wyndhy,

Conjectures about the origin of benevolent religious tenets (particularly as they serve to inform legislation) introduce a chicken or egg situation. Were/are they good due to being handed down from on high, or were they assumed to have been handed down from on high because they were/are good. That might warrant a separate thread.

My overarching response to the Federal issue of marriage is that it, the institution of marriage, does not naturally fall under the purview of the Federal government. The human relationships described by marriage are sufficiently local to be better managed by governments sufficiently local to the people involved. Why should marriage in Massachusetts be bound and limited by the opinions of people in Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, and Florida? Insofar as institutions such as the SSA & VA must have policies to deal with spouses, some accommodation will be necessary, but it should be an accommodation of the Federal to the State, not the other way around.

Yes, there are many whose ideals of marriage are challenged when marriage is reconstructed without a presumption of opposite sex.

The Federal Marriage Amendment is anti-American. Read an analysis from an arch-conservative organization.

To the degree to which the examples in my previous post suggested I thought you were ignorant of the roll religion has played in the politics of presidents, let me apologize. Such was not my intent. What I do believe these examples illustrate is that the religious beliefs of the American electorate are summarized in the politicians they elect. I think it reasonable then to expect similar opinions in the federal Legislature and Executive. By inference, I expect the same from the federal Judiciary, as its members are nominated and confirmed by those branches. Frankly, in a political system based upon representative democracy, I would be surprised to discover otherwise.

Consider the alternative. "There exists a specific component of an individual's life which, although it is found in almost everyone, SOMEONE ELSE will decide is inadmissible to practice in the body politic." If we can agree that a liberal government is one which limits the use of its policing powers to compel and control the public behavior of its citizens, then policies as the quoted one are illiberal. I prefer a liberal to an illiberal government. What of the overseer of politically correct ideas? Elected or non-elected? I prefer a democratic process, even if once removed, to an undemocratic process.

Respectfully, I believe that a closer reading of the history of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism fails to support the proposition that the Nazi Holocaust was a war of religion.

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Eudaimonia