The Baha'i Studies Listserv Stephen, I guess if society wants to base its mores on the standards of a religion that makes up 0.1% of the world's population, that would be their choice. No one would more surprised than we if they based their mores on our standards without first embracing from the heart our scriptures and covenant. They won't.
If we wanted to impose our standards on them, we would initiate an international political party dedicated to seizing political power all over the world. We don't. If you walk into a Baha'i meeting anywhere, you would probably find very little discussion of the issues you have mentioned. We rarely involve the experts from wikipedia in our consultations. This is a religion based on studying and practicing the writings of Baha'u'llah, not on injecting clever puritanical solutions into the political passions du jour. GS -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Kent Gray <skg_z...@yahoo.com> To: Baha'i Studies <bahai-st@list.jccc.edu> Sent: Wed, Apr 17, 2013 12:50 pm Subject: Re: Against nature... The Baha'i Studies Listserv Many cultures attempt to codify their prescriptions concerning individual sexual behaviors. Such codifications are frequently enacted as laws, extending their application beyond the culture to other cultures under the purview of the laws, including dissenters. Most of the Islamic world has strict rules enforced with sometimes violent punishments to enforce Islamic moral codes, including sexual morality on their citizens, and impose it on non-Muslims living within their societies. The same was true of various European Christian regimes at some stages in history, and some contemporary Christians support restrictions on the private expression of sexuality outside of marriage, ranging from prohibitions of prostitution to restrictions on oral sex and sodomy. The Wikipedia links is below, but why would society base it's mores on the standards of a religion that makes up 0.1% of the world's population? Susan, while conservatives tend to make claims like that all the time, no actual evidence has shown that to be true. Instead, two parent households regardless of gender is the ideal home according to the data. Interpreting the data any other way is a non sequitur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_sexuality Sent from my iPad On Apr 17, 2013, at 13:51, Susan Maneck <sman...@gmail.com> wrote: The Baha'i Studies Listserv Susan, have you read the earlier e-mail in this thread. Don C thinks society should have a zero tolerance policy towards non-heterosexuality. No marriage, no civil unions, no domestic partnership, no adoption, no parental rights, etc. He was complaining society gives them too many rights and blames it on secular liberalism. I'm sorry, but I read all of Don's posts and I didn't read a single one which stated that gays should have no legal rights or be afforded any tolerance. That would be diametrically opposed to our own NSAs recent letter on this issue. But I'll let him say for himself whether he thinks you have accurately represented his views. But please show me exactly where Don said that a gay parent should lose all of their parental rights? As far as 'adoption' goes, I don't think there is any such thing as a 'right' to adoption. Adoptions should be for the benefit of the child, period. And I would agree with Don that children are better off with a mother and a father. But there are cases, especially with hard-to-place children, where a single parent or homosexual couple might be the best alternative to foster care. For instance, I know of one gay couple that adopted a five African-American siblings. No way would those kids have been kept together under any other circumstance. In that case, keeping the brothers and sisters together ought to take precedence over not providing them with both a mother and a father. . __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:arch...@mail-archive.com Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-697604-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to ly...@list.jccc.edu Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu