Let say you have 3 guys, all good men, no record. ..all the but for 1 thing. 1 wants to join for business contacts, 1 wants to join for self improvement and 1 wants to join to see all the fuss is about. Which one do you want ?
Or lets say you interview guy , good guy, no record etc. ..but something seems off your gut tells you that this guy is not a good fit for masonry ....what do you do?
Just because they do or do not have a record doesn't make them good men. There are people with clean records who are terrible people. Also one of the best men I have ever known got into trouble with he was 18. Now close to 40 he has not been in anymore trouble and is the most honorable Mason I know.
I see my vote in this way. Every man who petitions in a no vote until they are shown to be a yes vote. This is just me personally as not all men should be made a Mason. With that being said I can't vote no on a man just because I don't like him. If it's just because I as a person do not like him as a person I see that as a petty reason for me to vote no.
I will say my gut feeling is this for scenario one: business guy stays a no without additional information. The other two I'm assuming everything is great and they are both yes.
In your second scenario being that my gut tells me know it wouldn't make sense for me to say yes. However, my gut feeling would be based of observable facts and circumstances so it would be my responsibility to express this.
Now for what I see as the truth in these scenarios there is not enough information provided in brief discussion board scenarios to make a judgment of a mans life to accurately say how I would vote. Every person has a bad moment and if you look at each of us for a short enough glimpse of time each of us would look horrible. May be the business name is under the impression that Masonry is for business contacts, as is a common misconception.
Truth be told all there that is required for men to join our fraternity is minimum qualifications. The issue I see with this thread is men are adding qualifications to join and that is where problems come from. Each lodge let me say that again, each lodge should decide its membership NOT the grand lodge outside of minimum qualifications. Something the SW says when the lodge is opened in a number of areas something about harmony.
With that being said if individual lodges are violating the minimum qualifications then the grand lodge should address the issue.
Being a man, having a good reputation, believing in a supreme being, and well there is no and, this is the qualification to becoming a Mason. This standard has been around much longer than I have been alive. That is the standard, now I know there are GL's that have additional requirements in other parts of the world. But that is the exception to the rule and not the rule. When we start changing Masonry when does it become something other than Masonry?
Before someone says but the rule has been on the books for 30 years, is Masonry only 30 years old? No it is older than that.
I am a Christian, as are many others in the fraternity, I read the Holy Bible and do not see homosexuality as a sin period. I know others do. But as a Christian I know where these rules came from and being a Christian from the south (Alabama) I know why. I know the area is mostly evangelical Christian of some sort, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, what is wrong is when Masons began placing their religious again THEIR religious beliefs/requirements on an entire fraternity. Again I know other GL's in other parts of the world so lets not get into that here as that goes beyond this discussion. My Christian beliefs are mine not yours (whoever is reading this) I should not force my beliefs on my fraternity. If I cannot separate the two if my convictions are so strong that I cannot accept men of other faith systems, even men of other faith systems within my faith, then I have stepped outside of what Masonry is and I need to separate myself from Masonry.
This is all my opinion and nothing else.