The relationship between you and your partner has its own intrinsic value, independent of reference to what other kinds of marriage.
Granted that pathology and/or aging affects successful childbearing, sex by infertile couples has the same mechanism and use of basic parts for childbearing. In fact, in enough instances, technology succeeds in improving chances of natural conception and pregnancy in women with secondary infertility or men with sperm production problems. Peri-menopausal women are also known to get pregnant. On the other hand, same sex configuration is not just infertile due to pathology or old age, it is sterile by design and by purpose, contradicting design and without purpose other than sexual gratification.
So what?
So it seems that according to how the OP defines marriage, whether or not some people can marry may depend on the available technology in that time and society.
Marriage has been defined many different ways in the past, but a society defining marriage in such a way to include homosexual couples would not take away from any of the value that a Catholic marriage may have.
So you are are tying marriage back to having the right genitals for procreation, even if one cannot procreate.
It seems from this that you would be against single parents adopting children. I for one think that there can be value in a family unit without having both a mother and father. However, society still recognizes value in allowing couples who do not intend to have children to marry. After all, we don’t ban men who have vasectomies from marrying. Would you be in favor of such a ban?
“So what” is such an arrogantly dismissive answer!
Like InSearchOfGrace said, some ‘unions’ are infertile by design. Others, the result of superficial problems which can be rectified through the reasonable use of medical science.
It may even find a ‘cure’ for abnormal and disordered sexual urges.
Your sentence contains a half truth, so the conclusion it contains cannot be right. The definition of marriage has always included the binding together of the different sexes. To now alter it, as the vociferous gay lobby wish, will indeed render all definitions redundant and thus devalue them and the institution they describe.
Oh, too funny!
Quantum leap in logic here. In fact, you went from the subject of single parents to that of an orphan. That’s weird. However, single parent families are not the ideal, therefore whe it comes to adoption, society ascribes less value to the single parent family than to the parent with a mummy and a daddy. Social benefits accrue accordingly.
No society has ever directed couples to have children. It is assumed they will if they can and want to. It is also assumed that homosexual couples can’t. Even the Catholic Church doesn’t decree that couples have to have children.
So what.
“So what” is an appropriate reply to an irrelevant comment that is presented as if it is relevant. The appropriate reply to “so what” is not to cry about how arrogant it is, but rather to demonstrate the relevance of the statement.
…and many cannot. Many are infertile “by design” in spite of having the right genitalia or almost right genitalia (in the cases of those who have ambiguous genitalia).
That’s simply wrong. Not every society has defined “marriage” (or the equivolent word in their language) to necessarily be a heterosexual union.
Same-sex reproduction may be a possibility in the future, so it is not biology 101 that you have to have a person with a p**** and the other a v***** in order to reproduce.
I never mentioned orphans. I brought up single adoption
That’s not what I was asking. I was trying to ask if marriage between people who it is known that they definitely cannot have children, although the couple is clearly heterosexual, should be banned. If not, then it shows the arbitrariness of not allowing homosexuals to marry those who they love.
And doesn’t this prove my point exactly about “so what” being an arrogantly dismissive comment! You, in your arrogantly dismissive manner, decided not to extend even a little common courtesy to InSearchofGrace by addressing her post, because you decided it was not relevant.
In other words, you want others to extend to you a courtesy you cannot, or will not, extend to others.
Like I said, the ‘reasonable’ use of medical science can help a lot of people.
I must admit, I had the Western Judeo-Christian definition of marriage in mind when I wrote that. However, even other societies have always defined marriage as between heterosexuals. Find one that didn’t, if you can. Just a warning though, don’t try the homosexuality of Melanesia as an example. That was debunked long ago.
Oh, but it would indeed. If marriage is redefined from always being between heterosexuals to now include homosexuals, then the former definition is rendered redundant. That’s why new legislation would be required; to make the old redundant.
InSearchofGrace is a ‘she’ and a highly intelligent one at that.
You wrote about “…a family unit without having both a mother and father…”. If both are absent, then you have an orphan.
single parent adoption is less than ideal. That’s why it is generally frowned upon. heterosexual adoption is, in terms of parenting, almost the ideal. The ideal, of course, is when a mummy and daddy raise their own. Now homosexual parenting is a total misnomer, because they can’t provide the roles of the different sexes and they can never even pretend to have the same reproduction capacity that creates bonding between parents. That was the gist of what InSearchofGrace was telling you.
Apart from the obviously infirm and those who know before hand, the ability to have children is something couples discuss openly before they committ to one another. Like I said, having children is not mandatory. And penises and vaginas are required for consummation of the marriage, like it always has been. No consummation, no marriage.
The arbitrariness is in your sentiments. Just because two people of the same sex love each other is no reason for marriage. It makes the consummation of that marriage a joke, for starters. It also means I could marry my brother, whom I love. ‘Natural’ and ‘normal’ decree that marriage be between unrelated heterosexuals, just as nature intended. Nothing arbitrary there. All else is folly and not natural or normal.
Your kind ALSO redefine marriage by making it so inclusive, of practically anyone who is in love with another, regardless of sex. Never has this been the view of marriage, not even in the incestuous relationships of the AEgyptian Royalty, or the polygamous relationships of most pagans, and even the Jews for a time.
Good post. I might add:
True. for some reason, despite their inability to breed, they seem to be multiplying.
They’ve alread go them. Wanting "marriage’ is wanting to be more than equal. They want want what can never be equal. Or normal.
Well now, that’s a strange comment, considering how the gay lobby has steretoyped the ‘difference’ and demanded that the ‘difference’ be accepted.
Spot on. And neither does society, except if it wishes to sell all of its moral tenents down the drain.
They got it already. In fact, they get more protection under the law than most.
That depends on how they behave. There is a moral dimension to being a good citizen, or didn’t you know?.
In a manner of speaking…however, they should respect the social mores of their society and not shove the gay lifestyle down our throats, down the throats of little children and they should not demand to be parents of children their sexual proclivities prevent them from having in the first place. It is unnatural and disordered.
Strange that the gay lobby is so ignobley vociferous and yet you want us to move on! In other words, any social group that screams for attention and you expect society to just ‘move on’. Hardly…
Here’s what and an incontrovertible fact: you were not born as a result of ‘sex’ between two men or two women!
My advice if you are thinking of buying shares in such technological ventures in same-sex reproduction: you might see a return on your investment in research and training our pet dogs to vacuum their own hair off the floor.
Would you say counterfeit money in circulation is good for the economy? That’s how SSM is to marriage, family and society. Further, re-read what has been offered upthread about the harm of SSM to traditional marriage that have been covered.
If you are talking about infertility, the parts still fit, regardless. Can you say the same with coitus with same sex parts? Even down to the gamete level, same sex cells are useless.
I actually support Catholic adoption agencies placing kids for adoption by single couples next to couples who have been married for two years. I support their policy of not placing kids with same sex adoptive couples. But the gay lobby has inserted itself in this service to society so the Church is closing its doors where she is forced to place kids with same sex couples, as if the Church has not pioneered and partnered with the government in a noble service to constituent families in meeting child-centered, not adult-centered, objectives.
You are putting side by side possible and impossible realms in the first with infertility of opposite sexed couples due to a medical problem, and permanent, incontrovertible sterility of same sex couples as to the prospect of procreation. In the second, you put side by side the common normal anatomy and the very rare phenomenon of intersexed individuals. Successful unions for childbearing are based on normal configuration and generalities, not exceptions.
John provided an excellent answer to that.
Young man (my apologies if you are not male), your profile says your location is at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. If you are a student there, I hope you pick up not just the art of debating but also determining worthwhile advocacy and endeavors.
You have conflated two different arguments in order to create a false image to fight. Catholics do not deny basic legal protections to homosexuals, same as other humans–the right to life, freedom from harassment, discrimination, violence.
Great point. I think this is where same-sex advocates miss the point. Their straw-man is: Catholics wish to deny homosexuals the fundamental right to marry. The fundamental/inalienable right to marry is the true marriage that Catholics are talking about. It’s the only one that’s fundamental: two humans coming together to create new humans that share the best of the two’s DNA in hopes of positive mutations and raise them. That’s the basic liberty that all people should have. Unfortunately for gay folks, fundamental, inalienable right marriage isn’t in the cards unless they want to spend the rest of their lives with someone of the opposite sex.
I just want to make clear that the U.S. A. is not a democracy. It is a Republic.
Welcome to CAF, Gabriel and Jeremiah!
:yup: :clapping: :tiphat: :extrahappy: