If Mr.Talbot had done a study of the scripture he would come to see that interracial marriage was never forbidden in the bible. The problem was inter-faith marriages. While there were churches that did indeed forbid interracial marriages, there are churches today that allow for homosexual marriages. Both are woefully ignorant of the bible and it's teachings. Skin color does not matter to God, It's your heart He wants....all of it.

And if Mr. Talbot had really studied his bible and held to the tenets of the holy book, he probably would have been too busy to attend the hearings. He might have been bust stoning his children, or tending to the needs of his many wives, or even ensuring that his slaves were performing their assigned tasks. All of these acts; slavery, polygamy, stoning your children are actions condoned in the bible. How many of us keep a kosher home? The bible tells us to do so.

God gave us the bible as his cultural word many years ago. We profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who is alive today. You cannot apply the writings of some thousands of years ago to God's love for us today.

Inter-racial marriage was against the law. There was civil law in place that made it illegal. Our African-American and other black brothers and sisters were not seen as equal in the eyes of civil law. Were there any churches that married inter-racial couples at that time? Are there any churches now that allow inter-faith marriage? Is there a civil law that forbids it?

BRAVO BDN !

Yes it's a civil rights and discrimination issue for me and for those who wants to be married, who cannot under the State of Maine civil laws.

Yes Religions can determine for their own members what that may their own Religious practices

BUT Religions should not dictate, except at the voting booth, what is a civil or legal right, for everyone.

fredrogers:

I agree. And there certainly is a commonality here....with the rights being withheld from same-sex couples as they were withheld from African Americans for so long. Human beings are human beings.

The best.

A well-reasoned editorial piece. This is the Civil Rights issue of our day and future generations will judge us for our actions now just as we judge those who fought against slavery, for the right of women to vote, and for Civil Rights. As 4Him2day shows in the first comment, the only argument against same-sex marriage is one based on a simplistic view of the Bible.

Homosexual Agenda Unrelated to Civil Rights Movement, Conservative Blacks Insist

Written by Lawrence Morahan

(CNSNews.com) — As homosexual advocacy groups increasingly model their push for greater acceptance on the rhetoric and tactics of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, some black groups are beginning to take exception.

The comparison between the two movements and the "rights" associated with them can be misleading, said David Almasi, director for Project 21, a group of conservative black leaders. "Homosexuality is behavior. It's not something you're born with," Almasi said.

The homosexual movement identifies itself with a number of sympathetic causes, including the Holocaust remembrance and the civil rights struggle, to advance its effort to gain acceptance. But any success the homosexual groups are having is attributable not to the legitimacy of their cause, but to a growing "culture of diversity and victimology," Almasi said.

"They're asking, 'If we can make gains in civil rights for different races, why not go for sexual orientation?'" he said.

Pastor D.L. Foster, founder of Witness! – an Atlanta, Georgia-based fellowship of 11 African American ministries that reach out primarily to black people struggling with homosexuality – said he is offended by the comparison.

"It's not so much the gay rights groups that I'm upset with, it's with so-called black leaders who have taken up this lie for the gay community and are pushing it for them."

Dr. John Diggs, a physician with the Massachusetts Physicians Resource Council, also said homosexual groups are trying to take advantage of the success of the civil rights movement. "Part of the whole gay agenda is to cast homosexuals in some sort of sympathetic light, so if it's been recognized worldwide that African Americans conquered a great evil of slavery and the Jim Crow laws through the civil rights movement, they would gladly tag onto that because they're exploiting the moral capital that we've earned," he said.

Blacks "can't go to a therapist and say, 'Make me white,'" said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, a group that works in partnership with the Witness ministries. "It doesn't work that way."

I dont think a gay person can go to a therapist and say make me straight, if they do, they are only lieing to themselves. Live and let live.

Moreover, Dr. Robert Spitzer, a prominent psychiatrist and researcher at Columbia University, and an advocate of the 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual of psychiatric disorders, recently reversed his stance.

After studying whether individuals can change, he concluded: "I'm convinced from the people I have interviewed, that for many of them, they have made substantial changes toward becoming heterosexual," he said. "I came to this study skeptical. I now claim that these changes can be sustained

How? Electro-shock therapy everytime they have a gay thought?

I think this is where people that are against gay marriage come up with the ideas that if we allow gay marriage, that everyone will have to become gay.

Because these are the same types of people are the ones that are trying to brainwash gay people to become straight.

4himself, quit copying and pasting from your conservative Christian websites. New York Times, Feb. 2007 that, “Although I suspect change occurs, I suspect it’s very rare. Is it 1 percent, 2 percent? I don’t think it’s 10 percent.”

“I suspect that the vast majority of gay people - even if they wanted to - would be unable to make substantial changes in sexual attraction and fantasy and enjoyment of heterosexual functioning that many of my subjects reported,”

Wait isn't Dr. Robert Spritzer a psychologist, what the hell are you quoting him for anyway. Hypocritical of you to deny psychology and then use a suppoed quote.

If you are someone struggling with homosexuality or know someone who is please check out this website. There is help out there for you from people who have been through this. Anything is possible with God, don't believe the homosexual lies.

http://www.citizenlink.org/FOSI/homosexuality/overcoming/A000007628.cfm

This post has hit a point that needs clarification. I was born gay, was a gay baby and toddler, a gay young man and grew up to be a gay man. I wasn't assaulted into being gay, programmed by my domineering mother, exposed to gay men or women and chose that nifty lifestyle. My first recollections were about attraction to people of my own sex. I was born that way. Did I struggle, yes I did, because it was seen as so wrong to feel the way I felt, I was afraid of the people around me, the people who used awful words and actions towards people who were gay, towards me directly. I got passed that and met my soul mate, the person I put before myself and my family. We should be married, we have spent every possible moment of the last 15 years together. By being born citizens of this country, we are born into the rights that each and every straight man or woman has, including the right to join our lives in marriage. Anything else is discrimination, excluding me from those rights is wrong. The point is clear, I didn't choose a hated, feared lifestyle, I overcame the stress and fear inflicted on me by society and survived being a minority in my family and my community. I didn't wake up and choose to be different, I just am. I have surrounded myself with gay and straight friends as an adult and live a good life. I will marry when it becomes available to me, it is my right as a citizen to do so. peace

jspear:

The best to you. Thanks for sharing about what you have been through. I hope you and your partner will receive all the rights and protections you deserve.

jspear you are the best. I love you very much and I could not be prouder of you. I wish the rest of the world could see things as clearly as you do, it would be a much nicer place to live. Thank you for everything you have given and taught me over the years. I hope that you and S will marry some day. Please let these men and woman have the same security and happiness the rest of the human race has the right to do.

jspears(favorite) sister

Now hold on, no accolades here, people will talk.....Maybe that's the point! You are the wind beneath my wings sister and I love you very much. Now if we could only find our birth parents and straighten out the rest of the family or at least explain it away! I am hoping for the best here in maine and at home. thanks for the kind words....lyb