massachusetts was a combination of radical, arrogant judges and pitifully cowardly politicians.

The Goodridge ruling resulted in a complete cave-in by politicians of both parties on this issue. Same-sex “marriage” is still illegal in Massachusetts. On November 18, 2003 the court merely ruled that it was unconstitutional not to allow it, and gave the Legislature six months to “take such action as it may deem appropriate.” Note that the Massachusetts Constitution strongly denies courts the power to make or change laws, or from ordering the other branches to take any action. The constitution effectively bans “judicial review” – a court changing or nullifying a law. Thus, the court did not order anything to happen; it simply rendered an opinion on that specific case. And the Legislature did nothing. The marriage statutes were never changed. However, against the advice of many, Gov. Romney took it upon himself to alter the state's marriage licenses to say "Party A and Party B" and order officials to perform same-sex "weddings" if asked, though he had no legal obligation to do so. Technically, same-sex marriages are still illegal in Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, we are having to live with it. And furthermore, this abdication of their proper constitutional roles by the Legislature and Governor has caused a domino effect as "copycat" rulings have been issued in California and Connecticut, with other states fearful it will happen there.

In conclusion
Homosexual “marriage” hangs over society like a hammer with the force of law. And it’s only just begun.

It’s pretty clear that the homosexual movement’s obsession with marriage is not because large numbers of them actually want to marry each other. Research shows that homosexual relationships are fundamentally dysfunctional on many levels, and “marriage” as we know it isn’t something they can achieve, or even desire. (In fact, over the last three months, the Sunday Boston Globe’s marriage section hasn’t had any photos of homosexual marriages. In the beginning it was full of them.) This is about putting the legal stamp of approval on homosexuality and imposing it with force throughout the various social and political institutions of a society that would never accept it otherwise. To the rest of America: You've been forewarned.

Quote:
By the time Ulrichs died in 1895, the "gay rights" movement in Germany had gained considerable strength. Frederich Engels noted this in a letter to Karl Marx regarding Ulrich's efforts: "The pederasts start counting their numbers and discover they are a powerful group in our state. The only thing missing is an organization, but it seems to exist already, but it is hidden." After Ulrichs' death, the movement split into two separate and opposed factions. One faction followed Ulrichs' successor, Magnus Hirschfeld, who formed the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1897 and later opened the Institute for Sex Research in Berlin. The other faction was organized by Adolf Brand, publisher of the first homosexual magazine, Der Eigene (The Special). Brand, Benedict Friedlander and Wilhelm Janzen formed the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (The Community of the Special) in 1902. What divided these groups was their concepts of masculinity. Ulrichs' theory embraced a feminine identity. His, and later Hirschfeld's, followers literally believed they were women trapped in men's bodies.

The followers of Brand, however, were deeply insulted by Ulrichs' theory. They perceived themselves not merely as masculine, but as a breed of men superior in masculine qualities even to heterosexuals. The Community of the Special (CS) asserted that male homosexuality was the foundation of all nation-states and that male homosexuals represented an elite strata of human society. The CS fashioned itself as a modern incarnation of the warrior cults of ancient Greece. Modeling themselves after the military heroes of Sparta, Thebes and Crete, the members of the CS were ultra-masculine, male-supremacist and pederastic (devoted to man/boy sex). Brand said in Der Eigene that he wanted men who "thirst for a revival of Greek times and Hellenic standards of beauty after centuries of Christian barbarism."

One of the keys to understanding both the rise of Nazism and the later persecution of some homosexuals by the Nazis is found in this early history of the German "gay rights" movement. For it was the CS which created and shaped what would become the Nazi persona, and it was the loathing which these "Butches" held for effeminate homosexuals ("Femmes") which led to the internment of some of the latter in slave labor camps in the Third Reich.


From Boy Scouts to Brownshirts

The "Butch" homosexuals of the CS transformed Germany. Their primary vehicle was the German youth movement, known as the Wandervogel (Rovers or Wandering Youth). "In Central Europe," writes homosexual historian Parker Rossman, "there was another effort to revive the Greek ideal of pedagogic pederasty in the movement of 'Wandering Youth'... Ultimately, Hitler used and transformed the movement...expanding and building upon its romanticism as a basis for the Nazi Party" (Rossman:103).
Rising spontaneously in the 1890s as an informal hiking and camping society, the Wandervogel became an official organization at the turn of the century, similar to the Boy Scouts. From early on, however, the Wandervogel was dominated and controlled by the pederasts of the CS. CS co-founder Wilhelm Janzen was its chief benefactor, and its leadership was rife with homosexuality. In 1912, CS theorist Hans Blueher wrote The German Wandervogel Movement as an Erotic Phenomenon which told how the organization was used to recruit young boys into homosexuality.

Wandervogel youths were indoctrinated with Greek paganism and taught to reject the Christian values of their parents (mostly Catholics and Lutherans). The CS belief in a homosexual elite took shape within the Wandervogel in the concept of "der Fuehrer" (The Leader). E.Y. Hartshorne, in German Youth and the Nazi Dream of Victory, records the recollections of a former Wandervogel member in this regard: "We little suspected then what power we had in our hands. We played with the fire that had set a world in flames, and it made our hearts hot...It was in our ranks that the word Fuehrer originated, with its meaning of blind obedience and devotion...And I shall never forget how in those early days we pronounced the word Gemeinschaft ["community"] with a trembling throaty note of excitement, as though it hid a deep secret" (Hartshorne:12). Louis Snyder notes in the Encyclopedia of the Third Reich that, "The Fuehrer Principle became identical with the elite principle. The Fuehrer elite were regarded as independent of the will of the masses" (Snyder:104). Snyder was not writing about the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen or of the Wandervogel, but of the upper ranks of the Nazi party some thirty years later. Another Nazi custom from the Wandervogel was the "Seig Heil" salute, which was an early form of greeting popular among the wandering youth. During World War I, the greatest hero of the German youth movement was Gerhard Rossbach. Described by historian Robert G. L. Waite as a "sadist, murderer and homosexual," Rossbach was "the most important single contributor of the pre-Hitler youth movement" (Waite,1969:210). More importantly, Rossbach was the bridge between the Wandervogel and the Nazi Party.

At the core of many of Keynes' writings was an obsession with the subject of savings (thrift). It is a prominent part of nearly all of his economic works, and it lies at the heart of The General Theory. He rightly understood that the "virtue" of saving was related to the Christian worldview. He wrote that "The morals, the politics, the literature, and the religion of the age [are] joined in a grand conspiracy for the promotion of saving."

Why the animosity towards thrift? The act of saving points to a cause and a purpose beyond oneself. It indicates a "purposiveness" - to use Keynes' own word - to life. And this puposiveness points inescapably to a source of values, a reference point outside of oneself. It ultimately points to the transcendent God as the only true source of purpose.

As Keynes realized, the action of saving reflects a "future orientation," a belief that there is something worth deferring present wants for. Deferring the present for the future represents a value being placed upon something or someone beyond one's own immediate desires. It is a statement of self-denial. Keynes wrote scornfully of the `purposive' man who is always trying to secure a spurious and delusive immortality for his acts by pushing his interest in them forward into time. He does not love his cat, but his cat's kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens' kittens, and so on forward for ever to the end of catdom.

The purposive man, in Keynes' view, is one who takes actions that will ultimately not benefit himself (since he will someday die) but will be left for others. For "purposiveness" to be regarded as a virtue is particularly troubling to those who place a high premium on present gratification. A life of homosexuality is, by its very nature, an extremely present- orientated and selfish choice. It is a rejection of family, that institution through which we plough our energies and resources into others and into the future. A homosexual lifestyle is, in essence, a choice to focus on the present rather than the future, and a decision to live for oneself rather than for others.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter was insightful in connecting Keynes' "childless" and "essentially...short-run" philosophy of life. A person committed to homosexuality is without descendants, there is little to focus his attention on the future, on "the long run." It is appropriate that Keynes is popularly remembered for his quip "in the long run we are all dead." As his biographer, Robert Skidelsky noted, Keynes' had a "lifelong bias against long-run thinking" and "He was not prepared to risk too much of the present for the sake of a better future...." It is no wonder that he spoke derisively of "the hoarding instinct as the foundation...for the family and for the future"; for him thrift, family and concern for the future were inextricably linked.

According to Keynes (in an essay sardonically entitled "Possibilities For Our Grandchildren") an individual's concern for the future is a "disgusting morbidity," and a "semi-criminal, semi-pathological" propensity that should be treated as a mental disease. Is this the stuff that cold, hard, objective economic theories are made of? Hardly. These are the words of a man rebelling against what a concern for the future represents.

For Keynes the economist, the "abstinence" of people impedes the growth of wealth, and savings are always a potential threat to economic progress. He saw savings as a "leakage," a disharmonizing force which could easily throw the economy into a horrendous depression. The saver was an exploiter, by saving he "forced some other individual to transfer to him some article of wealth." Keynes looked forward to "the euthanasia" of the "functionless investor."

In "Possibilities For Our Grandchildren" Keynes contrasts the pathological savers with people who's materialism is sweet and virtuous, for they love money "as a means to the enjoyment and realities of life." It is they who will "teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well."

ndjili wrote:The original meaning of "separation of church and state" was keeping the government out of religion, not keeping religion out of the government. Of course evil men of law have "interpreted" it to be the latter.

natasha wrote:Geeswell...you are correct. Money came from members donations.

Gees

So many people yearn for the second coming, but are still stuck on not pushing our religion on the rest of the country. guess what? when Christ comes (whether any of us are still alive or not) that's exactly what is going to happen. because that is the way God intends it. why are we here on this earth anyway? so that we can allow an environment for people who want to make bad choices? or is it to create an environment to live God's law.

Henmasher wrote:

Gees

So many people yearn for the second coming, but are still stuck on not pushing our religion on the rest of the country. guess what? when Christ comes (whether any of us are still alive or not) that's exactly what is going to happen. because that is the way God intends it. why are we here on this earth anyway? so that we can allow an environment for people who want to make bad choices? or is it to create an environment to live God's law.

Your wrong in the sense of what are saying but probably not what you feel. We do not push because we believe in Agency. We are on this earth to get a body and be tested out of the presence of the Father. Not to force religion on anyone(that was the other guys plan as we gathered prior to mortality) Even when He comes He will not force religion. You will be held accountable but keep in mind that denying same sex marriage is not our religion's belief only. The majority of religous sects believe it is a sin. We should express our moral decision to not accept it or practice it. And yes we needed an environment that would allow for us to fail. Otherwise it is not a test and we would have not succeeded or "failed".
I try to keep another thing in mind. I do not remember the reference but Satan is exerting the majority of his power to neutralize the priesthood. Homosexuality does this in so many ways. Pitting family against family and destroying the family unit (his main priority).