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

[edwest2]

Here is what the Church teaches about this issue:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

This is not a Christians only issue or a Civil Rights issue:

jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby_gay_marriage.php3

The American Psychiatric Association disregarded years of papers and direct studies of homosexual persons when, under pressure from radical gay activists, they dropped homosexuality as a disorder in 1973 by vote. Not science.

amazon.com/Homosexuality-American-Psychiatry-Politics-Diagnosis/dp/0691028370

During the time period right after. I had no problems working with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Gay marriage is a fairly recent phenomenon. When I went to Church with my formerly bisexual girlfriend, no one asked about her sexual orientation.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Why talk about Church teachings as a “view”? The Church does not teach an opinion. The Church teaches the truth. We each face obstacles to living it, but this does not mean we have any authority whatsoever to alter the truth.

I don’t consider the term “view” to imply a lack of authority.

To the person who is not convinced of the Church’s authority, the Church’s teaching appears to be one opinion among many. There’s no way to get around that.

(Also, I study philosophy, and most philosophers think that knowledge is basically “justified true opinion”. So saying something is an opinion is by no means putting it down, in my mind. )

 

[EasterJoy]

I don’t consider the term “view” to imply a lack of authority.

To the person who is not convinced of the Church’s authority, the Church’s teaching appears to be one opinion among many. There’s no way to get around that.

(Also, I study philosophy, and most philosophers think that knowledge is basically “justified true opinion”. So saying something is an opinion is by no means putting it down, in my mind. )

There are too many of the baptized who have the wrong-headed notion that the Church teaches an opinion or a “view”, that is all I mean. The great irony is that people take the word of physicians and scientists as facts, when it is the investigators who have opinions, not the Church. (That is not to say that nothing the bishops ever teach is ever an opinion; I mean that the foundational teachings on faith and morals, however, are the truth, not opinions.)

 

[Cherry5]

Personally, I believe there is no person or institution that knows EXACTLY what God is thinking.

Good point David, at the end of the day God is not limited by our interpretation of His word. He will probably look at the heart of man and judge. Jesus did this when he was on earth, he forgave the adulterous woman, even those that put him to death - without them asking for forgiveness!
I am not implying that we should not discuss it, but we should not get too caught up in these debates, we need to be charitable in our actions that is supported by our love.
I believe this is what the message of our Pope is.

 

[Rau]

The civil right of marriage.

It is evident that gay relationships have the same dynamic as straight relationships. Some are stable, some are not. Some are loving, some are not. Some are promiscuous, some are not. They can divide property, raise children, and deal with rights of survivorship in the same way as straight relationships.

So if the dynamic is equal, why do you resist equality between gay and straight relationships???

No, it [the sexual faculty] is not being misused. You are in error for thinking that sex is for creating life. It is not necessarily true, and it does not have to be true. Neither is it productive to force this definition on the rest of society. Not everyone believes sex is unitive AND procreative…

Cali - I don’t “resist” equality, I just observe they are not equal. I have no difficulty agreeing that there are elements in common - eg. “the mutual desire for the happiness and care of the other partner” may be equally true in Marriages and in same sex couples.

Marriage is a unique institution that goes **beyond **the elements in common. It is the institution through which the society builds itself - same sex unions are fundamentally not that. Marriage is intrinsically sexual.

A same-sex couple coming together for the purposes mutual care and companionship does not trouble me. I have no doubt that such a couple may share tremendous mutual devotion.

But how can such a relationship be sexual? Again, I am not creating and forcing a definition of sex on anyone - I’m just observing what is apparent. Your comments above imply that this engagement is unitive, though not procreative and that (in your opinion) that’s OK. Now, I can understand why a heterosexual couple might express this view - I can understand how a couple might say (without commenting on the rights or wrong…), “look, we’re not ready for children for the next little while, so we’re going to use contraception”. But when two men have sex, this is the permanent position. Yet, one (or both) men will ejaculate a fluid that has no purpose but to seek out the egg of a WOMAN and to join with it - despite the fact that that will never happen, regardless of the intent and health of the individuals.

Why is it that ‘same sex intimacy’ draws on the sexual faculty **always and forever **in a way which can never deliver on its intrinsic potential, despite the perfect health of the participants? I find it stunning that this can be rationalised away.

 

[EasterJoy]

The civil right of marriage.

It is evident that gay relationships have the same dynamic as straight relationships. Some are stable, some are not. Some are loving, some are not. Some are promiscuous, some are not. They can divide property, raise children, and deal with rights of survivorship in the same way as straight relationships.

So if the dynamic is equal, why do you resist equality between gay and straight relationships???

No, it is not being misused. You are in error for thinking that sex is for creating life. It is not necessarily true, and it does not have to be true. Neither is it productive to force this definition on the rest of society. Not everyone believes sex is unitive AND procreative…

You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a sexual attitude that everyone shares, this is true. That does not imply that every sexual relationship that can be dreamed up is entitled to be given some set of rights that a non-sexual relationship wouldn’t have. It is one thing to say you have some right to have whatever kind of sex you want with whomever you want (which is an invented right, BTW). It is quite another to say that you are entitled to tax privileges because you’re doing it. Equality is “resisted” because the relationships are fundamentally, obviously, and substantially different in both their nature and their overall importance in society.

You forgot that the race will die out without heterosexuals exchanging gametes. That is a fairly dynamic reason that heterosexual relations have for existing. What is the “equal” reason that society has for encouraging homosexual relations, as opposed to, say, asexual relations?

You say gay relationships have the same dynamic as straight ones. OK…what does the sexual relationship have to do with it? Why should adults with a sexual relationship have some advantage when it comes to owning property together, survivorship, adopting children, and the like over adults who live together but don’t have sex?

 

[Rau]

Second, I struggle to accept a God who doesn’t accept gay marriage for the following reasons:

1. I don’t believe Christ ever spoke against homosexuality. Even if I accept that He did (and I don’t), I definitely don’t believe He ever spoke against homosexuals in committed relationships.
2. I am persuaded by the evidence that demonstrates the benefits to society that come from same-sex marriage (e.g., increased economic stability, lessened mental health care concerns among LGBT citizens, increased stability for children of LGBT parents, etc.).
3. I reject the notion that homosexuality is “unnatural.” The OP notes that God created both men and women and yes, procreation is possible when both sexes come together. The leap to then say that because procreation isn’t possible via homosexual unions homosexuality is unnatural is completely unsatisfactory.
4. I have no interest in barring homosexuals from enjoying committed, stable unions.

I’ve been through this subject many times here and I’m fully aware of the arguments that will be launched at my own. My favorite is that I’m full of hubris. All I can say is that I am fully aware of the Church’s position on this issue, I’ve been fully catechized, and my conscience still will not permit me to acquiesce on this issue. For adherent Catholics, I’m aware that this means either I really haven’t been fully catechized or I’m in league with Satan or I’m trying to make God into my own image. Ultimately, no matter what one believes about me, it would be easier for me to change my fingerprints than to change my acceptance of homosexuality (and therefore same-sex marriage). And yes, much to the chagrin of the OP, I do exist.

Grace, to respond to your reasoning:

1. But He did not speak against every evil. We can draw nothing from the absence of a statement by Christ on the subject.
2. I can understand that same sex couples coming together for mutual care and concern is a positive. (I don’t entirely follow your reference to children, since only a heterosexual couple can have children.) But gay “marriage” seeks to emulate the intrinsically sexual nature of Marriage, though it is incapable of doing so, and in trying, misuses the sexual faculty. Do you believe God intended that homosexual ‘sex’ happen? Why does a homosexual man emit viable sperm?
3. I tend to avoid using words “natural”, “normal” etc. because so often these words find their meaning in the preconceived notions of the person using them! What we can say about homosexuality is that, to an objective observer, it is inconsistent with the nature of the participants.
4. I think I agree with you. But why would such relationships need to be sexual, and why ought such a union be termed “Marriage”?

Can you identify, in what I have written, what your conscience rebels against?

 

[EasterJoy]

…Your comments above imply that this engagement is unitive, though not procreative and that (in your opinion) that’s OK. Now, I can understand why a heterosexual couple might express this view - I can understand how a couple might say (without commenting on the rights or wrong…), “look, we’re not ready for children for the next little while, so we’re going to use contraception”…

To expand on your thought: IMHO, the wrong-headed willingness of heterosexuals to act as if marriage and the openness to procreation do not have any necessary connection or as if the basis for marriage in human nature is open to invention and innovation is one of the reasons that marriage is poorly understood. That, in turn, is at the root of the contemporary unwillingness to see any difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality. It is in fact necessary, if that enormous logical leap is even going to be attempted.

It is necessary, after all, to renounce recognition that the roots of marriage that go back to biological reality if one hopes to come to the inexplicable conclusion that homosexuals and heterosexuals are the same. The same? Think about that. How is it possible that anyone thinks this could be true, let alone that it is self-evident that it is so? It is like the current attitude that believes gender to be a matter of choice. Why is it obvious that a person whose self-concept concerning any other physical feature is disordered when it doesn’t conform to physical facts, but also obvious that gender is an exception, and an exception that only a bigot could fail to accept? How is all of this not an example of doublethink?

 

[Rau]

This thread can go on forever. But before it gets closed, can we reach agreement on a few points?

1. It is normal for a small percentage of the population to experience same sex attraction, and there is nothing they can do to change that;
2. There is no Bible verse on point that says that we must oppose gay marriage politically, for after all, the Bible predates democracy. The only Bible verse on point in this issue is to love your neighbor as you love yourself, and the gay community feels hated and discriminated by people who wish to deny them the equal civil right to marriage.
3. There is no absolute standard of morality, and therefore, marriage means different things to different people.
4. It is wrong for a secular government to impose a Christian definition of marriage.
5. Pope Francis said that we should not be talking about “these things” all the time. The Protestant and Evangelical churches, by allowing for political flexibility, are a good example of how a church can do very well without talking about “these things” all the time.
6. Evangelism is more important than advocating politically. Evangelism is the only way to change human behavior.
7. Because there is no Bible verse on point on this issue, it is very possible to be a faithful Christian and support gay marriage politically, as the Protestant and Evangelical churches are starting to recognize.
8. The stubbornness of the Catholic Church in holding onto tradition, which is based on yesterday’s dogma and not modern science and social science, is one reason why people are leaving the Catholic Church.

To respond:

1. “Normal” and “natural” are words often understood in light of one’s own preconceived notions. But I agree that a small percentage of people experience SSA and the reason is unknown. There is little evidence (though not none) that it can be eliminated or that opposite sex attraction can be “developed”.
2. The Bible rails against homosexual relations, and these are **intrinsic **to the gay lobby’s view of what gay marriage entails. I don’t so much seek to “deny” gay persons marriage, as to assert they simply lack eligibility for it. Please don’t throw words like “hate” around too readily. No-one here has expressed “hate” for any gay person - as the courteous and respectful nature of this conversation attests. The “gay community” claims to experience “hate” - and there are instances of this which are deplorable. But do not for a second suggest that is the general attitude of those who, in good faith, hold a view different to yours on the subject of gay marriage.
3. No - this is wrong. The standards of morality are absolute. The degree of culpability is different for every individual. Only God can assess that. Marriage has characteristics which are fixed and unique to it. Unions of a different kind should be named differently, and may find wide support.
4. I wonder - what do you want Marriage to be, and why? And if there is no absolute standard of morality, how is it that **you ** can declare something “wrong”?
5. I don’t know the situation of the 2 churches you mention.
6. Does not seem relevant to the positions I’ve argued.
7. See 2.
8. Stubbornness? Is it always “stubborn” to maintain a belief - or only in the eyes of one who has a different view? “Yesterday’s dogma” - what is that? “Science”? How does this feature in this debate?

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

I believe in God and I see his gayness in everything that exists including me. He created straight people just to test them on how much they would be acceptable to his favorite people The Gays, his anger on our world now is because of those who don’t.
Anyone who doesn’t accept God’s law of allowing gay marriage is going to spend their after lives and burn in a pub full of ugly straighties. Only gay people would be able to spend their eternity in the perfect gay pub.
GAymen.

 

[Lochias]

I believe in God and I see his gayness in everything that exists including me. He created straight people just to test them on how much they would be acceptable to his favorite people The Gays, his anger on our world now is because of those who don’t.
Anyone who doesn’t accept God’s law of allowing gay marriage is going to spend their after lives and burn in a pub full of ugly straighties. Only gay people would be able to spend their eternity in the perfect gay pub.
GAymen.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Rau]

To expand on your thought: IMHO, the wrong-headed willingness of heterosexuals to act as if marriage and the openness to procreation do not have any necessary connection or as if the basis for marriage in human nature is open to invention and innovation is one of the reasons that marriage is poorly understood. That, in turn, is at the root of the contemporary unwillingness to see any difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality. It is in fact necessary, if that enormous logical leap is even going to be attempted.

It is necessary, after all, to renounce recognition that the roots of marriage that go back to biological reality if one hopes to come to the inexplicable conclusion that homosexuals and heterosexuals are the same. The same? Think about that. How is it possible that anyone thinks this could be true, let alone that it is self-evident that it is so? It is like the current attitude that believes gender to be a matter of choice. Why is it obvious that a person whose self-concept concerning any other physical feature is disordered when it doesn’t conform to physical facts, but also obvious that gender is an exception, and an exception that only a bigot could fail to accept? How is all of this not an example of doublethink?

Yes, I am as perplexed as you are regarding the thinking…

But I understand the motivation and can’t help feel a sense of sympathy and compassion. There is a desperate need for love and intimacy in the face of an affliction that defies understanding and will not (seemingly) change. It is not a matter of “waiting” for the right person (as in the single heterosexual), for one knows the permanency of the condition. It must be a far more ‘hopeless’ feeling. Many cannot face what seems to lie ahead - therefore, the affliction needs to be denied (or in other words, accepted as ‘normal’) and external signs (like marriage) need to be “opened up” to give tangible force to the claim that what we are doing is “OK”.

A great many people IMHO share this sense of compassion, and for that reason want to support gay marriage. What they really want to do is to wish happiness on a group of people who have been dealt a tough hand, and I cannot blame them for that. But at the end of the day, it is evident that a same-sex sexual relationship cannot be a right and moral course.

 

[EasterJoy]

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/97/97985e6128b652ae933cb14b803782ba6d6c43c7274b23483edbc369aa155c6a.jpg

That about captures it…because hey, pssstt, the OP doesn’t even buy that line.
(Maybe he’s a ringer?)

 

[EasterJoy]

Yes, I am as perplexed as you are regarding the thinking…

But I understand the motivation and can’t help feel a sense of sympathy and compassion. There is a desperate need for love and intimacy in the face of an affliction that defies understanding and will not (seemingly) change. It is not a matter of “waiting” for the right person (as in the single heterosexual), for one knows the permanency of the condition. It must be a far more ‘hopeless’ feeling. Many cannot face what seems to lie ahead - therefore, the affliction needs to be denied (or in other words, accepted as ‘normal’) and external signs (like marriage) need to be “opened up” to give tangible force to the claim that what we are doing is “OK”.

A great many people IMHO share this sense of compassion, and for that reason want to support gay marriage. What they really want to do is to wish happiness on a group of people who have been dealt a tough hand, and I cannot blame them for that. But at the end of the day, it is evident that a same-sex sexual relationship cannot be a right and moral course.

Finding someone to care about is a moral course, however, even without the sexual relationship of marriage. It isn’t the sex that makes the relationship. We live in times that have given into the idea that there is something repressive about going without sex and that there is something inferior about mutually-caring relationships that aren’t sexual. (I am convinced this has more to do with using sex to sell consumer goods that aren’t even needed and using fear of sexual inadequacy to do it has more to do with this than anyone wants to admit! That is a huge and unspoken part of many of our societal ills! ) It is the glorification of sex as an end unto itself and the divorce of sex from procreation that is at the root of the problem.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Finding someone to care about is a moral course, however, even without the sexual relationship of marriage. It isn’t the sex that makes the relationship.

Yeah, I totally agree. But if you read CAF, you’ll see that the general response to (chaste!) homosexuals is that they shouldn’t even live with a person of the same sex. I think that sort of attitude needs to be reevaluated – especially if we want to make a compassionate response to the sort of concerns that Rau is raising.

 

[Rau]

…if you read CAF, you’ll see that the general response to (chaste!) homosexuals is that they shouldn’t even live with a person of the same sex. I think that sort of attitude needs to be reevaluated – especially if we want to make a compassionate response to the sort of concerns that Rau is raising.

That’s a reasonable thought to have, but it sounds like a call for civil unions - a union which (I presume) need have no sexual implication whatsoever - it is a contract of mutual commitment with attendant legal implications. I believe, ultimately, the gay lobby rejects such arrangements not for reasons of failing to capture some feature or right, but because the **name **is different. It fails to establish that a homosexual union is just the same as a Marriage.

I suppose the gay lobby’s ideal position might be that all unions are “civil unions” and that the sex part is a private matter for the participants. The religiously inclined can seek a church marriage service. That’s an interesting scenario to think about, though history and the status quo suggest it is not an achievable goal. Hence, the gay lobby needs to lay claim to Marriage.

But your fundamental question which revolves around whether 2 same-sex persons, intending to be chaste, can properly enter a relationship (“forsaking all others…?”) is itself not easy. For if the relationship has romantic elements - which would seem likely - is it not seeking to emulate what can’t be? This debate is not about the so-called “disinterested” friendships mentioned in the CCC, even though such may exist and include a desire to care for another.

 

[Agatha813]

God loves everyone, but He probably doesn’t agree with gay marriage.

 

[EasterJoy]

Yeah, I totally agree. But if you read CAF, you’ll see that the general response to (chaste!) homosexuals is that they shouldn’t even live with a person of the same sex. I think that sort of attitude needs to be reevaluated – especially if we want to make a compassionate response to the sort of concerns that Rau is raising.

I would imagine it depends on the person. There are also heterosexuals, for instance, that have issues that make them ill-suited for both marriage and professed life in a religious community. The goal for someone like that is to find a living arrangement that gives a deep sense of being loved and supported. That does not have to be sexual or otherwise quasi-marital.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

But your fundamental question which revolves around whether 2 same-sex persons, intending to be chaste, can properly enter a relationship (“forsaking all others…?”) is itself not easy. For if the relationship has romantic elements - which would seem likely - is it not seeking to emulate what can’t be? This debate is not about the so-called “disinterested” friendships mentioned in the CCC, even though such may exist and include a desire to care for another.

I would imagine it depends on the person. There are also heterosexuals, for instance, that have issues that make them ill-suited for both marriage and professed life in a religious community. The goal for someone like that is to find a living arrangement that gives a deep sense of being loved and supported. That does not have to be sexual or otherwise quasi-marital.

I think EasterJoy has a pretty good idea of what I meant here. I don’t think that romantic friendships are generally a good long-term idea. And I certainly don’t mean gay marriages! But long-term partnerships between two chaste people have been around since Christian celibacy began. Most monastic orders probably started that way.

And it doesn’t have to be long term – and it certainly doesn’t have to be between people who are attracted to each other. (Contrary to popular belief, gay people aren’t attracted to every person of the same sex. ). Some of these living situations will be the near occasion of sin, but not all of them. It’s for the person to decide, I think – hopefully with good counsel to guide them.

Sorry for being off-topic!

 

[EasterJoy]

That’s a reasonable thought to have, but it sounds like a call for civil unions - a union which (I presume) need have no sexual implication whatsoever - it is a contract of mutual commitment with attendant legal implications. I believe, ultimately, the gay lobby rejects such arrangements not for reasons of failing to capture some feature or right, but because the **name **is different. It fails to establish that a homosexual union is just the same as a Marriage.

I suppose the gay lobby’s ideal position might be that all unions are “civil unions” and that the sex part is a private matter for the participants. The religiously inclined can seek a church marriage service. That’s an interesting scenario to think about, though history and the status quo suggest it is not an achievable goal. Hence, the gay lobby needs to lay claim to Marriage.

But your fundamental question which revolves around whether 2 same-sex persons, intending to be chaste, can properly enter a relationship (“forsaking all others…?”) is itself not easy. For if the relationship has romantic elements - which would seem likely - is it not seeking to emulate what can’t be? This debate is not about the so-called “disinterested” friendships mentioned in the CCC, even though such may exist and include a desire to care for another.

The claim to marriage is based on the desire to belong to a normative relationship. I think C.S. Lewis captured the idea in the short piece “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, in which a senior demon addresses a “graduating class” of junior tempters:

"…*you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practise, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.

The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don’t mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents*…"

At the heart of the drive to invent the institution of gay marriage is the desire to say “your relationship has nothing that mine doesn’t have. They are The Same Thing.” That is what Screwtape might call a good, solid, resounding lie.