IF you're "married"

YES it does....In the eyes of the people that participated.

A marriage certificate (IF you have one) means nothing?

Not even make you "legally married" in the eyes of the government/law?

passing a law saying all citizens were now "white"

I'm fairly certain you can't find any attempt to past that law.

just using the wrong words to describe something doesn't make it that way. And that's a wrap folks!!!!!

two people of the same sex being legally married can call themselves married.

Nobody can say they aren't; only that they shouldn't be according to the speakers religion. That's the difference between a fact and an opinion.

By the way, aren't marriages in the USA always done by ministers/clergymen? That would certainly give it an 'approved by God' stamp.

Kees

You can have a ship's captain perform a ceremony as easily as a magistrate of a court or a city official, like a mayor.

Clergy aren't the only option....especially now that you can legally get a license to perform marriages online, so pretty much any half-wit will do these days.

Matthew chapter 19

No Adam and Steve, only Adam and Eve.


3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to [c]divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7 They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to [d]divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I say to you, whoever [e]divorces his wife, except for [f]immorality, and marries another woman [g]commits adultery[h].”

Genesis chapter 2

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord God [t]fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because [w]she was taken out of Man.”

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Nope, don't see another man there either, not as "help mate" or "wife".

There are places homosexuals are mentioned in the Bible, but never favorably. In fact one tribe in Israel become homosexuals, and were nearly wiped out by the other tribes on God's command, and the survivors forced to marry women and make children by them. Ah, those were the good ol' days!

your religious beliefs on the whole country? How would you feel if someone else forced their religious beliefs on you?

Every law forces something on someone he or she may not agree with. Time the Majority took back America, or carve our own section out of it.

You are saying that it's okay to enforce Sharia law on everyone in the US?

There is a difference.

WE the people...NOT YOU the people

How is YOUR campaign to get all homosexuals sent to an Island in the North Sea going?

I don't have to watch/hear about whatever they do....Do you?

I don't even care if YOU moved up here, you wouldn't last long(you don't like the climate). Your neighbour could be gay/adulterer/sinner for all you know. You could be a sinner for all I know.

For legal purposes, it's the couple and the witnesses to their vows. For the state or local authorities, the importances is the collection of a fee. As for a God stamp of approval due to the presence of a clergyman, it doesn't happen that easily or with that guarantee...at least not in my church.

Words, you know, can get new meanings.

A "phone" used to be a device you could use to talk to somebody far away. The full word was "Telephone", from Greek words meaning far and voice. Now it' means 'small portable computer with a touchscreen and that can do much more than talking', quite something else. Although people still use it in the old sense, the new sense is very common, although a little bit confusing. You can complain about such a linguistic development, but you can't stop it. Maybe you even use it yourself.

Marriage used to mean a bond between man and women, with a primary purpose of getting children, for the rest of their lives. Now it's getting a new meaning: a legal bond between two persons, with a well defined legal meaning. You can complain about such a linguistic development, but you can't stop it. You could even invent a new word for it, but ithat would have a very small chance of being generally accepted.
Ald old frame of reference like the Bible doesn't know this new meaning. That's a little bit confusing indeed.

Kees

by new words, it causes those words to fall into disrepute fairly quickly.

but I'd not want government to dictate their definitions. We can verify that language changes simply by how we argue the meanings or interpretations of writings from the past. There are some words or definitions that evolve with very specific meanings, however. They began as one thing but became clarified so as to create an image. We can say that marriage is a union but there are all kinds of unions. We can say it's a union of people with certain objectives but there are all kinds of objectives. Such is why we use the term "labor union" as it clarifies the term. I'd think the word marriage may well fall into that category. It's a union of persons for a specific reason. As such, for couple that would not fit the term that's become custom, why not just come up with another that defines the union of same sex persons so that everyone will be able to visualize them? I see no wrong in that. In my own religion, we add additional clarity by adding the term "holy" to what our marriages are so I personally don't have a problem understanding what it means when two are united in holy matrimony.

That's great.

- Use '(holy) matrimony' for marriage between religious man and woman.
- Use 'marriage' in a legal meaning for any comparable union between two persons in general
- Use 'menage a trois' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9nage_%C3%A0_trois) for still a different kind of union (no legal meaning, probably not very religious either).

Using different words for different things helps to prevent confusion.

Kees

to fit changing circumstances. We need to find and all accept a new term. Why argue what has come to be understood? We're really just talking about marriage in the secular sense, are we not? We really don't need to cause upheaval elsewhere, IMO. All that does is create confusion, distrust and unnecessary confrontation that moves us backward. Letting things evolve without forcing them on all people at once, albeit not as quick to happen, must certainly be a less disruptive way to do such things. I can think of all kinds of terms that are parts of the traditional definition of marriage but leave the word "marriage" alone and adopt something new, that fits, and helps people visualize other forms of pair bonding.

when people of two different races could get "married"? The word wasn't changed - just the definition.

since the next logical step now for liberals is to also recognize polygamy as a 'marriage', it probably won't stop then either.

Or going even further.....no one will ever be too young or too closely related.

Where will a liberal draw the line, do you think, Diana? Or will it be another 'red line' that gets ignored once crossed?

Not long ago, nobody would have believed gays would be 'entitled' to the benefits of marriage either or that we would have school books in elementary classes titled "I have two mommies" and that it doesn't refer to divorced parents who remarry......

How far would the 'right' to marry go with you, Kees?

Somewhat longer ago:
Before 1920 nobody would have believed that women would be entitled (no quotes necessary) to vote, and now maybe you even get a women president.
Before 1863 nobody would have believed that blacks aren't born to be slaves, and now you even have a black president.

And now:
Before 2010 nobody would have believed a same-sex marriage would be legal.

It's a fact that things are changing, even if some conservatives don't agree with it (yet). One wonders what the conservatives of 2115 will consider to be fully normal.

Kees

but consider only a relatively short time of it. What I see of history where God is considered is entire nations being destroyed or brought low or sent into slavery for not following God's commandments, for engaging in immorality, even to the national acceptance of such. Some of them were mighty nations too, at the very time they fell, such as Babylon when Cyrus invaded and took it over. There was also Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed suddenly. Some not so powerful, such as Judah.

1 Kings 14
22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

1 Kings 22
41 And Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the Lord: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places. And Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his might that he shewed, and how he warred, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.

1 Kings 15
9 And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.

2 Kings 23
7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

Always, throughout the bible, God blessed those who removed the sodomites. Those who failed, it was like the final insult to Him, he brought destruction upon them for their great sin as a nation.

The entire tribe of Benjamin had become filled with sodomites, and ended up destroyed by the other tribes.

Judges 20
So the sons of Benjamin saw that they were defeated. When the men of Israel gave ground to Benjamin because they relied on the men in ambush whom they had set against Gibeah, the men in ambush hurried and rushed against Gibeah; the men in ambush also deployed and struck all the city with the edge of the sword. Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the men in ambush was that they would make a great cloud of smoke rise from the city. Then the men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill about thirty men of Israel, for they said, “Surely they are defeated before us, as in the first battle.” But when the cloud began to rise from the city in a column of smoke, Benjamin looked behind them; and behold, the whole city was going up in smoke to heaven. Then the men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were terrified; for they saw that disaster was close to them. Therefore, they turned their backs before the men of Israel toward the direction of the wilderness, but the battle overtook them while those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the midst of them. They surrounded Benjamin, pursued them without rest and trod them down opposite Gibeah toward the east. Thus 18,000 men of Benjamin fell; all these were valiant warriors. The rest turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, but they caught 5,000 of them on the highways and overtook them at Gidom and killed 2,000 of them. So all of Benjamin who fell that day were 25,000 men who draw the sword; all these were valiant warriors. But 600 men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and they remained at the rock of Rimmon four months. The men of Israel then turned back against the sons of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword, both the entire city with the cattle and all that they found; they also set on fire all the cities which they found.

Only 600 men of Benjamin left alive at the end of it. So, what caused the war? Sodomites. Judges chapter 19

Then behold, an old man was coming out of the field from his work at evening. Now the man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was [m]staying in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjamites. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city; and the old man said, “Where are you going, and where do you come from?” He said to him, “We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, for I am from there, and I went to Bethlehem in Judah. But I am now going to my house, and no man will take me into his house. Yet there is both straw and fodder for our donkeys, and also bread and wine for me, your maidservant, and the young man who is with your servants; there is no lack of anything.” The old man said, “Peace to you. Only let me take care of all your needs; however, do not spend the night in the open square.” So he took him into his house and gave the donkeys fodder, and they washed their feet and ate and drank. While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, surrounded the house, pounding the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came into your house that we may have relations with him.”

So, you see, homosexuality has always brought judgments from God upon mankind, upon nations, and will continue to do the same.

Just look at the immorality that was sweeping across Europe in the 20's and 30's and the end result of that was the rise of Hitler and many of the same who had caused it were destroyed. Not such a "fabulous" time when the end came for them, was it?

Think it won't happen in Europe again? You would be mistaken. It's already being setup even now, with the Muslims and their Sharia coming there. At the right time, they will punish Europe for all her sins, even if otherwise God rejects them for their murderous ways, they will become a tool for him to use to punish the errant children of Christians who abandoned Christ's Way.

America still has time to turn things around, to keep it from happening here, but how much time remains is questionable.

Did you ever consider the option that the conquest of Spain by the Moors (around 800) and the possible conquest of Europe by the Muslims (around 2050) aren't an act of God to punish the Christians for their immorality, but - on the contrary - an act of Allah to reward the Muslims for their piousness (like not drinking alcohol, not eating pork and having women cled in such a way you only see their eyes) and punish the Christians for the Crusades (long ago) and the mess they made in Iraq and Afghanistan (recently)?

I see no reason to prefer one of those explanations above the other. Do you?

Kees

were started because Muslims were killing Christians and invading territories to do so. The Crusades were the RESULT of that aggressive behavior, not the other way around.