Death Penalty Question

[TJ in Oregon]

As noted by the poster above, once you start trying to decide who deserves to live or not (apart from the situation where the other person is trying to kill you or someone else, ie. self defense or possibly war), you find out quickly that many people don't. From there you can fall into support of genicide and eugenics and a whole bunch of other terrible things to become the evil you were once trying to stand against or start, perhaps to recognize the validity of the following quote from JR Tolkien that Galdalf says to Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[TJ in Oregon]

And as a Christian, I cannot morally back the death penalty.  People who do even the most evil of things have the possibility of repenting and becoming good people (and in that case, usually speaking for others to change as well), and though it is rare it does happen.  To take that possibility away from someone before their last natural breath, to me, is morally criminal.

There is no secular argument of substance against legalizing gay marriage. Even if I didn't have my own personal reasons for supporting it, there is no way I could be opposed. Of course I am in favor.

Exactly (I agree as a Christian).

And if you want to go by "traditional marriage" in the bible, then women who are raped should have to be having their father pay the rapist who will then go forth to marry her.

There is no logical reason to oppose the legalization of same sex marriages.  If your church or institution doesn't want to perform the ceremony, fine, but I have yet to see a logical argument for outlawing it all together.

So why do you advocate considering religious beliefs on one issue but not the other?(For the record I agree with you on one of these two issues but not the other).

[TJ in Oregon]

And as a Christian, I cannot morally back the death penalty.  People who do even the most evil of things have the possibility of repenting and becoming good people (and in that case, usually speaking for others to change as well), and though it is rare it does happen.  To take that possibility away from someone before their last natural breath, to me, is morally criminal.

There is no secular argument of substance against legalizing gay marriage. Even if I didn't have my own personal reasons for supporting it, there is no way I could be opposed. Of course I am in favor.

Exactly (I agree as a Christian).

And if you want to go by "traditional marriage" in the bible, then women who are raped should have to be having their father pay the rapist who will then go forth to marry her.

There is no logical reason to oppose the legalization of same sex marriages.  If your church or institution doesn't want to perform the ceremony, fine, but I have yet to see a logical argument for outlawing it all together.

So why do you advocate considering religious beliefs on one issue but not the other?(For the record I agree with you on one of these two issues but not the other).

What issue is "the other"?

I agree with you on capital punishment but not same sex marriage.

The reason I wanted to point this out is that I think there is some contradiction between saying basically that same sex marriage should be legal since we shouldn't legislate morality but then saying the death penalty is immoral so it should be illegal. It's somewhat of a devil's advocate argument on my part because I do not support the death penalty, but anyway that was the point I'm trying to make.

[TJ in Oregon]

And as a Christian, I cannot morally back the death penalty.  People who do even the most evil of things have the possibility of repenting and becoming good people (and in that case, usually speaking for others to change as well), and though it is rare it does happen.  To take that possibility away from someone before their last natural breath, to me, is morally criminal.

There is no secular argument of substance against legalizing gay marriage. Even if I didn't have my own personal reasons for supporting it, there is no way I could be opposed. Of course I am in favor.

Exactly (I agree as a Christian).

And if you want to go by "traditional marriage" in the bible, then women who are raped should have to be having their father pay the rapist who will then go forth to marry her.

There is no logical reason to oppose the legalization of same sex marriages.  If your church or institution doesn't want to perform the ceremony, fine, but I have yet to see a logical argument for outlawing it all together.

So why do you advocate considering religious beliefs on one issue but not the other?(For the record I agree with you on one of these two issues but not the other).

What issue is "the other"?

I agree with you on capital punishment but not same sex marriage.

The reason I wanted to point this out is that I think there is some contradiction between saying basically that same sex marriage should be legal since we shouldn't legislate morality but then saying the death penalty is immoral so it should be illegal. It's somewhat of a devil's advocate argument on my part because I do not support the death penalty, but anyway that was the point I'm trying to make.

I seem to recall there being a commandment against murder, but not against gays. I don't think it's hypocritical to be Christian and support gay marriage. You allow adulterers to marry. And for those who say "The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination!":
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord (dishonesty is an abomination) (Proverbs 12:22)

Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not  And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? (Stealing, Adultery, breaking covenants, and worshipping other gods are abomination) Jeremiah 7:9-10

Hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination (oppressing the poor and needy is an abomination) Ezekiel 18:12

All of these people are allowed to marry. Why can't gays?

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, repeatedly says that homosexuality is a sin.  Read Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27.  That's not saying that all homosexuals are bad; after all, you can hate homosexuality without hating homosexuals.

You could also oppose religious gay marriage but not oppose civil gay marriage. The state should be allowed to marry gays, even if the religions don't have to. We have separation of church and state, after all.

Yes, we do. But if that's your logic it doesn't make sense to turn around and oppose capital punishment because it's immoral. It would have to be opposed for secular reasons (which they are no shortage of). But the morality argument is null once you decide that you can't legislate morality.

[TJ in Oregon]

The point of being against the death penalty is to accept that we aren't going to use it on people who have committed the very worst crimes imaginable. It doesn't make sense to say we need to ban capital punishment and then renege once someone does something we find really horrible.

So yes.