A message to all of you

[Jaxonwelch99]

A few days ago I staged a fake situation in order to see what kind of responses I would get from this site. I as an LGBT church member am disgusted by the response I got. The homophobic and discriminatory responses I received were absolutely revolting. When I joined this site I thought it was a safe place to talk with people intelligently about the catholic faith. But after seeing how people responded to my staged situation is nothing short of shocking. I was pretending to be someone who was in a dire situation regarding marriage, and if I were really in that situation and people were responding that way to one of my deepest questions. I would be devastated. No only were people telling me that I was stupid and ignorant of the faith but also that I should join groups that would help me “pray away the gay”. CA Forums has got to be one of the most toxic sites I’ve ever been on, and the lack of of sympathy that people showed for me in my mock situation shows just how heartless people in this community can be. And to those of you out there who think bisexual catholics like me don’t have the right to civil marriage to what ever gender I chose to love I have one message. I am a catholic, I am Bisexual, I will not be ashamed of who I am, and I will always love who I love with my heart and soul because I know God doesn’t see gender when it comes to love. Because he himself is love. And if God is a god who will judge me for something I can’t help then he is not the God of mercy he claims to be. And if you people out there dare to try and convince me that being gay or bisexual is wrong, I will kiss a man before the cross just to spite you. This is God’s church, no matter who you are, no matter who you love, God will always love you. What people have said in messages to me in private and posted on my thread will never faze my faith. And I will forever ignore those who have gone against the the great and golden commandments. Shame on all of you, shame on you all.

 

[ThomasMT]

A few days ago I staged a fake situation

So… you were being fraudulent?

 

[edward_george1]

The homophobic and discriminatory responses I received were absolutely revolting.

You got no such thing. The responses you got were actually pretty mild, just stating what church teaching is, and also suspicious that you had started the thread to troll. Now you’re revealing that you were, in fact, lying to everyone.

It sounds like you need to seek some help. This is not healthy behavior.

 

[Lucy_1]

I looked up the thread you are referring to. I am sorry you were hurt. I truly am.

Try, for a moment to see it from the other side. If you come up to me and say, hey, I want to play backgammon, but I want to play it on a chessboard, with these chess pieces. That’s just not backgammon.

You asked if a priest would marry two males. The answer is no. Even if a priest wanted to, he couldn’t. The primary purpose of marriage in the Catholic Church is the procreation of children. Now, if you’re not Catholic, you may have marriage recognized by the state or any number of other religions. It’s not meant to be hurtful.

 

[MNathaniel]

Friend, you weren’t very good at “staging your fake situation”.

Your post was pretty transparently fake.

Very few people would have read how ignorant you were pretending to be of Church teaching, and thought you were a sincere questioner requiring a nuanced response. I remember seeing it and intentionally not responding because it looked so obviously fake.

If you exclude yourself from a community on the false pretence of this false crisis you’ve invented for yourself, you’re the only one harming you.

I hope you’ll choose to open yourself up to new and sincere conversations rooted in truth, instead. I imagine most people here would welcome you to stay and have sincere conversations if you’re ready to have them, and ready to stop (as you confess) manufacturing fake and insincere conversation starters.

 

[Bithynian]

I will kiss a man before the cross just to spite you

I cringed at this. Not because of two men kissing, but why would anyone want to use the cross of Christ to spite another Catholic?

OP, I can imagine that you’d say such a thing out of frustration, but this sort of response is really truly beyond the pale as a Catholic. It’s symptomatic of some deeper underlying spiritual and emotional problem, and I would encourage you to seek help from your pastor and a counsellor. I will include you in my prayers.

 

[njlisa]

@Jaxonwelch99: You can find many nice people on this site. I come to CAF mainly to pray with others. I’ve added your personal intentions to my Rosary post. God bless you.

Let's Pray a Perpetual Rosary II Spirituality

Fourth Sorrowful Mystery: the Carrying of the Cross (Hail Mary 1) (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.) Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen. Intentions For: all CAF staff, visitors, members, and prayer warriors, including: @Katherine438, @aroosi, @Bixx, @(name removed by moderator), @St.Bede, …

 

[MNathaniel]

I wouldn’t say he was being fraudulent and lieing, but that he was conducting his own social experiment,

Sure, I imagine he might have thought of it as a “social experiment”.

Amateurishly poor social experiment though, that couldn’t possibly measure what it was trying to measure. Because the post was so obviously fake that many people just avoided responding altogether, whereas others chimed in with minimalist skeptical responses wondering how a real human could possibly be asking this question in this way.

So even for his original intention (if it was in the sphere of social research), he failed to discover how this community would respond to a sincere question. He only discovered how it responds to a suspected troll.

And honestly, even ‘good’ social experiments, when done by deceiving communities, are pretty rare and hard to develop (and the morality of such is debatable and contextual). Different topic though, maybe for a different thread.

 

[FiveLinden]

If you decide to stay you might like to use my approach when raising challenging issues. I say “I’d like to do a thought experiment. Assume…” And then ask my question. That way we get to discuss the possibly contentious issue without the need to pretend.

I am not a believer and have no concern at all about gay people getting married, or not, as they wish. But I’d be startled if a Catholic priest was offering to help by marrying gays in the Church. I’m sure there are many priests who privately offer support of different sorts. And probably many former Catholic priests who act as civil celebrants.

 

[Bithynian]

I don’t know what else he was really expecting to find here

It’s not uncommon to see this sort of behaviour in other Christian forums (e.g. Reddit). The general scenario is that a young Catholic (or any other Christian), uncatechised and having all sorts of heterodox assumptions about the faith, creates a thread seeking confirmation of their bizarre preconceptions, and when they’re reproved they then act incredulously.

It really does remind me of the Pikachu face meme, which describes incredulity of an exceptional naivete:

Me: Father, can I worship the Trinity and pillage cities to the glory of Qormusta Tengri, the God of Mongolian shamanism?
Father: No, you can’t.
Me: (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[MNathaniel]

Friend, you’re welcome to stay and ask questions based on your real situation. I reckon if you start off by sharing where you’re actually at, and what your real question actually is (as relates to your own life, even if it’s just: "I’m bisexual and have heard the Catholic Church hates people like me. I wanted to come here and find out from you what you all actually think about people like me,") you’d get a lot more thoughtful and gentle answers. I honestly think what threw people in the previous thread (which you might see if you re-read the comments) was that the way the post was written seemed more clearly fake than you might have realized, so people responded to the suspicion of someone trolling them, rather than responding with the belief that someone was asking a question that touched a matter dear to their own heart.

PS we don’t hate you, we consider you a beloved child of the God of the universe, and we hope that your life is full of joy and growth, and I imagine many of us would be happy to talk to you further if you’re ready to talk for real, from where you actually are.

You can still ask thought-experiment questions, just maybe as @FiveLinden suggested, frame them that way upfront.

 

[Lucy_1]

Don’t leave. Stick around and hang out with us.

 

[Montrose]

if you people out there dare to try and convince me that being gay or bisexual is wrong

God says it is wrong. Either you believe in God and his word or you don’t.
If you don’t believe in God then why would you care but if you do then you are rejecting God.

 

[LilyM]

A few days ago I staged a fake situation in order to see what kind of responses I would get from this site. I as an LGBT church member am disgusted by the response I got. The homophobic and discriminatory responses I received were absolutely revolting. When I joined this site I thought it was a safe place to talk with people intelligently about the catholic faith. But after seeing how people responded to my staged situation is nothing short of shocking. I was pretending to be someone who was in a dire situation regarding marriage, and if I were really in that situation and people were responding that way to one of my deepest questions. I would be devastated. No only were people telling me that I was stupid and ignorant of the faith but also that I should join groups that would help me “pray away the gay”. CA Forums has got to be one of the most toxic sites I’ve ever been on, and the lack of of sympathy that people showed for me in my mock situation shows just how heartless people in this community can be. And to those of you out there who think bisexual catholics like me don’t have the right to civil marriage to what ever gender I chose to love I have one message. I am a catholic, I am Bisexual, I will not be ashamed of who I am, and I will always love who I love with my heart and soul because I know God doesn’t see gender when it comes to love. Because he himself is love. And if God is a god who will judge me for something I can’t help then he is not the God of mercy he claims to be. And if you people out there dare to try and convince me that being gay or bisexual is wrong, I will kiss a man before the cross just to spite you. This is God’s church, no matter who you are, no matter who you love, God will always love you. What people have said in messages to me in private and posted on my thread will never faze my faith. And I will forever ignore those who have gone against the the great and golden commandments. Shame on all of you, shame on you all.

God created male and female. You had best believe He sees gender in love and marriage as in many other things.

Look, most of us if we are honest have parts of our behaviour that we may feel are beyond our control. For sone it may be drugs or alcohol, for others it may be a tendency to spend huge amounts of time making crochet toilet roll holders

God, to be sure, is merciful even if we sin or are mistaken. As the saying goes, He loves us just as we are, but He also loves us too much to leave us there.

We are called not just to be adequately good, as our human minds understand good, but to be perfect as God is and put on the mind of Christ. So we need to at least make an honest effort to conquer behaviours that are sinful or may lead to sin. The trying is more important than the succeeding. And we will fail - that is why we have confession.

Remember the woman caught in adultery? As kind as Jesus was to her, He certainly never told her that she was free to love just whoever because hey, God is love. He was blunt in telling her that what she had done was sin, and that she had to cease, to go and sin no more.

 

[AlNg]

A few days ago I staged a fake situation

So you were lying? Anyway, the responses were pretty mild, this being a Catholic site.

 

[SPBlitz]

Yea, I’m sorry for causing this storm. It was a social experiment, to see how people would react to my fake situation. Not really trolling but just seeing what kinda of reaction I would get. I am actually Bisexual and I just wanted to see how folks would react if a staged a situation and a tough question. To see if I would get more good or bad responses. I guess I did take it a bit far with my starting posts. I totally respect the fact that the church doesn’t marry gays out of respect to tradition, and to be honest I’m totally ok with that. I’ve actually been studying theology for a long time and the Catholic Church. I guess if you wanted to put my question into the real light of what it was it was a question trying to see if the Catholic Church truly hates gays, if they were truly homophobic. It was a test, just to see the kind of responses I get, and I guess you could say in some way shape or form I’m a troll. I am truly sorry for causing all of this And I hope this site better in the future. I was planning on leaving a long time ago anyway so, I guess I just wanted to see how far I could go before getting banned. Anyway sorry about all of this and might as well close this thread since I don’t think it serves any further purposes.

I didn’t read your other post so I’m not sure the types of responses you got. I’ll admit that some responses can be insensitive. with that being said, I have two general bits of advice:

1. Don’t burn bridges.
2. Remember that, as a bisexual Catholic, you are also an ambassador to us heterosexual Catholics. Many Catholics, either rightly or wrongly, have the opinion that homosexuals wish to force their beliefs on the church and that they have a tendency to classify any disagreement as homophobic. Now ask yourself, does your thread from the other day, and your opening post here - dispel, or reinforce that notion?

 

[umamibella]

I will kiss a man before the cross just to spite you.

Never a good idea to hurt yourself to spite others.
All you are doing is rejecting God and His teachings. That is between you and God.

I am a catholic, I am Bisexual,

It is ok to be both Catholic and bisexual. I am sure noone here told you its not.

So what is not ok according to the law of God? Glad you asked.
Sex outside of a sacramental marriage. As you know, that is between a born male and a born female.

Sex when single is not ok according to God.

CA Forums has got to be one of the most toxic sites I’ve ever been on, and the lack of of sympathy that people showed for me in my mock situation shows just how heartless people in this community can be

flagged

 

[umamibella]

Not really trolling but just seeing what kinda of reaction I would get

That is trolling.

 

[redcatholic]

As a bisexual catholic do you feel you should be allowed to marry both a man and a woman at the same time and that it is a holy Will if God that you do this? I’m just curious how You could ever consider yourself Catholic if you don’t believe what the Church teaches.

 

[Guest1]

You didn’t get any negativity from me in the post. Me: A person with same sex attraction and straight attraction.

Christianity is a self-sacrificial religion. It isn’t easy. It says not my will but Yours be done including when it comes to sexuality. Even husbands and wives can’t do what they want in the marriage bed.

No contraception. No anal/oral sex etc etc.