Skullkracker wrote:
unless it's a dictatorship the men in power are never independent
they must please many to preserve that power and the support
... the church
it very simply wants to preserve the society from the ultimate postmodern moral downgrade
and if they are not all zealous about it, I'd very much say they should
leadership without values, a state without conscience is crippled
Your point about dictatorships is well taken, but as someone who's not an American perhaps some of the subtle concepts inherent to our particular take on the Democratic Republic are eluding you.
First and foremost, as Alexis De Tocqueville said, "American Democracy is the predisposition to view as virtuous an incomplete conquest." That is to say that American Democracy is about compromise. We value the idea that the participants in any governmental squabble are likely not going to get everything they want.
Secondly, and as a consequence of the aforementioned, American Democracy is about the protection of the Minority from the "Tyranny of the Majority." The majority may be right, but that doesn't mean that the rights of the minority are to be trampled upon. The American system is designed to protect dissident opinions, no matter how small and unpopular, from persecution by the majority.
-=THIS=- is where the church and state bit comes in. Even though the majority of Americans describe themselves as Christians, and even though the majority of (voting) Americans voted for G.W.B -- that doesn't mean that under the American Political System, Bush has carte blanche to impose whatever rules and regulations that majority sees fit to enact.
Our Constitution protects us from certain manifestations of governmental power, particularly religious manifestations. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution follows
Some old dead white guy wrote:Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This is the long and the short of it. Even if the Senate and House pass a law staying that Gays can't marry, even if the President signs it into law, even if the FBI goes door to door enforcing it - the law is unconstitutional. It violates the fundamental idea that anyone who's a citizen can't be treated any differently than other citizens. There are no qualifiers on that.
Is the Church trying to prevent this so called "post-modern downgrade" you reference? Probably -- but even ignoring the Church's stellar record with regards to Crusades, the Heliocentric Solar System, Orbiting Planets, Evolution, and the Big Bang to say nothing of Slavery, Genocide, and Class Persecution throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the Church is a separate legal and physical entity from the Government. It does not HAVE to answer to the will of the people, as a Democratically elected government does. It is fundamentally dangerous to a democracy to have policy dictated, directly or indirectly by religious leaders.
It is amoral and unjust to allow that policy to deny rights, liberties, and privileges to a large section of a population. Jesus Christ once said "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone." I see a lot of stones being thrown, but I don't see a lot of angels throwing them.
