>>So...since technically the church isn't answerable to the government, what if a certain denomination wanted to say that a woman couldn't be a pastor. (which has happened) would that be a sexist discrimination?

Legally, no. If the church isn't funded by the government, it isn't answerable to the government's statutes. Hence why Jewish churches, for example, don't marry Jews to non-Jews and are not required to do so; why some Catholic churches will not divorce or annul marriages and are not required to do so.

>>ick. that creeps me out. if the government decided that i as a woman couldn't vote, and that as a black person i couldn't go to college, would that mean that i no longer had the right to those things?

LEGALLY, yes--this is WHY I specified at the beginning that I was talking about legal rights. If you're going to define your terms differently than I'm doing, you need to say so, or this conversation's just going to get more confusing.

>>i agree that it would be ideal for everyone to have the chance to learn. (although i doubt it will ever happen.:( _) But i'm not sure it's a right. That makes it sound like it's morally wrong for someone not to be educated.

I don't follow this logic at all. In Loving v. Virginia in 1967, blacks were formally given the right to marry whites (and vice-versa); does this mean all marriages are now OBLIGED to be interracial? As I said above, a right does not equal an obligation.

I consider my coworkers at my current workplace to be my second family, and love and value and respect them as such. The majority of them never finished college. Some of them never finished high school. My own father went to a trade school. My mother, though she had a college degree, was a fulltime stay-at-home mom until I was a teenager. I am not saying these people should all be OBLIGED to have finished college, gone to grad school, and found a profession in their area of study; I'd be a hypocrite for saying so.

What I'm saying is that if they WISH to do so, they shouldn't be held back by financial problems, discrimination, or lack of good local schools.

And I'm not even touching the health care, gun control, or "it's not a sin. it's something your body was created to do" comments, because frankly I do not have time for a big derail-y debate. :P But I like pointing out when I'm exercising self-control, because it irritates Mick.

Gee thanks Var. :D

Anytime, babycakes. :D

wow, I missed a lot.:P

are you all talking about legal rights or 'unalienable rights'?

Well, I was originally talking about legal rights; Meg seems to be talking about something else, but she can define her terms herself as I don't want to put words in her mouth.

Yes, I'm talking about something different, Var.:D We as human beings must have some kind of right that doesn't depend on the government. If we didn't, then how could we call any kind of government tyrannical?

What I want to know is what are those rights. Unalienable rights if you will.

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Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

*bump*

did my last post make any sense?

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Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.