MatthewLee wrote:I graduated last year. I have a degree in religious studies.
Oh my mistake - shows how easy it is to arrive at wrong notions in the absence of evidence!

Congratulations.
MatthewLee wrote:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/28/black-clad-antifa-attack-right-wing-demonstrators-in-berkeley/?utm_term=.abe55d588fd8
Here is more evidence and even more targeted to the point I made. When Milo attempted to speak at Berkeley they had to evacuate the building because it turned very, very violent.
Yes, it's a sorry situation.
Don't get me wrong - I don't think any university is obliged to invite or give a platform to any individual (particularly not someone of Milo's non-existence calibre), but they shouldn't be physically threatened into their choice of speakers.
MatthewLee wrote:Free speech is just that… FREE speech.
No, free speech is a concept related to the government/state, and it's about the state not using their consummate power to stamp out spoken dissent. If a guy in the street shouts you down while you're expressing your opinion, he's not undermining your free speech, he's just being an ass.
MatthewLee wrote: Censoring speech in any way makes that no longer free speech and even outside of the first amendment context. Free speech is the law AND a value of our society. It’s part of being American. If we agree with free speech then we have to tolerate speech we find abhorrent. That’s why we call it free… as in… not constrained. Your explanation of free speech is not sufficient. It does not take into account the American traditional perspective which is what we’re talking about here. We allow Nazi’s to march because they have the same right to free speech as a Gay Pride parade does. In fact, the police will protect them to honor this. It’s called free speech and American’s believe in it. It was what our founding fathers thought important enough to specifically protect in the Constitution.
Yes, you're labouring under a series of misconceptions, please read what I've written. The state will, of course, protect your right to assembly (which is what you're talking about there), and incidentally, little of this is expressly or specifically American as it exists in some form or other in the majority of the West.
MatthewLee wrote:Free speech is being threatened by violence in the public space in a way it has not before.
Hyperbole. Where was the freedom of speech for African Americans for a couple of centuries? Where was the freedom of speech for communists last century? Disliked groups have always been publicly threatened, and in the past the state was less inclined to protect them. Today, on the other hand, the police will as you say even protect Nazis spouting their hate-speech.
MatthewLee wrote: If you don't know who Ben Shapiro is... then I understand why you don't understand what I'm talking about. I wish you had just said that before.
How would I have said before that I don't know who Ben Shapiro is when I don't know who he is?
As soon as you mentioned the name, I told you I don't know who he is.
MatthewLee wrote:OK so here, buy it on Amazon and assess my claim…
https://www.amazon.com/After-Ball-Ameri ... 0452264987
You mean the book's claim?
MatthewLee wrote:then read a book which outlines what I’m talking about in the form of a review of the material, its application and the success with which the techniques have been applied.
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Marriage-Con ... 269ABPH47C
Woah there, I am a fanatical reader but I don't usually get ordered to buy books to grasp someone's point. Can you not summarize whatever it is you find compelling and argue it here?
MatthewLee wrote:It’s description reads as follows…
“Supreme Court and lower court hearings regarding gay marriage bring focus to the reality that in just two decades homosexual behavior in America has gone from criminal offense to protected right, a paradigm shift worth considering in the form of a book review—a look back to 1989 when "After the Ball," a watershed publication, gave homosexuals in America the traction needed to bring about the gay revolution.”
I know you’ll probably say Amazon is a crackpot conspiracy site though.
Um? Why would I say that? Amazon is a site selling books (among other things) and makes no claims whatsoever about the validity or verity of the contents of the books it sells.
What an obscure non-sequitur, Matthew!
MatthewLee wrote:He said what I’m trying to say. The allusion, regardless of the logical attempt to show my argument was fallacious… the allusion was just that… that any opposition to same sex marriage is akin to racism as being an arbitrary prejudice based on immutable characteristics. Read that again.
No, sorry Matthew but you're beginning to make yourself look like an idiot. You've been told by several people what the intent of HWIN's post was, even by HWIN himself - you made an erroneous assumption which is fine, but continually digging when you've found yourself in a hole doesn't look sensible.
MatthewLee wrote: Religious objections to same sex marriage are not arbitrary prejudices unless you can prove that in fact, with empirical evidence not from partisan sources, that same sex orientations are in fact immutable characteristics. Bill Nye said on his show… had an expert say on his show… that there is no gay gene. If sexual orientation is not immutable and genetically predisposed then we are talking about choice and that makes this a matter for ethical discussion rather than an arbitrary prejudice.
That doesn't even amount to specious reasoning, Matthew. Just because there's no 'gay gene' (which an elementary understanding of genetics would furnish you with anyway) that doesn't make homosexuality a choice any more than the lack of a 'heterosexual gene' makes heterosexuality a choice.
MatthewLee wrote:You don’t choose to be African American, or become African American from experience and environment.
i) you don't choose to be gay any more than you choose to be heterosexual
ii) being African American is more than just having a particular skin colour and facial anatomical structure - it consists of a whole suite of environmental factors.
MatthewLee wrote: You are born African American.
Irrelevant unless you are also born heterosexual. As reality contradicts your notion, then it might suggest you haven't given this enough thought. Children are not sexual, they are not heterosexual or homosexual at birth any more than they are 6 feet tall at birth. Biology is about development, not about arbitrary moments in that development. Rather, when sexuality begins to develop around puberty, some teenagers find that they are attracted to people of the same sex. It's not a choice any more than heterosexuality is a choice - it's something we discover within ourselves.
MatthewLee wrote: You use the technique of rhetorically associating the paradigm of racism with Christian objections to same-sex marriage to step over this objection and directly call Christian objections arbitrary and bigoted and prejudicial.
That's not what happened, as you've been informed, but as you seem so desperate to repeat this ad nauseum, fuck it - I'll bite. We know from historical records that many of the justifications used to enslave Africans and make them work for the economic betterment of their white masters was derived wholly from Christian doctrine - so why, given that fact, should anyone give two hoots about the scriptural content of Christian justification for opposing same-sex marriage? Your ideological ancestors were wildly wrong, callous and inhumane before in exactly the same manner in which you use your doctrine to suppress homosexuals today.
You seem intent on framing everyone else's arguments for them. Have the decency to let people make their own arguments, please.
MatthewLee wrote: His argument… whether you appeal to this small minorities opinion fallaciously or not.. was exactly as I have described and perhaps I can give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that wasn’t his intention but it was the result.
No, the actual result of your misapprehension was that you trotted out a precanned argument against a position that wasn't espoused.
MatthewLee wrote:Catholics and Protestants are quite different. You mean Catholic dogma.
No, I assuredly do not mean Catholic dogma - I mean Christian dogma, which is why I said 'Christian dogma'.
MatthewLee wrote: Protestant Christians hold the Bible as their central authority and Catholics do not.
Irrelevant, this is a red herring.
MatthewLee wrote: The Bible cannot ever be said to support slavery as it was practiced in the colonies and it was enabled at first by Papal Bull, not Biblical writ.
Counterfactual. In reality, there are hundreds of documents showing Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, using the Bible to justify slavery.
MatthewLee wrote: The abolitionist movement was a largely Protestant movement if not entirely.
And slave-owners in the US were largely Protestant, if not entirely.
MatthewLee wrote:In the Bull below… Look for the phrase “Apostolic Authority.” That’s the phrase that means the Pope can do whatever he wants because the Bible isn’t his authority rather authority was passed to him directly from the Apostles and Christ. This is one of the reasons Protestantism happened at all. Sola Scriptura.
“We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property [...] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude
Bull of 1452, Pope Nicholas V
Yes, and then there's all those references to slavery in the actual Bible, including God's explicit approval of the institution.
You know, Genesis 9:24-27, Genesis 21:9-10, Ephesians 6:5-8, Ephesians. 5:22, Titus: 2:9,1 Timothy 2:11–15... and so on and so on.
Trying to pretend that slavery was a Catholic phenomenon is just historical revisionism. Worse for your attempt to do so, there are plenty of records left by Protestant slave-owners explicitly stating that their justification for slavery was wholly derived from the Bible, and therefore of God not man.
MatthewLee wrote:Catholics give the Pope authority over the Bible, apostolic succession. Protestants led the charge in the abolitionist movement. The Bible does not say we may take slaves as Christians. The Pope said that.
Lies or ignorance?
Exodus 21
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave,[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her.
Numbers 31:17-18
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Sex slaves, no less.
MatthewLee wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recogniti ... _in_China#"First"_same-sex_marriage
China, a nation which is self-declared atheist… does not recognize same-sex marriage nor civil unions. Why would a nation with no overwhelming Christian sentiment.. a nation older than Western Civilization as we know it and with a largely logical atheist communist party find this not in the interest of the state for over a billion people? Outdated by centuries? There are secular arguments to be made, obviously. Christian boogeymen have nothing to do with China.
I am not sure what this red herring has to do with anything? Atheism? You think that Chinese are atheists? Really?
As for why a hokey nation fueled by bizarre political arguments doesn't engage in human rights? I am not sure that's really an argument that supports your position.
Regardless, it's a red herring.
https://www.indy100.com/article/same-sex-marriage-lgbt-gay-equality-where-can-i-marry-equal-rights-illegal-7768516
Look at how many nations don’t agree with you or your 'modern' ideas.
Yes, that's certainly part of the reason why we don't conceive of them as modern.
MatthewLee wrote: I would have you notice that the largest portion of the nations that legalized same sex marriage are CHRISTIAN MAJORITIES.
Otherwise known as 'formerly Christian nations'.
MatthewLee wrote: Read that again because it’s important. Christian majority nations are the ones leading the charge for freedom. Islamic countries would arrest you for this very argument in favor. Islam is entirely theocratic.
Why are we doing red herrings here?
MatthewLee wrote: Biblical Christianity sees a division between the state and the religion.
Perhaps, but many Christians don't which is why they seek to have the secular state they live in enact their scriptural preferences such as blocking marriage equality.
MatthewLee wrote: These civilizations that resist the change are older than ours.
What does this have to do with anything?
MatthewLee wrote: Are you saying all of their rejection of things we accept is solely because we are just more evolved and more intelligent or could it be that there is a case to be made on either side?
What? No of course I am not saying something I didn't say, but that you wrote. What is it with these bizarre and contrived red herrings? Stop trying rhetoric on me, Matthew and engage me honestly, please.
MatthewLee wrote: Japan, a secular nation with largely ambiguous attitudes towards religion and certainly no Christian majority… still doesn’t recognize same sex marriage rights. Think about that.
Eh? What does it have to do with anything? You have made a series of points where you seem to want me to produce the argument that makes these points coherent. Currently, my only response to this entire paragraph is... yes and...?
MatthewLee wrote: Christian majority nations allow same sex marriage overwhelmingly and non-Christian nations want nothing to do with them. Correlation is not causation but it give one pause, eh?
So you're trying to argue that Christianity is pro same-sex marriage? It would help if you made an argument then supported it with points, rather than making a series of points with no overarching argument to them.
MatthewLee wrote:China, the atheist nation, has absolutely no tolerance for LGBT issues and rights. They don’t exist. Can you blame that on iron age writings and Christian bigotry?
Atheist nation? You mean that the Chinese Government is officially atheist, right? Because the people have all manner of religious beliefs - somewhere in the 75% region practice some form of traditional Chinese folk religion, although that is often at least partly 'cultural folk religion'.
Still, this doesn't amount to anything other than a diversion? What does this have to do with any arguments?
MatthewLee wrote:Sparhafoc wrote:Either something is or it isn't unconstitutional - if it's unconstitutional, then let the courts show that to be the case. In reality, it is, of course, not unconstitutional at all.
I’m sorry, what knowledge of the US Constitution do you make this claim on?
Well, logic for one. Either something is or it isn't constitutional - it can't be both.
MatthewLee wrote:What can you specifically refute from the dissents?
I don't need to refute the dissents, not least because I already said I think this is a red herring. The dissents are to do with the manner in which legislation was made, not about the content of the legislation.
MatthewLee wrote: The Constitution made no provision for this nor for marriage rights in general. The right to marriage is not IN the Constitution. Can you disagree with Richard Kelsey of George Mason University School of Law on a substantive basis with exposition on anything other than your knowledge or paleo-anthropology?
“The Constitution provides no citizen of any gender or orientation a Constitutional right to marriage. The Constitution is silent on the issue of marriage. It is not mentioned, and therefore it is not a power delegated to the federal government to regulate. For lawyers, judges and in particular, Supreme Court justices, the inquiry on this issue should end there—right where silence demands judicial inaction.”
http://www.jurist.org/forum/2014/10/ric ... rriage.php
I find your arguments very bizarre, Matthew. What there disagrees with anything I've said?
MatthewLee wrote:This would suggest absurdity.
Yes, absurdity.
MatthewLee wrote: I am sure some of the votes may have been protest votes but Trump won because people wanted Trump.
No. They didn't want Hilary.
MatthewLee wrote: Go and look for why people voted for him and you’ll hear the same thing again and again…
Because soundbites. The majority of interviews I listened to prior to election repeatedly pointed out their extreme dislike of Clinton.
MatthewLee wrote: No good Democrat would have voted for Trump because of protest.
Err yes, actually, they would - that's exactly what a protest vote means.
MatthewLee wrote: That would be like a Christian voting for Lawrence Krauss because they didn’t like Romney.
And undoubtedly that could indeed happen, not least because many Christians are more strongly against Mormons than they are against scientific atheists.
MatthewLee wrote: It is an absurd idea that a protest vote carried the win.
Absurd indeed, but apparently true all the same.
MatthewLee wrote: The states that voted for him supported him.
I disagree because there was nothing to support - no policies, no content, no substance. Just walls and immigration.
MatthewLee wrote: They did so for the reasons I said.
I don't accept your claims.
MatthewLee wrote: There can be disagreement but don’t be so stonewall that you can’t even acknowledge that Trump told them what they wanted to hear so they pulled the lever.
With respect, you're not offering anything other than assertions which is why you're receiving them in reply.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/why-did-people-vote-for-donald-trump-us-voters-explain
You cite an article to disprove my argument which contains, as its first point, a paragraph entitled:
‘I don’t want the Clinton legacy continued in the White House’
And of course, there are other people in the same article saying the same thing:
‘Trump is exactly what you get, with Hillary you can’t know what’s real’
And...
The first woman president should have integrity and that historic moment should not be tainted by someone like Hillary Clinton
So, of the article you cited to disprove my contention that Trump's victory was largely due to an extreme dislike of Hilary Clinton, 3 out of the 4 peoples' comments reported explicitly make it clear that this is very much part of the reason.
Um, thanks for making my point, I guess!
MatthewLee wrote:Of course it’s not simple or it wouldn’t be at the Supreme Court but read this..
What I mean is that you tried to simplify it but contradicted yourself. This suggests that you weren't being... shall we say... wholly truthful in at least one of your contradictory claims?
MatthewLee wrote:“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
You're citing the first amendment at me to 'read'. Um thanks, buddy.
MatthewLee wrote:That’s the first amendment. The free exercise of Christian religion includes, for some, a belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Believe all you like, but if your beliefs motivate you to deny service to people, then we're no longer talking about beliefs but about actions. The first amendment doesn't say that just because you believe X that you are allowed to do X.
MatthewLee wrote: Where in this amendment does it make concessions or specify what this means?
No, I don't need to argue any such thing - you need to show where it says that a Christian can do what they want according to their beliefs, because it's clearly bullshit. The laws of the land supersede your conscience from a legal perspective. If your religion contains the belief that you can expose your penis and run down the street, no one can stop you believing it, but you will still be arrested if you attempt to do so, not because the laws are intended to be against your religious convictions, but because your religious convictions do not trump the law.
MatthewLee wrote: It says “the free exercise thereof” and that means without constraint.
The Bible says you can stone a child to death who speaks back. So if a Christian decided to stone their child to death, would it then be a first amendment-breaking constraint were they to be arrested and imprisoned because of their actions?
Here's the rub, and it's why you keep talking around the point rather than addressing it. The First Amendment ensures you can believe whatever you want, and practice your religious views however you want... all the way up until they inhibit someone else's freedom or break the laws of the nation.
Really, your argument if taken to the extreme would have all the various religious groups in the US running around under different laws, which is of course not tenable, not desirable, and not realistic.
Rather, the secular laws of the nation are equitable for all. Rastafarians can be wholly convinced and scripturally certain of their right to smoke copious amounts of weed, but if smoking weed is illegal, then they simply do not possess that right even though they're perfectly entitled to maintain their [b]belief.
MatthewLee wrote: It doesn’t say, free expression thereof except for in such and such circumstances.
Yeah, a silly argument - just because it doesn't say X, doesn't mean that X is untrue. Like I said, the secular laws of the nation supersede those freedoms.
MatthewLee wrote: This is what is at stake when you start adding stuff. Free speech, even abhorrent speech, must be protected and free religion… even when abhorrent, must be protected.
While I agree with the protection of free speech and have long been an ardent proponent and defendant of free speech, denying people service inequitably is not withing the logical context of free speech, but the discriminatory denial of service for whatever reason is firmly within the context of secular laws governing society.
Let's be clear about this, Matthew. If people started denying service to Christians because of their firmly held beliefs that Christians are cunts, you'd be outraged and horrified. The fact is, I'd be on your side then too because my position is consistent and logical, whereas yours is wholly ideological. You cannot deny people service just because you disagree with them - that should be more of a concern to you, someone who claims to be an advocate of free speech, than the side you are actually supporting.
MatthewLee wrote:To support other ideologies violates this deeply held belief.
What the fuck? Matthew, stop yammering for a minute and think about what you're saying. Now you're saying that Christians shouldn't provide services to Muslims, Sikhs, Buddists etc (and vice-versa) because supporting other ideologies violates ones own beliefs? That's fucking mental. That's a return to the barbarity of the medieval period and is firmly contrary to the spirit and word of the First Amendment.
MatthewLee wrote: As an atheist would you ask a Muslim to make you a cake with the Prophet Mohammed on it for a speech about how evil Islam is…
I am not an atheist, and no I wouldn't ask a Muslim to make me a cake critical of their religious views any more than I would ask a Christian to make me a cake mocking their religion. I would, however, ask either of them to make me a cake, and the simple fact that I don't share their religious views is not offensive to them and does not provide reason for them to deny me service.
MatthewLee wrote: and then sue them for refusing you service on religious grounds because they denied you this service?
If they denied me service on religious grounds, then at least in theory I could sue them. Would I? No, but not for that reason, rather because I wouldn't want to go through the hassle of it all. However, there's no question that their actions are wrong in a secular nation.
MatthewLee wrote: Try asking a Muslim bakery for a gay wedding cake and see how well you do...
What?
What a silly thing, Matthew. Firstly, I don't know any Muslim bakers, secondly I am not getting married, and thirdly I am not gay - so why would I need to perform this hoop jump for you?
Regardless, the exact same thing goes. If a Muslim wants to run a shop in one of our secular nations, they cannot discriminate against me based on religious grounds because society does not place their religious convictions above me or the law.
MatthewLee wrote:but they aren’t the ones in the crosshairs.
So it's just Christians who are being asshats?
MatthewLee wrote: I am actually listening to the oral arguments opening the Supreme Court case right now and they are a lot of these kind of questions. It’s not simple, but it involves the phrase “compelled speech” and that’s what they are arguing. If they can compel speech against religious conviction once and set a Supreme Court precedent, then we aren’t at the top of the slippery slope anymore. At this point we’re about halfway down.
Yes, as I said: I disagree. No one is compelling you to run a business for profit, but if you elect to do so, you follow the law. Simple.
MatthewLee wrote:Did you miss the part I cited where Jesus specifically says that marriage is a man and a woman?
No, I didn't miss it, you can tell that by how I responded to it already and how you ignored my response.
MatthewLee wrote:It was pretty clear why Christians feel this way and it’s obviously a part of Christian faith if CHRIST SAID IT.
Don't lie to me, Matthew. Jesus said fuck all about the provision of cakes or other services to homosexuals. You and other Christians are perfectly entitled to make up wholesale any interpretation you want, but you don't get to enact that interpretations in society and limit the freedoms of other people.
MatthewLee wrote:.... It isn’t about theocracy and if you reread my former statement I said as much before it was altered.
With respect, I don't care what you said, I am telling you what I think.
MatthewLee wrote: I said theocracy is a great evil. However, Christians must be able to have free practice of religion.
They already do, but this doesn't include denying service to homosexuals or any other group on religious grounds.
MatthewLee wrote: The right to not be forced to make art which supports things you don’t believe in is a fundamental part of freedom of speech…
It's not art, it's a craft. The quantity they're being asked to craft is 'marriage'. Marriage is seen equitably by the laws of the nation irrespective of the genders of the people involved.
I don't care how seriously a Christian baker believes in Christianity; he has no fucking right whatsoever to deny service on religious grounds. If he has ethical problems, then he should stop being a baker rather than expecting the world to revolve around him.
MatthewLee wrote:not being forced into compelled speech.
No one's forcing him to do anything. He can stop being a baker whenever he wants to. However, while he's a baker, operating a shop to earn profit, he will operate according to the laws of the nation he resides in.
MatthewLee wrote: He would have sold them a wedding cake had they bought it off the shelf.
Assertion, and one which is laughably contrary to the claims you've previously made.
MatthewLee wrote:He simply wouldn’t make a custom piece of art which represented something he disagreed with.
It's not art, it's a craft. No one's asking him to agree with it, they're just asking him to equitably offer a service.
MatthewLee wrote:The same freedom that protects my religion protects the rights of atheists, as well, by the way.
What rights of atheists? Best quickly drop the vacuous prejudice routinely employed by the religious here: I am not an atheist.
Regardless, the reason why the same laws provide the same protection is precisely my point - secular laws are equitable with respect to religious persuasion, ergo your religious persuasion presents you no privilege in society over and above mine or any other religious persuasion. If an atheist thinks that all Christians are cunts, he's welcome to do so. However, if he runs a shop and inequitably denies Christians service, no matter how ardent his belief, he still doesn't get to enact his internal fiction onto the world.
Again, my position is wholly consistent, whereas yours will depend on which tribe the alleged victim belongs to.
MatthewLee wrote:Compelled speech was the phrase they used. Sorry for the misstatement. Coerce and compel are synonyms so it is a lateral error.
Yes, I know. Again, the same argument: it's not compelled speech.
MatthewLee wrote: Here is a .pdf of the transcript of the arguments before the Supreme Court. Look at how many times the phrase “compelled speech” is used and in what context.
In the context of trying to obfuscate. No one is demanding that the baker express support for same sex marriage, only to provide a cake for a same sex marriage.
MatthewLee wrote: There is ample evidence as to what this is about contained in the transcript of the arguments made to the Supreme Court about what this is about.
Funny syntax.
MatthewLee wrote: It’s good reading and something to consider. If the Supreme Court case transcript for the opening arguments is not enough evidence about what the Supreme Court case is about… then I don’t know what else would convince you.
Let's be clear: people can make stupid arguments all they like, but I am not trying to debate with you whether or not someone made a stupid argument, I am trying to debate with you the actual argument itself. It is not compelled speech to require equitable provision of goods irrespective of religious beliefs.
People are spinning and obfuscating, yes, but in reality no one (let alone the state) has required the baker to express support for same-sex marriage, ergo it's just obfuscation.
MatthewLee wrote:Again.. I don’t care about Trump, I’m just stating one side of the argument as to possible reasons why we find ourselves in a situation like this and how a man like him came to be President. The same reason we are debating. The fundamental inability to recognize the validity of other people’s narrative. People are afraid to speak in America and that’s a problem. A problem which they solved by speaking in the only place they knew they’d be safe and anonymous and that’s why the polls all lied.
I think it's very bizarre and close-minded of you to tout the fundamental rights of the baker to deny service on religious conviction grounds while failing to acknowledge that 2 people legally getting married are being denied equitable outcomes in society in contravention to their individual freedoms.
I think this means you are not using your grey matter openly, but using it for an agenda. Personally, I actually think such arguments are going to cause more damage to religious freedom than anything else, and as much as it might surprise you, I am a strong advocate of freedom of conscience.
MatthewLee wrote:Now, none of this has anything to with North Korea. We are obviously very divided in our opinions and that is fine. I respect your right to disagree with me but this discussion has nowhere else to go...
It's a discussion board, we're not here to align and acquire the same point, but to have ideas contest each other. You're not obliged to do so if you don't want to.
MatthewLee wrote: so I’ll just rest on that most of this group seems to agree that diplomacy without concessions from a position of strength may be the only option we have left.
Which group where? Here on this forum? I don't think that's an accurate rendition.
MatthewLee wrote: If that is not the position of agreement it is my position and thank you for a very stimulating discussion.
Ciao for now.