Can a homossexual couple raising kids be called a family?

[EasterJoy]

…Many christians can’t back that up…

Your post shows you have a lot to learn about what the Catholic Church teaches about homosexual acts and people who feel an inclination to commit them.

You are not alone, and Catholic Answers exists for precisely that reason!
catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality

 

[EasterJoy]

Many straight women use the same “Livestock breeding” technology. And their babies are also gifts from God…

What a total red herring.

Is the child born of a rape victim not a gift from God? How about a child conceived while her parents were cheating on their spouses? Is that child not a gift from God?

How about someone born because someone forced his conception via a eugenics experiment carried out with the consent of the parents? That would inescapably be someone born because someone else was trying to play God, and yet that child is a gift from God, too.

The inherent dignity of a human being does not make every path by which a child comes into this world into a virtuous one. To imply that it does is ludicrous.

 

[holyrood]

Actually, no one was there to witness jesus say anything. Just sinful humans using there perceptions of what he said. Reason why many people feel jesus and feel that they know what he wants (which is just oblivious) is because they feel the spirit of jesus. Of the love of the higher source. Do your minds or souls have an gender, weight? Of course not so why would sexuality have to do with having children. For a gay couple to adopt a kid who was given up, is to act like jesus. Saving people and healing the helpless. To judge it and label it as unofficial or different is to act upon opinion and selfish nish and closed mindedness which is the oppoiste of Jesus’s example.

No one would include you.

There are plenty of sources, rooted in archaeology and history, to show that the Bible texts have more evidence backing them up, far more extant copies, and plenty of archaeological evidence supporting the history in them, than any other historical text, including many that we take as truth, though the actual copies of them are far fewer, and far more removed from their actual sources, than are those we have of the Bible.

There are plenty of books documenting this in detail. Josh MacDowell. Lee Stroble. Many others.

Sexuality has nothing to do with having children??? You are aware, I hope, that children are produced through sexual intercourse?

 

[EasterJoy]

I, would not. All children are gifts, no matter how they get here. Trying to demonize them because of their family situation is just wrong.

There’s a thread somewhere of a person asking why so many leave the Church and never return. Some of the thoughts represented on this one are very telling.

Sad.

Many people do leave the Church because they are unable to accept her teachings or unwilling to be obedient to the moral laws taught by the Church. Yes, it is sad, but it has always been so. Not everyone who leaves the Church because they cannot accept the teachings of the Church looks back and blames their decision on the Church’s failure to conform herself to the moral vision of those who leave, but many do. Yes, that is sad.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Arent you playing god? By labeling his children who are adopting kids in need? Who are loving and helpful? Arent you the one misusing god’s image by using it to your opinion?. Does biology of a “family” in your perspective" truley have to do with god’s love?

I’m not concerned with adoptive parents who provide shelter and love to children who would not receive it otherwise.

I am concerned with homosexuals who adopt a child who they raise in a unnatural environment. Who they inspire to follow in their ways. Who they convince that their deviant relationship is normal.

God’s idea of a Family is a Mom a Dad and the children they produce. Anything else MUST be labeled what it is…A homosexual family, an extended family, a broken family, a mixed family, an adoptive family, and so on.

There is only one REAL Family.

 

[EasterJoy]

Actually, no one was there to witness jesus say anything. Just sinful humans using there perceptions of what he said. Reason why many people feel jesus and feel that they know what he wants (which is just oblivious) is because they feel the spirit of jesus. Of the love of the higher source. Do your minds or souls have an gender, weight? Of course not so why would sexuality have to do with having children. For a gay couple to adopt a kid who was given up, is to act like jesus. Saving people and healing the helpless. To judge it and label it as unofficial or different is to act upon opinion and selfish nish and closed mindedness which is the oppoiste of Jesus’s example.

…Letting your ego and opinion makes you so much farther from jesus

If you don’t believe that the Holy Spirit ensured that the Church teaches the truth, then Jesus of Nazareth can’t be proven to be anything other than a rumor about an itinerant preacher who was talking to the ignorant, gullible, and unreliable witnesses. That makes it unclear whether or not he said or did anything.

Why, pray tell, do you want to discredit teachings of the Church against homosexual behavior that are in writings as early as Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which predates the Gospels and is about as certainly attributable to the person of St. Paul as a piece of New Testament writing gets? Why do you want to believe that you are in the first generation of true believers of Jesus who got this question right? Has the Church ever taught that the truth evolves? No, it teaches that false teachers who come along and try to claim that they have some special knowledge that lets them change the law of God and who will try to enslave people in sin by calling it freedom will be a constant problem.

The most logical thing to believe is that you don’t like what the witnesses have handed down concerning what Jesus did and taught and what it means, and so you’re making something up that you like better, instead. You certainly have no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever said that people ought to make up their own moral law and do whatever seems right to them. There is not a shred of evidence anywhere for that opinion.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m not concerned with adoptive parents who provide shelter and love to children who would not receive it otherwise.

I am concerned with homosexuals who adopt a child who they raise in a unnatural environment. Who they inspire to follow in their ways. Who they convince that their deviant relationship is normal.

God’s idea of a Family is a Mom a Dad and the children they produce. Anything else MUST be labeled what it is…A homosexual family, an extended family, a broken family, a mixed family, an adoptive family, and so on.

There is only one REAL Family.

I would instead say that if a couple is in a morally problematic union, adding children does make the moral problem go away. If you build a family around the problem, the problem still exists. You’ve just made it a lot harder to address the problem, and you have added the problem that you are teaching the children that your violation of moral law is not in fact a problem, because you, the only parents they know, have decided to continue to do what you are doing and act as if it is OK.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I would instead say that if a couple is in a morally problematic union, adding children does make the moral problem go away.

If you build a family around the problem, the problem still exists. You’ve just made it a lot harder to address the problem, and you have added the problem that you are teaching the children that your violation of moral law is not in fact a problem, because you, the only parents they know, have decided to continue to do what you are doing and act as if it is OK.

 

[Spiritualawoken]

Speaking of judgment! Wow, there’s an awful lot of judgment in your post about someone you’ve never met. Not to mention, you’ve just put a ton of words in my mouth.

There is a vast difference, which liberals pretend they can’t see, between judging ACTIONS and judging PEOPLE.

Who says it’s a sin? Every major world religion has been in agreement on that for thousands of years. The Old Testament. The Magisterium. The fact that YOU disagree with them does not make them wrong.

ACTUALLY, the fact that there is even a questioning discussion about if homosexuals who adopt kids considered a family sound more evil and stupid than the devil. You christians need to forget the concept of self. There is no self. If we are “jesus” then how
Can we be ourselves? The vast difference is the open mind and closed mind. Religion is persepctive not truth so dont say it as definite

 

[JackyB]

No, I don’t think that has been said. What I believe was said - or implied - was that the ideal family is mum, dad and kid(s) [and potentially the broader family members] in the appropriate loving relationship. Who would argue that a family absent the father of the children (say) is ideal? It may be unavoidable or an unfortunate situation; it is not ideal, but the family is still a family and not to be denigrated for their misfortune, or for failing to match the “ideal”.

Thank you Rau, I think this sums it up beautifully.

 

[holyrood]

Many people do leave the Church because they are unable to accept her teachings or unwilling to be obedient to the moral laws taught by the Church. Yes, it is sad, but it has always been so. Not everyone who leaves the Church because they cannot accept the teachings of the Church looks back and blames their decision on the Church’s failure to conform herself to the moral vision of those who leave, but many do. Yes, that is sad.

Yes.

And those who threaten to leave the Church if it doesn’t conform to their vision apparently do not consider that if it did so, others would then leave. In short, no matter what a church teaches, someone is going to disagree and leave it. So the only wise course of action is to teach what is true, and those who dislike it will leave.

 

[holyrood]

ACTUALLY, the fact that there is even a questioning discussion about if homosexuals who adopt kids considered a family sound more evil and stupid than the devil. You christians need to forget the concept of self. There is no self. If we are “jesus” then how
Can we be ourselves? The vast difference is the open mind and closed mind. Religion is persepctive not truth so dont say it as definite

So questioning someone else’s actions and choices is evil and stupid?

Does this then mean that you are also evil and stupid for questioning the actions and choices of those on this forum?

More evil and stupid than the devil? Truly amazing.

First, it would be foolish to call Satan ‘stupid.’

Second, I would argue that some of his evil–say genocide, abortion, concentration camps, gas chambers, the destruction of drugs on a person’s life, the spread of STDs, including deadly ones which are more likely transmitted by typical male homosexual activity–are far more evil than questioning the wisdom of certain behaviors for society as a whole or individuals.

Please explain what ‘self’ has to do with whether sodomy and the typical homosexual lifestyle (often highly promiscuous) is a good idea physically or morally.

That you believe all religion is nothing but perspective is your belief only. There is such a thing as objective truth–what actually IS. Have you considered why people might make a rational decision that perhaps the Catholic Church is the best bet in finding it?

 

[Michaeljc4]

I know two gay men who are married (it is legal in my state.) They adopted two children, a boy and a girl, from social services. The parents (single moms) of both children were deemed unfit, and the children were put up for adoption. The girl was born with cocaine and alcohol in her system. The boy is the sibling of a child was was believed to have been sold by his birth mother some years before. Both children are minorities.

Had these two children not been adopted, thier life outcomes would have been grim, more likely than not. Living with these two married men, the children are thriving. They are healthy, secure, and doing well in school (after having received many services early on to help them; like early intervention). The children are learning musical instruments, playing sports, and are generally doing extremley well. Their dads are providing for them, financially, emotionally, and socially. They are happy.

According to many Catholics, they are not a family. According to our previous Pope, their adoption was ‘grave violence’ against these children.

In a sane world, the Church would recognize that this family needs all the same spiritual gifts and sacraments that mine does. They need community, faith, help, guidance, all of the things my more traditinonal family gets from our church family. Instead, this family will never, ever enter the doors of a Catholic Church. Why would they?

These children will live to their potential, and be healthy adults, because of their adoption by two loving, commited, married gay men. They are a family.

 

[EasterJoy]

Let us say that two people each leave their marriages and enter into a second marriage. I mean legal bigamists. Then let us say that while openly living in this situation, they adopt children or have children themselves.

Their decision to become parents does not mean they are not bigamists. What it does is makes it harder to leave their illegitimate marriage, because they are parenting children together. Meanwhile, they are teaching their children and the world that it is perfectly OK to leave your spouse and marry someone else without the benefit of a divorce. They even seem to normalize their relationship by surrounding it with this family they have built. Can they easily split up and go back to the persons they are actually married to? How are they going to do that, when they have these children to care for? They have not righted the original problem, but only made it more difficult to deal with. Even if they see no problem, they are making themselves an example that teaches their children and the world that what they are doing is perfectly OK.

I will tell you that there are people here who would argue that if there were no children from the first marriages that it would be cruel to suggest these two should not be together. If they are a sweet couple together, after all, wonderful to spend time with, and do lots of community service together and have these children. By doing enough good in the world, it is thought that the illegitimate marriage has been made legitimate. But is that true?

 

[EasterJoy]

I know two gay men who are married (it is legal in my state.) They adopted two children, a boy and a girl, from social services. The parents (single moms) of both children were deemed unfit, and the children were put up for adoption. The girl was born with cocaine and alcohol in her system. The boy is the sibling of a child was was believed to have been sold by his birth mother some years before. Both children are minorities.

Had these two children not been adopted, thier life outcomes would have been grim, more likely than not. Living with these two married men, the children are thriving. They are healthy, secure, and doing well in school (after having received many services early on to help them; like early intervention). The children are learning musical instruments, playing sports, and are generally doing extremley well. Their dads are providing for them, financially, emotionally, and socially. They are happy.

According to many Catholics, they are not a family. According to our previous Pope, their adoption was ‘grave violence’ against these children.

In a sane world, the Church would recognize that this family needs all the same spiritual gifts and sacraments that mine does. They need community, faith, help, guidance, all of the things my more traditinonal family gets from our church family. Instead, this family will never, ever enter the doors of a Catholic Church. Why would they?

These children will live to their potential, and be healthy adults, because of their adoption by two loving, committed, married gay men. They are a family.

What you are saying is that if two people in an affectionate relationship adopt children and give them a home the children could not have had, then the state of the couple’s sexual relationship is moral beyond question? Or are you saying that if the couple can give children a good home, the morality of their sexual or legal relationship ought to be no concern to anyone else?

There is nothing wrong with two chaste men giving children a good home. A monastery or a convent can take in orphans; there is no sin in that. The fallacy that has grown up, however, is that if two people in a consenting sexual relationship of any kind give a child a good home, that makes their sexual relationship normal, chaste, and beyond criticism, something that they have every right to teach their children and their community as right and the equal of the sexual relationship of anyone else parenting children. The children are being used rhetorically to give legitimacy to the sexual relationship.

Yes, if you are gay, you can gather a family around the nucleus of your sexual relationship, but that doesn’t mean that family gives your sexual relationship legitimacy. You can’t use children to pretend that you are no different than anyone else who has children. That is, however, what this whole movement towards admitting gays to marriage is attempting to do. It is using family to create the illusion of sexual fecundity and normalcy which is fundamentally absent.

 

[Sarcelle]

And no one said they were not. My disgust is for people who would be so selfish as to deliberately deny the child a father or in the case of gay males, a mother. No ill will toward the children however they were conceived.

However the technology not only makes children into commodities but also results in grotesque situations like “Octomom” and others who abuse it. As a Catholic I am opposed to using livestock breeding techniques like IVF, egg harvesting, A.I. to create human beings. In the non Catholic world I have encountered married couples who did use IVF to conceive due to the wife’s reproductive problems (blocked tubes, previous ectopic pregnancy). If this technology is to be used I would love to see it limited to a married couple…(male and female in case anyone doesn’t figure that out). Otherwise it’s deliberately depriving a child of one parent. A very selfish act.

Isn’t IVF against Church teaching, even for validly married couples?

 

[EasterJoy]

Isn’t IVF against Church teaching, even for validly married couples?

Yes, that is correct.

 

[sailor28]

coming in late to this one…

I appreciate everyone who advocated for families of all varieties.

Many years ago I had a friend who fostered babies who were born drug addicted. She was a single woman and her and a close (woman) friend did this together. They were not lesbians. My friend wound up adopting to of the kids and later on got married and her husband adopted them. I considered her family a family at each stage of the process.

It is uncharitable to want to tell someone they are not part of a family. I grew up with a mom and dad and kids but my mom was severely mentally ill. This was not an ideal family. Ideal family life is in the Garden of Eden. It is insulting to say someone’s family is ideal and someone else’s in not. The gospel is not about who is better or first.

 

[LisaA]

Isn’t IVF against Church teaching, even for validly married couples?

Yes and if you read my post I noted that in the non-Catholic world I have seen married couples use this technology to conceive and bear a child. They are not Catholic and thus not under any obligation to conform to Catholic teaching. This doesn’t mean I approve of it or would use the technology myself.

However when a married couple uses technology to conceive a child I do not believe it has the same level of selfishness and deliberate deprivation to the child as do singles and gays or Lesbians who use the technology. Because there is no possibility of conception within the bounds of the relationship itself (or the non relationship when singles are involved) then the child is in effect being purchased. The essential elements of conception and creation of a human being are bought on the open market as if these people were breeding animals.

I do believe there are degrees of evil and the married couple that uses some kind of technology to have a child is not in the same league as the single or gay/Lesbian couple. They are being selfish, self absorbed and deliberately deprive the child of a mommy or a daddy. Again, this is speaking to the outside world where Catholic teaching does not impact the decision process.

 

[LisaA]

I know two gay men who are married (it is legal in my state.) They adopted two children, a boy and a girl, from social services. The parents (single moms) of both children were deemed unfit, and the children were put up for adoption. The girl was born with cocaine and alcohol in her system. The boy is the sibling of a child was was believed to have been sold by his birth mother some years before. Both children are minorities.

Had these two children not been adopted, thier life outcomes would have been grim, more likely than not. Living with these two married men, the children are thriving. They are healthy, secure, and doing well in school (after having received many services early on to help them; like early intervention). The children are learning musical instruments, playing sports, and are generally doing extremley well. Their dads are providing for them, financially, emotionally, and socially. They are happy.

According to many Catholics, they are not a family. According to our previous Pope, their adoption was ‘grave violence’ against these children.

In a sane world, the Church would recognize that this family needs all the same spiritual gifts and sacraments that mine does. They need community, faith, help, guidance, all of the things my more traditinonal family gets from our church family. Instead, this family will never, ever enter the doors of a Catholic Church. Why would they?

These children will live to their potential, and be healthy adults, because of their adoption by two loving, commited, married gay men. They are a family.

Anecdotes prove nothing, nor do they turn aberrant behavior into something normal. I can also give you an anecdote about a member of our state’s Youth Authority who was lauded for his taking in very troubled young men as foster children because “no one else wanted them…” This went on for decades until one young man committed suicide, leaving a note that the foster father had sexually abused him and the previous foster children.

Does this mean all single gay males are predators? No. But neither does your story turn all gay males into saints. Nor does the fact that these two men “love” each other make one of them into a mommy. Do you think that mommies or daddies are expendable if you have “love?” Again I am not about a bright line test that NO singles or NO homosexuals ever be allowed to have children since that’s a hopeless endeavor. However I do think that we SHOULD elevate a Natural Marriage above any other arrangement when it comes to children. If there were a married couple also willing to accept these children, then I believe they should have priority. However the promotion of the gay agenda has put all on par…gays, Lesbians, singles, married…everyone is the same right?