Athiests sued to remove any references to Christmas from schools even when the vast overwhelming majority of students identify as Christian.

Do you not understand that this is even more important when “the vast overwhelming majority of students identify as Christian” than it would be otherwise?

One would imagine that a person immersed in queer theory would understand how oppressive positions of privilige can be, but Timothy Kincaid obviously has a rather large blind spot.

TRiG.

See http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=281#q5 and following questions.

It is tearing some families apart. The members who have gay relatives are pulled from two sides. How do you think I can look my Mother in her eyes and know that she goes to her Mormon Church each Sunday and be told her son is a depraved, influenced by Satan, sinner (on a grand scale) and an enemy to the Church of Jesus Christ.

Mormonism is not just a religion. It’s a culture. It’s a lifestyle. It’s not easy for someone to take the courage to leave the Mormon Church and become ostracized and eliminate a lifetime of traditions. There is an angst with Mormons who simply want to leave the LDS Church…it’s not as easy as you think. The simple removal of your name from LDS membership records is full of major considerations that is unlike any other membership in another Church.

I can’t go into detail here, right now, because it pains me. I can’t live up to the expectations of what my family feels I should do. I have a career to consider and it goes with the territory where I live. (sigh) I can’t explain.

I applaud the brave Saints who are forging ahead and actively working to build a better world for gay Mormons. They risk a lot…and it’s not just membership in a Church.

That’s not how I’d put it. I’d say any policy that requires that there be no mention of a deity is a policy ON religion. A religious policy is one that explicitely accepts and requires religion, atheism is a non-religious policy because its policy is that there be no religion.

Ultimately I suppose were debating niggling words but there’s my take on it.

As a straight person, what I read here is a fetishizing of heterosexual marriage for reasons you cannot or refuse to explain. My guess is a difficulty of imagination is what you mean to supply as reason, but that’s not acceptable.

There is no such reason that deserves any respect or authority. I say that having considered the matter for a long time. There is no loss of integrity of the institution by opening it to same sex couples; there is only gain in integrity.

The LDS Church will pay a price in social standing and viability for its opposition and its long history of effort to suppress gay rights in California. It’s not one I exact, it’s the predicament they have created for themselves. The dogma of metaphysical genderism they have as tenet without evidence- and whose usefulness is lost in Modern society- is obsolete.

I see that my language may have been ambiguous. Let me be clearer.

I meant “any policy that requires that there be no mention of a diety is a religious policy”.

If, for example, one condition of the bailout is that no one prays about the economy or that there be no convocation for the Senate, then that would be a religious condition.

Also, you state

The absense of belief in religion is by definition not a religious policy.

This would be correct. But I find that seldom does atheism express itself as an absense of belief in a diety. Generally, that is agnostacism rather than atheism. Rather, in my experience, atheism presents itself as a strong dogmatic belief that there unquestionably is no diety.

Also, we all know that this site, like many sites, gets comments that are evangelical in nature. Some come here to tell us what their deity demands or to try and convince us to worship / obey / love their diety and his rules. Those comments from believers are religious in nature.

Others come here to try and convince us that there is no diety and that the stories and beliefs of religion are myths and imaginary. Those comments from athiests are also religious in nature.

I don’t find either to be useful to the conversation. But at least the religious folks know that they are preaching. I wish the athiests were as aware of their own evangelical efforts.

The LDS Church got itself into a hornet’s nest with this issue. I was flabbergasted when I read about the letter they read in their Ward Houses and Stake Houses. It set the Mormons up for ridicule for which they may never recover. It’s a war. Our livelihood versus theirs.

These Propositions are quite simply anti-gay and nothing about saying they know gay co-workers, friends, etc can change that fact.