Bearing False Witness

There is one Commandment that modern Christians have totally wiped from their moral compass – Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor – and no better example of this can be found than the message the churches are using to overturn the rights of gays to marry in California.

In order to get out the vote, they must find some harm to themselves in allowing gays to marry, and if they cannot find any – well as Jesus reportedly said, just make shit up.

Let us examine their claims Six Consequences If Proposition 8 Fails one by one:

1. Children in public schools will be taught that both traditional marriage and same-sex marriage are okay.
   The California Education Code already requires that health education classes instruct children about marriage. (§51890)
   Therefore, if the definition of marriage is changed, children will be taught that marriage is a relation between any two adults. There will be serious clashes between the secular school system and the right of parents to teach their children their own values and beliefs.

There are already “clashes” between the “secular school system” and the beliefs of parents but there is nothing serious about such clashes. Jewish mothers can still tell their son the doctor-to-be to have nothing to do with shiksas and marry a nice jewish girl.

Just because the secular school system says that it is legal for Catholics and Jews to intermarry is not a serious harm to the rights of Jewish mothers.

2. Churches will be sued if they refuse to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies in their religious buildings that are open to the public.

Craftily worded – religious buildings that are open to the public – you would almost think we were talking about a church. (Shows expertise at violating the 9^th commandment, don’t you think?)

Actually we are talking about a public pavilion open to the public and receiving tax exemption because of that – in a state which outlaws gay marriage. It happened to be owned by a religious denomination which refused a lesbian couple the right to rent it for a commitment ceremony and was found to violate a local equal-access law.

"Ask whether your pastor, priest, minister, bishop, or rabbi is ready to perform such marriages in your chapels and sanctuaries. "

No one can be required to perform a marriage - priests refuse to marry divorced persons, rabbis can refuse to marry the uncircumcised, Mormons can refuse the Gentiles Temple weddings - even in Boston and Canada.

3. Religious adoption agencies will be challenged by government agencies to give up their long-held right to place children only in homes with both a mother and a father. Catholic Charities in Boston has already closed its doors because of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

That is true – they did close their doors – but an adoption agency is a state licensed activity, not a religious one, and they have to abide by state anti-discrimination laws which require them even to allow single parents and mixed-race parents and Muslims to adopt.

Here again they befell anti-discrimination ordinances, not “gay marriage”.

4 Religions that sponsor private schools and which provide housing for married students will be required to provide housing for same-sex couples, even if it runs counter to church doctrine, or lose tax exemptions and benefits.

Could be a bit of truth here – I think Bob Jones had to allow mixed race couples. I doubt it is such a great harm as compared to the harm to gay families by taking away their right to marry, however. One can also hope that there aren't that many gay couples who would want to attend such schools.

5. Ministers who preach against same-sex marriages will be sued for hate speech and could be fined by the government. It has already happened in Canada, one of six countries that have legalized gay marriage.

An outright lie, and oft repeated one. The preacher in Canada was not “preaching against same-sex marriages” but was accused of preaching hate-speech against gays. And it cannot happen here because hate speech is legal and constitutionally protected, unlike Canada which has laws against hate speech.

In Canada the Catholic churches routinely preach against same sex marriage and here in the USA “God Hates Fags” preachers are protected by the constitution and nothing about same-sex marriage changes that.

6. It will cost you money. A change in the definition of marriage will bring a cascade of lawsuits. Even if courts eventually find in favor of a defender of traditional marriage (highly improbable given today’s activist judges), think of the money – your money, your church contributions – that will have to be spent on legal fees.

A “cascade of lawsuits” ? What are they planning ? Because that is not the history in states and countries which have legalized same-sex marriages. There have been few and they are usually not “marriage” lawsuits but “equal rights” lawsuits, and they occur in states which do not allow same sex marriage also

They should be ashamed – but they have erased that 9^th Commandment from their doctrines.