Billy Graham Urges North Carolinians To Vote for Bigotry

Doesn’t play politics? He is not as overt as the others, but no one else has sucked up to the highest level of American politics as much as he has. He is the one responsible for America’s downwards slide towards a theocracy starting with Nixon

My guess is that his son Franklin convinced him to do this. Franklin is an unalloyed bigot and fundamentalist hater, quite unlike his father. And at the elder Graham’s advanced age, it probably wasn’t difficult for him to guide his father’s shaky hand into signing.

Did people just forget about his anti-semitic remarks that were caught on tape during a discussion with Nixon?
http://www.rense.com/general20/billy.htm

[sigh]. When I decide to marry god, his definition of marriage will become important to me. Meanwhile, it is irrelevant to the political process.

Actually, I think we might do well to eliminate government endorsement of marriage entirely. Create civil unions (gay and/or straight) to allow tax benefits, family insurance, etc., and let the churches “marry” anyone they like. But as long as some people get marriage benefits from the govt, everyone should get the same ones.

I don’t pretend to believe this will satisfy fundys, but it seems like it should work for most of us.

I grew up watching Billy every time he came on tv, and believe me, he toes the party line more than he doesn’t. He is no outlier, he just tends to talk out the side of his neck so people don’t realise that he is saying the exact same shit as the other, less eloquent evangelists.

This x 10.

Incase anyone isn’t sure what the marriage amendment is, it’s not a good thing. It adds this to the constitution: 
“Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This Section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.”

America isn’t a melting pot anymore. It’s an untossed salad. Everyone’s divided by everything from race to religion to gender to age to everything you can think of and more. If I’ve seen people get brutally attacked (Bryan Stow is a nice example) over something as petty as football. This country has no future if every person has a wedge between them and something else.

 I wonder what the Grahams would say to the old Betty Bowers video.

Works for me.

Just so we’re accurate here, Graham did “play politics” for much of his life, using his fame and power over a specific voting bloc against presidents since Eisenhower. He’s typically been much more moderate than those you have listed above, but with this he is moving toward them.

I have been inspired by Billy Graham to stand up for what I believe in. Let all things god calls abominations be damned.

The bible is clear, god’s definition of seafood has fins and scales. (Leviticus 11:10-12 KJV) I want to urge my fellow freethinkers to  vote shellfish, clams, oysters, squid, and octopus off all menus. Don’t allow the evils of Surf to sully the innocence of Turf.

VOTE TURF ON MAY 8TH

Out of curiosity, did you know him in private?

His bible my tell him what marriage is, but OUR constitution never once tells us what the definition of marriage is.  “Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,”~Treaty of Triopli as signed by president John Adams.

What gives you the right to tell people they can’t be married?

Gently blow short puffs of air into his nostrils!

Assume for a moment that the Bible is the only book you’ve (partially) read.

…

Yeah. There you go.

Explains a lot, right?

And why shouldn’t we support marriage equality between any combination of (adult) human beings who choose to create a family? What conceivable rational reason exists to deny that?

Patheos broke your link:

http://www.dba-oracle.com/horse_manners.htm

G’ah!

Think it was disqus more than Patheos – I’ve had the same problem on other sites that use disqus comments.

I guess I wasn’t clear, because I think we are advocating for the same thing.

No. You want the government to get out of marriage and probably rename the civil part of it entirely. I want religion to get out of marriage – at least out of the legal side.

What you are saying is a capitulation to religion and letting them have the name “marriage”.

That’s just stupid. There are rational reasons to restrict incest, and there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that legalizing either same sex marriage or polygamy should lead to legal incest (or bestiality, or any of the other bogus suggestions made by demagogues).

On the other hand, I can’t think of any rational reason to restrict either same sex marriage or polygamy, and I don’t see you (or anybody else) offering any.

Exactly.  You’re saying that someday there should be no problem with people in any combinations getting married.  While there might be issues for now with incest, there is certainly nothing that cannot be overcome.  After all, from the 70s until recently, scholarship and research showed overwhelmingly that delinquent dads were a major problem since children had to have both a mother and father for full and proper development.  But then, woosh!  That’s all gone now, and research now clearly shows that as long as at least two loving parents are there, that’s all that matters.  So there’s little doubt that the research of tomorrow will discover new truths as everyone basically validates the predictions of old.  That’s the great thing about research.  It’s always discovering new truths.

And if science is able to provide a solution to the sort of genetic risks currently posed by incest, why shouldn’t society evolve to support and allow incest? Again, what rational reason is there to oppose incest if there are no material consequences?

(I don’t realistically see this happening anytime soon, but the question stands.)

Not at all. I’m saying that the consent it requires is no different than the consent that would be required for legalized same sex or multiple marriage.

With father/daughter or mother/son relationships there is still the obvious power and age differential.

But you’re right that the aversion to a brother/sister relationship is largely emotional once you take the risk of genetic diseases out of it. I still think it’s creepy, but if both were sterilized I’d be hard pressed to say that it is immoral. And the phenomenon is so rare that it’s not problematic on a social scale.

Word salad

Why would you think that incest follows from gay marriage, any more than it follows from hetero marriage? Letting people have sex – that’s what leads to the downfall of society!

Or, were you just trying to erect a facade of supposed rationality to mask the abject homophobia that you know won’t fly?

Let me give you a little hint, because I can be nice sometimes: the  utter bullshit that religious leaders regularly feed to their vapid flock doesn’t work on atheists – that’s how most of us became atheists. You’re going to have to try a l0t harder than that.

Restricting incest, for example, doesn’t equate to bigotry, since it doesn’t target a particular ethnic group or class of people and doesn’t demonstrate intolerance – it actually has a scientific basis (or had; most studies have shown incest to have little detrimental effect, which is why some states are actually taking the laws off their books.) The same thing might be said for any laws regarding legal age – they’re based on someone having an adequate understanding of consequences and/or surpassing an age where development can be hampered by, for instance, heavy labor or lack of schooling time.

Which is why gay marriage amendments demonstrate bigotry. They select specific legal adults and classify them as distinctly different, denying rights on the basis of their preferences, not anything to do with their abilities, maturity, ignorance of consequences, and so on. Nobody has ever demonstrated the slightest detrimental effect that can come from such unions, nor support their standpoint without resorting to books that also promote animal sacrifices.

I’m betting you never stopped to think about the slippery slope of denying rights based on someone’s preferences, or self-appointed superiority, did you? Some of us actually have, imagine that.

Now, do you want to try and engage those points, or make some more half-assed arguments that achieve more to turn people off of religion than anything I could ever do? 😉

 Thin-ice, that was my first thought when I read the article.  I have a feeling that Billy Graham isn’t making to many decisions on what is published etc. anymore.

From Judaism 101 (www.jewfaq.org):

“Because marriage under Jewish law is essentially a private contractual
agreement between a man and a woman, it does not require the presence of a rabbi or any other religious official.”

That’s what I thought until I watched Billy Moyers’s interview 
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2010/06/whats_next_in_the_marriage_war.html 
with Olson and Boies (the attorneys in the case against Prop 8, and who were on opposites sides in Bush v. Gore)  If you’ve got 30min to spare, it might change your mind too.

I would say you are right!   Well, except for a couple of the comments here that suggest folks are arguing that, well, maybe there will be a time when – science willing – we are over that whole ‘incest is bad’ thing.  It’s not me saying it.  I was just looking for consistency.  What I got was a whole lot more than that.

So, exactly which book, chapter and verse does it say that marriage is only for a man and a women anyways?

Do you know any gay people?  Do you like them, and respect them, and treat them well, and then think that’s enough to keep you from being a bigot?  Let’s check.  Do you think their relationships are as valid as yours are?  When they fall in love with someone, who falls in love back, do you want them to have LESS recognition, LESS rights, LESS protections in their relationships than you want in yours?  THAT would make you a bigot.

But what about those other “combinations” of human beings you mentioned?

You don’t have to worry about being called a bigot for feeling this way about people who CAN marry the person they choose, but who want four, or five, or nine marriages more than the rest of us.  Just in case polygamy was what you meant.

You don’t have to worry about being called a bigot for feeling this way about people who are ALREADY family members, but still want to participate in an institution that makes strangers INTO family members.  Just in case incest is what you meant.

You don’t have to worry about being called a bigot for feeling this way about people who want to marry children, or dead people, or animals, or objects, or any person or thing that can’t legally sign contracts or even give consent.  Just in case pedophilia, necrophilia, zoophilia or anything ELSE was what you meant.

Were there any OTHER combinations of human beings that you meant, that I didn’t cover?  Did you have any good REASONS for opposing the relationships that adults of the same gender pursue consensually, that you would like to list for us here?

Maybe that will happen, maybe it won’t. It’s a question of shifting cultural norms. It wasn’t that long ago that the very idea of different races marrying was a “bad thing”, and we’re only now starting to get comfortable with people of the same sex doing so.

In any case, however, there’s no reason to think that allowing same sex marriage in any way legitimatizes incest. That’s just paranoia and fear mongering.

I did say that any multiple marriage would be amongst adults who choose to create a family. I would hope that implies consent by all involved.

Obviously (I hope!) a multiple marriage, like any other marriage, would require that the members be compos mentis adults, freely consenting, not operating under coercion, etc.

 Which is especially hilarious given the early christian church’s rather ambivalence about the institution.

I’m largely going to reiterate what C Person said, but:

When it comes to morals, I try to look past my own gut feeling and ask “What would happen if everyone did that?” and “What harm does it cause?”

For the first, I don’t really thing there’s going to be masses of close family members getting married.

For the second, if we remove procreation from the equation, then I’m at a loss to say what’s wrong with it.  I’m sure not interested in marrying any family members, but I’m not interested in marrying a man either.  In fact even before I was married, I had no desire to marry the vast majority of women I met.  So if I’m honest with myself, if there’s no harm, then what’s the argument?

I never fail to be gobsmacked by the presumptuous arrogance of Christians like Billy Graham who seem to be under the strange impression that they ‘own’ the institution……or at least are the arbiters of marriage…..

It would be one thing if they felt/expressed this sense of entitlement and ownership over religious marriage, but no, that’s not enough, they’re arrogant enough to attempt the same with civil/non-religious marriage.

Hopefully, they’ll get a smack in the face with reality when Prop 8 gets ruled unconstitutional.  Hopefully.

Nope, just wondering on what moral grounds folks would be told they can’t be allowed to marry.  And just because we think this or that now, well, look at the comments below. 

You say it’s stupid to draw that conclusion, but up above are individuals who are doing just that. 

Not defending BG here — he’s super old and super senile — the one time I’ve seen him on TV here in the past couple of years, he mumbled a bit and someone “translated”.  I think this particular pile of schiesse was perpetrated by the political mongering of his nutbar grandson who aspires to teapartiness.  From what I’ve seen of BG on TV, it’s extremely unlikely he even knows what the hell is happening around him.  NC has been 50/50 for years now…who knows how this vote will go.  I like to think that people will vote against to protect domestic partnerships if nothing else.  

Nobody seems to be arguing for incestual marriage. The theoretical question was posed, why shouldn’t there someday be incestual marriage if all medical barriers are removed? And apparently most people agree that there seems to be little reason to rationally oppose it under those circumstances.

You certainly haven’t provided any rational reasons why it should be opposed (nor for why multiple marriage should be opposed). Nor have you provided any rational reasons why legal same sex marriage will lead to either multiple or incestual marriage.

Don’t confuse ‘arguing for it’ with honestly questioning the reasoning against it.

I think we should have good reasons to tell other people what they can or cannot do.

Do you disagree (with the necessity of good reasons)?

It’s hardly paranoia and fear mongering when you have people on this very comments section arguing for it.

Actually, whether anyone argued for it or not doesn’t in any way make them even slightly analogous. So, um, yes, it is paranoia and fear-mongering.

But then again, no one argued for incest either. Pointing out that the former beliefs of genetic detriments  were overblown is not in any way “arguing for it,” and you’re either purposefully trying to skew such an argument (probably to draw attention away from your other flaming messes) or you simply have too weak a mind to comprehend the difference.

Either way, keep going! Unless someone who actually has a valid standpoint weighs in, you’re just continuing to demonstrate how feeble religious arguments are 😉

And of course 1st cousin marriages are permitted in many states 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state

In fact, there are more states in which it’s legal for 2 cousins to marry than for 2 men or 2 women.

And even more strangely IMO, the laws are more relaxed about 1st cousin once removed, which I find even more creepy because it means a generational difference (although the actual age difference my not exist).

No, the Bible is most definitely NOT clear on a definition of marriage.  It does, however, clearly support many types of marriages that we find completely immoral today. Like that girl that was forced to get married to her rapist in Morocco – that’s Biblically approved in Deuteronomy.

I can not find where the Bible says that homosexuals can not get married. Somebody will have to show that to me. Beyond that, they will also have to show to me how what the Bible says has any relevance to making a law, and also how the Bible is anything more than Bronze Age mythology.

The man is so far off-base no matter which way I look at it. Just legalize same-sex marriage already!

 It doesn’t have to show that. It already condemns homosexuality, so I guess the writers didn’t feel the need to put anything else in.

As though he hasn’t done enough harm in the world, this old sot is still running his vile mouth at 93. 

He and his vile son are just a couple of hate-mongers like most Christians.

The nuclear family IS the best way for a child to be raised. Period.

The refutation is simple.

A single parent that is loving and supportive is better than two parents who are cruel and abusive.

Ergo, a nuclear family is not always best. This is trivial.

You strike me as an individual who has never thought seriously about any counter-argument, presented or imagined, to your own position ever.

Nice put down, stick to the discussion, no need to make it personal. 

I am not from a nuclear family. You made it personal the moment you raised the subject. Issues such as these do not exist in a vacuum.

You’re due to get some personal feedback whether you’re ready for it or not. Get used to it.

Do you have any idea how insulting it is to the rest of us for you to assert that a family is less valuable simply because it has fewer parents, more parents, or parents that do not meet your gendered expectations?

Maybe your dad beat you or your mom was a drunk, and abandoned you, maybe you hate them.  Most of the problems we face in adulthood come from problems we were forced to deal with as children. Traced back to how our own selfish, selfcentered or ignorant parents treated us…. the problem is  we want to do whatever we want and hate it with a passion when others tell us otherwise…

And then you have the gall to tell me that there’s no need to make it personal, when I simply indicate that you’ve given no reason for any of us to think you have never considered any of the counter-arguments to your position?

Let’s be clear about this: Under the circumstances I’ve been shockingly nice.

I agree a single parent who loves the child is better than 2 who do not, BUT, a mother AND father who love their children is better than a single parent situation.  Do you disagree with this?

There’s two components to this claim of yours.

1) Setting the specific number of parents at 2
2) Specifying both a male and a female gendered parent

I disagree with each of these as requirements for what makes a family unit valuable.

What I think is important is an environment of love, safety, support, intimacy, and encouragement.

I know from personal experience that one parent alone is capable of delivering this. You’ve already implicitly accepted the possibility.

Given that a single parent is capable of meeting the requirements to provide a sound environment for a child, I do not think that adding additional parents to meet a specific quota adds anything meaningful to the assessment of the family structure.

Additionally, I think that the appropriate place to look for gender role models is in the prevailing culture, on grounds that the spectrum of gender expression is too broad for a tiny family unit to cover everything. A parent should of course aim to be a role model of what it means to be a responsible adult – I’m just pointing out that gender is too wide a category for one, two, or even six people to ever cover everything adequately. Gender role models are an orthogonal issue to family units.

“You need both to have children” is a red herring because reproduction is a biological function, but parenthood is a cultural construct. We should not conflate the two as if they were equivalent.

I cast your mention of the Bible aside as it is religious in nature, and you said ‘religion aside’ earlier than the reference to the bible in your comment.

Everything else other than these two snippets was a direct critique of your perceptions and assumptions regarding the character, motivations and backgrounds of those who disagree with you.

That’s it. Nothing is left over. Every supporting remark you have written in the last two comments has been considered and justly dismissed.

As you have not supplied a rational argument to support your argument, I have nothing further to critique.

I would agree that two adults are preferable to one, but would further argue that more extended family available to help (grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, family friends) all contribute.  The most important thing is love.  The sex of the people providing the love is irrelevant.

Note that if we granted this line of reasoning, it would follow that a polyamorous family with three or more parents would be preferable to a monogomous family with two.

That said: I think that while it would make life easier on the parent(s) to have help available on-hand, I don’t think that this is a sufficient reason for us to consider a family with two or more parents to be superior to a family with a single parent on grounds that it pales into insignificance when contrasted against the other significant element that you acknowledge as more important: Love.

Note that love alone isn’t enough either: Parents who pray for their children with treatable and potentially fatal diseases instead of getting them adequate medical care love their children too. They’re just criminally negligent in their duties as parents. So there’s more going on than just love too. (I expect that you probably already know and agree with this – I just thought it was worth spelling out explicitly).

Actually, I had two mothers. My parents are a lesbian couple. I find your arrogance and sense of smug superiority off-putting, to say the least. My family was not “broken” and it did not bring me any pain. Families come in many forms, and many kinds of families can produce healthy, happy, successful children. It doesn’t have anything to do with the gender or sexual orientation of the parents. It has to do with their parenting skills. Your Bible, which labels people “sinful” and inferior based on their sexual orientation, is part of the problem, not the solution. I’ll thank you to keep your Bible to yourself and let other people live their lives, not tell them what to do based on your personal beliefs.

No, I don’t think that (polyamory) follows.

Taking care of a child is a really tough job.  Like any really tough job, it helps a lot to be able to share the load.  My mom raised me mostly on her own, and I feel immensely fortunate that my wife and I can share the job.  I can’t tell you how many times one of us is busy, or tired and frustrated, and the other steps in without a word and seamlessly slots in as the person handling things at the time.  That’s huge.  Sometimes you have to go it alone.  Utmost respect to those who do.But, I don’t think the sex or the sexual practices of those doing the care-giving matter.   All I’m saying is that parenting is a job that is better shared- all other things being equal.  I don’t care if or what kind of sex the parents are having.

Parenting can certainly be easier when equally shared, that I will not contest. However, there are many parents raising children inside of adult relationships who will attest to the fact that parenting solo doesn’t just happen to single parents.

Sorry, but I think we’re mostly on the same page, and perhaps nit picking over details.  I’m sure we agree that families can’t be ranked and scored.  Different things work for different people, and yes, you’re right, “how many parents” is just one of many important factors.  I guess it does sound like I’m saying “my way is better”.  My feeling is more “HTF to single parents cope? And I wish we had some local family to babysit now and again.”

Forgive me, but my wife and I shoveled 2.5 yards of sand today for our son’s awesome new sandbox (that she designed and we built).  So now I can barely hold up my arms, and if Disqus decides to eat my line breaks, I’m gonna say “fuck it!”

Daniel, I speak truly from what I have seen and have experienced in regards to families, it’s great if your experience is different. 

Hi Anna, I humbly accept your rebuke. I actually am trying to learn something by posting on this site.  FYI somebody raised in a 2 parent christian family and believes in it’s values are  no different than someone like yourself who was raised in a completely different (not wrong) family setting and believes in its values. In many ways we go with what we are taught and the environment we were raised in.  You had 2 loving mothers thats great, all we can ask for as children is to have a parent or parents that love and value us.  I did, and i am glad you did to.  
As for the reference to the Bible, it refers to all mankind as being sinful, not based on sexual orientation, but on nature. Our human nature is what the Bible says the problem is.  And that is why in Gods eyes it doesn’t matter how good or bad we are.  Everyone is in the same boat. It doesn’t matter if you are the pope, gay, straight, truck driver, evangelical christian…we are human and need (according to the bible) of forgiveness.  So God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.  And just so you know the bible is written for, and obedience expected from professing christians, not those who don’t believe it.  Most of Jesus harsh words were for the religious leaders of the day, and I suspect if he was here today things would be no different. If someone is a TRUE follower of JESUS, they will not judge, they will love unconditionally. The Jesus of the Bible was in the company of “sinners” most of the time and heaped verbal abuse on the religious leaders for their hypocracy.  He showed nothing but grace to the “sinners”, but contempt on the so called “righteous”. There are “some” good followers of Jesus  out there, just as there are many good atheists and homosexuals. Blessings!

Hi Anna, I think you give christians to much credit for the difficulties homosexuals face in society. You could definitely place some of the blame there but not all of it.  I am a christian and honestly it’s not on most christians radar nearly  as much as what you think.  Reading many of the posts on this site you would think christians hate gay people…simply not true. When issues like voting for the definition of marriage happen, I will vote according to how I believe. Just as you will vote for how you believe. I am not voting AGAINST you, I am voting FOR what I believe. 

There’s an extremely high inverse correlation between support of same sex marriage and religious belief.  I’m quite certain that if you further broke down ‘unaffiliated’ that you’d find an even strong correlation. The less you believe in God, the less you care about other people’s sex lives.

http://www.pewforum.org/Gay-Marriage-and-Homosexuality/Religion-and-Attitudes-Toward-Same-Sex-Marriage.aspx