Joel Osteen’s Awkward Response

I’m sorry I don’t understand or know where it’s going or….I’m just not 100% clear on it…

Indeed he does try to straddle the line of his religious views and not trying to say something nasty about a significant group. Tough for him, but hey, if you’re going to claim that you talk to Yahweh, get your story straight before you go on CNN…

“Will it undermine the basis of society? I don’t know.”

But you wanted to suggest that it would by asking the question.

If only we had you tube clips of promenate christains of the day and their opinion on Slavery, Womens Sufferage, Inter-racial marriage. Perhap’s there are clips about the inter-racial marriage. They would make a kick ass video about the march of progress. Maybe a project for the weekend.

God’s best.

Not your best.

I actually thought King’s question was awkward and not terribly clear, so I’d give Osteen a bit more credit in this instance.
He’s actually suggesting that marriage could be performed only by churches – isn’t that exactly what religious folks like Osteen would like?

I think Hemant is right. Osteen is only one more of these mealy-mouthed preachers who know they are losing the “culture war,” and they don’t want to be called to account when finally their hate-based and fear-based industry is rejected by the majority.

Even more spineless, I suspect that some of them secretly know that their opposition, whether tacit or active, to equal treatment is ethically wrong, but they don’t want to lose their bigoted power base, so they pander, hedge, equivocate and evade. These cowards call themselves shepherds? They don’t have the vertebrae or gonads to actually lead people toward a better society. They just want to preserve enough of the status quo to keep their business going.

The Abrahamic religions have painted themselves into a corner. Having taken too rigid a stand on social issues where society is inevitably changing, they are like large, too-specialized animals that cannot adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Gigantism and specialization precede extinction. While their phylum may not entirely disappear, I think the Brachiosaurus-like species will be gone within one more generation.

Craig,

Unfortunately they’re on track to take the rest of us out with them.

Perhaps, but I’m descended from a class of animals that has survived many mass extinctions, and maybe my die-hard optimism is one of our beneficial adaptations. Rise up, ye small mammals! Come out of your burrows! The time of our liberation is at hand! The tyranny of the lizard brains is crumbling!

Turrboenvy said,

The state should stop worrying about who gets “married,” instead everyone gets a civil union. Gay or straight, in the state’s eyes you’re “united.” Churches can worry about “marriage.” That way everyone gets the exact same union under the state and the religious people can shut up. I think that’s what King was trying to suggest.

At least in Canada, this is how it is now except there aren’t two different words for it. According to the Marriage Act, there are two ways to get married: by a justice of the peace, or at a religious institution. Legally, there is no difference between the two at all except for a few words that must be said during the ceremony.

Religious institutions are allowed to devise their own criteria for allowing marriage within their religion. So, for example, the Catholic church is under no obligation to marry non-Catholics or anyone else for whatever reason they please. I don’t see any problem with this at all. If you want to be married within the Catholic church, you should be bound by the rules of the Catholic church determining marriage. When people do get married in a church, they are actually doing two things.. getting married within the eyes of their religion and they are fulfilling the legal requirements to be considered married under the law.

The problem is that some religious people want their own prejudices to apply to everyone. That the requirements for marriage within their religion should be the requirements for everyone.

I don’t think anyone cares if their marriage is recognized by someone else’s religion or not. Most importantly, the law already does not.

I don’t think the solution is to differentiate between church marriages and civil “unions.” The precedent is already in place. There are requirements for a marriage to be recognized by law, and each religion has their own requirements as well. There’s no reason to change that now.

Back when this debate was in full force here in Canada, I spoke to a lot of religious people about it and changed their minds. One of the biggest fears they had was in having gay weddings in their church. Seriously. For most people that was their objection which was unfounded. The churches will always decide who can be married within their religion/building.

So I think our strategy in Canada should be to remind equal marriage opponents of the above, and then tell them to STFU.

If the laws of marriage in the states are that different, they should be changed.

When I got married, about 37,000 years ago, we hired a witch doctor in a suit to please the in-laws. He showed up at the house with a marriage license, a form printed by the State of California. My sweetheart and I signed it, and at that moment we were married. The mumbo-jumbo that we tolerated fifteen minutes later out in the back yard was entirely superfluous. If we had gone down to the courthouse, we would have signed the exact same form, and would have been just as “married.” Churches don’t own the word “marriage” nor do they own the legal contract of marriage. All these witch doctors in suits should be challenged every time they try to slip in the assumption that they have ownership, copyright, patent, or proprietary rights to either one. No they don’t!

I completely disagree with you. There is a big difference between “everyone is equally entitled to their own opinion” and “everyone’s opinion is equal.”

Does that mean someone’s “opinion” could be less valid than another? It’s an expression of preference, isn’t it?

Fairness doesn’t mean ensuring every idea has equal time on camera, fairness means being objective and presenting the facts without bias.

Bias comes in rendering a judgment. Being objective means not judging what someone says. If someone makes an assertion and backs it up with evidence, then how is it not being objective to? present what they say. There was a news story recently about the Flat Earth Society argues that the earth is essentially flat. If I wrote that story, I would find out what the group is asserting, why they are asserting it, what evidence they have and present someone who could demonstrate the overwhelming evidence that the world is not flat. If I instead write a story to the effect “here are the reasons why this group is wrong,” then I’m not being objective. I’ve crossed a line.

If an atheist and a theist debate and a journo covers it, should they not present both sides’ assertions, arguments and explanations equally?

Besides … a journalist’s job is to “dig” for the truth and present what he or she finds, not determine what that truth is.

There was a news story recently about the Flat Earth Society argues that the earth is essentially flat. If I wrote that story, I would find out what the group is asserting, why they are asserting it, what evidence they have and present someone who could demonstrate the overwhelming evidence that the world is not flat. If I instead write a story to the effect “here are the reasons why this group is wrong,” then I’m not being objective. I’ve crossed a line.

In 1990, about 1% of adult South Africans were infected with HIV. Then – for a variety of reasons – the idea that HIV did not cause AIDS came to be taken seriously. By 2000, 25% of adult South Africans were HIV positive.

If gross nonsense is given an equal footing with evidence-based ideas, people die. It happened with AIDS, with smoking, with many other topics, and now it’s happening with global warming. False balance is certainly not the sole cause of the resulting deaths – but it’s a strong contributor.

The non-flatness of the Earth has been a demonstrable scientific fact for over 2 thousand years. (Look up Eratosthenes on that topic.) Your suggestion that it be placed on equal footing with modern scientific understanding of the shape of the earth is harmful and stupid.

Does that mean someone’s “opinion” could be less valid than another? It’s an expression of preference, isn’t it?

Absolutely. If you’re insistent on doing a story on the Flat Earth Society, are you seriously going to give me ink because I believe the earth is shaped like a cube? I mean, we’re not talking about the Weekly World News here, are we? I should be dismissed and ignored. It would be irresponsible journalism to present the cubist earth theory on equal footing with the spherical earth theory.

Bias comes in rendering a judgment. Being objective means not judging what someone says. If someone makes an assertion and backs it up with evidence, then how is it not being objective to? present what they say.

Bias comes from injecting your own preformed opinions into the story. Being objective means having perceptions or making judgements based only on the facts and evidence as discovered. If someone’s evidence is spurious, fraudulent or plain idiotic, that makes their opinions irrelevant and not newsworthy. It’s not your job to provide a soapbox for every hair-brained idea.

There was a news story recently about the Flat Earth Society argues that the earth is essentially flat. If I wrote that story, I would find out what the group is asserting, why they are asserting it, what evidence they have and present someone who could demonstrate the overwhelming evidence that the world is not flat. If I instead write a story to the effect “here are the reasons why this group is wrong,” then I’m not being objective. I’ve crossed a line.

Personally, I wouldn’t have written the story at all, unless there was something actually newsworthy about it. If they were having a big convention in town, I’d write about the convention. I’d end the piece with a witty quote from a physics professor at the local university. There are angles that could make this a good story, but presenting a flat (or cubic) earth theory as a valid alternative to real science is not one of them.

If I instead write a story to the effect “here are the reasons why this group is wrong,” then I’m not being objective. I’ve crossed a line.

That would be a poor angle for a story for the simple fact that it would be trite. Of course they’re wrong. You wouldn’t need to say it yourself either, I’m sure it’d be easy to find people to quote.

If an atheist and a theist debate and a journo covers it, should they not present both sides’ assertions, arguments and explanations equally?

In this example, the journalist is covering the debate, so yes. If, instead, the journalist is doing an investigative story on the existence of God, then no. The journalist does not have to track down every nutjob to present their own opinions about god. This a bad example because there is no definitive objective answer.

Consider what IDers are trying to do with the whole “teach the controversy” thing. The concept fails because there really isn’t any controversy. That’s the part that is newsworthy — the whole controversy was manufactured and non-existent. A responsible journalist wouldn’t be fooled into giving ID any contemplative ink.

What you fail to acknowledge, Nick, is that what you (as a journalist) do has value.

I know, sounds ridiculous, but really it does.
Let’s take a TV spot. You have exactly 4minutes, 48 seconds to reach the millions of people watching. Someone out there can tell you the dollar amount each of those minutes and seconds costs to put out there.
So, must you spend exactly as much on the PHD in astro-physics discussing the theory of the big bang as you do on the guy who believes the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure?
Are you really saying that the guy who’s invested his life in the subject and published numerous peer-reviewed articles on the subject deserves no more respect than the local loon?

As a journalist, your job is to find out what stories out there are worth our valuable time to watch or read and the media’s expense to produce. As a journalist, you are supposed to exercise judgment. Otherwise you are no more than a microphone stand and I can get one of those for $20.
Isn’t what you do worth more than a $20 microphone stand?

Now Osteen, he just seems hung up on the word “marriage”. Fine. Let churches have marriage, but give it NO legal significance. For that have civil unions. Or, let us keep marriage and you take ecumenical unions, holy unions, whatever you like.

WHOA! This isn’t just an anti-gay interview, it’s anti-non-Christian. Anyone else catch her saying that marriage is something that needs to be sanctified by a CHURCH?

Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Buddhists, etc. need not apply.

Hemant, I’m totally with you on this. I really think YouTube clips are going to change the dynamic of the same sex debate! Bring it on, I say.

Maybe he’s trying to sound nice, but he and his wife just look like insulated, clueless bigots.