Another family vs gay marriage thread

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My friend’s son is gay. He got married last fall but they did not attend. They belong to Encourage for parents of gays. They still love him and they see him and his “friend” but won’t accept so called gay marriage.

Some of their relatives went to the wedding and that was their choice but if it was me I would rather support the parents and not go.
 
oneofmany said:
My friend’s son is gay. He got married last fall but they did not attend. They belong to Encourage for parents of gays. They still love him and they see him and his “friend” but won’t accept so called gay marriage.

Some of their relatives went to the wedding and that was their choice but if it was me I would rather support the parents and not go.
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Interesting.

In this case, there are no parents on “our” side. The cousin’s parents are both deceased. Although I’m certain that the only family members who would/do object are my mother-in-law and me.

I don’t know anything about the partner.

My FIL suggested that *when *they go (not *if *they go) my MIL should simply attend the reception and not the ceremony. Her response is that her doing that would likely set her apart and make it an uncomfortable experience.
 
Joie_de_Vivre said:
The sexual component is sinful, but the relationship itself is not sinful per se.
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This is not exactly true. Two homosexuals who hold themselves out as a couple or who attempt “marriage” are acting in a sinful manner. The sexual component is sinful but it’s not the only thing sinful about homosexual relationships.
 
Joie_de_Vivre said:
The sexual component is sinful, but the relationship itself is not sinful per se.
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Again: This isn’t about grabbing their lapels because they are two women sharing a house. I’m not talking about begrudging a “Have a Nice Day!” to the lesbians living next door. Of course it is good to wish other people well; I’m not talking about shunning them as human beings.

This is not a case where I run into two people in the course of everyday life. This is a special event they have put on so they can get up and attempt to approximate marriage. It is all about their sexual relationship!! It is all about their romantic attraction to each other!! It is also all about denying any difference whatsoever between homosexuality and heterosexuality, which is one of the most shocking lies being swallowed wholesale in our time. Homosexual weddings are being put on with exactly the same trappings as a heterosexual wedding would have! They’re not even saying, “We have something unique and worthwhile here.” They are saying, “We are the same as they are.” Who can wish that the best with a straight face when they believe it is a patent falsehood, even if it is a falsehood that is truly believed and sincerely held to be true by the people doing it?

I can’t judge them as to whether or not they have it to see the truth. I’m asking how I can know the truth, can decide in order to get along to pretend it is not the truth, and yet not feel I am duplicitous? I have to think that the only ones who can fail to get this are people who really don’t think there is a substantial or important difference between an actual marriage and what a homosexual wedding attempts. Otherwise, I don’t get how it can be argued. 🤷
 
on_the_hill said:
My FIL suggested that *when *they go (not *if *they go) my MIL should simply attend the reception and not the ceremony. Her response is that her doing that would likely set her apart and make it an uncomfortable experience.
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I have heard of people who make this compromise, who say “I cannot have anything to do with the ceremony” and yet to please the hosts (whether it is the couple or not) still attend the gathering afterward. I would find that extremely awkward, but I suppose if my relative understood why I was not attending the ceremony and that relative or friend still wanted me to go to the reception for the sake of it being a family get-together or a gathering of friends, as a sign that we have decided to get along and be family or friends even though we don’t agree, I could go. If they could get over their discomfort with the depth of my opposition and still wanted me there, I could get over my discomfort with the reason for the gathering, because even though I couldn’t cooperate with what they were doing, I would still be willing to say I held them in esteem in every other respect. We could do that. If they asked, though, I’d have to say I’d rather not go, and that is a poor gift of presence. Maybe when differences are so deep, it is the best that can be managed.
 
EasterJoy said:
I have heard of people who make this compromise, who say “I cannot have anything to do with the ceremony” and yet to please the hosts (whether it is the couple or not) still attend the gathering afterward. I would find that extremely awkward, but I suppose if my relative understood why I was not attending the ceremony and that relative or friend still wanted me to go to the reception for the sake of it being a family get-together or a gathering of friends, as a sign that we have decided to get along and be family or friends even though we don’t agree, I could go. If they could get over their discomfort with the depth of my opposition and still wanted me there, I could get over my discomfort with the reason for the gathering, because even though I couldn’t cooperate with what they were doing, I would still be willing to say I held them in esteem in every other respect. We could do that. If they asked, though, I’d have to say I’d rather not go, and that is a poor gift of presence. Maybe when differences are so deep, it is the best that can be managed.
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My experiences with a few of the people who are likely to be there is that they are as intolerant of “conservative” values as Tea Partiers are of raising taxes.
 
EasterJoy said:
Again: This isn’t about grabbing their lapels because they are two women sharing a house. I’m not talking about begrudging a “Have a Nice Day!” to the lesbians living next door. Of course it is good to wish other people well; I’m not talking about shunning them as human beings.

This is not a case where I run into two people in the course of everyday life. This is a special event they have put on so they can get up and attempt to approximate marriage. It is all about their sexual relationship!! It is all about their romantic attraction to each other!! It is also all about denying any difference whatsoever between homosexuality and heterosexuality, which is one of the most shocking lies being swallowed wholesale in our time. Homosexual weddings are being put on with exactly the same trappings as a heterosexual wedding would have! They’re not even saying, “We have something unique and worthwhile here.” They are saying, “We are the same as they are.” Who can wish that the best with a straight face when they believe it is a patent falsehood, even if it is a falsehood that is truly believed and sincerely held to be true by the people doing it?

I can’t judge them as to whether or not they have it to see the truth. I’m asking how I can know the truth, can decide in order to get along to pretend it is not the truth, and yet not feel I am duplicitous? I have to think that the only ones who can fail to get this are people who really don’t think there is a substantial or important difference between an actual marriage and what a homosexual wedding attempts. Otherwise, I don’t get how it can be argued. 🤷
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I think this states my feelings better than I could’ve done myself. The first time I came across a man referring to his “husband,” it was surreal, and wrong.
 
Why not ask your parish priest, I am sure he would say it is wrong to attend a gay marriage since it is no marriage at all. Also, would you let a couple who are not married to stay at your home in the same bedroom? I guess some would now but others would not at all.
 
It is one thing when taking about this issue in theory, and even when taking about co-workers, or even ‘friends’ but once the complicated threads of family relationships come into the picture it can become very ‘messy’. I would want to discuss it with a priest and prior to that I’d lean towards choosing to be the one who stays home taking care of the children.
EasterJoy said:
I have heard of people who make this compromise, who say “I cannot have anything to do with the ceremony” and yet to please the hosts (whether it is the couple or not) still attend the gathering afterward. I would find that extremely awkward,
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I’ve heard of this. I couldn’t do it. My feeling is that if I can’t attend the ceremony I have no right to attend the party that follows.
EasterJoy said:
Homosexual weddings are being put on with exactly the same trappings as a heterosexual wedding would have! They’re not even saying, “We have something unique and worthwhile here.” They are saying, “We are the same as they are.” Who can wish that the best with a straight face when they believe it is a patent falsehood, even if it is a falsehood that is truly believed and sincerely held to be true by the people doing it?
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Ja, this is what is difficult. I was in the situation a few years ago of being shown the ‘wedding album’ of a friend (from school days) and wondering what to say. It was totally weird. Other than asking who other clearly family members were, I retreated behind the “You two do look smart” as being the only comment I could pass, and even that felt way too strange.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Thanksgiving dinners or school plays or movie nights or, or, or…over the next fifty years? This is a person she is choosing to spend the rest of her life with.
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Good points. Unlikely that there will be much interaction, based on where we live and where they live. We haven’t seen the cousin for years. The connection has been entirely over the 'net.
DaddyGirl said:
It sounds to me like your wife really wants to go…like she loves her cousin and wants to lend her family support.
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She does.
 
on_the_hill said:
I’ll add that in 18+ years of marriage this is the first time my wife and I are so immovable in our opposition to one another.
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In that case I’d tell my wife that she is free to go as long as she doesn’t tell the kids what it is she is going to do. There’s no way I would bring that scandal to my children.
 
VivienneJ said:
It is one thing when taking about this issue in theory, and even when taking about co-workers, or even ‘friends’ but once the complicated threads of family relationships come into the picture it can become very ‘messy’. I would want to discuss it with a priest and prior to that I’d lean towards choosing to be the one who stays home taking care of the children.

I’ve heard of this. I couldn’t do it. My feeling is that if I can’t attend the ceremony I have no right to attend the party that follows.

Ja, this is what is difficult. I was in the situation a few years ago of being shown the ‘wedding album’ of a friend (from school days) and wondering what to say. It was totally weird. Other than asking who other clearly family members were, I retreated behind the “You two do look smart” as being the only comment I could pass, and even that felt way too strange.
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It is a very difficult situation, indeed. It is getting very bad, too. There is a bakery in Oregon that has been sued because they wouldn’t do a wedding cake for a gay wedding. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t bake cakes for gays; the people attempting the marriage were regular customers at the bakery. They just wouldn’t do gay “weddings”. It is very sad, and I am afraid that it speaks of similar crises of conscience that are to come.
 
Anyone who attends should only do so to protest the God-forsaken thing. Otherwise it’s a sin, because the attendee would be aiding in an evil wrong-doing by a show of support.

Catholics just need to stand firm in their beliefs.

The whole homosexuality craze will pass, sooner or later.
 
Mc8r1de said:
Anyone who attends should only do so to protest the God-forsaken thing. Otherwise it’s a sin, because the attendee would be aiding in an evil wrong-doing by a show of support.

Catholics just need to stand firm in their beliefs.

The whole homosexuality craze will pass, sooner or later.
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History says that this kind of thing may not pass in one generation, and the passing may not be a gentle thing, not gentle while it lasts and not gentle when it goes, either–not gentle for anyone, including those of good will. I hope I’m proven wrong, but I’m ready for the worst.

We have to remember that the progressive ideal that humankind somehow naturally gets better and better until it reaches some utopian ideal has never worked out that way. Utopia has never been reached, but here have been a lot of dystopias created by those who thought to try to invent their own Eden. The plain meaning of the New Testament does not predict a world that easily progresses to universal faith, either. Spiritual warfare is implied, and not one fought with swords of lathe. Likewise, liberal eras have often been subject to violent corrections from quite outside the civilization that has lost itself in disagreements over a common moral foundation.
 
white_sheep said:
In that case I’d tell my wife that she is free to go as long as she doesn’t tell the kids what it is she is going to do. There’s no way I would bring that scandal to my children.
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That’s the thing: the kids. We’ve been lucky so far in that we have very little contact with that branch of the family. If we can make it a few more years they’ll all be old enough to know the difference.
 
on_the_hill said:
That’s the thing: the kids. We’ve been lucky so far in that we have very little contact with that branch of the family. If we can make it a few more years they’ll all be old enough to know the difference.
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It will not be long before society gives them plenty of contact with this debate, and there is no lack of self-righteousness or willingness to reject other people over this question on either side, I am afraid.

The necessary thing as a parent is to express the impossibility of being complicit with the sin without failing to express the impossibility of rejecting the person. You have to teach what you believe about homosexuality in a way that will not lead your children to conclude that they would be rejected if they experience same-sex attractions, nor that you would ever wink at their sin if they act on that sort of attraction. The Christian must both oppose the homosexual act and yet also protect the person who self-identifies as homosexual, not to mention the person who is vilified in the belief that they are homosexual. If their friend is secretly struggling with these attractions, they need to know they will be accepted as a person and will only find protection from members of your family, and never attacks or even insensitive comments. Neither moral obligation can be neglected, and that can be hard to get across.

The thing I aim for is to bring up my kids so that they will act in the right way if they feel attractions for persons of the same sex and so that they will not do harm to anyone who does, either by condemnation of the person or by failure to oppose the temptation. (That can be a tormenting temptation, too; that cannot be forgotten. This is a hard cross.)
 
It’s no mistake that there is yet “another” one of these types of thread.

Catholics are being persecuted now across the world under the guises of “freedom” and “equality.” It is important to stay prepared, but one simply achieves and maintains such a state through Jesus Christ. It is with Christ that the heart is prepared for whatever form the persecution manifests as.

As far as utopias go, we only need look again to Christ: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” These kinds of Catholic communities have been around for centuries. 🙂
 
Finally----a follow up to this:

Recap: my wife’s lesbian cousin is getting married this summer. My mother-in-law and I don’t want to attend a gay wedding. My wife and my father-in-law want to attend.

End of story:
My wife and I are not attending her cousin’s wedding. The invitation specifies ‘no children under 21,’ and my wife refuses to go unless our kids are also invited. She’s also upset that our children aren’t invited.

My mother-in-law spoke to her priest about it. He advised that she tell her niece how she feels about it, and if the niece would be upset if MIL doesn’t attend, she should put aside her principals and attend for the sake of compassion and to avoid a family schism. He said gay people have hard enough lives, and they need all the compassion we can give them. He said attending would not place her in a state of mortal sin.
 
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