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James1215
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I do not need Harvard papers, they are irrelevant! Gay sex and gay marriage are non-issues which should raise barely a moral flicker. Both should be supported as much as their straight counterparts.
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_Abyssinia
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Jesus did not condemn rape either. To say because he didn’t condemn something means it would be acceptable to Jesus is ridiculous. Jesus chose St Paul to speak as his apostle and St Paul condemned homosexual activity, as well as other types of sin under the term ‘fornication.’ The New Testament must read with the backdrop of the Old Testament.
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Tantum_ergo
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I do not. If God is saying marriage is for a man and a woman, then He is saying it is not for a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
God does not change. If homosexual behavior is wrong. . .and St. Paul addresses it as well as the Old Testament writers. . .it is wrong.
We do not have written down every word which Jesus spoke, so you can’t say that ‘he never said gay sex was sinful’. . .in fact, since Jesus was a good Jew, He would most certainly have agreed with the Torah in which homosexual actions are condemned as sinful.
If homosexual actions are NOT sinful, then Christ would have said so. He did not refute the Old Testament teaching that they are sinful, and in fact through St. Paul, continues to restate their sinful nature in St. Paul’s epistles. . .which are inerrant Scripture.
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_Abyssinia
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Jesus did not condemn rape either, to say because he didn’t condemn something means it would be acceptable to Jesus is ridiculous. Jesus chose St Paul to speak as his apostle and St Paul condemned homosexual activity, as well as other types of sin under the term ‘fornication.’ The New Testament must read with the backdrop of the Old Testament.
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Tantum_ergo
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BTW James, as an avowed atheist what do you care about what the Christian God has said or written? You don’t believe in Him so why are you trying to make His words ‘support’ your position? It seems pretty strange to me. It’s as if I was trying to argue that Karl Marx was really all in favor of a strong monarchy, and tried to argue my point by saying that he never SAID to throw Queen Victoria into prison so he was really supporting the monarchy!
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SwizzleStick
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I’ve noticed.Has anyone noticed the number of angry pro-homosexualist activists around lately? Is something in the air?
What I don’t understand is why can’t people accept we catholics have a particular understanding of human sexuality and just move on? Where is the tolerance and open-mindedness they preach? I guess that’s just a joke.
They cannot accept it and move on because the goal is not just tolerance of certain lifestyle choices, but embracing them and totally accepting them as normal when they are anything but normal and are sinful. The view being promoted is that homosexuals and transexuals are role models and those who hold traditional views are bigots. We certainly are living in topsy-turvy and bizarre times.
"They make night into day, saying, ‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.”
Job 17:12
“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.“
Proverbs 17:15
“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “
Matthew 6:22-23
"The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. “
Luke 11:34-35
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
Isaiah 5:20
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followingtheway
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Quirious
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Genetic engineering is an interesting moral topic. Lets assume for a moment that there is an allele which predicts something like a 40% chance of a male ending up with a homosexual orientation. Should that be “fixed” through genetic engineering?
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Corki
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Yes, to the extent that that genetic engineer can be completed through moral means. It is no different than using genetic engineering to “fix” a genetic predisposition to cancer or mental illness. The goal is to “fix” a disorder.
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Tantum_ergo
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The orientation isn’t sinful, only the acting out on the behavior would be.
Just because something theoretically’ could’ be genetically altered through engineering doesn’t mean it should. Do we decide to clone a million Mother Teresas and send them out thinking this will cause a million times her effect on society through caring for the wretched and poor? Or do we try to educate and encourage the people already ‘here’ to dig deep into their souls and develop their ‘spark’ of caring so that it flames up and thus have a billion people, none of whom might rank overall with a “Mother Teresa care index” but who have themselves consciously chosen to go above and beyond their own comfort zone and increase their own individual level of caring?
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SpeakInSilence
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Those twin studies are extremely bias, and many times the only people that volunteer for the study are twins that happen to be homosexual. Not only that the study show that 49% of twins still don’t share the sexuality of their sibling.
(Schacter, Daniel L., Gilbert, Daniel T., and Wegner, Daniel M. (2009) “Psychology”. Worth Publishers: 435.)
Not only that, but recent studies even show that monozygotic twins can be different. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378378201001712
So once again I say that there is no evidence really that homosexuality is gene related. It’s a choice, and because it’s a choice it can be considered wrong and sinful.
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James1215
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Twin studies are not adequate to demonstrate or refute a genetic cause of something. There may be environmental triggers which differed between twins, and we can hardly base moral values on these triggers. I think there are other issues involved here regarding DNA and inheritance, but I can’t remember them and have to leave the criticism at that.
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James1215
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Julia_Mae
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No, it isn’t. Marriage as a cultural institution defines property rights, including who owned which woman, as well as who inherited what. It also provided for the distribution of goods. That was it’s point. Other things came to be associated with marriage, but the “continuation of the race” isn’t dependent on marriage.
Marriage as a Sacramental union was defined quite late in human history.
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Quirious
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You are entitled to your opinion. Every psychologist and psychiatrist which I know disagrees with you. They tend to be the types who are in academia. The bulk of the evidence is that there is come genetic link. We would probably agree that there is nothing definitive, such as a genome sequence identified. We would disagree in that you believe there is no evidence whatsoever.
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Quirious
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From a Biblical perspective, my understanding is that there are two OT writers. The earliest one says that marriage’s purpose is for love and support. The later writer claims that its purpose is procreation. The Catholic Church synthesizes these two views into one.
Culturally and historically, of course, marriage predates the Bible, and its purpose and meaning have changed over time. For example, until recently there were clearly defined gender based duties within marriage. One such duty was that of a wife to relocate on demand with her husband. Failure to do so was grounds for divorce. I man had no such reciprocal legal obligation.
This is the disconnect in this debate. Roles in marriage culturally have changed drastically, along with other social changes, such as the equalization of women’s rights in society, while the Church, if it has changed at all, has not changed much. That is really the source of this “friction”. As social norms continue to evolve, the Church has a moral position which is ignored and excluded from that evolutionary process.
At this point, it appears that a laissez faire approach is the only solution to the impasse. The Church need not perform same sex marriages, but while it has the right to an opinion, that opinion need not interfere with the social changes which are occurring.
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followingtheway
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James1215
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followingtheway
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This is interesting, I don’t know, over all I’ve been in Limbo about the whole issue
A while ago I supported it then opposed it then supported then opposed it 
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Elizabeth502
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The “religious tolerance” webiste is riddled with errors in biblical scholarship, first of all. Second of all, it does not reflect the Catholic perspective on marriage, on sexuality, and how Catholics are to conform their understanding to the teaching of the Magisterium. The subject of the thread is not whether secularists, atheists, Protestants, and other non-Catholics should have a different opinion about homosexual “marriage” than what the Catholic Church has, but that Catholics should become Faithful Citizens in applying the truths they have learned from their Church to their voting decisions and other civic behavior. The Pope was addressing Catholics.
This should be a complete no-brainer for any practicing Catholic on or off CAF.
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