Exciting news in the christian marriage debate today, with the Australian Christian Lobby vowing to respect the views of people who want to prevent christians from marrying:
THE Australian Christian Lobby has taken the unusual step of making a “pledge” to respect the views of people who oppose christian weddings on anti-religious grounds in an attempt to blunt arguments by the Anti-Christian Marriage Lobby, which campaigns against christian marriages being recognised by law.
The Australian Christian Lobby has made a commitment to respect the non-religious beliefs of opponents of christian marriage.
In return it says it hopes for a commitment from Anti-Christian Marriage lobbyists not to “inflame prejudice” during the christian marriage debate. This commitment has been made as part of ACL’s latest publication on the right of religious people to have their marriages recognised in law.
According to ACL leader Jim Wallace, it is important that “both sides conduct themselves with maturity, respect, and commit to using truthful and factual arguments”.
Mr Wallace said he hoped both sides could start the debate by identifying common ground and shared values.
“Just like the Anti-Christian Marriage lobby, we believe in the importance of marriage, protecting families, and religious freedom . . . in fact, we see these as three key reasons for recognising Christian marriages.”
Australia’s most senior Anti-Christian Marriage figure, Jeff Harrison, has tentatively agreed to a meeting with christian marriage campaigners, provided they first declare that not all opposition to christian marriages is anti-religious and discriminatory.
Harrison has written a letter in response to a request from christian marriage campaigners for a formal meeting to discuss the issues polarising the community.
ACL wrote to Harrison in December to discuss its concerns about a campaign by the Anti-Christian Marriage Lobby against christian marriage.
ACL’s latest publication highlights the distinction in Australian law between civil and religious marriage, lists the religions that support christian marriage, and highlights the fact that fewer than one third of Australian marriages are now conducted in Christian ceremonies.
“Of course, there are celebrants who do not want to marry christian couples and under the proposed legislation this right will be fully protected; however, there are other celebrants and many religious officials who would perform christian weddings today if they had the choice.”
The publication states that “just as we acknowledge that it is possible to oppose Christian marriage without hating Christians, so we ask those who differ with us on this important issue to acknowledge that it is possible to support Christian marriage without seeking to undermine, marriage, family or religion”.
To be honest, does anyone have a good reason Christians should be prevented from marrying each other? Sure, some Christians are bad parents – but so are some non-Christian couples. Sure, some Christians are obnoxious and do not fit in well in the community – but that’s true for some non-Christians as well.
Christians are just as capable of loving each other and raising children as the rest of us. It’s time that we recognised their families in law and stopped discriminating against them.
Also: it’s time we removed the exemptions in the Anti-Discrimination legislation that permit non-Christian employers to unilaterally sack people for being Christian.
ELSEWHERE: This young man was raised by two Christians, and the state of Iowa has been debating whether to no longer recognise their marriage:
Unfortunately, even after that testimony, the Iowa state legislature still took a step towards amending the state Constitution to prevent couples like his parents from being married. A tragic step backwards.
Moved On 
Brilliant bit of work. Of course the christians would never respect anyone else’s opinion, the only way is their way.
Shameless plug on the same issue: http://www.brucellama.com/?p=1814
Here is a recent comment from the YouTube page …
“A generation after sodomite marriage is legalized, we’ll have some 5 year old grandstanding like Zach here, and he’ll proclaim his right to marry his own mother and her pet dog, and that we’re all “theocratic bigots” for condemning it. You hippies think I’m kidding. Just remember me when you’re 70 and watching in horror the types of things people are doing and wondering where the hell civilization went.
SupositoryRepository 7 seconds ago
Let us remember them when we are 70. Or not.
I suspect SupositoryRepository spends a lot of time thinking about what gay people might do in the bedroom.
I suspect SupositoryRepository stole that handle from elsewhere and, entertained by it rhyming didn’t think to look up the meaning… or perhaps he pulled it out of his ass just like his comment.
We could, you know, use the same extreme [insert uncheckable future “fact”] methodology to prove anything. Hell, did you know that being anti-gay without any basis beyond your own personal bigotry turns you into an obvious idiot to everyone else within a generation? True story.
I like the way you think narcoticmusing.
If we prevent gay marriage then you just wait and see how many other human rights will be repealed over the next 20 years. Before you know it we’ll all be prevented from marrying and voting, and will become slaves of wealthy muslim oil barons.
You think I’m kidding? Just remember me when you’re toiling under the yoke of your Islamic masters.
Oh, I see what you’ve done here….
This is great satire which seems to be a bit of a talentof Jeremys.
However it is a little hard to follow, even if you grok the overall point easily, without reading the source article.
I often discuss with Christians and non-christian alike how little modern civil Australian marriage has to do with christian beliefs anyway, so why get so worked up about this? But I think this probably says it better than a serious dissuasion -perhaps even better than the heartfelt and articulate personal advocacy of the Iowan engineer.
P.S. for the record, I’m happy for Christians to fire/not hire gay people, or adulterers or drug addicts or liars or heretics, etc….
Yeah, the original article has some bits that don’t scan particularly well. I tried to leave it as close to the original, those flaws included, as possible, to make the point – but perhaps I should’ve written it more as an independent retort.
P.S. for the record, I’m happy for Christians to fire/not hire gay people, or adulterers or drug addicts or liars or heretics, etc….
How about blacks Jordan?
How about blacks Jordan?
Pfft. SURELY that goes WITHOUT SAYING. You forgot Asians as well.
Well Ive written about a 5000 word essay response that maybe I’ll post on my own blog.
The executive summary. I unequivocally support removing de jure state sanctioned discrimination as both effective at giving victims of bigotry better lives, and not infringing anyone’s freedom of conscience or association in a morally significant way. So this entails most civil rights era american law, gay marriage, the end of dont ask don’t tell.
I equivocally support the idea of laws against racial employment discrimination, on balance. I don’t think such laws have had good pragmatic outcomes for say African Americans, but they could be designed better.
I equivocally oppose the idea of laws against homophoic employment discrimination, although I actually think they actually do think they give better short term outcomes for the people they directly effect.
The distinction between these latter two is for messy complex reasons to do with how different types of bigotry are manifested in the real world, not because of any in principle distinction between racist/christian beliefs or black/gay people.
This thread has clearly gone far too many posts without referring in some way to the Nazi Germany regime. Glenn Beck would be horrified.
Oh my pragmatic distinction is that gay people are pretty much all Nazis. Sorry, should have made that clear.
jordanrastrick: Please, this is a thread for elites only that I can prove by asserting that in the future Cthulhu will be the first Old One Prime Minister (fingers crossed). True story.
Please verify your claim with a future event that can’t possibly be verified. Even SupositoryRepository had the decorum to do that.
I was asked about gay marriage and same sex couples accessing IVF the other night in a telephone poll (Roy Morgan). To hear someone genuinely ask the question; “Do you oppose same sex marriage” (I can’t remember exact wording) just sounds so odd.
On what basis would you oppose it?
On the same basis you oppose everything you have no basis for.
PJH – I wasn’t meaning you as in you personally btw
Did you let them know PJH that you also don’t mind letting Christians marry?
I’m just impressed PJH had the time and patience to endure a telephone survey. I’m for adding them to the ‘Do Not Call’ list.
To be honest, does anyone have a good reason Christians should be prevented from marrying each other?
It undermines non-religious marriage?
But does it? There are many countries around the world where Christians openly marry each other, and non-Christian marriages are not affected at all.