Obama to Extend Benefits to Gay Partners

[Altjaeger]

I am not sure Obama has the legal authority to do this since Congress sets budgets and the laws that regulate benefits but I guess we will see. Maybe this is where some of our "Stimulus money" is going.

Alex Brandon / AP
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees, White House officials said Tuesday.

The officials said Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement.

The move would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves. Officials said Obama would give more details of the decision on Wednesday.

[LampLighter]

Would you ? I men really, if you were in charge. What would be your stance ? What is your personal stance ? No way am I going to answer my own question. I think such activity is a mental defect. I'm not paying for it. I changed my company name to Comfort Air Service Homes . My customers make payable to this company. ;)

[Altjaeger]

Would you ? I men really, if you were in charge. What would be your stance ? What is your personal stance ? No way am I going to answer my own question. I think such activity is a mental defect. I'm not paying for it. I changed my company name to Comfort Air Service Homes . My customers make payable to this company. ;)

If he manages to get away with it then yes you will be paying for it along with every tax paying citizen. I pulled this off my home page two minutes before I posted it and would consider the AP a reliable source. I have already forwarded this to everyone I know that I believe cares. Next is write my Congressman and Senators. I would recommend he same to anyone else who hopes to kill this quickly. Once it breathes life then killing it will be much more difficult to stop.

[Sabre]

I liked it alot better in the old days when the freaks and perverts had the decency to stay in the closet.:eek:

[ncboman]

I wonder if this has anything to do with Obama's rumored secrets?

ncboman

[Bill Gunn]

I'm totally against it anyways, but I have a question..

Lets say you have a good friend that has a heart attack, cancer, or for any other reason needs expensive medical care, but never paid for any insurance on his own.
What's to stop someone from just saying "We're Gay (but their really not)" and now they are covered by our tax dollars.

[TinStar]

Make no mistakes about it. It will not stop at this or even nation-wide gay marriage. It will stop when every straight, normal, person says that being gay is just as normal as being heterosexual. And that will open the floodgate to other perversities; some even worse. That is their goal; and as a Christian I have my opinion of who is behind it all and where it is going to lead. These folks need to be told the truth and they need to be stopped at every turn.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[tommyt]

I wonder if this has anything to do with Obama's rumored secrets?

ncboman

NCB
Your thoughts and mind are you thinking of the "Larry" the Queer drug Guy incident
I can't think of the last name rt now but its on U tube where he does the Press conference

[Herne]

What do you all mean freaks and perverts? They are fine upstanding members of the community with an aberration that's all.

In this country you need to be one to get into government.

Keep your back to the wall is my advice, because:

1. Its going to get worse.
2. You never know what might be coming round the corner while you do up a shoelace, so
3 Wear loafers for peace of mind.

[ncboman]

How many think we are getting these queer related issues reamed up, er, rammed down our throats?

Does the majority here think we should have a POTUS that legislates that it's 'ok' to be a pervert?

ncboman

[Altjaeger]

One unanswered question and an observation.

Today a friend asked if gay companions are covered will unwed, straight significant others residing in the same household be covered as well? I dont know, but I feel my wallet getting lighter and lighter.

I also read where the benefits will be extended to DoD civilian employee's companions, but not members of the military. I can only observe that either Obama wishes to discriminate against the military OR that like Iran the military has no gays!!!:D



P.S. My tongue is VERY firmly planted in cheek on tha last.

[TinStar]

This is no more than a "back-door" (;) way of caving in to some of his butt-pirate supporters.:eek:

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[tommyt]

Google - Larry Sinclair

[bugsNbows]

Oh goodie! Lets throw the gays a bone and maybe they won't scream for awhile. This country is going way off course (if you ask me).

[Bill Gunn]

Oh goodie! Lets throw the gays a bone

http://www.picpiggy.com/smile/sign/sign0165.gif I'll pass on that one....

[tommyt]

Throw um a Bone of your own
Keep me outta it

[bugsNbows]

Uh, bad choice of words. I'll have to pass on the hershey highway.

[alan]

I wish that if we extend legal benefits to "Domestic partners", they will have no need to get married. But I know realistically they won't stop there, and will want to equate their living relationship with a normal marital relationship. This simply devalues the whole concept of "Christian marrige".

[tommyt]

I wish that if we extend legal benefits to "Domestic partners", they will have no need to get married. But I know realistically they won't stop there, and will want to equate their living relationship with a normal marital relationship. This simply devalues the whole concept of "Christian marrige".
Your correct it will grow it will never stop there
too many times we seen this and time and time again the Gov. will pass the first law and it becomes just a KEY

[Lumox]

So does this mean that my live in girl friend will be covered too, fair is fair right. If they are going to do it for gays they have to do it for everyone else too or it would be discrimination and we all know the gubermint don't discriminate???

I bet Barney Franks BF's are happy to here of this:rolleyes:

[GF.]

If your live-in squeeze is covered, it shouldn't matter if the couple is same-sex or different.

If only a legally binding partnership can get the bennies, then you have to extend the option of a legal arrangement to same-sex couples.

But straight or gay (IMO) there should be no extension of the rights, privileges & benefits of a binding, legal arrangement without all of the responsibilities of a binding, legal arrangement.

As you say, fair is fair.

And the reason that 'civil union' is thus far 'unfair' is that - according to 'gay marriage' proponents, there are some 1300-odd specific legal rights afforded to married couples that a 'civilly united' couple can't get. I have no idea what all of them are, but it seems to me that it's impossible to argue that CU = marriage. Some here will no doubt say that that's entirely appropriate...

One thing that keeps coming around is the idea of the sanctity of marriage.... Seems to me that it's up to the church to sanctify; the law can only legislate...

It's always going to be a very fine line, of course, because here we literally are talking about legislating morality--or at least legislating based on a sense of morality...

So while understanding the moral position of you guys who are opposed to 'gay marriage' (and what a crappy catch-all that is!), I was brought up thinking in terms of ethics. So the question is, is it ethical to treat gay couples very differently just because some people object to homosexuality on the basis of their individual religious beliefs...

To Herne's point (made elsewhere), we do try to run this country based on broadly-accepted Judeo-Christian mores, but those norms and beliefs are either unsettled (as they are, theologically) and/or shifting (based on science), so the law (seems to me) is going to have to be somewhat fluid on this point (as with race-based civil rights laws that have come down over the years).

By analogy, I guess..... I would not care to live in a society where a man could be convicted of a crime because the judge or the jurors 'believed' that he was guilty in spite of DNA evidence to the contrary. 100 or 200 or 220-odd years ago, we didn't have the science to weigh against the beliefs.... but now we do....

[TinStar]

GF,

Show me from the Bible that this "is unsettled theologically". Also show me proof that it is DEFINITELY shifting scientifically. They have been looking for that "magic strand" in DNA to show that it is genetic and have not been able to do so.
If you want to label me a riligious bigot; then have at it. They called Christ far worse and did far worse to Him. But there will come a day of "come uppence" and judgement will fall. (Many believe that is not too far off) Whether you believe that or not is not important,nor will it change it. But it will come.
The Bible says "Woe unto you when you call evil good, and good evil". In this life there is only two choices.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[TinStar]

By the way; read my signature line.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[GF.]

GF,

Show me from the Bible that this "is unsettled theologically". Also show me proof that it is DEFINITELY shifting scientifically.

Did you miss the post in which I listed all of the different denominations in which at least some branches gladly accept gays as members and/or which have openly gay, non-celibate ordained ministers? I'm not about to play "Let's quote a verse" to change the mind of somebody who has already decided for himself what the words mean in order to make the point that there are a lot of very heavy-hitting mainstream Christian theologians who have studied the words and the context in English, in Greek, in Latin and in Hebrew; who have studied them longer, harder and more critically than you have - and certainly more so than I have - and who do not agree with you that this issue is cut and dried. What I think is immaterial; the Facts are out there, and the Fact is that this is not settled.

And were you unaware that homosexuality was officially designated not a mental illness by the folks who are in charge of setting the standards for the practices of psychology and psychiatry? If the position isn't 'shifting' there, it's because it is already settled and 'your' side lost the argument.

As Alt said elsewhere, you're welcome to your own opinion, but the issue is clearly not 'settled', theologically, for all Christians. You can make the claim that it is settled out of ignorance of the debates that are going on in other mainstream Christian denominations or you can lie about it, but you cannot generalize past your own, particular branch of your denomination (and in many cases you can't even take it that far) without being Factually Incorrect.

Rocks are heavier than water, water is wetter than air, and this issue is not anywhere near settled in all of Christendom. Here and there, yes, but across the board? Hell, no. Likely never will be....

Bottom line, though, you can't deny one person his/her legal rights based on another person's moral beliefs--not in this country, anyway.

Laws in this country have to be written based on Facts, not Beliefs. Even if all of Christianity were as united on this point as you claim that it is, it is not a Fact that God disapproves of homosexuality--because it is not a Fact that God even exists. That God exists is a Belief. One that I happen to hold, personally, but a Belief nonetheless.

Look at it this way.... If we can deny a gay couple the same rights and privileges as a straight couple because their lifestyle is inconsistent with conservative Christianity, then what about non-Christians and atheists? What ever happened to separation of Church and State? Didn't people originally come here to get away from governments that were forcing beliefs onto them?


US law allows for divorce and remarriage under circumstances which are clearly in conflict with strict interpretations of Biblical teachings; adultery is not against US Law; 'Sodomy' is not against US Law; non-marital sex is not against US Law... Prostitution is generally against the law, but does the Bible explicitly condemn it? I have no idea about that; I do know that there are teachings about the perils of a love of money and the virtues of selling all that you have and giving the proceeds to the poor, but I don't see any laws against being a mean, nasty, greedy SOB as long as you're not demonstrably cheating someone else out of their pile... And I see none whatsoever against cheating your marriage & your family out of a husband/father because you're too busy making M*O*N*E*Y.... Societally, we actually seem pretty much OK with that.....

Point being, there are any number of Biblical teachings which don't rise to the level of Law in this country, so what makes this particular issue worthy of the special status it is getting?

I understand not wanting to pay taxes to pay for the benefits of 'partners' of unmarried Government employees, but if you're going to provide them to unmarried straights, you have to provide them to Gays as a matter of equal treatment as guaranteed by the US Constitution; you can't pretend that God is any happier with straight unmarried sex than he is with gay unmarried sex and use that as an excuse.

[GF.]

By the way; read my signature line:

It's not a question of legislating morality, it's a question of whose morality gets legislated.

Which is great fun... so long as you think 'your side' is winning.

That's also crap.

Because we have separation of church & state, our laws must be written (within the bounds of the Constitution) to meet the 'reasonable person' standard, and it does not strike me (as a self-proclaimed 'reasonable person') to afford lesser protections under the Law to one bunch of people just because I disapprove of what they're doing. And it applies just the same in this case as it does with PETA wanting to stop us hunting types from pursuing our own sinful, disgusting, morally unjustifiable lifestyle which happens to conflict with their own moral sensibilities.

"Well," you say, "they're a Kooky Fringe Element"

But like I said... legislating other people's morality for them is only fun so long as you think 'your side' is winning.

[TinStar]

Doens't really matter what "some theologians" coming out of some "cemeteries" say. It's what God says. He says it's an abomination and that is it. There are also some things to be considered as "national sins"; abortion coming to mind(but you likely defend that also).
Considering that well over 30% of the Founding Father's personal writings were quotes from scripture; I doubt very much that they would be pleased how we have perverted the rights they sacrificed for and enumerated for us. Over decades we have tread the slippery slope with the approval of many like you that do not see the danger down the road for the nation and our society. And I don't really care about how large segements of major denominations approve of such thinking. The Pharisees and Sadducees were the "theologians" of the day; and Christ said they were the blind leading the blind. He also had many other very sharp criticisms of them and their "traditions of men".
You can approve or diaapprove of anything you want; that is your choice. Just as I can. But everything will come under judgement.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[GF.]

You do realize, that the absolutist mindset of the Christian Right (which you evidently share) is what gave Obama the election, right? The majority of voters in this country simply are not prepared to give the Federal government the job of sitting in moral judgment of their lives....

We don't let the Pope decide what US law should be, so why should we let any other religious authority/ies? What makes any one pipeline to the truth any bigger or straighter than the next?....:confused:

Standing out here in the middle of the road, what the right wing seems to have in common with the Pharisees and the Sadducees is that they, too, were absolutely dead certain that they were interpreting God's Laws exactly as He intended. They, too, were no doubt taking the Law, 'exactly' as it was given to them, and giving it what seemed to them to be a completely, undeniably, perfectly 'literal' interpretation.

And what Christ said to them was simply that there is no Joy in Heaven when the self-righteous go merrily on their way, condemning those around them rather than helping them along.

The trouble is that when we believe that we have a bullet-proof interpretation of the scripture, we presume to have a perfect understanding of the Mind of God, which is, by the way, theologically indefensible (unless you're the Pope). It's one thing to believe that I, personally, am called to believe as I do and to interpret the scriptures as I do, and it's something altogether different to deny that anyone who differs with me can possibly hold a valid position.

Not that that keeps Islamic Extremists from doing it, so why should it get in my way, either, right?:rolleyes:

There's a reason that most denominations require their ministers to have attended seminary and to have learned the traditions and understandings of scholarly Christian theology--and that reason is the difference between sound Theology and simple Dogma. If interpreting scripture is so simple as you make it out to be, why bother? Why not just let everybody interpret the words for him/her self and let the question of 'who gets to be the preacher' boil down to whoever can fill the most seats and get the most money in the plate?

Isn't that how we got 'Reverend' Al Sharpton, who preached his first sermon at age 4 and was 'ordained' at 10? So just as with the Pope--what makes your 'literal interpretation' any better than his?

[TinStar]

I guess what a friend said is true; you can tell a liberal-you just can't tell him much. If you can't see that there are many things in ScrIpture that are as plain as day and as black and white as it can get then even Moses couldn't tell you.
And by the way; the reason Obama won was because of the highly successful hate Bush/blame Bush campaign by the "intolerant left"; and the fact that due to liberalism we now have a great share of people whining for a nanny state; expecting the gov. to do everything for them. He also told a pile of lies to get the independent vote too. But it won't be too long and many of them will jump ship. Even some libs; after they get their tax bill.
Guess there's no use in giving you Scripture to read as you would just twist it and put a liberal slant on it like a lot of lib theologians do.
Have a nice day. Hope you see the true light someday.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[LampLighter]

Why does this gay post keep lingering ?????????

[GF.]

I guess what a friend said is true; you can tell a liberal-you just can't tell him much. If you can't see that there are many things in ScrIpture that are as plain as day and as black and white as it can get then even Moses couldn't tell you.

ROFLMAO, TinStar....

You've got an absolutely bullet-proof, 10000000000000% rock-solid, non-negotiable, no-discussion-necessary-or-permitted position on this, and I'm the one nobody can 'reason' with.....


Thing O' Beauty.....

[TinStar]

No; "I" am not bulletproof,(nor perfect) but the Word of God is. You; on the other hand, love playing your little game of verbal acrobatics to defend your position. But in the end there is only one position and one opinion that counts. Someday you may see that. Maybe not. Laugh all you want; but someday things won't be so funny.
And by the way; why God make "people that way" and then turn around and call it an abomination. I honestly believe that you would likely applaud "hate speech" laws just to silence that "Christian right" you seem to loathe.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[GF.]

Trouble is, TinStar, you don't seem to be able to tell the difference between the Word of God and Your Personal Interpretation of it, so your simple, cut & dried solution is to pretend that there is only One Possible Interpretation. After all, if there's only one possible option, then nobody can fault you for sticking to it, nor can they suggest that there might be some self-serving reason for you to impose it on others because (so you say) you're just doing God's Work.


It's very convenient, isn' it? You're Right and Saved, and anybody who suggests that there might be another way to look at the situation is not only Wrong and Damned, but In League With the Devil.

But riddle me this one why dontcha....

If we're not expected to wrestle with scripture and think through for ourselves what it means (confining oursleves to concepts established and validated through the past 2,000 years of Christian theology, at least half of which you appear prepared to throw out just out-of-hand because you don't happen to like it), then why was Jesus always teaching through parables?

Do you mean to tell me that you've never sat through a sermon in which the preacher 'explained' one or more passages? And did you never learn anything from that exercise? Did you really understand it all 'perfectly'- all by yourself - the first time you read it?

Because if you didn't, then obviously, somebody explained to you what the scripture(s) mean-- you had to learn how to make that 'straight, literal interpretation, which means that it's not as simple and literal as you're pretending that it is. When Jesus said 'those who have ears, let them hear', was he really saying that His teachings only applied to people who have ears? What about my sons, who are mostly deaf in one or both ears? Do they 'have ears', or not?

That doesn't mean that you're way off base to believe as you do for yourself - there's a long, established and broadly accepted Christian theological tradition of 'literal' interpretation of the text. But the hitch is that in order to be theologically sound, you have to recognize that the 'literal interpretations' on which you're standing have in fact been established through a human tradition of beliefs about what the words mean, rather than being a matter of objective fact.

[TinStar]

I said once before for you to prove to me your position with Scripture and you cannot; or will not. Your long posts that seem to characterize me as simple minded may be enviable in your skillful use of grammar but they fall very short of Biblical truth. Yes; many times I have "had my eyes opened", but then again even Billy Graham said the same thing about his daily reading of the Word. So to use that as a premise for my point of view being wrong is weak at best. Try reading thes passages; without a liberal spin and then try to tell your own heart that there is a "hidden meaning".
My posts on this thread are over as there is no other to convince you; other than by the Holy Spirit Himself.

Levitcus 18 verse 22
Leviticus 20 verse 13
I Corinthians 6 verse 9
Romans 1 verse 21-32

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[GF.]

Laugh all you want; but someday things won't be so funny.


Ah, yes, the old 'You're going to hell and I'm not' routine... Though you do realize (don't you?) that you're threatening me with a particular kind of 'hell' that wasn't yet even invented in the time of Martin Luther..... Somebody made that shi!t up sometime in the past 500 years, probably because they needed a stronger hold on the masses to keep them in line. But one good thing about being Lutheran, I guess, is that the hell you imagine isn't actually there for me to worry about.



No; "I" am not bulletproof,(nor perfect) but the Word of God is.

I'm OK with that part, we're just disagreeing on whose version of it. You wanna quote Leviticus? (You have to kind of ignore that bit about Christ coming 'to write a new covenant in [His] own blood' to do that, of course, but OK, let's give that one a go anyway.....)

"And with a male you shall not lay lyings of a woman" (that's what it says in the old Hebrew).

Oh, well, that certainly clears things up!:D

So let's put it in context. No 'hidden meanings' required, just a little context....

The context there was a pagan temple where straight(?) male Israelites were going to have ritualized sex with male temple prostitutes in order to gain favor with the pagan god(s). (Notice there's definitely nothing in there about female-female sexual activity, so evidently that is OK. Do you want to agree that we should allow marriage for lesbian couples but not 'gay' couples, or are you going to choose to quote me a much newer interpretation in which someone has decided that we're not talking about just these temple prostitutes, but all homosexual acts, be they oral, anal, or otherwise and involving either males or females? You can choose whichever one makes you happy, of course, e to see you do that without realizing that you are picking and choosing from several versions that very definitely encompass far broader or narrower ranges of activity)

Now - and sticking with the older Hebrew version - some folks throw in the words 'as the' - "And with a male you shall not lay [as the] lyings of a woman." and they interpret this passage to mean that anal intercourse between men is a sin, but again, are we talking about doing it because someone is 'gay', or because they're sucking up to a pagan deity for the sake of material wealth? And too, this only talks about anal sex, so maybe oral sex is still OK? :confused:

Other folks add the words 'in the' - "And with a male you shall not lay [in the] lyings of a woman.", which most likely means that a man should not contaminate his marriage bed by using it to have sex with another man (which seems pretty straightforward to me...).


[QUOTE]And by the way; why God make "people that way" and then turn around and call it an abomination. [QUOTE]


You see, here, were actually getting somewhere.... Why, indeed would God make a person 'that way' and call it an abomination? But again, maybe the 'abomination' was in using the temple prostitutes to gain favor with the pagan god(s)?

'Prostitutes' meaning money was changing hands, which means that the temple was turning a profit for the pagan priests, and the fact that it was done in order to ensure 'fertility'/wealth meaning that the act had nothing to do with love, marriage or family and everything to do with putting one's faith in things other than the One True God when it comes to making sure that one is being provided for.

Once again, the best science now available to the human race suggests that homosexuals really are made that way, so maybe God really does make some folks that way? It says in Matthew that some were made 'Eunuchs' from birth, so if some are made Eunuchs, why not some made gay?

And on the other hand, maybe it's predestination... Just as some are given the Gift of faith, and through faith come to be 'saved' by Grace. Others don't have that gift; not in their makeup. I guess God had other plans for them all along. :(


:confused::confused::confused:

You may like to tell yourself that I'm making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be...or is it that you're deliberately/accidentally/knowingly/unwittingly oversimplifying it because that's a whole lot more convenient for you? One thing I notice is that often, when people reduce things to the simplest, most literal forms of black&white or right&wrong, they're actually giving themselves license to engage in a much lower standard of behavior than they could justify if they were to think about things critically for just a minute - the exact same reasoning that says a variable-scoped, smokeless-powered, sabot-shootin 'muzzleloader' that launches a high-BC bullet at 2600 fps is 'the same thing' as a smoothbore, roundball flinter because they both load from the same end, and should therefore be allowed in a 'special' season where using a single-shot shotgun would get you a free ride in the Sherriff's car...

Bullschitt.

JMO - anybody who's got more answers about God than questions is not paying much attention......

[ncboman]

been quite a while since I read such a protracted load of crap as is posted to this thread. ... butt I'm kinda glad to learn some things.

Guess I'll go warsh my hands now. :D

[45seventy]

I don't think I would necessarily call these postings a 'protracted load of crap'.
They are postings of people's opinions. Also, I know the old sayings about opinions, however GF does bring about some interesting points, and to just rebuff them as crap is doing a disservice to GF, as is to Tinstar if his opinions are rebuffed. I find this thread to be a very interesting discussion. It opens the door to a lot of questions, and the answers are not easy to find. It does make one think not to be too narrow minded.

[ncboman]

I don't think I would necessarily call these postings a 'protracted load of crap'.
They are postings of people's opinions. Also, I know the old sayings about opinions, however GF does bring about some interesting points, and to just rebuff them as crap is doing a disservice to GF, as is to Tinstar if his opinions are rebuffed. I find this thread to be a very interesting discussion. It opens the door to a lot of questions, and the answers are not easy to find. It does make one think not to be too narrow minded.

Ok, I'll be more specific.

TinStar gave him a good run but GF has a distinct talent for distorting the obvious by giving the appearance he doesn't know much and by just asking questions all the while putting forth an agenda.

I doan buy into it, particularly on this thread.

Lately (and at present) I haven't had time nor desire to get into the tangled and convoluted debate point by point, but I pretty much know what the Bible says about it. When GF uses his roundabout and verbose methods to question and/or distort the message the Bible gives, I find it rather a 'disservice' to the reader who may actually believe what the Bible actually says.


"Beware of false teachers who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are wolves and will tear you apart. You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You need never confuse grapevines with thorn bushes or figs with thistles. Different kinds of fruit trees can quickly be identified by examining their fruit. A variety that produces delicious fruit never produces an inedible kind. And a tree producing an inedible kind can't produce what is good. So the trees having the inedible fruit are chopped down and thrown on the fire. Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit produced. "Not all who sound religious are really godly people. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but still won't get to heaven. For the decisive question is whether they obey my Father in heaven. At the Judgment many will tell me, 'Lord, Lord, we told others about you and used your name to cast out demons and to do many other great miracles.' But I will reply, 'You have never been mine. Go away, for your deeds are evil.' (TLB, Matthew 7:15-23)



:)

[TinStar]

GF and others like him I consider to be "a sign of the times".

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!