biggentleben

You've gone off the reservation before. This puts Pine Ridge way in the rearview!

Marriage was not the standard in many cultures of what constituted a long-term relationship. That's where defining marriage is questionable. Many debates took place, sure, but the stance of the church body on issues has drastically changed. To not see/admit this is simply ignoring facts.

First, it's never been unquestioned. It's never been exclusive in any culture. Marriage as defined by the state and by the church are not one in the same. Many go around the church to get married through the state, so it's obviously not unquestioned as there are already multiple definitions going around. If the angle of why same-sex is your issue, why interracial couples (of any combination of gender), why international couples, why divorced couples? You could extrapolate things from the Bible to state that any of the above are wrong. It'd be a gross misinterpretation of God's Word, but you could continue down the road that many have over the years in this country in order to put down someone else in the society. The difference in this country being that churches can do that, but it is not the nation doing it. Hitler combined both, and obviously, that's an incredibly dangerous road to go down. Moral ground involving slavery, racism, sexism, and the "worthiness" of those who are not part of the church has evolved tremendously within the church in the last 1,000 years. While slavery was outlawed in this country, many Christian denominations did not object to passive slavery that existed in the way house servants were treated in this country or the way people were still enslaved throughout the world. Now you see active movements of Christian believers working against forced labor in any form all over the world. I could go on and explain each, but if you don't see how each has changed in the church's approach to each issue, you're simply blinding yourself. What is stated in the Bible vs. what is the actions of the church have not been equal, and they continue not to be. Using moral/religious authority in this case simply does not work. Especially since it does nothing to affect that religion's ability to discriminate and hate all they want even with this legislation change.

So here's where I see a big difference: because the LAW says same sex marriage is legal does not force the CHURCH of your particular belief to honor, perform, or even respect those marriages. Much like a fitness center could tell a 400-lb man that he would not make a good personal trainer and face no real legal threat, a church can say that they will not allow a same sex marriage to take place in their facility and there is no threat to the church for saying so. I have heard way too many arguments that boil down to personal religious beliefs. Attempting to legislate religion is always a fallacy as social definitions of religion are always changing. 150 years ago, many Christian faiths in the US endorsed slavery. 100 years ago, many Christian faiths in the US endorsed excluding women from the workforce outside of particular positions (nursing, teaching, and secretarial work, primarily). 50 years ago, many Christian faiths felt a black man and white woman marrying was outside of their religion. Legislate based on what's best/right/equitable for society, not for a religion.

I took this to my better half, and I ended up wearing that sandwich. It was quite tasty, though. Dang that dijon mustard does the trick!

Heck, the first marriage (if you're one of the extremists who wants to call it that, albeit not defined in Biblical literature) was not began with any children in mind. The purpose of that "marriage" was for shared responsibilities in the Garden of Eden, not procreation. Let's jump off the Bible angle because it's simply incorrect if you know your Bible and not the "talking points Bible" commonly used on conservative talk radio and Fox News.

Yes, I realize. I just enjoyed the satire of her being so butt-hurt that she'd leave. Yet, who would want her?!

Michelle Bachmann gave an interview saying she'd leave Minnesota if the bill passed. Unconfirmed reports that 38 other states have immediately passed interstate immigration laws disallowing moving from any other state for the rest of 2013.

Lots of glass - that's wise in Minnesota winters...

Exactly. No one is assuming he'll have a prominent role for a team, but he's absolutely got a job on an NBA bench if he wants it at this point in his career, especially on defense.

In the general populace, sure. In the confines of a locker room in a professional (or even collegiate) sport, not near as much. There's a reason that Brendan Ayanbadejo and Chris Kluwe get so much publicity. Not just because they talk about the issue, but because it's so incredibly rare that they speak out so strongly on the side that they do.

Yeah, remember when it was a great duel with Josh Johnson and Roy Halladay in Phillie/Marlin games? Now Kevin Slowey looks like Cy Slowey while Halladay looks like a scrub who just came into a rotation spot the last week of spring training.

I'm not sure on that. You haven't heard that from a lot of scouts. Most say he's simply not got the same stuff any more due to slow deterioration of his arm by age and innings, but he's not making any adjustments in his pitching to counter it. Some days he'll put up a very solid game because of that, but his stuff is more the issue than an injury, I would say...at least from watching 3 of his starts this season.

That says it all. Thanks for clearing up any need to reply going forward.

Part of that was the team, though. He'd have had a lot more minutes with the TWolves, the Lakers, or any number of teams who didn't already have two guys with his basic skill set.

He's 7' tall and plays solid defense. He won't have a contract if he doesn't want one, otherwise, he'll be playing.

I do the same (depth up the middle) in my deep dynasty leagues. The longest-standing league I have has this depth at C/2B/SS: C - Mauer, Ruiz, Grandal 2B/SS - Pedroia, Zack Cozart, Marwin Gonzalez, Andrelton Simmons, Marco Scutaro, Alen Hanson I'm in 3 40-man roster, 16-team dynasty leagues, and my other two leagues are similar: Team I took over this year: C - Mauer, Lucroy, Grandal, Zunino (only have Grandal left from my original roster I inherited) 2B/SS - Pedroia, Hanley, Pete Kozma, Xander Bogaerts, Brad Miller Team drafted this season: C - Mauer (7th round pick in that league!), Wilson Ramos, Evan Gattis, Austin Hedges 2B/SS - Emilio Bonifacio, Jemile Weeks, Brian Dozier, Erick Aybar, Stephen Drew, Trevor Story

I won't claim to be a well-versed NBA fan, but basically anyone who is an "expert" on NBA has said that he is a perfect backup center for purposes of defense. You cite points per game as if that's the only impact that a 7-foot tall player could have on the court. He's done nothing to the league. He's a guy who's living on one-year veteran's minimum contracts at this point, and he was all but guaranteed another one for 2013-2014 before this announcement. The league is in no different place now than they were before the announcement. I'm hearing from a lot of the anti-gay extreme right that same argument about the league, and most of them couldn't name more than 2 teams currently in the NBA playoffs.

Not sure what society you're a part of, but that's not true of much of society and CERTAINLY is not true in the society of professional male athletes who are active in their sport.

There are 5: Leviticus, the Genesis story of Sodom, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. Nothing from Jesus in the Gospels or Acts.

However, neither would the divorced and remarried person either. That's what my point was. Nearly every Christian denomination would accept a divorced and remarried pastor to lead their congregation, and certainly they would not question the validity of his faith.

Yep, and there are plenty we do every day. Nearly every Christian church allows for a remarried pastor who has been divorced to serve in ministry, and Jesus specifically spoke against that sin and said nothing directly on homosexuality. I doubt the divorced pastor is going to kick his new wife to the curb so he's not in "open rebellion", yet his "rebellion" is accepted and being homosexual is not.

He's been off all season this year, though. He could be a candidate for another surgery.

His last sentence is where he's off his rocker. Basic Christian theology at its core says we're all sinners, fell short of being worthy of heaven on our own, and required Jesus as a sacrifice for all of our sins - past, current, and future. At the very basic level of Christian theology, everyone is in open rebellion to God in every moment of his/her earthly life, and by Broussard's words, that would deem them "not a Christian". Christianity is under fire for exactly reasons like this - the extreme nutjobs don't just attack those who don't believe in Christ, but those who do as well.

Okay, that's me not explaining my point well. You sign your 2nd round pick, and you have someone typically your organization is locked into for a number of years. You sign Keith Brooking or someone like that, it's understood it's a short-term answer, and no one expects you to keep him on the team for 2014. Money-wise for this year, it's similar, but then going into 2014, that spot (and money) is open again for possibly a better player to come on board and take over the position long-term. When they moved those picks, they essentially were saying (to me, at least), we're planning to fill these spots with short-term fixes for now because we think we have a top-end long-term star that we could get.