Changed my views on Homosexuality

[tweedlealice]

Blessings
We are to love them. Sharing social functions is fine. Enjoying their personalities. If we really love them, should we not share God’s Love and Truth. Is the salvation of those we love, not more important than our friendship. We should offer both. It would be their choice to leave the fellowship. Souls over flesh!
It’s true, we pick and chose our sins. BC is OK to some. I’m past that. SMILE. Church says OK. But it’s the method that differs. Are we being hypocritical to pick on gays, when we bend lines for our pleasure??? God knows!
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

 

[ATraveller]

Right… you keep thinking like that.

One avoids adultery by simply not engaging with other people. As a typically shy or introverted person, that has worked out great for me. No self control required. At all! And I’d imagine many others in a similar situation as mine.

However, I also imagine those who are not shy or introverts, who will be a bit more socially active and suffer all the accompanying outcomes. Certainly, not for all, but for a good part of the population.

I don’t need to think that since it’s been studied.

Our findings suggest that when self‐control is high, sexual behaviour may be largely divorced from desire, relying instead on analysis of situational or other cognitive factors. Sexual behaviour may reflect genuine sexual predispositions, however, when self‐control is dispositionally low or temporarily depleted.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajpy.12073

[T[he analyses of this data support that low self-control is a predictor of illicit sexual behaviors and crime.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639620600781464

Self-control predicts engagement in sexual activity, the number of sex partners, and relationship to last sex partner. Self-control also mediates the relationship between certain parental behaviors and adolescent sexual behavior.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/016396290500405

Shyness and etc. can limit the possibility of adultery but even among those who are extroverted in a general sense, the majority still manage to avoid adultery. The best studies show only around 25% have committed adultery. That’s not good but not as pervasive as some make it out to be where some claim at least 50% and that figure comes from shoddy polling.
We also know those who attend religious services are less likely to cheat. It can be inferred the building up of self-control mechanisms for such a long time helps in reducing the chances of adultery.

 

[ratio1]

I’m very happy this has created some discourse and discussion, but I am also reminded on how exactly and why my views changed! And this is, once again, of actually having friends and family come out and actually TALKING TO THEM.

It has been brought sharply into focus that Catholics and other religions must acknowledge that their so called moral “truth” specifically involving the Big 3 as I call it (Homosexuality, Masturbation and Birth Control) are in all honest OPINIONS.

Thus it is my opinion, and millions of others, that being Gay is ok. I love my Gay friends and family and will always be there to support them, at their wedding, or wherever I may be invited, and they will in turn always be welcome in my house with their spouses and friends.

From a secular viewpoint that is obviously ok.
I know you know what the catholic viewpoint is.

However I think it goes both ways. Even on a secular viewpoint.
Because these are OPINIONS that people should respect each other we should not FORCE people to act against their Beliefs.

However this is exactly what we are seeing.
ChristiansSSA who decide to reorientate to heterosexual are protested by gays. (What they do in church is none of anyone business)
Christian bakers are being forced to bake gay wedding cakes. ( what they bake is none of anyone business)
And then we also have pronoun police.
I’m happy to apply secular standards when living in a secular society. Just be consistent about it.

 

[ATraveller]

I would disagree with that idea. Self control is something that is learned through a lot of hard work and discipline, especially in this modern fast food culture of getting what you want when you want it.

Self-control is often compared to a muscle. It does need training. The problem is not many even want to acknowledge it exists nor do they find it important to build up and strengthen will power and self-control.

 

[joeybaggz]

Point taken. To be honest, I myself, while identifying as “conservative” do take a “liberal” position on some things.
I think the use of the term “liberal” when it comes to matters religious is a form of “linguistic shorthand” to describe those who attack the position of the church and its moral stances on secular issues, i.e. abortion, same sex marriage, pornography, etc and other such "evils. It is pretty much how I use the term.
And, I offer that the prolific use of “liberal” by "conservatives’ over the last 20 years or so can easily be laid at the feet of Hillary Clinton in her unabashed use of the term "right wing conservatives’ who opposed her enlightened (at least in her mind) programs during the Clinton administration. There is a bit of frustration at the quite tiresome tendency of those who espouse “liberal” social programs to be supercilious, haughty, and arrogant in their criticism of those who oppose their ideas.

 

[joeybaggz]

It has been brought sharply into focus that Catholics and other religions must acknowledge that their so called moral “truth” specifically involving the Big 3 as I call it (Homosexuality, Masturbation and Birth Control) are in all honest OPINIONS.

Thus it is my opinion, and millions of others, that being Gay is ok. I love my Gay friends and family and will always be there to support them, at their wedding, or wherever I may be invited, and they will in turn always be welcome in my house with their spouses and friends.

Well reasoned post. One thing to consider is that most everything is an opinion of someone or another. The Declaration of the United States is an opinion as an example. All laws are at their basis, opinions. It is just that we need “opinions” to construct guidelines and regulations.
The Catholic Church is not ok with those things you cite. Your statement that all is opinion is the very foundation of the problem of moral relativism that has crept into society. It is a more abstractly stated bromide “if it feels good do it” that was popular with the hippies of the 60’s. The RCC sees a serious defect in the understanding and intention of moral actions that are in conflict with how the Creator intended such matters to be. And for the RCC, Jesus Himself gave Peter and His Church the ability to form “opinions.”
The RCC, when it comes to homosexuality takes a stated position that it is disordered, but in the very next breath concedes that "the psychological genesis is largely unexplained. Read that as, "if science in the future proves SSA is in some way a physiological imperative, than the position will be modified and nuanced. Meanwhile, homosexuals are to be treated in accordance with the dignity that God has imbued in all men and women. Same with masturbation and birth control. The position of the church, for those who take the time to understand it, is not as ominous or oppressive as you state it to be.

 

[ratio1]

It is yours, and the Church’s OPINION that homosexual acts are wrong. This is not a moral truth to ALL people and many don’t agree with the Church’s position, including myself.

I agree.
I hope you also agree that the ideas people are born gay, so called “love is love” ideology, “gay marriage” “equality” are also not moral truths and is only an OPINION. And many don’t agree with these positions.

These days I don’t think the Church is forcing views on others. It’s the other way around now. So your argument actually helps the Church and my position to fight for religious freedoms!!!

 

[ConstantLearner]

@joe1 It is yours, and the Church’s OPINION that homosexual acts are wrong. This is not a moral truth to ALL people and many don’t agree with the Church’s position, including myself. Which is why I created this thread.

Add my opinion to yours. I don’t agree with the Church’s opinion. I know many gay couples, bisexuals, and transgender people, and they are wonderful. All say this: It is not a choice; it is “just the way God made them.” I accept and love them for who they are.

 

[theCardinalbird]

It is not a choice

The Church never said it was a choice to be attracted to the same sex or not. Just FYI

 

[ConstantLearner]

Like Iraq and Afghanistan, beastiality, young boys are normal… GRRRR! If gay, you’re stoned. I have no answer for that.

Alice, things like rape and beastiality and pedophilia do not constitute acts between two consenting adults. Both have to be ADULT and both have to be CONSENTING.

 

[J_the_Centrist]

I think the opposite will happen. In 1965 everyone thought that Russia would never be Christian again, today Russia is one of the most Christian nations on the planet. Secularization, multiculturalism and perversion have offered absolutely nothing substantial to society and has created a more self possessed and selfish culture. Eventually, just as in Eastern Europe and Russia, I firmly believe that the tide will turn and re-traditionalization will prevail because the alternative offers absolutely nothing. BTW I have two elderly gay aunts that live in a building with no elevator and they can hardly walk. I am the only one in my family that takes care of them and I do love them but I would never believe that they could be “married.” I’m not even 40 so if the re-traditionalization begins with me then so be it. You can love the person without accepting the lifestyle.

 

[Arbovirus]

things like rape and beastiality and pedophilia do not constitute acts between two consenting adults. Both have to be ADULT and both have to be CONSENTING.

And you base this on what grounds? And why is consent the only criterion?

 

[ratio1]

And this is, once again, of actually having friends and family come out and actually TALKING TO THEM.

Again it goes both ways too.
I have talked to many SSA Christians who want to live in Gods ways. They are the most sensible and reasonable Christians. Because they have been through it themselves so they are unlikely to discriminate SSA per se, and they have found God which means they live in a much more peaceful joy than the gay lifestyle. Certainly much more happy than the gay people I know.
So yes PLEASE talk to these SSA Christians who does not want to live a gay lifestyle. They are the ones who are being oppressed, sometimes unfortunately from both sides.

A gay person who wants to live a gay lifestyle in this secular society? Sure no problem, that’s their choice. No oppression here. I don’t go to their gay forum and proselytise the what they are doing is sinful. No oppression here.

Yet what are we seeing in this thread?
An SSA person who wants to live in Gods ways. Oh no no no…that is so unnatural and you should embrace your sexuality. You can’t choose to try to be straight. And then we also have non Catholics here telling us reorientation is harmful. I’m not advocating reorientate all gays. Far from it. I’m simply saying that for those who want it, let them have it. It’s their choice. It’s none of my business.
So which way is the oppression directing?

I think the Christian SSA who doesn’t want to live the gay lifestyle is the group that is quite vulnerable. A lot of them are probably in the closet and both sides are not giving them much help.

That’s why I have a big problem with anyone here who tries to spread their harmful messages on a Catholic forum. Come on, we all know what you think, only a person who has been living in a vacuum would not know. So thanks for your opinions but there is nothing new that we haven’t heard of.

 

[tweedlealice]

Good grief ellipses
Do you think you are the only one w family and friends who areif a different sexual orientation.
My brother, God rest his soul, was bisexual. I believe he had been molested in reform school. I did a survey(small). I started a few years into AIDS. I was a nurse. Only 50 pts. I’m in an area where the AIDS census isn’t large. It was over about 6 months. All had been molested as kids. Now, w the try anything, teenagers, that wouldn’t be a constant now. There was this sweet Irish family w three handsome boys. All were altar boys… They think their all gay now! No, confused! Certain areas of the body are sensual. Close your eyes and the sensations the same.
An abused kid, doesn’t feel clean to be in a heterosexual relationship. 2 cousins are gay. What a misnomer. How many AIDS pts have you held in your arms, while on their death journey?
Really gay…One 35 yo said, it wasn’t worth it…
May the moments before death, reconciled them w God and forgiveness and mercy.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

 

[Thorolfr]

Many homosexual activists point their finger at homophobia as the cause of these [mental] disorders, but the most extensive studies have been done in the Netherlands and New Zealand where homosexuality is widely accepted.

The argument that a higher rate of mental and emotional problems among gay men couldn’t be due to homophobia because gay people in the Netherlands and New Zealand also have these problems just doesn’t hold any water. There is plenty of homophobia in both of those places and the legal changes there that have made the lives of gay people better are still relatively recent. Same-sex sexual activity was only decriminalized in New Zealand in 1986. As noted by an article from November 2015 in the New Zealand Herald:

You can’t legislate tolerance.

That’s the viewpoint of Peter Sollett, director of the new Julianne Moore and Ellen Page film Freeheld, which is now showing in New Zealand cinemas.

The Oscar-buzz-generating film is set just 10 years ago, and follows the journey of a lesbian couple’s fight to have their relationship recognised by the law. The story serves as an eye-opening capsule of just how far gay rights have come in such a short time, though the director remains skeptical about how accepting society has really become of LGBT people.

“Just because you can get married,” he said in an interview with WIRED magazine, “doesn’t mean you’re not going to get spit on in the street.”

In the eyes of the law and the Government, LGBTs in New Zealand are in a good place compared with most other countries. When you live in a major city like Auckland or Wellington, it’s also easy to fall under the impression that society-at-large also accepts you.

But that doesn’t mean to say you won’t have the slur of “fag**t” hurled at you from a moving car.

It doesn’t mean that you can rock up to every B&B in the country with somebody of the same sex and expect a warm welcome. Nor does it mean you can feel completely safe walking hand-in-hand everywhere and not feel like all eyes are on you.

This isn’t internal homophobia at play. It has nothing to do with LGBTs feeling shame about who we are. Because the director of Freeheld is right: Legislative changes only go so far in changing the way other people think. You can’t force anyone to accept difference, or to feel okay about something they feared only a decade ago.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11546791

Things are not that much better in the Netherlands. According to an article from last year from BBC News:

Dutch men are uploading pictures of themselves holding hands on to social media to stand against homophobia.

The trend was sparked by an alleged attack on two gay men on a street in the Netherlands on Sunday…

Gay couples in Amsterdam and Eindhoven also reported being assaulted because of their sexuality over the weekend, according to Dutch media.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39505692

 

[tweedlealice]

Blessings
Your implying Homosexuality is an adult consenting act. I, diversified into sicker sexual behaviors. Guilty! My mind jumped into stoning of Homosexuals in Islam. How can you not have all the nightmare visions of poisonpops enter your head. As a nurse, we can have warped humor. I’ll spare you a humorous thought.( to me) Create in me a clean heart, Oh Lord! He will if I let Him. I’ve seen so much…
1965 Homosexuality was a perversion. A panel of 10 Psychiatrists convened. They voted gay was normal. 7 of the panel were gay! DUH.
Let’s say, Homosexuality is normal for the wordly. But, God calls us to a higher behavior.
Enough! God can argue His part.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

 

[Thorolfr]

In an interview with Zenit News, Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a child and adult psychiatrist in practice for more than 27 years, said, “Compared to controls who had no homosexual experience in the 12 months prior to the interviews, males who had any homosexual contact within that time period were much more likely to experience major depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Females with any homosexual contact within the previous 12 months were more often diagnosed with major depression, social phobia or alcohol dependence.”

He concluded by saying, “Men and women with a history of homosexual contact had a higher prevalence of nearly all psychiatric disorders measured in the study. These findings are the result of a lifestyle marked by rampant promiscuity and an inability to make commitments, combined with unresolved sadness, profound insecurity, anger and mistrust from childhood and adolescence.”

It’s ridiculous for anyone to even suggest that mental disorders such as Bipolar Disorder or OCD are possibly caused by “homosexual contact.” Both conditions have a genetic or biological component. In Bipolar Disorder, for example, studies have put the concordance rate at 80% for identical twins. That is to say, if one twin has Bipolar Disorder, in 80 % of cases, the other one does too. The risk for both Bipolar Disorder and OCD is higher in people who have a sibling or parent with it. So, in this case, it’s heterosexual sex which is responsible for handing a predisposition to these disorders down to the next generation, not gay sex.

Also, it appears that both Bipolar Disorder and OCD can be triggered by stressful life events in those individuals who have a genetic predisposition to them. But there’s nothing that makes gay sex by itself an intrinsically stressful event which is different from having straight sex, although it might, of course, conceivably be more stressful for someone who’s been raised to think that they’re committing a horrible sin and might go to hell because of it. But being bullied, being rejected by one’s family and being discriminated against certainly are stressful events which might make gay people with a genetic predisposition to mental disorders more likely to suffer from them.

 

[ratio1]

I just don’t see the connection.
Surely you are not saying that there is still widespread homophobia in Netherlands?
How do isolate cases of homophobia cause widespread emotional and relationship problems in gays?
In the past there was widespread homophobia then maybe the argument has some ground. But not now.

Asians living in USA have suffered widespread racist discrimination in the past and I’m sure there are still pockets of it. But certainly it is not widespread. They are highly functioning in their society. They don’t blame all their problems on past injustices and current isolating cases of racism.

One cannot be too idealistic. It is unlikely that homophobia is completely eliminated just like racism. Are you suggesting that gays have no way out and that they must live with all these emotional problems forever?
Racial minorities do the best they can in a society and I certainly do not see the out of proportion emotional problems relative to the racism being imposed on them.
However where racism is still widespread such as Aborigines in Australia you continue to see widespread health and psychological problems.
This shows that the emotional problems of gays may go beyond the homophobia.

 

[tweedlealice]

Dear J,
That’s sweet. Taking care of your Aunts. You don’t have to define your Aunts sexuality. But, older generations, sisters and brothers lived together. No sex. Siblings…
We aren’t homophobic! We are inclusive, not exclusive. Jesus loves us to sacrifice our worldly behavior for Him. It’s their choice to jump on the train to Glory. Our train has a Mercy car…
Behind the smiles, there is so much pain. They keep running, so they fill the hours up w busyness. Slow down, they’ll feel.
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice

 

[Thorolfr]

Blessings
Your implying Homosexuality is an adult consenting act. I, diversified into sicker sexual behaviors. Guilty! My mind jumped into stoning of Homosexuals in Islam. How can you not have all the nightmare visions of poisonpops enter your head. As a nurse, we can have warped humor. I’ll spare you a humorous thought.( to me) Create in me a clean heart, Oh Lord! He will if I let Him. I’ve seen so much…
1965 Homosexuality was a perversion. A panel of 10 Psychiatrists convened. They voted gay was normal. 7 of the panel were gay! DUH.
Let’s say, Homosexuality is normal for the wordly. But, God calls us to a higher behavior.
Enough! God can argue His part.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

This is not accurate. According to an article in Psychology Today:

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...n-homosexuality-stopped-being-mental-disorder