Talk Elections

I'm so bummed about this.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/steve-king-i-dont-expect-to-meet-gays-in-heaven

Louie Gohmert must have felt a disturbance in the force because he went out and made a more ridiculous comment:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/louie-gohmert-gays-military-massages

Such lovely people.

King is a wonderful representative for the contemporary GOP. Hopefully he runs for president.

I don't expect to meet Steve King should I make it to heaven.

Well, at least he left the door open about going to hell.

The good ol' country club theory of heaven. Churches say stuff like this about everyone who doesn't attend their church.

He won't.

Don't worry, King will be back next week-if not before-in the latest installment of "But wait-there's more!" series of the Congressional Clown Caucus.

Homosexuals, like all people, are certainly capable of going to Heaven if they repent and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Unrepentant sinners don't go to Heaven; and thus, an unrepentant homosexual will indeed go to Hell, just like how an unrepentant adulterer or unrepentant fornicator (to name two examples) will go to Hell.

You people act like you've never met Republicans before.

What a sad world we have that it can create people like you. It just breaks my heart that someone with such obvious potential (I mean, you know how to spell at the very least) is so unable to exhibit real critical thinking, all because of the weight of a goddamn book. Best of luck out there.

Hey, they call it Devil's Food cake for a reason. When this gay atheist dies and goes to hell, at least the food will be good.

There's a special place in the great beyond for Congressman King... It's called Tehran.

If I find myself in hell for being myself then at least my husband will be there. Spending an eternity without him would be a real hell.

Ban him, please.

For what, exactly? Expressing a viewpoint you don't agree with? I'm pretty sure that's not against the rules.

Amen.  Christ's death on the cross is powerful enough to wash away the sins of anyone who trusts in him.

Steve King should have known we're not allowed to utter biblical opinions in public in this country anymore. Silly him.

Oh, you're allowed to. But if all they are is a gallon of nonsensical, dogmatic hatred, you should expect to feel the backlash of a public that is fortunately learning to be more progressive in its treatment of people who are different.

I don't expect myself to go to heaven.

Well, there won't be any gays in heaven because it's a sin, and there won't be any sinners in heaven. The current gay people will not be gay in heaven.


That's probably the closest thing I can say while still going with his idea of homosexuality is a sin. I myself don't actually believe gays are sinners by virtue of existence like this guy.

The problem with his statement is nobody truly knows where anybody else stands with their relationship with God.  A parent cannot absolutely know that his or her child will go to heaven, even though that child displays all the "signs" of a Christian.  A person cannot truly know their spouse's salvation status.  So, the point is that nobody can truly know if anybody else is going to heaven or not.  A tree will be known by its fruit, so you can have a pretty good idea, but you cannot know definitively.  So, no one can say with absolute certainty that homosexuals are automatically expelled from heaven.  To say anything either way is to attempt to speak for God, which is dangerous.  The only person you can be absolutely certain about is yourself.

And from a Catholic perspective, I feel compelled to dispute this as well.

There is no heaven. Nor any hell. So the whole discussion is pointless.

I have used the threat of Hell. On a Nazi. I also told him that he wouldn't like Heaven anyway -- too many Jews for his liking.

By the way -- what is so damnable about homosexuality itself?

No heaven... No hell... Only "good enough". 

There are thousands of Christian denominations, thus there are thousands of versions of God and Hell, Some of which include one or even both of them not existing.

I would love to ask him if he believes judgmental people go to heaven.

who do I speak to sign up for gay heaven instead of steve king heaven?

What gets me is that aren't Protestants supposed to believe in "faith, not works?"

The primary difference between Protestant and Catholic (at least as of the time of the Reformation) theology concerning works is the Catholicism views works as a means by which one earns salvation while Protestantism views works as evidence of the faith one has in salvation.  So it's perfectly consistent for a Protestant who thinks that homosexuality is a sin would expect that a faithful homosexual Christian would abstain from such activity to the best of eir ability.

Actually, the reason is that before the advent of Dutch processed cocoa, if you used natural cocoa, the acidity of the other ingredients would naturally lead to chocolate cake being red, which is popularly supposed to be the devil's color.  Originally devil's food and red velvet were the same cake, but the former switched to Dutch process cocoa and the latter started adding red food coloring to accentuate the color contrast.

If there be a Hell where people are kept eternally, I rather doubt they'll have the choice of who to spend it with.  Actually, if for whatever reason you do end up in Hell, I think you'd be much likelier to be bunking with Congressman King than with your husband.

Why hasn't Steve King run in a statewide election yet?

There is something fundamentally wrong with the great Stephen King having to share his name with such a waste of oxygen.

In case anyone wonders why I am for gay and lesbian rights, the creep depicted in the video makes my point. A warning: the perpetrator uses some dreadful language and, worse, a kick to the groin.   

Law and order is the first of all human rights, without which the others are cant. The perp made the mistake of showing off his infantile morality at DFW Airport, a place teeming with police. Cops win, gay-basher likely gets a stiff prison term instead of a stiff drink.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1339028/-Watch-good-Samaritans-tackle-violent-gay-basher-at-Dallas-airport#comments

Who in their right mind would want to be in the same place as Steve King?

Doesn't matter. At least I'd be on the same 'plane'. If I were in heaven and he in hell, what heaven would that be for me?

Ernest is correct here.

http://carm.org/questions/other-questions/how-can-i-tell-if-someone-saved-or-not (http://carm.org/questions/other-questions/how-can-i-tell-if-someone-saved-or-not)

http://www.gotquestions.org/forgiven-why-not-sin.html (http://www.gotquestions.org/forgiven-why-not-sin.html)

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Basics/license_to_sin.htm (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Basics/license_to_sin.htm)

Hardly a shocking statement to make if one is familiar with Christian doctrine and teachings on the subject.

The dregs of our society are irrelevant, not stars to determine political orientation. If you focus on the exceptional occurrences, you'll never see the real problems.

The government pits the traditional heterosexual marriage demographics against the single alternative-relationship or homosexual demographics. Gays are just the single people who are tired of being discriminated against. The rest of the single world has been taught that there is something wrong with them, and they generally accept the socio-economic punishment handed down by the government.

Gay rights and SSM are the most small-minded solutions I can possibly imagine to our current problems.

Given that it's gay couples who wish to get married, how on earth using any reasoning, can you categorise gay couples as 'single people'?

Is your exposure to our legal system so limited that you don't understand how unmarried couples could be classified as single?

Imagine a culture where children are often betrothed, and they are married by the time they reach sexual maturity, and society expects them to use their sexuality, in a manner that is exclusively useful to their spouse, and indirectly beneficial for society as a whole. Do you think there is any room for homosexual behavior? Do you think the people who created this system are inherently bigoted?

The world is full of people who lack understanding. The Judeo-Christian world refuses to acknowledge their departure from the Old Testament system of betrothal and teen marriage, which is the genesis of most anti-homosexual cultural rules. The anti-theist movement is largely unsympathetic to the plight of ancient people, who were merely trying to reproduce and survive. They suppose, instead, malice aforethought, as if ancient people could have foreseen modern existential crises.

Society is also largely ignorant of sexual practices of ancient people, who were not necessarily opposed to behaviors like incest, bestiality, adultery, rape, polygamy, sexual slavery, prostitution, sex with minors/children, etc. The triumph of Judeo-Christian sexual propriety is not problematic in the grand scheme, and pretending otherwise is a pointless waste of time. The people who drifted away from a strict interpretation of anti-homosexuality scripture did not do so under duress, and it is as silly to think that change-averse religious doctrines will evolve under duress as it is ridiculous/immoral to imagine that religious pressure can change someone's sexual orientation.

"Dregs" draw plenty of attention from local DAs in criminal prosecutions. People have been executed in Texas for gay-bashing that results in murder.

The problem is that the perpetrator thought his victim "gay" -- it is that he believed it acceptable to attack a gay man. The homophobic smears and hostile profanity alone would have been "disorderly conduct".

I have been threatened with gay-bashing. Sure, I could explain how I know that I am not gay, but I doubt that that would convince an angry bigot. All in all, formal acceptance of gay rights makes anti-homosexual crime less likely. 

... There is now no convincing argument that same-sex marriage threatens "traditional marriage". If anything it expands "traditional marriage". Some people just can't relate sexually to the other gender but can to their own. I don't have to understand homosexuality -- but I understand homophobia all too well and find it appalling.

Steve King is really trying hard to win "most insensitive gaffes of the year" trophy.

It's obnoxious because Steve King is not really a role model for compassionate, selfless behavior who should go around casting stones. Comments like this were completely ordinary into the 1990s and 2000s but the world has changed so much that one wonders what the point is of an elected official making a statement like this. I don't really care what his religious views are, but here he's just trying to relive some Republican fun of the 1990s at the expense of gays.

I believe he was asked about his religious views on this question, and thus he gave them. 

Bigoted, no. Backward, definitely. That was the norm until early-modern times, and it served to promote conformity within the community, preserve the identity of religious minorities,  and solidify the rigid class structure. It is now backward in the sense that writing with a quill pen is backward.

As for homosexual behavior -- it was typically done on the sly. Can you imagine what a miserable marriage that would have been? What for? Tradition? What was a delight for many was drudgery for the homosexual.

Sure, tradition was everything.  But we don't let tradition dictate our lives, do we, today?


We are no longer responsible to those ancient people. We can neither harm them nor do good. Marriage between people fourteen years old, once something 'natural', is now unconscionable.  We have enough people as it is, and we have no need for a population explosion.  As for the 'wisdom' of ancient peasants -- they accepted much that we now find abominable, like slavery and a death penalty that encompassed such offenses a witchcraft.

I suggest that you ask the experts on what the Old Testament says. The real experts. The Jews. They do not kill witches. They do not kill children for talking back. They do not tolerate slavery. On the whole they get good results for their lives.  


Except for adultery, all of those are abominable and often illegal today on the grounds that such are cruel, exploitative, or destructive. You contradict yourself by on the one hand admiring the ancients for their sexual wisdom and on the other hand excoriating their sexual depravity. Some of the behavior of ancient Hebrew kings is now unthinkable -- like having harems. I respect the Old Testament for showing the consequences (tragedy for the victims and at times self-destruction of the perpetrators)... and those are valid warnings to us today. I have never had any use for sex with children, but the secular explanation from Sigmund Freud -- that children find sex unwelcome and painful -- is good enough for me. The repugnance that most of us have against rape is now that is violates the right a female who does not or cannot consent (a feminist approach) -- in contrast to the violation of a man's possession of sexual rights to a wife. The feminist approach is a stronger judgment against rape.

As for adultery -- it hurts children by gutting their certainty about the trustworthiness of their parents. Adultery depends upon lies and deceit that hurt children.        


Even if one thinks homosexuality something less than ideal, one cannot see it evil in the sense that murder, robbery, rape, perversion of justice, the making of fraudulent oaths, denying rest to employees, and abandonment of the elderly are gross affronts against the morality that underpins a wholesome society. Know well: no part of the Bible says anything that specifically prohibits the use or dealing in narcotics... or driving drunk. So far as I can tell, homosexuality is an indelible part of the character of people. At least it is not sociopathy or even narcissism.

Did you see the video to which I linked? I saw no Christian morality in the foul-mouthed, violent brute who attacked an alleged gay. I am sure that if you are a Christian that you would never testify to the 'wrongness' of homosexuality with a kick to the groin. Taking down the violent brute who had shown a willingness to inflict severe and pointless pain looks like Christian behavior. Violent hatred against homosexuals does not match the command of Jesus to love thy neighbor as if oneself.

If Steve King were asked if he expects to see Jews in Heaven, he certainly would not have said "Not going to happen, they haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their savior." Even if that were his religious view. He'd have avoided the question. Why do you suppose that is different?

The newspaper asked him his view about gays because he frequently bloviates about gays (when not talking about immigrants running drugs or escorting ISIS in) and will say things that put him in rare company with Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert.

Marriage equality affects everyone. The United States hasn't been living up to the Equal Protection Clause of the  Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. So, it may not personally interest you; but, then again, the LGBT community isn't interesting in waiting for you to become possibly supportive. So, giving LGBT persons their due equal rights for legal marriage, as experienced by heterosexual persons, is the solution to that particular issue. Other "current problems" are just more topics. This one does not take a back seat, at this time in our history, because you emotionally want to deflect its importance by telling us that you have more pressing concerns. That's not how this country, or any other country, operates. The issues come up, maybe they even get solved, whenever they do.

If you're using Equal Protection to have a pointless argument about the correct definition of marriage, you're wasting our time. If you compare the legal privileges of a married individual to those of an unmarried individual, you will find evidence of inequality, regardless of sexual orientation. The socioeconomic discrimination between married and unmarried individuals is the source of our problems.

For many decades, the government has been content to ignore Equal Protection as it pertains to marriage, but as women have entered the workforce, inequality has become more acute. We are actively subsidizing a lifestyle decision, which carries inherent socioeconomic benefits to the individuals who partake.

The SSM debate is just the canary in the coal mine.

You find such inequities between all sorts of groups. Homeowners and renters. Parents and non-parents. Investors and wage-earners. Why is this particular dichotomy one that you beat on about so much?

How good to know that Rep. King is so clean of sin himself and also so familiar with every single gay person in the world and what they have done in their lives that he has the privilege to make a statement damning a massive group of individuals to hell.

Just admit you don't like gays already, Aggregate.  This act is fooling nobody.

Except King doesn't claim that.  He assumes that if gay can make it there, his own actions are going to preclude his being there.

Because married vs. single is systemic, not legislation-specific. The promotion of inequality between home owners and renters can be addressed with revised rules for mortgage interest deduction. Inequality and ability-to-pay between parents and non-parents can be addressed with the child tax credit rules. Inequality between investors and wage earners can be addressed by creating more brackets based upon the holding period of the investment, rather than simplistic short-term or long-term designations.

Socioeconomic inequality between married and single goes all the way to the core of the tax system, specifically graduated income tax brackets and filing status regulations. Unfortunately, many people believe that graduated rates are the key to equality, when, in fact, they are the source of economic inequality and social decay. Therefore, I harp on this particular issue.

You can't build a system of social equality and goodwill, upon a foundation of economic rot. The rot will always infect the social contract, whether it's SSM or health insurance or whatever.

What?

How is this not legislation-specific? You object to the legislation that introduced and codified the tax code to which you object, but that doesn't mean it's not specific to legislation. This is incoherent.

I should have said issue-specific. Systemic problems can't be overcome with issue-specific fixes.

That's what you are supposed to learn from the SSM cultural upheaval. Our system is ludicrously unfair, and far too many social/economic privileges key off of federal/state recognition of marriage. The discrimination gays claim regarding SSM is actually discrimination against all single people.

If only gay people had known that the reason they've felt discriminated against all this time wasn't that they were gay, but that they were single! Thanks for straight-splaining that, Aggy!

If Democrats would learn the power of populism, rather than protecting the minority/victim status of their factions, perhaps they wouldn't have to feign outrage all the time. Perhaps homosexuals wouldn't be in their current predicament.

Furthermore, I offered no opinion as to how homosexuals should feel about the SSM situation.

LOL.

Have you ever watched a single campaign ad by any Democrat in the country?  They do populism just fine.

Human rights are not counter to each other. They do not imply an exclusive choice as it is for middle-income budgets with respect to buying a Ford or Chevrolet automobile. One might be able to buy one, but buying one precludes buying the other. There is no limiting budget for human rights. The civil rights struggle for Southern blacks was not contrary to the right to union representation, to environmental protection, to the rights of the handicapped, or to women's rights.  If it is simply a matter of a right offending a special interest or a personal sensibility with no other merit, then tough.

Personal license may be a different matter, as when "gun rights" imply a severe compromise of the assumption that we have a right to safety from gun violence.

 

Political capital is like a budget. You cannot buy everything, and if you spend/invest your capital in the wrong places, you end up fixing nothing and spreading misery.

A majority of the discrimination against same-sex couples is not derived from the narrow definition of marriage, but from the federal/state legislation that arbitrarily or inadvertently rewards people for being married.

So much autism; cannot handle.

LOL.

AggregateDemand,

Yes—I referred to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution!

Spin yourself around and around all you will.

You are the one who is wasting everyone's time, here in this thread, with your stupid rationalizations.


You are a homophobe!


And you want discrimination against LGBT persons.

So he assumes that he is less sinful than every member of the gay community?

I realize that the idea of common good and mutually-beneficial populism between gay and straight people is an alarming concept for a Democrat, but you don't need to resort to bolded 10pt font.

I understand your political impulses. They are as predictable as a child demanding more snacks during break time at preschool. If you look at the big socioeconomic picture, you may eventually see the situation in a different light.

Because we have abandoned the notion of Equal Protection and populism, we are trying to choose between the lesser of two evils, which is a false dichotomy. If you fix the blatant disregard for the Constitution, the situation is disarmed, and we can pursue whatever existential end we desire without without oppression looming over the populace.

This is just a retread of the suffrage movements in the late 19th century. African Americans and women had the same political ambition, but by cleaving the demographic with artificial distinctions, like amount of melanin or gender, Congress was able to split their efforts and undermine their populist power. You are the modern day equivalent of the people who divided and conquered the suffrage movement.

Fly your flag high.

Are you honestly saying that gender and racial distinctions are artificial distinctions? You can't believe that.

When it comes to voting, do you feel otherwise?

WTF?

When it comes to voting, do you really believe that gender and skin color are legitimate differentiations?

Not the WTF part. The part where you're hinting about my death.

I sometimes forget that you are incapable of understanding figurative speech and rhetorical tropes so I edited accordingly.

Regarding the matter at hand, do you believe that skin color and gender are legitimate personal traits that warrant modification of voting privileges?

What was the rhetorical trope of telling me you had a hangman's noose ready for me?

Are you incapable of reading comprehension, or are you simply insisting on continuing to make your point regardless of whether it has any relevance as part of a reply?  To the degree I bothered to decode King's logic, he was saying that if he was wrong about actively gay people wouldn't be in heaven, then his own hateful mistakes would preclude him from being there with them.  (Yeah, I know, I'm being awfully generous to King, as I doubt he realized he was allowing for the possibility that he truly might be wrong, but still...)

The bolded part isn't just being generous, it's imposing a reading that the text doesn't explicitly support. It doesn't preclude it, but that's all.

Perhaps. I'm not going to go back and reread what was attributed to King to double check the degree to which my impression matched reality because I don't really care all that much about King. However, it certainly does match what I said the first time and to which M. Illini made his non-sequitur of a reply to me.

I was referencing the lynch mob mentality in the court of public opinion. You made a rhetorical misstep, and someone could have implied that you believed race and gender were integral parts of establishing suffrage privileges.

I shouldn't have allowed you to clarify, I should merely have branded you a racist, sexist bigot; reported your post and then hit the ignore button <---------sarcasm <-------meta sarcasm.

would you know i'm gayyyyy
if i saw you in heavennnnn

Figs, you seem like a reasonable guy, so I'll give some advice: Don't try speaking anything approaching rationalism to Arrogant Demand. He lives in some bizarre bubble world filled up with snatches of statistics and libertarian screeds, and literally can't comprehend it when we ignorant plebes don't grasp his brilliant yet obvious analysis of the world.

Good show trying though! :D Trust me, you'll learn there are some people on this Forum you can't begin to have a two-way communication with. The best you'll get is some verbal sparing practice.

Ooh! There's this friend of mine named Phil you should meet.....;D

Why is it a bad idea to balance the social/economic privileges of the married and the unmarried? Besides fulfilling a Constitutional mandate, we would also take the power of discrimination away from the definition of marriage crowd, which includes churches like King's. 9/10ths of the problem would be solved without needless political bloodletting, and the benefits would be spread to far more Americans than just same-sex couples.

I have no desire to participate in your silly bikeshedding arguments. I am interested in the political/bureaucratic malfeasance that created the situation.

It is not a budget. One difference between FDR and Obama is that FDR started with more political capital than did Obama, who started with more than did Carter.

Political capital is unlike financial assets in that one cannot accumulate more by letting it sit as if a deposit in a savings account. Of course, like any intangible asset it can be squandered. If you own a copyright and refuse to publish, then the copyright simply wastes.

Simple fact: even before President Obama was elected the Right was greasing the skids for him. He rushed as much of his agenda as he could with the expectation that the Right would turn on him. He achieved in two years what most Presidents have achieved in four or more.   


Wrong: it is contempt for anything different. Antipathy to homosexuals relates to ethnic and religious bigotry, having much the same psychological dynamics.

The GOP is now a coalition of people who believe either that they have a right to everything other than the bare survival of those that they tolerate and to people who have rejected the Enlightenment altogether. In other countries that has been the typical basis of fascist movements.

I'd love it if he somehow made it to heaven and it was ONLY gays that were there, and he had some real thinking to do about his sexuality.

Wouldn't that be his personal hell?

()

God works in mysterious ways, X :P