Gay Marriage in America

[LittleSoldier]

Well, that’s a very fine line you’ve drawn there, but it seems abundantly clear that God has already spoken through the OT, NT, Tradition, and the Church. SS action is a sin, REGARDLESS of whether it occurs within a relationship of lifelong fidelity or a bathhouse or a commune or a series of one night stands.

Well said!!

 

[Wardog]

michelleds:
Well, that’s a very fine line you’ve drawn there, but it seems abundantly clear that God has already spoken through the OT, NT, Tradition, and the Church. SS action is a sin, REGARDLESS of whether it occurs within a relationship of lifelong fidelity or a bathhouse or a commune or a series of one night stands.

The Catholic Church has been quite clear in its message, and no one can doubt that SS action is a sin. The thread title is Gay Marriage in America. The issue at hand is should the American civil government banish sin, or is that outside its provenance. Certainly there are laws prohibiting sinful acts, but most of them deal with a victim. To put gay marriage in the correct context, we must show how it compares with “victimless” crimes such as prostitution and drug abuse. If you want non- believers to agree with you and vote to keep marriage between one man and one woman, you have to show the secular reasons for it. So far no one on this thread has done this satisfactorily enough for me to change my mind that marriage between two SS people should be legal and recognized. I agree with the Catholic stance, just don’t see that makes a difference in the civil sphere.

 

[qui_est_ce]

The word “marriage” does not have a fixed definition, it has changed many times in history. For example, “And he [Solomon] had seven hundred wives as queens,” - 1 Kings 11:3. And there are other Biblical patriarchs with multiple wives as well. Given that Solomon was King, we can be sure that all his wives were legitimate in civil law.

The OT has been fulfilled. Adam and Eve’s children married one another. The OT points to Salvation History. For us Catholics, Jesus said, “A man leaves his parents and clings to his wife.” Wife is feminine.

There was a redefinition of civil marriage in the US in 1967 after the Loving v Virginia case when the definition was changed from “two loving and consenting adults of different sexes and the same race” to “two loving and consenting adults of different sexes”.

Racism is a sad chapter in our history. Racist laws should be rescinded. The definition of how human a black person was also on the books. Humans have always been 100% humans even if the law said they weren’t 100%.

Since then the laws on divorce have changed to allow no fault divorce.

Civil marriage is a reflection of the society in which it is found, hence the “of the same race” in the old Virginia law. There are a lot of changes in society and in a democracy the civil law will alter to reflect those wider changes.

It can be, as in the case of Muslims allowing multiple wives, but I find that repugnant.

Marriage in civil law has changed in the past, it is changing now and** it will continue to change in future.**

rossum

I hope not. The possibilities cause me to shudder.

 

[michelleds]

The Catholic Church has been quite clear in its message, and no one can doubt that SS action is a sin. The thread title is Gay Marriage in America. The issue at hand is should the American civil government **banish **sin, or is that outside its provenance. .

that word is the problem. I would re-frame that question to be The issue at hand is should the American civil government encourage sin

 

[Wardog]

that word is the problem. I would re-frame that question to be The issue at hand is should the American civil government encourage sin

Drinking is legal, yet sinful.
Gambling is legal, yet sinful.
Divorce is legal, yet sinful

It’s tricky when government gets in the business to regulate sin; I prefer to leave that up to the individuals. Who should get their guidance from their church.

If the government were to legalize gay marriage, would it make you any more likely to enter a gay marriage yourself, or would you follow your own instincts?

 

[LittleSoldier]

LittleSoldier, can you please elaborate on this? If every bit of evil makes the world “more broken” (I’m not clear on what that means), does every bit of good make the world less broken? Or is this a one-way process?

We have a gay choir director and a couple of lesbian families in the parish, with their kids in our parish school. Can you show me the ways in which our parish is now “more broken”? Is this physical brokenness, or psychological? I want to be able to look for the signs. The roof is still intact, and the lighting and plumbing are not broken.

StAnastasia

Oy vey! I am speaking of the spiritual realm! Of course every bit of good make the world less broken!

 

[LittleSoldier]

Drinking is legal, yet sinful.
Gambling is legal, yet sinful.
Divorce is legal, yet sinful

Drinking is not sinful (even Jesus drank wine!), gambling is not sinful, divorce is not sinful (only remarriage after divorce is sinful).

It’s tricky when government gets in the business to regulate sin; I prefer to leave that up to the individuals. Who should get their guidance from their church.

[bolding added] Should engaging in incest be left up to the individual? What about rape? Murder? Polygamy?

If the government were to legalize gay marriage, would it make you any more likely to enter a gay marriage yourself, or would you follow your own instincts?

This is not the topic being discussed. I suggest reading the OP.

 

[sedonaman]

…If the government were to legalize gay marriage, would it make you any more likely to enter a gay marriage yourself, or would you follow your own instincts?

This is not the issue. The issue is would heterosexuals want to live in a world that homosexuals will create? They have already re-defined the language and started to force everyone to say what is known to be false [think “Newspeak” of Orwell’s *1984 infamy]. The first thing they will agitate for after they get SS"M" is hate speech laws, which are nothing more than “intent to persecute” laws. Canada and the UK have a head start on us salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/22/canada en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom .

 

[StAnastasia]

*Do you mean warnings like earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes? Among others. *

But if tornadoes are warnings, why do the states with the highest rates of gay and lesbian people have among the lowest rates of tornadoes? And why does God hate trailer parks so much? They get hit by tornadoes more than is fair.

Again, why would someone want to be a part of a Church that condemns their lifestyle? Assuming you belong to a Catholic Church in communion with Rome.

 

[StAnastasia]

The issue is would heterosexuals want to live in a world that homosexuals will create?

Why not? For centuries homosexuals had to live in a world created by heterosexuals, including being burned at the stake.

 

[Glennonite]

…If you want non- believers to agree with you and vote to keep marriage between one man and one woman, you have to show the secular reasons for it. So far no one on this thread has done this satisfactorily enough for me to change my mind that marriage between two SS people should be legal and recognized. I agree with the Catholic stance, just don’t see that makes a difference in the civil sphere.

My thoughts exactly. Actually, I got reasonable viewpoints from both sides to come to my decision within the first 10-15 postings. I had no intention of raising a question that would go into the 300’s of posts that it is at currently. I’m also a bit taken aback by the petty rancor that has ensued. I’m still monitoring for an occassional piece of sound reasoning that is on point.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Glennonite

 

[LittleSoldier]

But if tornadoes are warnings, why do the states with the highest rates of gay and lesbian people have among the lowest rates of tornadoes? And why does God hate trailer parks so much? They get hit by tornadoes more than is fair.

It’s possible that trailer parks are not hit more than other areas by tornadoes. They do, however, probably sustain much more damage as many trailers are not secured adequately to foundations and are not as stable as stick-built structures.

Just sayin’.

 

[StAnastasia]

Drinking is legal, yet sinful. Gambling is legal, yet sinful.

Wardog, you haven’t had a pint of good ale, have you? or a wee dram of Talisker Scotch? Or a full-bodied Zinfandel? Have you never had a friendly game of poker?

Divorce is legal, yet sinful

 

[StAnastasia]

It’s possible that trailer parks are not hit more than other areas by tornadoes. They do, however, probably sustain much more damage as many trailers are not secured adequately to foundations and are not as stable as stick-built structures. Just sayin’.

But if God loves Christians and hates practicing homosexuals, why does She/He tend to hit Midwest trailer parks filled with Christian retirees, and spare San Francisco and New York? You would think God would direct the divine wrath to the appropriate target population.

Just sayin’.

 

[LittleSoldier]

My thoughts exactly. Actually, I got reasonable viewpoints from both sides to come to my decision within the first 10-15 postings. I had no intention of raising a question that would go into the 300’s of posts that it is at currently. I’m also a bit taken aback by the petty rancor that has ensued. I’m still monitoring for an occassional piece of sound reasoning that is on point.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Glennonite

Have you read post #313? I’m only asking because I did my best to answer the questions you posted in the OP, although I admit my response is not based on secularism.

May I ask why you feel it needs to be based on secularism?

 

[Elizabeth502]

LittleSoldier, can you please elaborate on this? If every bit of evil makes the world “more broken” (I’m not clear on what that means), does every bit of good make the world less broken? Or is this a one-way process?

We have a gay choir director and a couple of lesbian families in the parish, with their kids in our parish school. Can you show me the ways in which our parish is now “more broken”? Is this physical brokenness, or psychological? I want to be able to look for the signs. The roof is still intact, and the lighting and plumbing are not broken.

Social Sin
There are three meanings of this term. Each individual’s sin in some way affects others and therefore “there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, the most strictly individual one, that exclusively concerns the person committing it. With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and the whole human family. According to the first meaning of the term, every sin can undoubtedly be considered as social sin” (RP).

(From Reconciliatio et Paenitentia [RP] On Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today. Apostolic Exhortation of John Paul II following the Synod on Penance, 1984)

I wish to point out five things:

(1) I do not believe that LittleSoldier has a theology degree, yet she managed to get this right.

(2) Neither LittleSoldier nor any of us needs to “show” you “in what way” our world has become more broken by sin, since this brokenness manifests itself in a multitude of ways, some of it directly, some of it indirectly, some sooner rather than later, and not any of it necessarily apparent to that poster’s eyes.

(3) This is not a new position of the Church, which JP2 reiterated. This is classic Catholic moral theology, that any Ph.D. in Catholic Theology should be well-acquainted with.

(4) Opposition to this basic understanding of the effect of objective evil in the universe is a heterodox position. (Or, perhaps you do not believe what our Church asserts about the objectively evil nature of homosexuality activity.)

(5) I will not entertain accusations of “calumny,” “falsehoods,” or “lies,” for commenting accurately on what has plainly been posted above in black and white, and henceforth will report such uncharitable & unfounded accusations to the moderators.

 

[StAnastasia]

Now if I can just understand why the Church will not allow a couple who is unable to consummate a marriage to be married I will feel I’ve taken a few steps down the road of my spiritual journey.

Because marriage is about consummation. If you can’t have sex you can’t call yourself married, but you can still be friends. Of course, if the consummation problem post-dated the marriage contract (through illness or accident), you are still married.

 

[JHow]

…as arabs do, shooting to the air with machine guns on holidays and festivities, marriages…

Point of order: The above is decidedly NOT harmless behavior. Shot straight up, bullets can still return to ground at several hundred feet per second (See famous Hatcher’s Notebook “Bullets from the Sky” article). Shot at an angle, they will travel in an arc, maintain their spin, and return to earth at lethal velocities. Muzzle velocities from rifles (such as the beloved-by-festive-Arabs AK-47) can be over 2,000 feet per second. How the bullet performs when travelling through air has to do with the angle one holds the firearm when shooting it. Curtailing this type of celebration is not an example of cultural insensitivity on the part of the American police. “Be sure of your target and backstop” is a fundamental rule of safe shooting.

 

[LittleSoldier]

(From Reconciliatio et Paenitentia [RP] On Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today. Apostolic Exhortation of John Paul II following the Synod on Penance, 1984)

I wish to point out five things:

(1) I do not believe that LittleSoldier has a theology degree, yet she managed to get this right.

(2) Neither LittleSoldier nor any of us needs to “show” you “in what way” our world has become more broken by sin, since this brokenness manifests itself in a multitude of ways, some of it directly, some of it indirectly, some sooner rather than later, and not any of it necessarily apparent to that poster’s eyes.

(3) This is not a new position of the Church, which JP2 reiterated. This is classic Catholic moral theology, that any Ph.D. in Catholic Theology should be well-acquainted with.

(4) Opposition to this basic understanding of the effect of objective evil in the universe is a heterodox position. (Or, perhaps you do not believe what our Church asserts about the objectively evil nature of homosexuality activity.)

(5) I will not entertain accusations of “calumny,” “falsehoods,” or “lies,” for commenting accurately on what has plainly been posted above in black and white, and henceforth will report such uncharitable & unfounded accusations to the moderators.

Thank you for the reference. I wasn’t aware of the statement whose reference you posted. I’m going to keep and use that reference.

“All prayers help all members of Christ’s Body, not just the ones consciously prayed for. Every good deed makes the whole Body stronger. And every evil deed makes it weaker. All sins harm all members of the Body, not only the ones immediately and visibly harmed. There are no private sins, no victim-less crimes. **Every failure of love harms everyone. ** As Dostoyevsky says, ‘We are each responsible for all.’” [Kreeft, Peter J. *Catholic Christianity, St. Ignatius Press, 2001, p.110, Nihil obstat: Rev. Milton D. Walsh, S.T.D., Imprimatur: Most Rev. William J. Levada, Archbishop of San Francisco] [bolding added]

I already knew this but here it is presented formally in a book I just recently purchased. I’m sorry I don’t have a link because it’s not from the Internet. There is no footnote for the statement made by Dostoyevsky.

I always thought it was obvious to everyone.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Because marriage is about consummation. If you can’t have sex you can’t call yourself married, but you can still be friends. Of course, if the consummation problem post-dated the marriage contract (through illness or accident), you are still married.

I apologize; I should not have stated what I did. I don’t want to derail this thread. I wasn’t expecting any response to it; it was simply an afterthought that I foolishly added to my post.

My apologies to the OP and all thread participants.