Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Bronx Declaration

The Manhattan Declaration got bogged down with a bunch of irrelevant stuff. Here's an alternative, the Bronx (another part of New York City, for those wondering what Bronx has to do with anything) Declaration:

(1) Two men can't marry one another, no matter how strongly they wish otherwise. That's because marriage is between a man and a woman, not between two men or between two women. Fornication between two men doesn't marry them in the eyes of God, and shouldn't be recognized as marriage in the eyes of the state.

(2) A child in his mother's womb is a child no matter how strongly his mother may wish otherwise. It's a biological fact, folks. The fact that the child's placenta feeds off the mother's womb wall doesn't make him a part of her, any more than him nursing after birth makes him a part of her. He has his own human genome, and ought to be protected and nurtured, not killed, by his mother. The state ought also protect unborn children, even from their mothers.

(3) We will continue to point out (1) and (2) no matter how strongly you may wish otherwise. Yes, that may lead to negative consequences for us, but we're willing to speak out for the objective immorality of calling fornication marriage or refusing to outlaw murder of the most helpless human denizens of a state. We point these things out not because we have decided that fornication and murder are wrong, but because the God who created all flesh and who defined marriage in the Garden of Eden has declared this to be the case.

Signed,

TurretinFan

77 comments:

  1. Put my name down there in bold too :)

    ~ Sir Brass (of the pen)

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  2. I'm in agreement. Now, how do I get out of The Bronx?

    ---Algo---

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  3. Now THAT is a document I can sign! Way to go Tur8inFan!

    JAMES WHITE

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  4. Yes, me too, I will sign that one!

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  5. Amen. Happy to put my name to this one.

    - Carla Rolfe

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  6. Is there any point to this besides expressing disagreement with the Manhattan Declaration? Is it an actual petition that's going to be sent to any public figures?

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  7. sounds about right.

    i'm in full agreement.

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  8. Alphonsus:

    If we get enough signatures, I'll forward a link to the email servers of various heads of state, if they seem to be unaware. If we get that many, though, they will probably already be aware. After all, this is the Internet.

    -TurretinFan

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  9. would you consider changing
    "A child in his mother's womb is a child no matter how strongly his mother may wish otherwise"

    to

    "A child in his mother's womb is a child no matter how strongly his mother may be told otherwise"

    then I'd sign in a heartbeat!

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  10. Great. Count me in, I agree. Hope you don't mind if I post a copy of it on my blog too. (Http://Romans155.com/social/reflections/)

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  11. Hi,

    I posted your declaration here: http://www.bronx.com/news/Society/710.html Pls let me know if you have a relevant photo you wish to publish along with your declaration.

    Thanks,

    Peter
    Bronx.com

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  12. Glad to hear about the mirrored publications.

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  13. Pastor Ould,

    The other wording would be poor parallelism. I would agree that your proposed wording would *also* be true. The facts are what they are, whether people tell women of those facts or not.

    -TurretinFan

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  14. I applaud your work on this concise, biblical document, TurretinFan!

    Please add my signature to "The Bronx Declaration."

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  15. Fascinatingly simple. I'm in.

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  16. Two women cannot marry two women no matter how much they wish otherwise.

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  17. I totally agree. What God has decreed and made is not for mortal man to try to change. Praise God He is Sovereign.

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  18. Funny, but incomplete. You left out the part about religious liberty.

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  19. I would be willing to sign this new declaration!

    ~Tania Metchikoff

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  20. The other wording would be poor parallelism. I would agree that your proposed wording would *also* be true. The facts are what they are, whether people tell women of those facts or not.

    Well, I certainly agree with that - the parellelism would be broken. But I think the principle is, perhaps, more important than maintaining a strict parallel.

    Nevertheless, do understand that I am entirely in sympathy with what you are seeking to affirm here. I've just spent a little too much time in the issue to be comfortable with such a direct statement that, to my mind, misses the real source of the evil.

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  21. Just curious...

    Shouldn't this declaration include pointing out what marriage is?

    Just a thought...

    Chris

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  22. Pastor Ould,

    I would view your proposal as putting the cart before the horse.

    Sinners (of every kind, not just the two we've singled out in this declaration) are easily persuaded that sin is harmless because they desire to sin. Misleading education is bad, it is not the root of the problem.

    -TurretinFan

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  23. I mean, "marriage is between a man and a woman".

    Right, but marriage is WHAT between a man and a woman?

    Chris

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  24. Chris:

    The declaration is a bit implicit about that, but the obscure answer is found in "God who ... defined marriage in the Garden of Eden."

    -TurretinFan

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  25. After slogging through The Manhattan Declaration, and comparing it to The Bronx Declaration I for one am persuaded that the title "The Manhattan Declaration" is a misnomer.

    Due to the amount of offensive intellectual flatulence it emits I think it should be renamed The Bronx Cheer, or perhaps The Skubelon Declaration.

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  26. Despite what Shea says, we welcome false Christians to sign if they want to.

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  27. Hmmmm. . .a rabid non-Catholic presents a grossly oversimplified version of the Manhattan Declaration, adding a little caveat that allows for continued berating of Catholicism. . .no, I think I'll stick with the original. Robert George has established his bona fides for intellectualism a tad more thoroughly than the author of the Bronx Declaration.

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  28. Demolition:

    Rabid, eh? Thanks again for stopping by.

    -TurretinFan

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  29. Let the word go forth that there are still many good men and women who will stand for principle in the face of the powers of hell. With the help of God we will prevail! The alternative is the total destruction of civilisation as we know it.

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  30. The Manhattan Declaration (currently at 310,111 signatures)got "bogged down" in the imagination of the Cult of White. So now you've garnered a whopping fifty-some signatures from the members of the Cult of White. Exciting. Where would you be without the Church to react to?

    As to the statement itself (the bare text, I mean, not the "We hate the Catholic Church and offer the Bronx Declaration out of envy and rivalry" which inspired this silly project), put me down as a signatory. Write below my name, "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of partisanship, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice." (Gal 1:15-18) St. Paul, pray for TurretinFan.

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  31. LOL Mark. You are a very creative guy with a very vivid (if somewhat errant, in respect to motivations) imagination. I have yet to delete a signature, and I'll let yours stand.

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  32. Mark Shea:

    Do you practice being that way, or is it just natural to you? Amazing, simply amazing.

    james

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  33. At the risk of offending my friends when they find out that a Georgia boy signed ANYTHING with the name Bronx attached to it, count me in.

    Bobby

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  34. Re-posted (with a minor alteration) from http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/12/last-truly-true-christians-on-earth.html

    When it makes the transition from Calvinist blog post to a bona fide declaration/petiton, I'll consider signing it. Of course, the preamble of sorts denigrating the Manhattan Declraion as "bogged down with a bunch of irrelevant stuff" will probably dissuade me from doing so. Also, I find the Bronx Declaration's lack of argumentation somewhat problematic. It may state what its signatories believe, but provides little explanation why they believe it or, perhaps more importantly for this kind of document, why a pluralistic society should follow it.

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  35. Alphonsus, did you notice that Shea signed this?

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  36. "Alphonsus, did you notice that Shea signed this?"

    Yeah, but I'm not his follower or anything.

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  37. Signed!

    (Only 999,926 more "signatures" needed)

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  38. Why stop at banning gay marriage? The Bible says that to divorce one's wife is to commit adultery (Luke 16:18) and that anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (with the SINGLE exception of infidelity). The vast majority of remarriages in this nation are unbiblical and are examples of unrepentant, perpetual adultery.

    Are you sure that it's only gay marriage that angers God? What about idolatry? How many nations were destroyed for that throughout Scripture? Maybe we should outlaw the practice of any religion deemed idolatrous or heretical (by whomever has been declared infallible enough to make that determination), including Mormonism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Christian Science, Hinduism, Pentecostalism, Seventh-Day Adventism, etc. etc.

    Naw ... let's just ban the granting of a SECULAR civil contract to two men because ... well, we just "hate queers".

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  39. Why the censorship? Unable to deal with honest questions? YOU stopped at gay marriage. Nowhere in your little Bronx proposal did you suggest banning unbiblical divorce and remarriage.

    And you didn't address the question. The premise of your declaration is that gay marriage should be banned *because* it's against God's law. Well, so is idolatry. Therefore, we must ban the practice of it by criminalizing the practice of heretical and idolatrous faiths, yes? What are you afraid of? Taking your argument to its logical conclusion or approaching it with any consistency will reveal you for the fascist you are?

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