Only hypothetically? Surely they are “always” the most natural form of parenting? Surely, as a class, they are “always” the best form of parents, despite individual cases to the contrary?
Careful, that sounds like an “end justifies the means” king or argument.
They are doing the imposing. Not us. They are altering society. Nobody lives in a bubble. Bad ideas have bad consequences. Esp for children who will be brought up in an environment where both SSM and OSM are equal. They are not. Either religiously or scientifically. There is no hard science basis for SSM. That is since men and women have compatible reproductive organs for the purpose of reproduction. Male and female DNA. Sex acts between same sex couples unnatural, abusive to human anatomy and sterile.
Your argument does not stand, as it operates on the assumption that society is a concrete entity. Society is not an entity, but rather an idea. Changing an idea is merely a mental exercise, and hardly imposes on anyone. But once one starts penalizing people for those ideas, then the matter changes.
Homosexual couples demanding SSM are not seeking anything “analogous” to marriage, they are seeking and claiming they can access the identical thing! Analogous “social constructions” were rejected many years ago (remember “civil unions”?).
Homosexuals by and large are claiming the right to form a specific association, which is a right due to their innate nature. While it is certainly objectionable should they choose to make a claim of sacramentality (a debate they are more than welcome to engage in should they so choose to), it is well within their rights to form a certain association. Governments are not concerned with sacraments, nor should they be. That belongs to God, not Caesar. To confuse the two is the absolute rejection of the separation of church and state.
This statement says nothing regarding the legality of same sex marriage in secular law. It speaks solely of its spiritual values and the objections to it within church law. Should my church stand against secular legalization, which some autocephalous churches have, then I will stand in dissent. In such cases they have clearly overstepped their bounds, and have ignored the wise words of St. John of Chrysostom. If anything, the statement you have listed is very much in the spirit of the said saint, as it says nothing of forcing their values onto others. It only expresses concern, which is that it might lead to a misunderstanding of what marriage is according to church law. Which the church then goes on to clarify, but without notably calling for secular law to overturn itself.
What innate nature do you refer to? The desire for same sex sexual acts, or the nature of their bodies - men and women?
Did the idea to adjust the tax code ever occur to anyone? In other jurisdictions, those in civil unions (actual or defacto) experienced the same tax code as married persons. Civil Unions were rejected because they were not viewed societally as identical to marriage.
The statement begins:
Their innate nature as in simply being a human being.
Civil unions are not recognized by the federal government. And most states don’t have civil unions. So when a couple in a civil union moves to another state, their union might not even be recognized. So they even get shook down on state taxes. And the federal government taxes people based upon whether their state recognizes their marital status. It does not independently verify it.
I fail to see how that gives rise to a right to have the State recognise as “marriage” the sexual union of 2 men.
This is a matter of law in the US, and is correctable by the law in the US. It is not an argument for marriage to apply to all pairs who wish to claim it. Unless you are arguing for the ends justifying the means.
Yes, and they opposed it. Your Church opposes it.
Well, as a Church, I don’t think their opposition rested on concerns about the tax code.
I assume you say that with tongue firmly in cheek. If the Church was fine with SSM being legalised, do you think they’d have written a letter with the following in the first paragraph:
I also have interacted with lawyers on this topic and they do seem to have difficulty remembering that “legal realities” are not ACTUAL realities. There is no such thing as a woman’s right to have her developing child assassinated, yet according to the supreme court this type of murder is a constitutional right. The legal redefinition of marriage is no different. It dictates to us that there is no significant difference between husband/wife relationships and male-male relationships and female-female relationships, and that they must always be treated equally under the phony legal doctrine of marriage equality. That is a legal fiction. It’s a fraud. And even highly intelligent and educated people like Supreme Court justices can be blinded to the truth if they start believing things that aren’t true (homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality) and stop believing in things that ARE true. It’s so Romans 1, “claiming to be wise, they became fools”.
The innate nature of every human being is hetero, not homo. Complimentary male female body parts, DNA, chromosomes all support they are biologically hetero. That is the reality and ideas which exist in the head and not in reality are inferior to ideas which exist in the head and in reality. Marriage equality is fiction. It does not exist in reality and it is wrong to teach children it does. Homo marriage does not equal hetero marriage. Nobody helps homos out by enabling fiction. They live in a real world where habitual sex behavior has health consequences.
I think it is fine for people to apply their own meaning to marriage. Some cultures even specifically tailor the meaning of their marriage in actual written contracts on an individual basis. Many Jewish communities did just that during the Middle Ages. Whether or not it is congruent with my personal religious beliefs is another matter entirely. That being said, it seems that we will probably have to agree to disagree.I fail to see how that gives rise to a right to have the State recognise as “marriage” the sexual union of 2 men.
This is a matter of law in the US, and is correctable by the law in the US. It is not an argument for marriage to apply to all pairs who wish to claim it. Unless you are arguing for the ends justifying the means.
Yes, and they opposed it. Your Church opposes it.
Well, as a Church, I don’t think their opposition rested on concerns about the tax code.
I assume you say that with tongue firmly in cheek. If the Church was fine with SSM being legalised, do you think they’d have written a letter with the following in the first paragraph:
"We…express our deep concern over recent actions on the part of our respective governments and certain societal trends concerning the status of marriage in our countries, in particular the legalization of same-sex unions."
Your Church opposes legalisation of SSM and it expresses its rationale for that on the foundation of the Church’s teaching.
Your assertion that States “must” admit same sex couples to marriage - because not to do so is wrong - is in direct opposition to your Church which advocates the reverse.
Elsewhere, you’ve said that essentially anyone should be able to marry, eg. a pair of “elderly sisters”. No doubt, your Church would disagree on that too. The problem IMHO is that you see the “marriage” as the legal framework provided, but devoid of meaning beyond that. Now, in so far as the legal framework is concerned, I have no issue with arbitrary persons being able to access fair and appropriate legal frameworks that benefit them and the society. If two sisters intend to form a single household, share assets, mutually care for each other, etc. etc., then I - like you - would say, that’s fine, and if the State sees equity in extending all kinds of tax breaks and legal framework to such an arrangement, then great. I simply say - that is not marriage! It may be legally convenient to pretend it is (because some elements of legal framework proposed might be the same as in marriage), but it is absurd. As absurd as two men seeking marriage.
By the way - are you a lawyer by any chance? I only ask because I came across another poster (who is a lawyer) who had a similar approach to yours in trying to distinguish what is “legally right” from what is “right”.
Pat Buchanan is a joke, just as much as Jerry Falwell was. Your statement regarding AIDS is asinine, as it suggests that AIDS is somehow the fault of homosexuals. What about all of the heterosexuals who have it now? And what of those who got it because their spouse cheated on them? Are you going to blame it on them too? I suppose Hurricane Katrina is the fault of New Orleans’ atmosphere too then huh? Nevermind the fact that the French Quarter, the place where most of the immoral behavior occurs, remained virtually untouched. Do not presume to know the will of God, as that is the ultimate arrogance.
It is history and the source was from Randy Shilts who died from AIDS.
Suggests? The source for HIV in the United States was homosexual men, a fact according to the CDC. Early on it was called GRID. Gay Related Immune Deficiency. These were medical experts, not churches. There was infected blood, both from Haiti and in the United States. Gay groups resisted blood tests, blood quarantine, closing down of bathhouses, blood tests for high risk groups per CDC recommendations. Bathhouses were considered incubators for disease by medical experts. In other words, many extremist gay groups went against the advice of medical experts. Others gays did not and were vilified by the extremists. Haiti a sex tourism industry for gays, especially from New York, from the 50s thru the 70s It went from Africa to Haiti to the United States. From the United States it spread mostly thru homosexual contact with non American tourists. Also via infected blood transfusions. Extremist homosexuals ignored public health implications in favor of alleged homosexual rights. They are not forced to be tested. They can choose ignorance and many do.
What about it? HIV is still predominate within the Men who have sex with men category in the United States. Not like worldwide stats where 50+% of those living with HIV are female. We do not want that nightmare here.
This is about history, not assigning blame. You go from suggests to assuming i am assigning blame.
Ranting does not make for logical argument.
That is mostly opinion based largely on political pressure, not hard science.
Those were simply going by information at that time from news sources. Please stop the judgements. They are not wrong because you don’t like them and others are not right because you do like them.
What a laughable notion. I’m not going to go through the trouble of listing in detail the scholarly consensus, but by and large the scientific community regards biology as a significant factor in sexual orientation. To say that they are all aligned in a conspiracy of political motivation, perhaps betrays moreso your own political motivations for denying reality.
They are wrong though. And yes, I will judge them.
Everybody was wrong except the front line medical doctors who had to deal with the mess. You are selective in your facts. Ignoring the fact the gay community was wrong again and again and fixating on the alleged wrongs of Falwell and Buchanan. How can you do that? How can you ignore so much and fixate on so little? This is from your link.
I never claimed it was solely biology. I claimed that there is a large biological factor, which if you bother reading further than the first four lines of the Wiki, you will see that despite some reservations on some aspects, the scientific community has largely gathered around the consensus that biological factors play a significant role in sexual orientation. They are hypotheses based upon numerous studies. Whether or not they are popular does not discredit them. Why you insist on denying these facts are beyond me. Even my own church acknowledges these facts and incorporates them into its position on the issue:
Almost all humans are born with the chromosomes and the body of either male or female. Presumably that is what you mean by “hetero”. Some additional facts are that about 3% of these persons however experience same sex attraction and not opposite sex attraction.
There’s something simpler yet: if the sole principle is ‘You can’t tell people who to love or who they can marry,’ then all laws regarding incestuous marriage, statutory rape, polygamy and polyandry are as oppressive as the marital norm of one man and one woman. The principle on which they insist they can marry is fundamentally against reason, and it abolishes the very notion of marriage itself, since the state.has no reasonable interest in classifying all 15-year-olds, say, as somehow incapable of marrying or as requiring consent.
What has changed is that the current generation is far more promiscuous than the preceding ones because treatment is more readily available. What better way to continue being promiscuous while getting spousal benefits to cover the behavior? There is no such thing as homosexual commitment to one man - all such relationships are open, and understood to be so. It’s.one of the lies that they spin through the media that anything is otherwise; ‘yeah, right’ is the laughing response see if you catch someone of his guard on the subject.