Engaging with members of the Gay Community via Social Media

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The fact is, unless they are Catholic, their view is different than yours and they really have to be Catholic to accept it. If they aren’t Catholics, they have no reason whatsoever to accept your definition.

You’d spend your energy better by trying to convince them of Catholicism first…then they will understand where you are coming from. Until then, you have no place to tell them they’re wrong.

I agree with @jan10000, you can just say that Catholicism sees marriage as a sacrament that forbids gay marriage but everyone needs to accept civil marriages. They exist and they are legal. You don’t have to like it but if you start giving your opinion on civil marriages, you are stepping out of the charity zone. Would you presume to tell a religious Jew that keeping Kosher is wrong? Or would you just understand that they have different views from yours and in charity not condemn them?
 
Yea… Everyone is going to be hurt. I should be mindful of hurting people nowadays.
 
OP, you only posted the person’s response to you, not what you said.

Maybe you were very loving and kind and this person was over reactive, but we just don’t know.

The issue of homosexuality is very fraught and sensitive and there’s a right way and a wrong way to approach it.

Hearts and minds are generally changed in the context of relationship. People want to feel heard. You don’t have to agree, but it’s good to listen.

You can take a cue from Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman. He started off the conversation by asking for a drink of water. Not by preaching. He was authentic and real and vulnerable. It made her safe to talk to Him.

Christians get a lot of grief from certain groups nowadays, and it’s easy to feel attacked and defensive. But you really need to push through those uncomfortable feelings, to risk putting your own heart out there so the other person can feel safe to risk with you.
 
I am aware of the fact about the screenshots I shared and I would have loved to show both sides. Coz that would have been an authentic sharing. I tried a lot to take screenshots of the conversations (Laptop and Mobile), but these were all I could get.
 
Sheldon_126 said:
I am aware of the fact about the screenshots I shared and I would have loved to show both sides. Coz that would have been an authentic sharing. I tried a lot to take screenshots of the conversations (Laptop and Mobile), but these were all I could get.
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It’s Instagram. Comments don’t magically disappear into the ether there.
 
You have no right to call out those who are acting on their homosexuality as sinners just as we have no right to call you out for all your sins.

Jesus said those without sin can cast the first stone. You however have already cast the first stone…
 
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There is no obligation to debate anyone and it is a fruitless task anyways. Adding them to your prayers and asking for God’s help is what I recommend.
Sheldon_126 said:
With regards to my boss pulling up this conversation (my first ever public opinion on where I stand on the issue of homosexuality) if it is going to show me the door or deny a new job, well I guess it is my luck.
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You should use an anonymous account.
 
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Sheldon_126 said:
Speak to a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, all of them have the same understanding of Marriage. It is a union of Man and Woman and procreation being one of the ends.
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There are also eight types of Hindu marriage. And most of them are arranged. Which one should we follow?


Bhuddism has zero problems with divorce. Is that OK I wonder?

Likewise two types of Islamic marriages:

“In addition to the usual marriage until death or divorce, there is a different fixed-term marriage known as zawāj al-mutʻah (“pleasure marriage”)[2](p1045) permitted only by the Twelver branch of Shi’ite Islam for a pre-fixed period.”

I’m not sure that any of the religions noted share the same ideas as Catholics.
 
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Pattylt said:
I agree with @jan10000, you can just say that Catholicism sees marriage as a sacrament that forbids gay marriage but everyone needs to accept civil marriages.
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The Church doesn’t neccessarily accept civil marriages as valid either. It is mostly a non-issue as long as it isn’t brought up in a conversation.
 
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No they don’t disappear… And they are there… I see them in the mobile and you may have see how long one comment is… So if I take a screenshot on the phone… I may have to take (at least 2) just to show one part. These were taken when I opened Instagram on my laptop. Let me try again (today) and see.
 
I agree… Being a homosexual isn’t sin. It is like calling a murderer sin and not murder. Apologies for not being careful in my choice of words.
 
The intention of commenting on that post which wasn’t put out by a homosexual was to point out that an act that is being considered as “ok” is sinful. And the thread of thought that was going around is similar to the ones I see here… “Love is not sinful”. I don’t have a right to call out somone’s sin… True… But I wasn’t calling out someone in particular. Read my post again… I didn’t even know that the guy was gay and neither did he mention it. It was only when I checked his profile is when I realized that he was one. If you read his comments as is, I don’t think you get an impression that he is gay. It is like you an I expressing a viewpoint (based on experiences, but not necessarily personal). As for the right or not… I guess we do have a duty to call something a sin, right? Obviously, we don’t do it on a whim and we ought to be mindful of our tone. The purpose of putting it out here was to seek advice on how to be careful when calling out a sin without unintentionally hurting someone who may be in the middle of it.
 
Has anyone read the whole passage? Even the Jews had divorce. That’s precisely the question posed to Jesus to which he answers that, it was due to the hardness of their hearts, is why Moses allowed it but it wasn’t meant to be that way. This is only sensible if His words mean anything.
 
Anti-Semitism wasn’t and isn’t advocated by the Church in the past, nor the present and is certainly not encouraged in the Bible. It was a sad reality that there were those in the Church who misconstrued the understanding of the “Jews killing Jesus”. Up an down the centuries, it was understood that the Jews were representative of the human race when it came to their role in the crucifixion of Jesus. What many of the anti-semitists then and those hiding it deep within forget that the first generation of Christians were Jews. But then I guess that’s a conversation for another post.
 
Sheldon_126 said:
Has anyone read the whole passage? Even the Jews had divorce. That’s precisely the question posed to Jesus to which he answers that, it was due to the hardness of their hearts, is why Moses allowed it but it wasn’t meant to be that way. This is only sensible if His words mean anything.
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Are you missing the point that was made? This statement is patently wrong: ‘all of them have the same understanding of Marriage’.

I don’t have the same idea of marriage as you. Other Catholics don’t even have the same idea of marriage as you. We all have our understanding of what it means to each of us and different people at different times have had yet even greater differences. To suggest that marriage is a concept cast in concrete and never has, isn’t and never will change is nonsensical.

Trying to stop that process because ‘this is what some of us believe’ is doomed to fail.
 
I don’t get to decide what’s natural and what’s not. Look around you… We call something natural when it follows the laws of nature and we don’t say so on a whim. It is also scientifically proven (Amazing how people like to pit religion and science against one another). There’s a certain rationale to the process. Similarly, when it comes to Human Relationships of a spousal nature, it is natural for a man and woman to enter a spousal relationship and not contrary to nature for two men or two women to enter a spousal relationship. Thank you for mentioning genetalia. Every organ in our body has a purpose. Would it be natural for one of the organs to behave or be used in a different way? On its own, it would be a different matter. I mean would you be ok if someone were to forcefully make the brain pump blood instead of the heart? Or if the heart isn’t pumping enough blood as it should, would we call it unnatural? No. It is still pumping blood, but there’s an impediment which causes the heart to pump less than normal blood.as for the 1st instance of making the brain to pump blood, we would call it unnatural as that is not the intended purpose of the brain. Hence, the genetalia in our bodies is there for a specific purpose. If it doesn’t function properly, it is not unnatural, but dysfunctional. But when I use them contrary to their intended purpose, when I (and not me alone or the church) would call it unnatural. Now… Addressing the Emotion of love. Would we be ok with incest? That’s love between 2 people. The majority think of it not only as Sinful but even a crime and unnatural. We call it unnatural because it is against the nature of relationships between parent and child. A parent loves his/her child but there’s a boundary that’s not established by society as such but it is there. And anyone who goes contrary to behaviour we would term it as unnatural. Now this isn’t covered only in a 2000 year book. Or because it is, should we do away with this as well. Allow and foster such relationships which are borne out of love. They’ve just taken it to another level. If Emotions are everything and Reason amounts to nothing and vice-versa, then all of this is in vain. We might simply allow every individual to live the way s/he wants. Let them determine everything about life. (Live like Lamech).
 
Also, with regards to quoting biblical passages and Catholics ignoring certain “horrendous” commands and statements, I don’t think the Church really ignores anything in the Bible. It didn’t just fall off the sky, so I guess the Church does know what’s in there. I might not know what’s in there personally. Some of it may catch me by surprise. But just as some of the misdeeds of popes in history caught me by surprise in my younger and impressionable days and I am still a Catholic and still look up to the office as that ordained by God himself, I won’t be scandalised if I come across something in the Bible that may be “scandalous”. Just because we live in the 21st century with all its technology and advancement, doesn’t mean that those who lived before us were simply stupid or primitive in their understanding of things. I will look for an answer, I will look for a context, I will look for the rationale coz Faith that isn’t built on Reason is Superstition. I come from a culture that’s had and still has superstition rife. And authentic faith always builds itself on reason but not limited by it. And I didn’t cherry pick those verses… They were “picked” to substantiate my point of Marriage and that Marriage has always been seen as something between Man and Woman and it’s not limited to “Sacramental Marriage”. A marriage is a marriage. The Church may not “recognise” civil marriage only because, it believes that marriages are ordained by God.
 
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