Allowing homosexual marriage as a means of "freedom" even if one does not agree with it

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I hope I am not being redundant with this question, and if it has already been answered please just direct me to it and you can delete this thread.

I have a friend that is a strong Catholic but he supports homosexual marriage because he thinks it shouldn’t be decided either way by the government. He thinks the government should be “hands off” on this issue and leave it to Churches to accept or deny a person’s marriage request. He sees this as an extension of our country’s freedom of religion.

I have already ordered one of the free booklets that Catholic Answers has about why homosexual unions are not marriages, but in the meantime, how can I discuss this with him and talk to him about why he should still be against homosexual marriage even though he believes that the government shouldn’t interfere in these issues period?
 
yes this has been talked about to many degrees in different ways on this forum try searching the topic a bit on the site i can not personally direct you to a specific link though on here, and people will respond momentarily to your question i am sure.

as to the general idea of how should you discuss this matter with this person, it depends… are you trying to change this persons’ mind for starters, or is it going to be just a conversation ?

If your goal is to change his mind, I would say to prepare as best as possbile an be ready for anything. an maybe more than one conversation / debate if one can call it that .

The only thing i would agree with your friend is that the government should back off an leave it to religions to decide, which is really bizarre how the government just insists sticking their thumb in this pie. because in order for the government to really address this issue, they are literally dancing around the fact that the sanctity of marrage was given to us by God and was made for a man and a woman.

So now the government has to find a way to not mention God and some how protect the sanctity of marrage.which some will debate that homosexuals just want the benefits that heterosexual couples have, others will say they want to be acknowledge as a legitamite marrage some will say both an others will say it is time we just become more " progressive and understanding " that America is just soooooooooooo " UNFAIR towards Homosexuals rights ".

Which is completely BONKERS when we know good an well homosexuals have the exact amount of freedom as anyone else in America versus the middle east.

other than my lil rant, i would say just take it one step at a time, dont try to win this fight in one round, and keep booking up like you are doing and dont forget to pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance and dont be afraid to use some of your own common sense as well.
 
Having the state recognize your marriage is not a “freedom.” Having the state recognize (and by extension incentive) a marriage is a privilege, granted by the state, because the state gets something from it, namely productive and orderly members of society.

Thus it doesn’t make sense to allow it just on freedom. People can do what they want already. They can have legal documents drafted up that give people almost the same rights as married people (the exceptions are Social security survivor benefits, adoption issues/reproductive technologies, and some federal tax issues, namely filing jointly, a few credits/deductions, and paying tax on inheritance from ones partner). They can live together, they can change their names, they can get someone to “marry” them, just not legally. All this is possible already. 🤷 It just takes work and an actual commitment to do it.
 
To me, there is the Catholic aspect: it’s a mortal sin and we don’t want to make it easy for people to commit mortal sin, etc.

And there is the non-religious aspect, which involves a certain amount of natural law (“laws” of living which we can figure out by how well alternatives work out or can be foreseen to work out, not to be confused with laws of nature).

You will find a lot of discussions on this topic in the Social Justice forum.

One argument I have not seen a lot of is the fact that homosexual, esp for men, is physically very damaging to the body, aside from STDs and some cancers. NYC has banned transfats and large sodas to protect people’s health. Can we at least not *encourage *people to engage in much more destructive activity?
 
St_Francis said:
One argument I have not seen a lot of is the fact that homosexual, esp for men, is physically very damaging to the body, aside from STDs and some cancers.
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I don’t think that preventing homosexual marriage will prevent anal sex.
 
The idea of “I don’t support it but I don’t want to tell others what to do” is surely absurd to any rational mind. The same argument is made of abortion. A President or politician will say: “well personally I am against abortion, but that is my view and I don’t want to stop others who believe differently”. You can see how ridiculous this is. What if someone was to try and murder or harm that politician etc and we were to be “diplomatic” and “freedom loving” and say: “well personally I do not want to murder or harm you, but if someone else feels they do want to, who am I to tell them ‘no’ or try and stop them”. Do you think this type of “freedom” would go down well? And for those who say; “what people do in their private lives is their concern only and not mine” - do they not know that God is offended even if they could care less since they are not their brothers’ keepers? Freedom to commit sin is not true freedom. Our Lord said “the truth will make you free” - we may use our liberty to commit evil, but no one has a right to commit sin anymore than they have a right to murder or believe error. What the government allows is in no way the same as what God allows, and although we have freedom to transgress both sets of laws, at the end of the day God will judge us on His law and no other. To say; “but this was legal in my country” will not pardon one from Gods wrath on the day of judgement.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I don’t think that preventing homosexual marriage will prevent anal sex.
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This is the thing: the more that something is socially acceptable, the more people will engage in it. Legalization of homosexual “marriage” would be a huge step in that direction.

Moreover, there are *many *other arguments for not expanding marriage… and not just from the religous point of view.
 
Coffee

I have a friend that is a strong Catholic but he supports homosexual marriage because he thinks it shouldn’t be decided either way by the government. He thinks the government should be “hands off” on this issue and leave it to Churches to accept or deny a person’s marriage request. He sees this as an extension of our country’s freedom of religion.

If government intervention in marriage laws is the only thing he objects to, ask him if the government should also not intervene with laws against incestuous marriages and polygamy.
He would have to admit all types of marriage if he wants top admit marriage between members of the same sex. If he would admit all types of marriage, he is a libertine rather than a libertarian. 😉
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Coffee

I have a friend that is a strong Catholic but he supports homosexual marriage because he thinks it shouldn’t be decided either way by the government. He thinks the government should be “hands off” on this issue and leave it to Churches to accept or deny a person’s marriage request. He sees this as an extension of our country’s freedom of religion.

If government intervention in marriage laws is the only thing he objects to, ask him if the government should also not intervene with laws against incestuous marriages and polygamy.
He would have to admit all types of marriage if he wants top admit marriage between members of the same sex. If he would admit all types of marriage, he is a libertine rather than a libertarian. 😉
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👍 It is obviously a case of man proposes** and **disposes - for his own convenience!
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Coffee

I have a friend that is a strong Catholic but he supports homosexual marriage because he thinks it shouldn’t be decided either way by the government. He thinks the government should be “hands off” on this issue and leave it to Churches to accept or deny a person’s marriage request. He sees this as an extension of our country’s freedom of religion.

If government intervention in marriage laws is the only thing he objects to, ask him if the government should also not intervene with laws against incestuous marriages and polygamy.
He would have to admit all types of marriage if he wants top admit marriage between members of the same sex. If he would admit all types of marriage, he is a libertine rather than a libertarian. 😉
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👍 It is obviously a case of man proposes** and **disposes - for his own convenience!

A topical example is that of very young girls being forced to marry against their will…
 
I have a friend that is a strong Catholic but he supports homosexual marriage because he thinks it shouldn’t be decided either way by the government. He thinks the government should be “hands off” on this issue and leave it to Churches to accept or deny a person’s marriage request. He sees this as an extension of our country’s freedom of religion.
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I’m not sure how the government can be “hands off” marriage, when they sanction, provide financial support for, tax, etc. married couples.

Plus, I think it sets a bad precedent, as you would then have to allow LDS (a church) to have polygamous marriages.

Finally, I don’t see what it has to do with freedom of religion, since marriage (though obviously having a religious dimension) is also a matter of natural law and does not require religious issues to enter into the discussion.
 
St_Francis said:
This is the thing: the more that something is socially acceptable, the more people will engage in it. Legalization of homosexual “marriage” would be a huge step in that direction.
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If that’s the case, then that activity may become more common. In the other thread about homosexual marriage (I think there are about three of them now) I had posted the following:
ThinkingSapien said:
From Pew research center, see this article.
http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/03/3-20-13-1.png
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Homosexual marriage has more acceptance among the younger crowd.
 
Thinking

**Homosexual marriage has more acceptance among the younger crowd. **

Mostly because the media and academia have promoted its acceptance. The media and academia are not famous for conservative pro-family values.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Mostly because the media and academia have promoted its acceptance.
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I’d agree with you. Openly homosexual characters have been part of lot’s of shows over the past decade or so. Will and Grace, Modern Family, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Bad Girls Club, Glee. Not all the “characters” pretend to be gay. Anderson Cooper, Ellen, so on.

One’s attitude towards a group does tend to become more favorable once they have a personal connection with people in that group.
 
This is a common misapprehension among Catholics who aren’t perhaps deliberately in disobedience but who don’t make the effort that they should make to determine what distinctions are made in moral law about the ground & scope of freedom.

The Church bases her teaching on human rights on our common human nature given to us by God; but the political culture functions on the basis that we have rights as conscious individuals, and the consequences for marriage, for economics, for many other things is that people assert things which are contrary to moral law, and often contrary to moral prudence, because “I have rights”.

I do have rights – but only as someone belonging to the human race & having a human nature, not based on my individual inclinations, wishes & desires. My individual needs may be in concordance with general human nature or in conflict with it.

The only way to make this teaching more widely available is to make it clear that the Church is opposed to the individualism which marks modern culture, to “making oneself the criterion”, as our Holy Father has said, for moral life.
 
Should homosexual marriage be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Should pederast marriage be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Should polygamous marriage be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Should sibling marriage be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Should multiple partner marriages of mixed genders be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Well, perhaps those other categories need to get more media attention and approval, perhaps with their own TV shows and favorable roles. That would certainly be a matter of increased tolerance on the part of the entertainment industry. But, given time, they’ll get around to it.
 
JimG said:
Should multiple partner marriages of mixed genders be allowed as a means of freedom even if one does not agree with it?

Well, perhaps those other categories need to get more media attention and approval, perhaps with their own TV shows and favorable roles.
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See “Big Love” on HBO or grab the entire 5 seasons series from Amazon.com. It’s a pretty entertaining show!
 
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