That's the wrong question. The correct question is: do you consider a pregnant woman to be other than a human being? To believe that abortion should be a criminal act, you have to believe not only that a fetus is legally a human, but that a woman is not.

Human beings have rights under the laws of the United States, including the right not to be forced to sustain life with their bodies. If I will die without a kidney, I cannot force you to give yours to me, and I am a fully adult person. If I will die without a blood transfusion, I cannot force you to spend 10 minutes and a needle stick to save my life. At what point do pregnant women cease to have the same rights you do?

This isn't an issue of what I believe, or what my faith holds to be true, because America is a secular nation, and the Christian religion is not the law.

As for what I believe, personally I think any sane person would be afraid to put words into Jesus's mouth. But I suspect his reaction would be similar to his reaction to the adultress... both righteous judgment and compassion, not one tempered with the other, but both in full measure.

Oh, and you don't get to call abortion pagan sacrifice. That's bullshit. There are no pagan gods being worshiped by women having abortions. No, you are not allowed to stretch a point by saying women who have abortions are worshiping the "false gods" of selfishness or whatever. There are still parts of the world where people actually make offerings to gods, and I'm sure those people would be willing to explain the difference to you.

I'm not exactly trembling at someone like you saying I'm not a Christian. Yours is the kind of "love" which is compatible with hurting people in the real world - stripping homosexuals of the right to visit each other in the hospital, inherit, and share benefits. It's the kind of "love" which allows you to enslave women and force them to do your bidding and punish them if they don't. In other words, it's not love at all. This isn't Opposite Day, and you calling me names doesn't make it so, any more than you calling evil righteousness makes it so, or calling hate love, or calling yourself a Christian makes you a representative of Christ.

I'd like to apologize to anyone who is finding this whole thread unpleasant, if I've added to that. I was just tired of hearing someone I love badmouthed without opposition.

She's not on board, no matter how nice she's trying to be.

That's not to say you have to give up all of your dreams for a three car garage. Perhaps there's a dream which will allow you some adventure without uprooting her quite so dramatically. I think you need to be looking for whatever the third option is.

It's far-fetched to imagine you know what Jesus would say about abortion.

I know what he said about lust: that having sex with someone, one time, ties you to that person forever. And also that a particular adulteress was forgiven. He seems to have been both utterly inflexible in theory and completely, utterly kind in practice - which is exactly what I would expect from a perfect person.

Does God care deeply about fetuses and regard them as people? Hard to say - God presumably is fine with one quarter of all pregnancies ending in miscarriage. You're either mistaken or lying about the history of your own church, which until recently regarded abortion as legal until after "quickening," which was when the soul was believed to enter the baby's body.

The scary, incomprehensible thing to authoritarians like you is that it's possible to be morally opposed to something without believing it should be enforced from the outside by law. Not all things which are opposed to your beliefs should be illegal. Take a deep breath and think about it. I know it's hard. God judges the content of your heart, not the actions you failed to do because you were in handcuffs.

Verses, I'll grant hypothetically that it might be possible for someone to rebuke homosexuals out of love. Although I believe such a person would be mistaken and misguided, they could theoretically be both loving and sincere.

The problem is that YOU are not acting out of love. You are acting out of hatred and fear, as is the entire Republican party. No good thing can come from a poisoned tree. It's not possible to serve God by doing the opposite of what he asks, and the first and great commandment is love. (That's a quote, you know. I didn't make it up.)

I'm sorry, but I look out and I see two bodies of people: those honestly trying to do others a kindness, and a bunch of bastards bullying the other children on the playground, knocking them down, and stealing their toys. There is no possibility that the bastards accidentally got it right despite their thoroughgoing blackhearted evil. I'll stand on the other side from the bastards, in Jesus' name.

Danke. You guys help me hang on to whatever shreds of sanity I have left.

Mr. Celery, if I weren't married I'd propose to you. But we would fight about food, so it's probably just as well.

You with the haikus (sorry I can't recall your handle): good job. Sometimes the only way to handle something deadly serious is to treat it a little lightly.