Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Homos to force Ministers to perform homo marriage

Several things come to mind here. For one thing, I've always been against the government being in the marriage business. Since they don't test for diseases and such anymore, I don't see the point of a marriage license-other than for taxes.

The tax code is so convoluted and effed up it is unreal. Why should married folk get breaks for being hitched? Why should people get to deduct their kids? None of it is fair and none of it makes sense. Sorry for saying the f word. I know most here are against fairness of any kind and the word itself is an anathema to them.

I don't see why the government gets to define marriage in the first place. It's all about money. I couldn't care less if two guys want to get married. I don't believe in it and neither does my Church. The Church shouldn't be forced to marry people they don't believe in marrying. Neither should an individual minister. It begs the question of what happens if a Catholic Priest decides that a hetero couple hasn't done well enough on the class they have to take before getting hitched and refuses to marry them? If you have to marry homos, why not make them marry heteros where the marriage is bound to fail?

The whole thing is so effed it's insane. It's obvious that real marriage is between a man and a woman, but at the same time, where is it the government's role to define it as such or in any other way? I've long thought that this is what would result by letting the government be in charge of marriage.

I also think there's a misunderstanding of tax exempt status, but maybe it's by me. From what I understood, Churches are organizations, not Ministers. The Church is exempt from taxes but individual Ministers are not. Therefore the Church itself cannot be told what to do on this because it is marrying nobody. When my wife and I got hitched, we paid the Preacher. The Church got nothing. I might have made a donation, but there was no requirement. I don't have any idea if the Preacher would have done it if it was a situation where he knew he wasn't getting paid. But I assume the Preacher reported the income and paid taxes on it.

If they are profiting from weddings, that kind of weakens their non-profit status claim, doesn't it?

...Maybe your objection is more centered on the church rather than non-profits in general...

That's a fair assumption. And I don't claim innocence in this. I have only come to the place where I see the problem recently.

For a Christian church to say they are "non-profit" while requiring "donations" for goods or services, seems to me, there is a problem reconciling that with faith and honesty. I know that for most religious groups, my thoughts on this would be challenging to the point of being offensive. I'm okay with that.

I think you can reconcile your thoughts in terms of "not-for-profit."
Any non-profit, religious or non religious, must cover its cost of providing services.
"Thou shalt not muzzel the ox that treads the corn." Paul uses that verse to explain that he saw no contradition in receiving material support for Spiritual ministry.

7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn�t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: �Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.�[b] Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn�t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn�t we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

13 Don�t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? 14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

15 But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast. 16 For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

"But neither, in my mind, have anything to do with expecting expenses (like clean-up) to be covered by the user."

And this is my though as well.

My reference was far beyond the issue of the original post. I thought you had drifted into the area of wither a pastor, minister, or Evangelist should receive material compensation for spiritual ministry.

For a Christian church to say they are "non-profit" while requiring "donations" for goods or services, seems to me, there is a problem reconciling that with faith and honesty. I know that for most religious groups, my thoughts on this would be challenging to the point of being offensive. I'm okay with that.

Why is it that marriage is NOT a Sacrament in the Lutheran Church (or is that just in the ELCA?) For how long has the doctrine been such?

Do you even comprehend what the term "non-profit" means legally? Or the more common term nowadays "not for profit"? You're kind of sounding like a liberal who wants free handouts, but actually somebody else has to pay for it behind the scenes.

the war on Christians is out of control
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014...who-refuse-to-perform-same-sex-weddings/

Be like the Pagans and divorce the Church from the State. Simple!

Marriage is one of the few things the state has any legitimate interest in. Especially if you take the classic, as opposed to the modernistic, view of what the state is supposed to be.

Look at it another way.....if your religion has so little faith and so few practitioners willing to sacrifice their own contribution that it can't survive without taking in profit, what does that say about it? Lots of secular non-profit orgs need to do that, but they are not burdened with the mission of spreading the Good News (Gospel is such a misunderstood word) - so their only standard is to meet legal requirements. The Church....God's Church....should have higher standards.

The Church is not "taking in profit" when they ask someone to pay the COSTS of a wedding in their building. Your above description clearly shows that you want the religious adherents to make their own contributions in order to cover the COSTS of someone else's wedding ceremony. That's the definition of being a freeloader.

You're holding to a double-standard for religious non-profits due to your misunderstanding of the legal definition. And yes, in this discussion, the legal definition is what counts, since if the laws/courts were not involved, this wouldn't be any kind of problem at all in the first place.

The classic view of the state was that it represented a people. It's function was to represent and protect the interests of a people.
Therefore, the state was responsible for protecting the people from enemies and invaders, the integrity of the borders, and the general welfare of the people. There are 3 basic ways to eliminate a people - annihilation, infiltration and dilution, and finally, infertility. So, the state, along with it's general function of protecting life, limb and societal cohesion, has a corollary function of promoting the continued production of the people it represents.

When you get into the modern view of the state as simply a geographical monopoly, it's interest in promoting the continuation of any people becomes a little murkier, but is still there. After all, it's difficult for a state to continue when none of the people believe in the ideals it espouses. So therefore the state must encourage the production of the people that do believe it's organizing principles.