Does anyone here, that believes in God, actually think that God accepts gay marriage?

[Prodigal_Son]

I pretty much concur with your post except for one sentence. You say of homosexuals, “They should accept their biological inability to have children.”

For the most part, homosexuals are not biologically incapable of procreation. It is simply an ability that they do not choose exercise. That’s all right if they choose not to exercise it, but the ability is there.

Moreover, historically, homosexuals are not less likely than heterosexuals to have children in monogamous marriages (with people of the opposite sex). This practice has only become (slightly) less rare in recent years. The idea that homosexuals “cannot” have sex with people of the opposite sex is silly.

 

[Rivers23]

I pretty much concur with your post except for one sentence. You say of homosexuals, “They should accept their biological inability to have children.”

I was speaking in terms of a gay marriage.
To be clear, I think hetero couples are much more to blame for modern moral dysfunction, but that doesn’t mean we ought to redefine what marriage is.

 

[meltzerboy]

I can see where loving monogamous SS marital relationships could be considered different than those that are not. Of course as you said this is not the Catholic position nor that of other faiths in which marriage is between a man and a woman. Just curious is it the Conservative or Reformed Jewish position?

It is the position of Reform Judaism. Conservative Judaism is, as usual, split on the issue of gay marriage: that is, some individual rabbis consent to it; others do not. I forget what the official position is among the Board of Conservative Rabbis. Torah (Orthodox) Judaism is opposed to all gay marriages and civil unions.

 

[meltzerboy]

OK, but I don’t see how a Jewish willingness to re-write moral law is more relevant than a Protestant willingness to do it.

It is not regarded as re-writing moral law within Judaism but rather interpreting it according to its text and context in a different way. There may be a fine line here (or even a line which is crossed according to Torah or Orthodox Jews) but it is nonetheless part and parcel of Jewish thought from ancient times to the present day, including the interpretations of the Law by Jesus and the Apostles.

 

[HandyAndy]

The argument for same sex marriage is simply a nonsense. This is the story of “The Emperors New Clothes” being played out in real life. People are being duped by clever words, spin, intimidation, some fanciful lies and even good old fashioned guilt to distract good people into following what appears to be main stream, popular and all about that “feel good” word called “love”.

Bad things never seem quite so bad when we give them good names. To allow SAME SEX to be grouped with the wonderful life giving gift of marriage between a man and a women, is to elevate a perverted sexual behavior and flip God the bird at one of the most God like gifts given to man. The ability to create new life, celebrating the natural love between a man and a women. Same sex marriage is morally offensive.

Basic biology and a quick study of the reproductive system pretty much spells it out. To use such organs in a manner for which they were never designed for; or intended for; is NOT normal. End of story. To argue anything to the contrary is to perpetuate a lie which the scientific community could not support, without losing all professional credibility.

It is all a big fat lie and is offensive to God and one’s intelligence. To buy into this, is a vote for stupidity. So how stupid has this world become with all our technological breakthrough’s. Well…we can now start to group stupid into states and countries.


“Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do”.

 

[90Domer]

If so, then why did He waste time creating us male and female.

Adam and Eve. Enough said.

 

[EasterJoy]

I can see where loving monogamous SS marital relationships could be considered different than those that are not. Of course as you said this is not the Catholic position nor that of other faiths in which marriage is between a man and a woman. Just curious is it the Conservative or Reformed Jewish position?

Well, yes, even from a Catholic perspective if there are two relationships between unmarried people that are based on a misguided sense of human sexuality, the one that is more according to the properly-formed conscience is better, and the one that honestly follows a poorly-formed conscience is better than the one that defies conscience altogether.

To illustrate what I mean (and what I don’t): Pope Benedict XVI once explained how the use of a condom by a male prostitute, while not a truly moral choice, might be seen as “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants”.

An excerpt from Light of the World, Peter Seewald’s book-length interview with Pope Benedict XVI

From Chapter 11, “The Journeys of a Shepherd,” pages 117-119:

On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on AIDs once again became the target of media criticism.Twenty-five percent of all AIDs victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on AIDs. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many AIDs victims, especially children with AIDs.

I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

 

[EasterJoy]

It is not regarded as re-writing moral law within Judaism but rather interpreting it according to its text and context in a different way. There may be a fine line here (or even a line which is crossed according to Torah or Orthodox Jews) but it is nonetheless part and parcel of Jewish thought from ancient times to the present day, including the interpretations of the Law by Jesus and the Apostles.

Again: that is looking at it from a Jewish sensibility (of which there are many). The idea that later scholarship can overturn theology that has been in place since the first Church Fathers is, likewise, in keeping with Protestant sensibility. Why wouldn’t a Protestant feel as if he or she could interpret Holy Scriptures and be as likely to come up with a legitimate understanding as anyone else, if that person belongs to a denomination that rejects the teaching authority of the Church in favor of morals that are based on personal interpretation of Scriptures?

Likewise, some level of belief in opinion as the arbiter of truth and a one-person-one-vote parity of opinions is a common contemporary American sentiment. There could be nothing more typical of a citizen of the United States than the idea that “your opinion isn’t any better than mine.” It is not rare for this to be held as true even when a person is comparing the value of his or her opinion against the opinion of someone who has a far better foundational knowledge of the issue at hand. As the bumper sticker says, “Question Authority.”

The plain meaning of Scriptures does not teach a “Question Authority” code of morals. Read the New Testament. Nowhere does it say “trust your own judgment.” It says “trust the reliable: that is, those who teach what the Apostles teach”, and in many the inspired writings warn the reader to escape the fate of those who trusted their own judgment over what they were taught. There is also a warning for those who do teach: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly”. (James 3:1)

That is where personal conscience is supposed to operate: that is, from the foundation of a formation in keeping with the Apostolic Tradition, with the teaching of the Magisterium. The Church is not one voice among a multitude. To believe that is to make the mistake of relativism. No, when the Church teaches about faith or morals, the Church teaches the truth.

 

[NeoCatholic59]

Does anyone here, that believes in God, actually think that God accepts gay marriage?

Does God accept murder? Rape? Abortion? Assault? Theft? Witchcraft?

Does God accept lust? No. God does not accept homosexuality, never has and never will.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
—1 Corinthians 6:9-10 :takethat:

 

[JimG]

Likewise, some level of belief in opinion as the arbiter of truth and a one-person-one-vote parity of opinions is a common contemporary American sentiment. There could be nothing more typical of a citizen of the United States than the idea that “your opinion isn’t any better than mine.” It is not rare for this to be held as true even when a person is comparing the value of his or her opinion against the opinion of someone who has a far better foundational knowledge of the issue at hand. As the bumper sticker says, “Question Authority.”

Even more remarkable is the rejection of the universal witness of history, and even the biological design of man and woman!

The thought is something like, “well, you may believe that man and woman are obviously designed with complementary reproductive systems, but I have my own opinion!” It is simply a rejection of the facts. It is a recipe for societal disaster.

 

[meltzerboy]

Again: that is looking at it from a Jewish sensibility (of which there are many). The idea that later scholarship can overturn theology that has been in place since the first Church Fathers is, likewise, in keeping with Protestant sensibility. Why wouldn’t a Protestant feel as if he or she could interpret Holy Scriptures and be as likely to come up with a legitimate understanding as anyone else, if that person belongs to a denomination that rejects the teaching authority of the Church in favor of morals that are based on personal interpretation of Scriptures?

Likewise, some level of belief in opinion as the arbiter of truth and a one-person-one-vote parity of opinions is a common contemporary American sentiment. There could be nothing more typical of a citizen of the United States than the idea that “your opinion isn’t any better than mine.” It is not rare for this to be held as true even when a person is comparing the value of his or her opinion against the opinion of someone who has a far better foundational knowledge of the issue at hand. As the bumper sticker says, “Question Authority.”

The plain meaning of Scriptures does not teach a “Question Authority” code of morals. Read the New Testament. Nowhere does it say “trust your own judgment.” It says “trust the reliable: that is, those who teach what the Apostles teach”, and in many the inspired writings warn the reader to escape the fate of those who trusted their own judgment over what they were taught. There is also a warning for those who do teach: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly”. (James 3:1)

That is where personal conscience is supposed to operate: that is, from the foundation of a formation in keeping with the Apostolic Tradition, with the teaching of the Magisterium. The Church is not one voice among a multitude. To believe that is to make the mistake of relativism. No, when the Church teaches about faith or morals, the Church teaches the truth.

Apart from their fundamental theological differences, I suppose this is where Catholicism and Judaism part company. That is, Jews are taught to question rather than conform to Jewish doctrine (albeit within certain bounds), even among the more Orthodox Jews, whereas Catholics are apparently taught to conform to the teachings of the Church rather than question, at least not publicly. And yet, haven’t there been numerous Catholic theologians and philosophers, including some of the Church Fathers, who have questioned traditional views? Some of them may have been regarded as heretics, but surely not all. I think there may be two strains of thought within Catholicism: the conforming and the dissenting, the latter of which does not necessarily reject the teachings of the Church yet is more prone to interpreting some of those teachings in less mainstream ways. All of this, however, is a topic for another thread.

 

[PRmerger]

Apart from their fundamental theological differences, I suppose this is where Catholicism and Judaism part company. That is, Jews are taught to question rather than conform to Jewish doctrine (albeit within certain bounds), even among the more Orthodox Jews, whereas Catholics are apparently taught to conform to the teachings of the Church rather than question, at least not publicly.

This is incorrect, meltzerboy.

Our paradigm is what yours is: we are to question, albeit within certain bounds.

Otherwise…

• Catholic Answers would not be around.
• Theology and Philosophy would not be part of our Catholic life and vocabulary.
• Fides quaerens intellectum would be a heresy.
• Our Holy Father would not have professed this:
  On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason’s drive to attain goals which render people’s lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it. Fides et Ratio

 

[EasterJoy]

Apart from their fundamental theological differences, I suppose this is where Catholicism and Judaism part company. That is, Jews are taught to question rather than conform to Jewish doctrine (albeit within certain bounds), even among the more Orthodox Jews, whereas Catholics are apparently taught to conform to the teachings of the Church rather than question, at least not publicly. And yet, haven’t there been numerous Catholic theologians and philosophers, including some of the Church Fathers, who have questioned traditional views? Some of them may have been regarded as heretics, but surely not all. I think there may be two strains of thought within Catholicism: the conforming and the dissenting, the latter of which does not necessarily reject the teachings of the Church yet is more prone to interpreting some of those teachings in less mainstream ways. All of this, however, is a topic for another thread.

Within certain bounds; aye, there is the rub. This is a topic that has always been far outside the boundaries. All the questioning of tradition that I can think of concerned small “t” tradition–in our times, the routine ordination of married men would be an example–not “T” Tradition. There has been a history from the first of the Catholic Church taking creed and its immutability very seriously. The policy has not been “don’t ask, don’t tell” with regards to dissenting views. The idea is that the virtue of faith is in actually believing the tenets of the faith, not just avoiding open dissent. To be within the Church has been to be within the boundaries of the creed and of traditional moral boundaries.

There is a movement of agitating for very active defiance within the Church, and permissiveness concerning genital expressions of homosexual tendencies is one of the topics around which that defiance centers. The organization Roman Catholic Womenpriests telling the media “we reject our excommunication” is a famous example. It is not as off-topic as you might think. Two lesbians who claim ordination in Oregon were also candidates for marriage (to each other) when a Multnomah county clerk started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. These movements want to change minds within the laity, with the idea that this is how the Church will change.

This and the concept of changing doctrine in response to “scholarship” are exactly the kind of strategies that ought raise red flags:

I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles, in opposition to the teaching that you learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent. For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise as to what is good, and simple as to what is evil; then the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. ** Rom 16:1-20**

 

[meltzerboy]

Thanks to both PRmerger and EasterJoy for their insightful information.

 

[pete_29]

I did not say that YOU were baiting people.

Fighting is evil and thus sinful. For someone to “invent evil” would be sinful also.

From *Romans *1:28-32…

(emphasis mine)

Oh, and btw, I don’t want your “forgiveness” even if I **did ** accuse you of sin, which I did not.

Sorry, no refunds. Forgiveness can’t be taken back.

 

[NeedsMercy]

But you implied someone was, which was still highly uncharitable.

Then what are you doing to avoid that sin, right now?

Not your fight.

 

[NeedsMercy]

Sorry, no refunds. Forgiveness can’t be taken back.

But it can be unnecessary, as it was in this case.

 

[NeedsMercy]

Sorry, no refunds. Forgiveness can’t be taken back.

But it can be unnecessary, as it is in this case.

 

[pete_29]

One might also ask why did G-d waste time creating some people with a sexual proclivity toward the same sex? Or do you not believe there is a component of nature in same-sex attraction even if combined with environmental influences? Of course this in itself does not mean gay marriage is necessary. However, according to certain Jewish interpretations, the stability of a committed marriage, whether traditional or same-sex, is preferable to having sexual relations outside of marriage, and especially preferable to leading a promiscuous lifestyle.

I might ask “Why did God create me with a terrible temper?” Because I have one, is it right for me to lose it and curse my neighbor. This is one of the beasts that I have to contend with, and it it up to me to learn to control it. Sometimes I fail, but I don’t expect anyone to condone what I do. Life isn’t easy, but we have to try and follow God’s rules, and not let our failures bring others down with us. Sorry if my ramblings don’t make much sense.

 

[pete_29]

But it can be unnecessary, as it is in this case.

Well, if there is a small hint of a chance it was, we’re covered.