A private matter

[St_Francis]

I didn’t say all or most priests or bishops are gay, but the priesthood is more gay that typical society. You can find the stats just by googling and you can decide if the church is just more gay than society or very much more gay depending on the study.

The way this works is that if you make the assertion, it is up to you to provide the evidence. It is not up to us to look it up and find it, it is up to *you *to link to a valid source of information providing reasonable evidence for your assertion.

The point isn’t that we can’t believe gay priests or bishops or even the pope if he was gay. The point is that we take advise from gay clerics and bishops all the time and that might say something about how despite the fact that we believe in an institution that is pretty gay or very gay, we disparage the gays quite a bit.

You logic seems to be this: a large number of priests suffer from SSA. We accept them as priests. However, we look down on “gays.”

What precisely are we looking down on? I can only assume that you are talking about activist homosexuals since the topic of the thread is how to argue against those who think that homosexual attempts at marriage would be a private matter and therefore not a problem.

Since the ideas of the activist homosexuals are against Church teaching, naturally Catholics disagree with them. Since activist homosexuals are also active homosexuals, committing a sin which cries out to Heaven, and since they are also trying to encourage young people to enter into their sinful lifestyle, yes, Catholics naturally recoil from those who flaunt their inclinations.

I guess I have to repeat the questions you have not yet answered:
Did Christ who founded our church ordain that our moral teachings be confined to ourselves?

Who believes it?
Why cannot we promote our faith just like champions of gay marriage do?

If there are gay bishop,s does this invalidate the church teachings on the evil of homosexual acts?

Is the truthfulness of Church teachings dictated by Christ dependent upon the ability of catholics to obey it?

Interesting isn’t it?

 

[Aboveallbereal]

Uh, let’s change that a bit. Marriages are public events, (sometimes). Contracts with three parties: the man, the woman and God. No God, no Sacrament of Marriage.

I agree with you. My point was I suppose that one does not need to be a Christian to see the simple reality that the notion of private marriage or of marriage being a private matter is radicaly oxymoronic.

 

[tskrobacz]

Gay marriage is clearly aginst scripture. But how does one makes the case for those who
do not believe scriptures and believes that this is a private matter that does not affect
anyone but the party concerned.

Matthew 19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

As Matthew teaches us - when 2 or 3 are gathered in his name He is with us. Issues of Gay marriage, female priests, etc etc are only issues because of questions that must be asked by larger groups, including the Church itself. As individuals, straight or gay, gather often and frequently in proper relationship (in his name) and in small groups - in this context, regardless of the question, we can be Real instead of “Right” and the answer can always be Love.

 

[portarica]

The way this works is that if you make the assertion, it is up to you to provide the evidence. It is not up to us to look it up and find it, it is up to *you *to link to a valid source of information providing reasonable evidence for your assertion.

You logic seems to be this: a large number of priests suffer from SSA. We accept them as priests. However, we look down on “gays.”

What precisely are we looking down on? I can only assume that you are talking about activist homosexuals since the topic of the thread is how to argue against those who think that homosexual attempts at marriage would be a private matter and therefore not a problem.

Since the ideas of the activist homosexuals are against Church teaching, naturally Catholics disagree with them. Since activist homosexuals are also active homosexuals, committing a sin which cries out to Heaven, and since they are also trying to encourage young people to enter into their sinful lifestyle, yes, Catholics naturally recoil from those who flaunt their inclinations.

I guess I have to repeat the questions you have not yet answered:
Did Christ who founded our church ordain that our moral teachings be confined to ourselves?

Who believes it?
Why cannot we promote our faith just like champions of gay marriage do?

If there are gay bishop,s does this invalidate the church teachings on the evil of homosexual acts?

Is the truthfulness of Church teachings dictated by Christ dependent upon the ability of catholics to obey it?

Interesting isn’t it?

Here is an easy link that links to many studies: religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc.htm

You can choose the number you want to go with it runs strongly at about 33% to 40%, but ranges most usually between 20-60%.

As to the looking down upon term used, that doesn’t do justice to the suffering the attitude of many catholics inflicts on young gay catholics.

Its lovely to treat people like they are disordered and then tell them you love them , but just hate their sins. It still causes needless deaths because to hate the sin there still must be some visceral connection that allows the emotion about gay activities to rise to the level of hatred.

Peace

 

[St_Francis]

Here is an easy link that links to many studies: religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc.htm

It does not link to any studies. There are a lot of links, but not to any studies.

Remember that the evidence for your assertion needs to be valid source of information providing reasonable evidence for your assertion in order to have a chance to persuade people that your assertion is accurate.

You can choose the number you want to go with it runs strongly at about 33% to 40%, but ranges most usually between 20-60%.

Oh, I can choose the number? I choose >1%, a bit less than the general population. How does that work for you, having everyone choose their own number they want to go with?

As to the looking down upon term used, that doesn’t do justice to the suffering the attitude of many catholics inflicts on young gay catholics.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. The Church teaches that all people need to be treated with dignity, and that homosexual *acts *are sinful. If a Catholic is treating somebody with SSA badly, that is *against *Church teaching.

Its lovely to treat people like they are disordered and then tell them you love them , but just hate their sins. It still causes needless deaths because to hate the sin there still must be some visceral connection that allows the emotion about gay activities to rise to the level of hatred.

It says in the Bible to love the sinner and hate the sin. We should *all *hate *all *sin, because our sins cause the suffering of Christ Who died for us. I hate sin. I even hate the sins I myself commit.

I have no idea what you mean about the visceral connection thing. I don’t understand how the Catholic teaching on homosexuality causes “needless” (?) deaths.

I guess you are still working on the answers to the other questions:
Did Christ who founded our church ordain that our moral teachings be confined to ourselves?

Who believes it?
Why cannot we promote our faith just like champions of gay marriage do?

If there are gay bishop,s does this invalidate the church teachings on the evil of homosexual acts?

Is the truthfulness of Church teachings dictated by Christ dependent upon the ability of catholics to obey it?

 

[tammy57]

You can appeal to their law written on their hearts (a/k/a the “natural law”). Homosexual acts are clearly in violation of the natural law. Go back and look at the original purpose of marriage: to give societal sanction and blessing on a union of a man and woman for the purpose of providing a stable family within which children can be raised. While it is possible that a man and a woman might not be capable of fecundity, it is simply biologically impossible for a man and a man or a woman and a woman to have a fecund relationship.

Most societies that are seriously considering giving sanction to “same sex” marriage also happen to have appalling fertility rates, potentially only being buoyed up by immigration (and once the immigrants are inculturated, their birth rates plummet as well). That could be used to show how much the concept of marriage and family, in general, have been degraded in the society whereof you speak, as well. Divorce, contraception, abortion, and the like changes society at large. Homosexuality is just another rung on the ladder the society is climbing toward eventual destruction.

Good luck to you, though. I say that because by the time somebody’s mind has been perverted enough to reject the Scriptures and embrace the obviously perverse concept of “marriage” between two members of the same sex, they are pretty well gone (without the intervention of the Holy Spirit). Consider the following verse:
[BIBLEDRB]Rom 1:28[/BIBLEDRB]
So likely the best thing you could do would be to pray for them.

Human sexuality appears on our timeline way before we might be presented a possibility of marriage. So then, please explain the “original purpose” of sexuality and the options a gay individual may have as s/he matures through pre-adolescence, adolescence and adulthood.

tammy57

 

[RosaryFan]

Human sexuality appears on our timeline way before we might be presented a possibility of marriage. So then, please explain the “original purpose” of sexuality and the options a gay individual may have as s/he matures through pre-adolescence, adolescence and adulthood.

tammy57

They have the same option ALL of us have before we’re married…CELIBACY.

 

[St_Francis]

Human sexuality appears on our timeline way before we might be presented a possibility of marriage.

This is merely a cultural construct; in earlier times, people married at much younger ages.

 

[Newbie2]

Most of the stuff about homosexuality comes from Lev. As does the prohibition about eating shrimp and pork. People learned that properly prepared shrimp and pork do not kill and Lev was found to be false. People eventually will learn that gays being married or sharing other contractual arrangements will not kill us either and more of Lev. will be jettisoned.

Peace

This is truly a bizarre interpretation of Scripture.

BTW, check out what St. Paul has to say in the NT. I suppose we can “jettison” that too when we find our God really meant that homosexuallity was to be embraced.

I didn’t say all or most priests or bishops are gay, but the priesthood is more gay that typical society. You can find the stats just by googling and you can decide if the church is just more gay than society or very much more gay depending on the study.
The point isn’t that we can’t believe gay priests or bishops or even the pope if he was gay. The point is that we take advise from gay clerics and bishops all the time and that might say something about how despite the fact that we believe in an institution that is pretty gay or very gay, we disparage the gays quite a bit.

Peace

Here is an easy link that links to many studies: religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc.htm

You can choose the number you want to go with it runs strongly at about 33% to 40%, but ranges most usually between 20-60%.

As to the looking down upon term used, that doesn’t do justice to the suffering the attitude of many catholics inflicts on young gay catholics.

Its lovely to treat people like they are disordered and then tell them you love them , but just hate their sins. It still causes needless deaths because to hate the sin there still must be some visceral connection that allows the emotion about gay activities to rise to the level of hatred.

Peace

There ya go. Just google it. Pretty much anything one finds on the internet is authoritative, objective truth.

 

[portarica]

It does not link to any studies. There are a lot of links, but not to any studies.

Remember that the evidence for your assertion needs to be valid source of information providing reasonable evidence for your assertion in order to have a chance to persuade people that your assertion is accurate.

Oh, I can choose the number? I choose >1%, a bit less than the general population. How does that work for you, having everyone choose their own number they want to go with?

I have no idea what you are talking about here. The Church teaches that all people need to be treated with dignity, and that homosexual *acts *are sinful. If a Catholic is treating somebody with SSA badly, that is *against *Church teaching.

It says in the Bible to love the sinner and hate the sin. We should *all *hate *all *sin, because our sins cause the suffering of Christ Who died for us. I hate sin. I even hate the sins I myself commit.

I have no idea what you mean about the visceral connection thing. I don’t understand how the Catholic teaching on homosexuality causes “needless” (?) deaths.

I guess you are still working on the answers to the other questions:
Did Christ who founded our church ordain that our moral teachings be confined to ourselves?

Who believes it?
Why cannot we promote our faith just like champions of gay marriage do?

If there are gay bishop,s does this invalidate the church teachings on the evil of homosexual acts?

Is the truthfulness of Church teachings dictated by Christ dependent upon the ability of catholics to obey it?

If you really want to know the numbers you can find them.Or you can just activate your gaydar in church or watching EWTN or anywhere you see priests in action.

I am not trying to persuade anybody to do anything other than to treat the least like they may be Jesus in the guise of the least.

So if we behave in a manner that contributes to or causes people to commit suicide, it is, in my opinion , probably not treating them like they may Jesus.

Does that violate any teaching of the church?

Peace

 

[St_Francis]

If you really want to know the numbers you can find them

I find my numbers perfectly acceptable. You are the one who is trying to persuade us that the number of SSA men is much higher in the priesthood than among the non-priest population. You cannot make an argument based on an assertion which you refuse to show any evidence for.

Or you can just activate your gaydar in church or watching EWTN or anywhere you see priests in action.

Gaydar??? What’s up with that??? I thought that homosexuals were just like everyone else, not some strange different beings that one could tell were homosexual by “gaydar!”

Personally, I don’t go around thinking about what a person’s sexual inclination it as I think that that *is *a private matter. It’s when homosexual activists make it into a public issue that it stops being a private matter…

I am not trying to persuade anybody to do anything other than to treat the least like they may be Jesus in the guise of the least.

OK, so all that blather about homosexuals in the priesthood was not at all necessary, was it? All you had to do was to quote the Catechism, right?

So if we behave in a manner that contributes to or causes people to commit suicide, it is, in my opinion , probably not treating them like they may Jesus.

Well, now, that depends. Suppose a man tells me that he will commit suicide if I do not commit a mortal sin with him, and then upon my refusing to do so, he commits suicide? Have I behaved in a way which contributed to or caused him to commit suicide? Did I behave in any way contrary to the way Christ would have had me behave?

Now, I can only guess that you mean that if society refuses to allow “marriages” between people of the same sex, that society will be contributing to homosexuals’ committing suicide, but refusing to allow two people of the same sex to “marry” is not in any way violating their dignity, is it?

Does that violate any teaching of the church?

What is the exact nature of your problem with Church teaching about homosexuals? Or, maybe I should ask, do you *know *what the Church teaches about SSA? Because quite frankly, I do not see anything in Church teaching which would cause anyone to commit suicide.

 

[portarica]

I find my numbers perfectly acceptable. You are the one who is trying to persuade us that the number of SSA men is much higher in the priesthood than among the non-priest population. You cannot make an argument based on an assertion which you refuse to show any evidence for.

Gaydar??? What’s up with that??? I thought that homosexuals were just like everyone else, not some strange different beings that one could tell were homosexual by “gaydar!”

Personally, I don’t go around thinking about what a person’s sexual inclination it as I think that that *is *a private matter. It’s when homosexual activists make it into a public issue that it stops being a private matter…

OK, so all that blather about homosexuals in the priesthood was not at all necessary, was it? All you had to do was to quote the Catechism, right?

Well, now, that depends. Suppose a man tells me that he will commit suicide if I do not commit a mortal sin with him, and then upon my refusing to do so, he commits suicide? Have I behaved in a way which contributed to or caused him to commit suicide? Did I behave in any way contrary to the way Christ would have had me behave?

Now, I can only guess that you mean that if society refuses to allow “marriages” between people of the same sex, that society will be contributing to homosexuals’ committing suicide, but refusing to allow two people of the same sex to “marry” is not in any way violating their dignity, is it?

What is the exact nature of your problem with Church teaching about homosexuals? Or, maybe I should ask, do you *know *what the Church teaches about SSA? Because quite frankly, I do not see anything in Church teaching which would cause anyone to commit suicide.

If you treat fragile people like they are not as worthy of being a member of the body of Christ as the people you love, then they may be more apt to commit suicide.

If you want to dispute that treating people in a manner that inflicts harm upon them and then defend it by saying it is church policy to do so, that is your opinion. And if that is the case it says something about how you view and interpret church policy or teachings.

If you want to say how you treat people is a response to people who have actually asked you to commit mortal sins with them and your response to them is a result of that personal behavior of them toward you, that may be a different case than I have considered. And I guess your experience was so troubling and threatening that the only way you could respond was to try to hurt them back to justify your feelings.

As to gaydar and how many priests are gay or not , again , you quite clearly have no intention of coming to grips with how Gay the priesthood is or you would have cited facts that show the priesthood is less gay than the numbers that were cited in the articles I asked you to look at.

That’s OK because it doesn’t matter how gay the priesthood is from the standpoint of gays being capable of serving Jesus . It is just a little hypercritical to pretend that the church isn’t more gay than society , when it is , only to somehow justify the anti-homosexual stance of the church.

It would be more truthful to say that the church knows how dangerous being gay is to our faith, because the information is coming firsthand from the large number of gays in the hierarchy. Sort of the “takes one to know one” school of thought.

Peace

 

[RosaryFan]

That’s OK because it doesn’t matter how gay the priesthood is from the standpoint of gays being capable of serving Jesus . It is just a little hypercritical to pretend that the church isn’t more gay than society , when it is , only to somehow justify the anti-homosexual stance of the church.

It would be more truthful to say that the church knows how dangerous being gay is to our faith, because the information is coming firsthand from the large number of gays in the hierarchy. Sort of the “takes one to know one” school of thought.

Peace

The Church is not against homosexuals per se, the Church is against homosexuals marrying. Homosexuals are called to the same celibacy as single people. If you do not marry, you do not have sex. Period. Why do people get all bent out of shape when the Church says homosexuals must be celibate to remain in good standing with the Church? The Church says the same thing about single heterosexual people! And the reason why the Church is against homosexual marriage is because it is NOT A PRIVATE MATTER any more than a pedophile marrying a 9 year old boy is a private matter. It has a profound affect on society and the strength of the family unit.

 

[St_Francis]

I have read all your posts in this thread, and overall, you are not being clear. Perhaps you think I am someone else with whom you have conversed?

If you treat fragile people like they are not as worthy of being a member of the body of Christ as the people you love, then they may be more apt to commit suicide.

Now here, for example. You have complained about the unspecified behavior of an unspecified “you” several times. Are you talking about *me,+ some people in the Catholic Church, the Church itself. or who?

And what behavior is it that you think is causing people to commit suicde? Is it that the Church maintains the position that marriage can not take place between individuals of the same sex? Is it that the Church continues to teach that homosexual activitu, like any activity outside of marriage, is mortally sinful?

Because others have already posted the passages from the CCC which teach that homosexuals are to be treated with human dignity and NOT that they are too bad to be able to enter the Church, which is the one specific you have mentioned, and it happens to be untrue.*

If you want to dispute that treating people in a manner that inflicts harm upon them and then defend it by saying it is church policy to do so, that is your opinion. And if that is the case it says something about how you view and interpret church policy or teachings.

Now here you are accusing the Church of somehow inflicting harm on homosexual people, but what is it that the Church os doing which inflicts this harm? what is this harmful action of the Church which we are defending?

If you want to say how you treat people is a response to people who have actually asked you to commit mortal sins with them and your response to them is a result of that personal behavior of them toward you, that may be a different case than I have considered. And I guess your experience was so troubling and threatening that the only way you could respond was to try to hurt them back to justify your feelings.

You implied that anyone who committed suicide claiming the actions of others as their reason had been badly treated. I posited a situation in which someone unreasonably tried to blackmail someone into doing something by threatening to commit suicide if the other person refused to commit a mortal sin with them. The sort of thing I was thinking of was a teenage boy threatening to kill himself if a girl did not go to bed with him. The girl is in no way obligated to go to bed with him even if he is really suicidal.*

At the same time, I am aware of cases of bullying of all kinds which so torment someone that he or she commits suicide. I have had friends who killed themselves, so I have been through the pain that results from suicide as well as seeing a portion of the pain that they went through.*

So I am not in any way denying someone’s pain, nor am I denying that people do torment someone to the ppint that suicide seems like the only option, but I also see that there are a lot of situations like this which do not involve homosexuality.*

As to gaydar and how many priests are gay or not , again , you quite clearly have no intention of coming to grips with how Gay the priesthood is or you would have cited facts that show the priesthood is less gay than the numbers that were cited in the articles I asked you to look at.

First of all, you seemed to be trying to make a point which relied on there being a large number of homosexuals in the priesthood. You have yet to offer any reasonable evidence for your claim that there is a high number of homosexuals in the priesthood–I already mentioned that what you linked to was nothing like evidence.*

Then you told me that I could choose my number and now you are complaining because you think that I have to justify the number I chose to you! I have no point to make about this, I am not trying to say anything about that.*

I have no need to come to grips with the sexuality of priests because I simply do not care about their sexuality. They have taken vows of celibacy; I assume they are keeping them so their sexuality is irrelevant to me.*

That’s OK because it doesn’t matter how gay the priesthood is from the standpoint of gays *being capable of serving Jesus . It is just a little hypercritical to pretend that the church isn’t more gay than society , when it is , only to somehow justify the anti-homosexual stance of the church.

So you are saying that this organization filled with homosexuals whom one can detect with"gaydar" is anti-homosexual?

And what precisely does the anti-homosexual stance of the Church consist of?*

It would be more truthful to say that the church knows how dangerous being gay is to our faith, because the information is coming firsthand from the large number of gays in the hierarchy. Sort of the “takes one to know one” school of thought.

Are you saying that being homosexual is dangerous to the faith of the homosexual, or that the existence of homosexual people is dangerous to the Church?

And what is this large amount of information coming out from the allegedly homosexual members of the hierarchy?

 

[portarica]

I have read all your posts in this thread, and overall, you are not being clear. Perhaps you think I am someone else with whom you have conversed?

Where is the lack of clarity?

Clear things up for me with the facts you say I can’t produce.

You must have access to info that is not readily available on how gay the church is. Just post the studies that you rely upon.

Or is it because there are no church sanctioned studies on the make up of the clergy? That is why I gave you a range of the results of a number of articles without being specific about whether the make up of the male hierarchy of the church is only 2or 3 times that of the general population or as much as 10 times the population.

Or you can do it with personal observation. It is not a secret that gay men are attracted to the priesthood or that they are encourage by their moms to do so.

Have you been a catholic for a long time? Have you been an altar boy or been active in the lay ministry and been able to observe the nature of many of our priests?

If you want to keep grasping on to some concept that the priesthood is only populated by celibate straight people that is OK. We are only kicking around some ideas that have very little to do with what Jesus taught about treating the least like they may be Him in the guise of the least.

Peace

 

[St_Francis]

Where is the lack of clarity? …

Let’s skip the issue of the sexuality of priests. For the sake of discussion, I will accept any number you care to propose from 0 to 100%.

As to what I do not understand about what you are saying,* I re-posted my questions below in light of my acceptance of your numbers.* (Changed)

I live waaaaay out in the country in the Bible Belt; the nearest chapel is an hour away, the nearest parish church is 1.5 hours away, so I am not always up on what is happening in the Church, esp since I mostly end up hanging out with other mothers (Hint, hint I’ve never been an altar boy).

 

[St_Francis]

I have indicated where I changes what I posted before and took out the parts related to the number of homosexual priests.

If you treat fragile people like they are not as worthy of being a member of the body of Christ as the people you love, then they may be more apt to commit suicide.

Now here, for example. You have complained about the unspecified behavior of an unspecified “you” several times. Are you talking about me, some people in the Catholic Church, the Church itself, or who?

If you want to dispute that treating people in a manner that inflicts harm upon them and then defend it by saying it is church policy to do so, that is your opinion. And if that is the case it says something about how you view and interpret church policy or teachings./

And what behavior is it that you think is causing people to commit suicde? Is it that the Church maintains the position that marriage can not take place between individuals of the same sex? Is it that the Church continues to teach that homosexual activitu, like any activity outside of marriage, is mortally sinful?

Because others have already posted the passages from the CCC which teach that homosexuals are to be treated with human dignity and NOT that they are too bad to be able to enter the Church, which is the one specific you have mentioned, and it happens to be untrue.

…[Y]are accusing the Church of somehow inflicting harm on homosexual people, but what is it that the Church os doing which inflicts this harm? what is this harmful action of the Church which we are defending?

If you want to say how you treat people is a response to people who have actually asked you to commit mortal sins with them and your response to them is a result of that personal behavior of them toward you, that may be a different case than I have considered. And I guess your experience was so troubling and threatening that the only way you could respond was to try to hurt them back to justify your feelings….

Added this time around: First let me say that the situation I proposed was hypothetical, put in the 3rd and 1st person to make the pronouns less intrusive.

I did not posit any feelings of being troubled or threatened or any retaliatory actions, so what was the point of the comment which I bolded? Or do you think that no one has the right to say no when propositioned?

You implied that anyone who committed suicide claiming the actions of others as their reason had been badly treated. I posited a situation in which someone unreasonably tried to blackmail someone into doing something by threatening to commit suicide if the other person refused to commit a mortal sin with them. The sort of thing I was thinking of was a teenage boy threatening to kill himself if a girl did not go to bed with him. The girl is in no way obligated to go to bed with him even if he is really suicidal.

At the same time, I am aware of cases of bullying of all kinds which so torment someone that he or she commits suicide. I have had friends who killed themselves, so I have been through the pain that results from suicide as well as seeing a portion of the pain that they went through.

So I am not in any way denying someone’s pain, nor am I denying that people do torment someone to the ppint that suicide seems like the only option, but I also see that there are a lot of situations like this which do not involve homosexuality…

…only to somehow justify the anti-homosexual stance of the church.

So you are saying that this organization filled with homosexuals… is anti-homosexual?

And what precisely does the anti-homosexual stance of the Church consist of?

It would be more truthful to say that the church knows how dangerous being gay is to our faith, because the information is coming firsthand from the large number of gays in the hierarchy. Sort of the “takes one to know one” school of thought.

Are you saying that being homosexual is dangerous to the faith of the homosexual, or that the existence of homosexual people is dangerous to the Church?

And what is this large amount of information coming out from the allegedly homosexual members of the hierarchy?

 

[St_Francis]

I wish to apologize for any insensivity in my remarks above, which was due to my not having heard about the recent teen suicides.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I wish to apologize for any insensivity in my remarks above, which was due to my not having heard about the recent teen suicides.

I didn’t notice any insensitivity in any of your posts! I thought they were well-written and quite kind.

The horrible event in VA was due to the moral failure of the people who would do such a thing, and reflects back on our heartless and God-less society. And now we have the technology to ruin someone’s life completely. The internet goes on forever, in living color. I can understand why that young man did what he did, and I am praying for his soul and his family.

 

[PaulinVA]

Very interesting discussion.

Well, marriage is a public matter. That is why it’s in front of other people, and* by law*, you have to have two named witnesses.

We straight people have pretty much torpedoed marriage. We do not have any moral high ground when it comes to the staying together. That’s one of the reasons that gay marriage is able to gain a foothold - so many people have failed at it that it isn’t special, it no longer is the glue that keeps society together. For a lot of people, it just doesn’t matter. The fact that God in genesis told us what marriage was, and Jesus reiterated it, doesn’t seem to affect gay people at all.

As for gay priests - so what? I tend to think that being a priest is a noble way for a man with SSA to live out his life in holiness, as long as he lives chastely and subscribes to the Church’s agenda and not the gay agenda.