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Yesterday I got an email by a listener of The Phileas Club. I often get emails and answer them privately, but after writing this one I thought that it was summarizing my thoughts on the topic enough that I should make a blog post about it. So here is the original email, and my answer.
Quick note: the topic is sensitive, and in the past we have managed to keep these kinds of debates very civilized on this blog. If you chose to comment, please keep that tradition alive, thanks! 🙂

B.’s email:

I recently started listening to your show and started from the beginning and have been slowly catching up to the recent shows. I was a little disappointed at the sara palen talk because of the anti religious tone it took but let it go because i figured that was going on in the media at the time as well. Then I got to episode 10 and was completely offended at the comment you made that something should be done to people that preach the young earth theory. Evolution is not fact, it might be the majority view but remember that the majority also thought the world was flat at one point. There are scientists that use the same research as evolutionist and show it to back the theory of a young earth. I don’t expect you to change your view on this subject but I think you should know that our comment upset me.

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I wanted to wait a bit before commenting on Proposition 8 and the banning of gay marriage in several states in the US. For those who don’t know, a few states now have it written in their constitution that marriage is only possible between one man and one woman. Which is ironic since the California campaign for this was heavily pushed by the Mormon church, in which men often (sometimes?) have multiple wives…

Anyway, that’s besides the point, but it does also state the obvious fact that the organizations supporting this mostly take roots in religious circles (though I imagine not all supporters are religious).

And before I talk about the ban on marriage proper, I just want to say that Florida not only banned gay marriage, but also pre-emptively banned any contract that would try to “emulate” marriage. While the language isn’t crystal clear, this pretty much puts a ban on civil unions too. This is just ridiculous… Marriage is one thing, and I can understand the debate. But this?!… Ok, let’s not derail the post.

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