It is considered a sacrament in my church. We have all of the same sacraments, but we apply them differently in the case of marriage. Reconciliation is not required, but it is still offered.
We don’t. God does. Morality is not a matter of personal choice. We will not face final judgment with ourselves as our own judge.
Marriage is not a universal civil rights. Besides incest, you can not marry young children, animals or inanimate objects, at least yet. Marriage is an institution set by God. What was redefined and approved is not marriage. It is a modern, secular sham using the pseudonym “marriage”. The Catholic Church did not set parameters on marriage. It discerned the parameters which God set. Just like one can call themselves Catholic and believe anything under the sun, so can society call this weird relationship “marriage” it doesn’t make it so.
Which means what? No matter how much you love me, you can’t compel my salvation. What you can do is show me the way through your own example. It is up to me to decide whether to follow or not.
I agree, but we do have differing interpretations of what morality is.
You are incorrect. In the United States, marriage is a civil right see Loving v Virginia. That is the case in which the Supreme Court defined marriage as a civil right. Marriage is a civil institution defined by the governments of the states. This is a thread related to civil marriage and the recent decision of the Supreme Court in United States v Windsor.
I think Henry VIII is to blame.
I guess that depends on where we believe moral law comes from. For example, I am Catholic and understand the significance of the authority of Jesus Christ and his right to confer on his vicar the authority to act in his behalf.
No, I am correct in the terms of what marriage** is**. You are correct into what marriage has been legally defined. The Supreme Court could decide that killing children under age of one is the right of any parent tomorrow (and it might). That would make that legally acceptable. It would remain immoral. Black people were once considered to be property (or 3/5’s a person) according to the law. That made slavery a civil right. Yet the antislavery advocates refused to acknowledge this civil right.
Again, slavery deprived humans of their freedom. Gay marriage does not harm anyone. And, the sacrament of holy matrimony is defined by the church performing it. My church allows it between people of the same sex, yours does not. For the government to choose to honor a religious definition of marriage would exclude people of other faiths, and that is wrong.
I too recognize that authority, I just have a different belief about how it was intended to be enacted. But I wouldn’t want to impose my religion on someone of another religion through our laws.
Incorrect. Homosexual behavior alone gravely harms the souls of those who participate in it. Attempting to push a mortal sin into a Sacrament greatly compounds the corruption and stain of sin on the soul. It harms those who enter into it, and society has long recognized a prerogative and necessity to support laws that ban people from engaging in harmful behavior (drug laws, for example).
There is one Truth, and it is the Roman Catholic Truth. I will not denigrate your beliefs, but to believe in the idea that everyone’s faith should be allowed to be expressed in law (as opposed to in practice) is problematic. Should the orthodox Mormons be allowed to have polygamy/was it a violation of religious freedom for the United States to require the illegalization of polygamy for Utah to join the Union? Should LSD be legalized because some Native American religions use it? There must be one moral standard for all laws to based on, and I believe it should be the Roman Catholic standard since its doctrine is divine Truth.
The founders of our country disagree with you. There should be no religion expressed in law. Again, in a nation of many beliefs, there is no one religion recognized as the “one truth.” Because each of those other religions believe that their interpretation is the “one truth.” To declare to a nation that your beliefs are the only correct ones, and to codify those beliefs is un-American and unacceptable. I don’t believe that the Roman Catholic teaching is divine truth. You don’t have a right in this country to make me obey Roman Catholic teaching.
Would you support the legalization of murder for followers of Huitzilopochtli? Of course not. Simply because a religion or belief system espouses a belief doesn’t mean that we must all accede to it.
Who decided which religious beliefs we do respect then? What standard do they use? It’s simple, the courts decide, and the standard that they use is “does this religious practice infringe on the rights of others?”
As same-sex “marriage” does when enshrined in law: A lesbian woman whose “marriage” has been legally recognized by the state applies for a position at a Catholic school. As is normal during the interview process, her “marital” status is undisclosed until she is hired and fills out the insurance paperwork. At this point, the school has been placed in the position of either following the state’s law and granting benefits to her partner, or following the teaching of the Church and dismissing her forthwith and facing the legal consequences of following their faith.
Catholic children will be subjected to public schools telling them that two men or two women can be “married” - something directly at odds with the Faith. The state is directly telling them that their religion is wrong.
You stated that “no one religion” holds the truth as far as our country’s laws are concerned. I’m pointing out that it isn’t “one religion” but the common assumption of every culture everywhere. In declaring same-sex “marriage” to be legal, those states that have done so are embarking upon a sociological, psychological, and athropological experiment of unprecedented scale. 20,000 years of history, and this is the only area that every culture - pagan, Christian, animistic, pantheistic, atheistic, rational, primitive, even those isolated from all outside contact until discovery - has agreed upon. No other legal recognition - even murder - has been agreed upon like that. That’s an awful lot of data to handwave away as “not a valid argument”.
The school in your example is participating in the public sector, and should be required to follow the law. I’m very tired of religious organizations thinking that they somehow deserve a different set of laws… They don’t.
Unjust laws are just that. Unjust. Kids, and adults, have an obligation to reject evil laws. Simply that such wrongness exists is no reason to not label evil what it really is.
The Ninth Amendment is good, pointing out that rights aren’t granted by the State. However, the Tenth Amendment is even better, pointing out that unless the Constitution specifically says otherwise, the federal government is obligated to butt out and let the individual states handle things. So unless the gay ‘marriage’ people can point out exactly where in the Constitution the federal government gets to make laws about marriage, they’re going to have to acknowledge that the Constitution doesn’t apply to them.
They aren’t unconstitutional, they’re extra-constutitional…as in, not covered by the Constitution and thus outside the purview of the federal government (which includes the Supreme Court).
Actually, America did vote on civil rights in 1965. And there is no law stating that a person who is gay cannot be married. Therefore, their civil rights are not being violated in any way.
