An Unjust Law: Plato, Aristotle and Same Sex Marriage

[JapaneseKappa]

This is not religion . This is self flattery. Making God in your own image and likeness.

Whenever I hear these sorts of holier than thou proclamations from religious people, I think of how the angels appeared to the dirty and outcast shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus. I take some comfort in imagining that if their religion was correct, angels that came today would probably not reveal themselves to the people who think themselves most righteous. Up until recently, I’ve thought some gay communities would be prime candidates for modern-day shepherds. The reason I don’t think of them as candidates lately is simply that they are not as outcast as they once were.

 

[Murmurs]

Murmurs;13119082:

Well if you insist…

The CCC in no way whatsoever says that homosexuality itself is a mental illness, disorder, or anything of the sort. Two short, key points:

I.e. no one, including the Church, really knows why people are gay (btw other animals besides humans display homosexual bonding). The CCC is also not entirely correct to imply that it’s only psychological, because sexual attraction clearly is also physiological, but I don’t wish to split hairs at this point.

This does not mean that homosexuals are in any way disordered. To say so, in fact, would be practically heretical as it would imply God was/is/could be in some way less than loving in our creation (in my opinion anyway). What the catechism does

say, however, is that homosexual acts are disordered. Which is to say, sexual behaviour between two people of the same gender.

I might disagree with the catechism’s assertion (I would, being a gay woman ), but I can’t not but follow what it clearly states. However, unless there’s a Secret Appendix to the Catechism that I don’t know about, not even the Roman Catholic Church has stooped so far as to suggest that gay people are mentally ill. Truth is, we just don’t understand.

I’m guessing you also think the Church teaches same-sex sodomy is O.K. and you don’t have to confess it.

Then I guess you’ll have to say the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah is null and void?

And you’ll have to say St. Paul’s letter to the Romans on the subject of same-sex sodomy is balderdash?

On what planet do you think I’m living? (I’ll ignore the Sodom and Gomorrah misreading because I’m tired of it and it’s def been addressed elsewhere if not this thread). I never said that the Church says its ok - or for that matter that I say it’s ok. I pointed out that you were wrong in suggesting the CCC calls homosexuality a mental illness (because it clearly doesn’t).

It shouldn’t really need to be said any more, but I shall repeat - if one can’t love in Christian fellowship, someone who happens to be gay, one has absolutely no business calling oneself a Christian. Homosexual acts are sinful. Homosexuality isn’t. Really.

 

[inocente]

I find an extraordinary similarity in the two stories of the OT of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis Chapter 19 biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=Genesis%2019 ) and the Benjamites (Judges Chapter 19 biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=Judges%2019 ). Note, in both stories we are NOT told it was just some bad guys from town, but in the first ‘ALL THE MEN’ and in the second ‘SOME - OF THE WICKED MEN’ as in they were all wicked.

Then there is the island of Lesbo. I am not quite sure what the situation was there and the extent of the homosexuality of the women, I will have to look it up.

There are no homosexual acts in those lurid stories.

Warning: anyone who has never read Genesis 19 and Judges 19 should stop reading here, they are the stuff of nightmares and darker than any horror movie.

In these depraved sadistic tales, men use females as objects, including their own virgin daughters. Men want to publicly rape both males and females, and with their own families just a few doors away. There is lawlessness, incest, gang rape, death and dismemberment. Human beings literally reduced to body parts.

This is the exact moral opposite of a law to let two people marry so as to love and honor each other, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death parts them.

 

[inocente]

Since when does the Court have to carve out constitutional rights (never listed in the Constitution) specifically to accommodate those who are mentally disordered?

The CCC says no such thing, and its authors are no more qualified than you are to make medical diagnoses.

Mental disorders are not a sin, they are an illness. Hopefully the Church states that prejudice against the mentally ill is a sin.

Being homosexual is neither an illness nor a sin. Hopefully the Church states that prejudice against homosexuals is a sin.

The CCC does not say that the person is mentally disordered, it says the act is morally disordered, as in 2351 “sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself”. If that’s what you believe, fine, but you live in a society where others think differently.

This is silly-putty logic.

The real effect of same-sex marriage is that it elevates sodomy to a sacrament.

I didn’t realize that every civil wedding between heterosexuals, including those in Las Vegas drive-thru chapels, is a sacrament. :coffeeread:

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So you’re telling me that the CC recognizes civil marriages as sacramental? That is news to me.

No, but society in general holds marriage as sacred vows.

You don’t just sign a piece of paper to get married.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So now it’s the people who oppose sodomy as a form of mental disorder who are mentally disordered?

Or just plain sinful?

Isaiah 5:20 ►

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

 

[Wyrd]

I think Plato would have had the sense to measure whether or not it was good for society rather than to proclaim it to be such or not if he were born in the modern era. I’m more interested in the stoics though personally or Socrates.

 

[GodMadeMe]

Please note: This thread is for common folks like myself to discuss this topic. If you wish to get into a heavy duty systematic analysis and present your thoughts as if in a foreign language one needs to decipher, feel free to start another thread on the topic. Keep It Simply Stupid. :kiss4you:

I was just thinking that based on Plato’s most mature work; The Republic, Same Sex Marriage is an unjust law. I think if Plato were alive today he would say it is an unjust law. I found this article on Plato and Aristotle on the topic of family -
Plato and Aristotle on the Family and the Polis
John Hittinger
The University of St. Thomas, Houston
anselm.edu/Documents/Institute%20for%20Saint%20Anselm%20Studies/spring%202013/Hittinger,%20The%20family%20and%20the%20polis.pdf Now, I have not read it, I just read the first couple of paragraph but it is evident the author would disagree with my position. However, I think it is because he is focusing on the understanding of Plato in one particular area and not his general comprehension of the virtues, society and the individual. I am going to read the whole article…

What the author is not appreciating is the fact that Plato considered a law to be just - if it is good for the society. Well, SSM is not good for society. If left unattended it can spread like wild fire and in the world of ‘ideas and imagination’ could end the existence of humanity. In other words, a law, needs to be good for society to be a just law and SSM is not good because it places humanity in danger of extinction if left unattended.

More on Aristotle’s position later…

What sayest thou?

I am not pro-gay, i don’t believe in homosexuality because i don’t believe that it represents a legitimate idea of human sexuality essentially speaking.

However, I think that a greater moral good is lost when the state tries to “control” or exclude people based on how they relate to each other sexually and identify themselves, especially if it cannot be legitimately classed as a physical security concern. Every-time the state gets involved in a “culture war” bad things happen. In any other situation we would call it fascism. When a religion is either forced on people or attacked by the state for fear of indoctrination we call it fascism. While we do want to promote a morally healthy society we do not want to be fascists and that is why there is a growing distinction peoples personal or religious moral beliefs and what can be considered a legitimate grounds for making a human rights distinction between 2 or more social or cultural groups.

There is a thin line between doing what is right and being a fascist, and it is a line that we must tread very carefully.

 

[GodMadeMe]

[edit]…I am not pro-gay, i don’t believe in homosexuality because i don’t believe that it represents a legitimate idea of human sexuality essentially speaking.

However, I think that a greater moral good is lost when the state tries to “control” or exclude people based on how they relate to each other sexually and identify themselves, especially if it cannot be legitimately classed as a physical security concern. Every-time the state gets involved in a “culture war” bad things happen. In any other situation we would call it fascism. When a religion is either forced on people or attacked by the state for fear of indoctrination we call it fascism. While we do want to promote a morally healthy society we do not want to be fascists and that is why there is a growing distinction between peoples personal or religious moral beliefs and what can be considered a legitimate grounds for making a human rights distinction between 2 or more social or cultural groups.

There is a thin line between doing what is right and being a fascist, and it is a line that we must tread very carefully.

 

[MarkInOregon]

Based upon the Bible, don’t forget.

Care to cite the Bible verse that states slaves are less than human? As I read Paul that would not be the case–Paul even writes to one slave owner regarding his slave “Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more to you, as a man and in the Lord. So if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.” Slaves are not viewed as less than human in the Bible.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[inocente]

Care to cite the Bible verse that states slaves are less than human?

Ex 21:20-21

 

[DCNBILL]

Anyone who wants free exercise of their ideology needs the protection of the Constitution. "

Wow, Charlie Manson should have you as a lawyer.

 

[MarkInOregon]

Ex 21:20-21

I see where this says they are property but I don’t see it saying they are not human or are less than human. Much as our constitution does not say they are less than human–what our Constitution actually said was that for purposes of determining the number for apportioning representatives and direct taxes you would add: 1) the whole number of free persons (including those bound to service for a term of years and excluding Indians not taxed), and 2.) 3/5 of all other Persons. Clearly they were considered persons which I believe means they were considered to be human.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[inocente]

I see where this says they are property but I don’t see it saying they are not human or are less than human. Much as our constitution does not say they are less than human–what our Constitution actually said was that for purposes of determining the number for apportioning representatives and direct taxes you would add: 1) the whole number of free persons (including those bound to service for a term of years and excluding Indians not taxed), and 2.) 3/5 of all other Persons. Clearly they were considered persons which I believe means they were considered to be human.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

The verses say if I beat my slave with a rod and he survives for “a day or two”, I did nothing wrong. In other words, as long as I keep him alive for three days before he dies of the injuries I caused, that’s fine, since he was my property to do with as I want.

The thread is about justice, and we should question who in their right mind could possibly see those verses as anything other than highly unjust. Given recent events in America, the death of Sandra Bland, the latest in a line, and the confederate flag still flying over government property until a few weeks ago, and the recent slaughter of people in a church during bible study, I think trying to justify those verses as anything less than callous and inhuman is dangerous, as it could be seen by racists as validating their views on who is and isn’t human.

 

[MarkInOregon]

The verses say if I beat my slave with a rod and he survives for “a day or two”, I did nothing wrong. In other words, as long as I keep him alive for three days before he dies of the injuries I caused, that’s fine, since he was my property to do with as I want.

The thread is about justice, and we should question who in their right mind could possibly see those verses as anything other than highly unjust. Given recent events in America, the death of Sandra Bland, the latest in a line, and the confederate flag still flying over government property until a few weeks ago, and the recent slaughter of people in a church during bible study, I think trying to justify those verses as anything less than callous and inhuman is dangerous, as it could be seen by racists as validating their views on who is and isn’t human.

I never said it wasn’t unjust and I’m not trying to justify anything–just pointing out neither that verse nor our constitution say that slaves are not persons or are not human. To be quite truthful when it is know that someone is a person, is human and yet it is still believed that it is somehow o.k. to enslave them and beat them–that we could (and do) do that to fellow human beings–then it’s all the more troubling. Those verses cannot be used by racists to validate a view that someone isn’t human because that’s not what they say. It was asserted that our constitution said they weren’t fully human–I don’t think it does–it call’s them persons and in my mind it means they are fully human–and in my mind it makes the fact that they were enslaved even worse. It was asserted that this less than human belief came from the Bible–I don’t think it does. Human’s enslaved humans–they knew they were enslaving other humans. Since the time of Christ and his call it is hard to see how any Christian could hold a fellow human as a slave, but then I’m not sure how some who call themselves Christians justify their treatment of many of todays workers.

The peace of Christ,
Mark