Gay Marriage in America

[sedonaman]

…Society can set its own rules. These are ingrained in the laws.

That’s true, but she was saying Christians/Catholics have no right to “impose” their beliefs on society. I am saying this is a red herring because someone’s concept of right and wrong is going to be imposed on society. After all, what’s the purpose of the law? Where does it come from? Besides, the ACLU doesn’t expend massive efforts and money not to have its beliefs imposed on the rest of us, and there are lots of StAnastasias out there not complaining about them. Christians/Catholics have just as much right to “impose” their beliefs as any group.

But in today’s American society you will have to have something other than the Bible and the Catholic Catechism to back up your beliefs if you want non-Christians, atheist, agnostics, pagans, etc, all who are American citizens who can vote, to agree with you.

And that is why I’ve tried to avoid using religious reasons. For what it’s worth, here it is youtube.com/watch?v=I7AwGxqjPWg , but I bet you don’t watch it. No one has yet.

 

[Glennonite]

The Church says that pin dancing by immortals is immoral, and therefore not a civil right. The pin dancing advocates say that immortals have just as much right as anyone else to dance on a pin. The Church says that the pin dancer advocates are trying to change the meaning of the word “pin”, and this will undermine life for everyone everywhere and society will end as we know it. All pins will be pulled into a giant magnet. The pin dancing advocates say that nothing big will happen, and that pin dancers deserve equality.

The two sides will not agree any time soon, but they like to go round and round in circles thinking that someone will change.

Nice.

Glennonite

 

[sedonaman]

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?

Seems fairly straight-forward to me. Do you have to have every word defined for you? You have no argument, so you make unreasonable demands on other posters to side-track the discussion.

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

This is nothing but confusion contributing to the brokenness of the world. It says, “I know some nice gays, therefore homosexuality must be good.” What kind of logic is that? No logic, that’s what.

Demands for approval can be subtle. There was a lesbian couple in our parish, and everything was fine until they decided they wanted to be Eucharistic ministers. They were told that it would not be appropriate since it would imply Church approval of their relationship.

No one is advocating sending gays to concentration camps. What we are against is giving legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons. Can’t you understand that, or should I start by defining “no” for you?

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

vatican.va/roman_curia/co…unions_en.html

This link takes you to a thoughtful and carefully written piece on the Catholic Church’s approach to same sex marriages. It is very useful guide for voters to review.
But the last paragraph contains specific directions to the Catholic politicians on what their position should be. Does anyone else see a problem with a religious leader who is also a head of state giving political direction to our Congressmen and President?

The Churc is stating the Truth according to God. The Church was given this authority by Jesus as the holder of the keys with the power to bind and loose.

The Catholic politician can choose to ignore the Truth, but the job of the Church is to clearly state the Truth.

 

[qui_est_ce]

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

First of all, you are defining broken on your terms, not God’s terms.

In the Old Testament, you see how the cycle of sin affected the Israelites. God punished Israel corporately for their sins. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their sin. The faithful Abraham and Lot were spared, as was Rahab. At one point in their sinfulness, Israel was captured by the Assyrians and were scattered in the diaspora, never to return. A little while later, Judah was sent to Babylon for 70 years. They repented and were returned to Judah. But the Temple was destroyed and the Ark of the Covenant gone.

God is still sending us warnings, but people dismiss them as primitive beliefs by Christians.

We are all responsible for one another. We must give up ourselves for the good of others. Christ tells us to correct the sinner in brotherly love. If the sinner refuses to repent, eventually, he tells us to take it to the Church. If your parish claims to be in union with Rome, they should not be allowing practicing homosexuals and non-married co-habitating couoples to receive and participate in key positions of parish ministry.

How do you know your choir director is gay? Has he “come out of the closet” to you? Being SSA is not a sin, leading the gay life style is.

Your post is nothing but vague insinuations phrased so you can refute any objections.

Is the lesbian couple really lesbian, how do you know? Maybe they are merely roommates?

Would you take away children adopted by homosexual couples? If so, at what age?

Taking away is not the issue, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. What I don’t understand is why a practicing homosexual couple would want to put their children in a religious program that condemns their parents’ lifestyle. Can you?

Two couples in our parish adopted girls from Chinese orphanages, and their daughters ended up in my older son’s class. One couple were infertile heterosexuals; the other were infertile lesbians. Both girls are close friends of my son; both are turning into exceptionally talented young women with a healthy interest in teenage boys!

Hitler, Stalin, Lenin are examples of exceptionally talented people who had healthy interest in the opposite sex.

Your arguments don’t fly.

 

[sedonaman]

[… Does anyone else see a problem with a religious leader who is also a head of state giving political direction to our Congressmen and President?](… Does anyone else see a problem with a religious leader who is also a head of state giving political direction to our Congressmen and President?)Why should they? They don’t have a problem with Supreme Court justices using foreign law to decide some of its cases.

It is my view that modern foreign law can never be relevant to an interpretation of the meaning of the United States Constitution.

 

[qui_est_ce]

No one is advocating sending gays to concentration camps. What we are against is giving legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons. Can’t you understand that, or should I start by defining “no” for you?

What I object to is the redefinition of the word “marriage.” I object to the definition that a “marriage” is between “two loving and consenting adults.”

I welcome any challenge to my statement.

 

[StAnastasia]

God is still sending us warnings, but people dismiss them as primitive beliefs by Christians.

Do you mean warnings like earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes?

How do you know your choir director is gay? Has he “come out of the closet” to you?

Yes.

Your post is nothing but vague insinuations phrased so you can refute any objections.

No, they are quite specific.

Is the lesbian couple really lesbian, how do you know?

Because we’ve been friends for ten years, since our kids were kindergartners together.

Taking away is not the issue, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

China had no issue with two women wanting to adopt a daughter. Would you rather she had languished in a Chinese orphanage?

What I don’t understand is why a practicing homosexual couple would want to put their children in a religious program that condemns their parents’ lifestyle.

Our parish school does not condemn the girl’s parents.

Can you? Hitler, Stalin, Lenin are examples of exceptionally talented people who had healthy interest in the opposite sex.

You just broke Godwin’s Law – you lose! Godwin observed that, “given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.”

 

[StAnastasia]

What I object to is the redefinition of the word “marriage.” I object to the definition that a “marriage” is between “two loving and consenting adults.”

I quite agree with you.

 

[sedonaman]

What I object to is the redefinition of the word “marriage.” I object to the definition that a “marriage” is between “two loving and consenting adults.”

I welcome any challenge to my statement.

Judge Walker, who overturned Proposition 8 in California, re-defined marriage this way: “Marriage is the state recognition and approval of a couple’s choice to live with each other, to remain committed to one another and to form a household based on their own feelings about one another and to join in an economic partnership and support one another and any dependents.”
Aside from the judge’s exceeding his authority by re-defining marriage, where is the public purpose in this definition? There is none; only personal purposes. If we were to adopt his definition, there would be no need for marriage, and any number of persons could “live with each other, to remain committed to one another and to form a household based on their own feelings about one another and to join in an economic partnership and support one another and any dependents.”

 

[michelleds]

I quite agree with you.

Anastasia, I understand you to be saying that you are not in favor of SSM but you are in favor of SS civil unions? is this correct? and you base that acceptance of civil unions on your own experiences with gay and lesbian friends. Now, please tell me, do you agree with the Catholic Church teachings that same sex attraction is not a sin, but same sex actions is a sin?

 

[LittleSoldier]

Would you take away children adopted by homosexual couples? If so, at what age? Two couples in our parish adopted girls from Chinese orphanages, and their daughters ended up in my older son’s class. One couple were infertile heterosexuals; the other were infertile lesbians. Both girls are close friends of my son; both are turning into exceptionally talented young women with a healthy interest in teenage boys!

This has nothing to do with what I am speaking about. I am saying that from the beginning children should be raised in an environment in which the people who foster them are man and woman, married. Taking children away from an environment in which they have already bonded with those who are fostering them is an entirely different subject.

 

[StAnastasia]

Anastasia, I understand you to be saying that you are not in favor of SSM but you are in favor of SS civil unions? is this correct? and you base that acceptance of civil unions on your own experiences with gay and lesbian friends. Now, please tell me, do you agree with the Catholic Church teachings that same sex attraction is not a sin, but same sex actions is a sin?

Yes, I am opposed to redefining marriage, as that makes no sense (although I am troubled by emphasizing on the one hand the central importance of bringing children into the world, and no the other hand the dismissal of this importance in the case of elderly or infertile couples).

I leave it up to God to determine whether same sex action within a relationship of lifelong fidelity to one person is a sin. And that is how the priests in our parish seem to leave it, although obviously I am not privy to whatever counsel they may give to people with same sex attraction.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

I am saying that from the beginning children should be raised in an environment in which the people who foster them are man and woman, married.

I read a bout a priest in Chicago a couple of decades ago who was commended for adopting a black orphan child. No mother was in the picture.

Taking children away from an environment in which they have already bonded with those who are fostering them is an entirely different subject.

 

[michelleds]

I leave it up to God to determine whether same sex action within a relationship of lifelong fidelity to one person is a sin.

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.

 

[rossum]

What I object to is the redefinition of the word “marriage.” I object to the definition that a “marriage” is between “two loving and consenting adults.”

I welcome any challenge to my statement.

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.

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”.

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.

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

rossum

 

[LittleSoldier]

StAnastasia:

Good.

I assume then that this subject will be dropped.

 

[LittleSoldier]

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.

Well said!!

 

[qui_est_ce]

Do you mean warnings like earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes?

Among others.

No, they are quite specific.

No, you are mixing SSA with practicing homosexuals.

Because we’ve been friends for ten years, since our kids were kindergartners together.

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.

China had no issue with two women wanting to adopt a daughter.

Would you rather she had languished in a Chinese orphanage?

Shouldn’t be a problem since many more girls than boys are aborted or left on mountains to die.

Our parish school does not condemn the girl’s parents.

Does your parish school teach religion? Assuming your parish school is Catholic in union with Rome, how does addressing Catholic Teaching on practicing homosexual not confuse the kids caught in the middle?

You just broke Godwin’s Law – you lose! Godwin observed that, “given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.”

Red Herring to avoid the logical fallacy of your argument. I’m not here to win or lose. I was addressing the logic of your argument. Please reconcile

STA:

both are turning into exceptionally talented young women with a healthy interest in teenage boys!

qui:

Hitler, Stalin, Lenin are examples of exceptionally talented people who had healthy interest in the opposite sex.

Your logic escapes me.

Is your parish Catholic in union with Rome?

 

[sedonaman]

…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”. …

Loving v. Virginia didn’t change the definition of marriage. We’ve been over this case before.

I want to dispel a false argument made by those seeking to redefine marriage. They frequently argue that marriage laws are unconstitutional like old laws banning interracial marriage. The Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s miscegenation law in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia. The marriage redefiners argue that because it is unconstitutional for a state to limit marriage based on race, as Loving v. Virginia ruled, it is also unconstitutional to limit marriage on the basis of sex.

This argument fails for at least two reasons. First, there is a huge difference between race and sex. The only reason most every society publicly regulates marriage, and universally define marriage as one man and one woman, is because placing men and women together in a society will inevitably produce children. The racial backgrounds of a man and a woman have nothing to do with their ability and desire to procreate.

Second, they base their deficient legal argument on an inaccurate understanding of what the miscengenation law at issue in Loving v. Virginia actually outlawed. This common misunderstanding popped up twice during the debate at UVA, and I had to correct it. Many people, including many law students, incorrectly believe that the unconstitutional Virginia law banned everyone from having an interracial marriage, but it did not. It banned only white people from having an interracial marriage. Therefore, an African American man could marry a woman of Asian descent in Virginia. Although this would be an interracial marriage, it would have been a legal marriage under the Virginia law, because the man and woman would not be white people. The Supreme Court looked at this racially lopsided law that obviously promoted white supremecy, and rightly declared it unconstitutional.

Therefore, Loving v. Virginia does not apply to Prop 8 because Prop 8 applies to everyone. Anyone can enter into a marriage of one man and one woman. Prop 8 does not apply in some lopsided fashion, as the Virginia law applied only to white people. Also, not all states had laws banning interracial marriage. Virginia did not have such a law for the first 100 years of its existence. Racial restrictions on marriage to promote racial “purity” are not at all universal like the definition of marriage as one man and one woman. Loving v. Virginia does not mean that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.

– Attorney Chuck Cooper of Cooper and Kirk, cooperkirk.com/
[Emphasis in original]