Gay Marriage in America

[qui_est_ce]

“Should have known better” is not the standard. “Actually does know better” is the standard.

Mea Culpa. In my mind they mean the same thing. Thanks for the correction for those who see a difference.

 

[StAnastasia]

And that’s all they are: stories. It is just fabricated hearsay with a political motive. And like most falsehoods, it circled the globe before truth had a chance to get on its pants.

You are quite wrong. This happened in my father’s town in 2010. The man’s name was not on his partner’s deed. The house was sold at auction with all of it’s contents, including all their photographs and the surviving partner’s clothing.

 

[StAnastasia]

But your posts indicate you can oppose the Church have salvation. That’s patently false. Meanwhile Pope Innocent III declared infallibly in 1208: “By the heart we believe and by the mouth we confess the one Church, not of heretics but the Holy Roman, catholic, and Apostolic (Church) outside which we believe that no one is saved.” (D.E.S.; The Sources of Catholic Dogma; 30th edition, # 423)

I think your judgmentalism is one of the reasons we have such a high attrition orate among young people. Who with any experience outside their little community would want to belong to a church “outside which we believe that no one is saved”?

Here’s an interesting study: christianpost.com/news/study-why-young-christians-leave-the-church-56722/

"Nearly three out of every five young Christians disconnect from their churches after the age of 15, but why? A new research study released by the Barna Group points to six different reasons as to why young people aren’t staying in their pews.

"First, the study says, churches appear to be overprotective. Nearly one-fourth of the 18- to 29-year-olds interviewed said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” most of the time. Twenty-two percent also said the church ignores real-world problems and 18 percent said that their church was too concerned about the negative impact of movies, music and video games.

"The study also found many young adults do not like the way churches appear to be against science. Over one-third of young adults said that “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” and one-fourth of them said that “Christianity is anti-science.”

 

[LittleSoldier]

You may not know how those that leave the faith can be saved, but I have faith that God does. The Church does not teach that such people are damned.

I believe the Church teaches that it is not known what happens at the point of death. St. Faustina had a few words about it but I suppose that might be considered private revelation and therefore it would be against forum rules for me to post it. I think.

 

[FormerWarrior]

I don’t think it’s curious at all. He’s very interested in studying ancient cultures, texts and languages.
syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html

He goes to mass out of respect for his family.

My point is, just because one has a degree in Theology, teaches at a Catholic University, and goes to mass on Sundays does not mean one is orthodox in their belief.

History has shown that orthodoxy has no inherent good associated with it.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Do we vote on truth? Are the bishops to approve of illicit voh-dee-oh-dohing to regain their credibility with you and the rest? Jesus commissioned his first apostles to “go into the world and preach the Gospel, teaching what I have taught you.” He did not commission them to “go into the world, find out what the current liberal ideas are and bring them back and incorporate them into my church.” What you and NCR are asking for is the Gospel in reverse.

Although it would be a very sad and frightening situation if it were to occur, even if there is not one person living on earth (with the exception of the Magisterium) who accepts official Church teaching that teaching still is correct. Truth is not subject to consensus and trying to gain credibility by purposely promoting heresy would result in an even sadder and more frightening situation.

 

[LittleSoldier]

TMC, I don’t know what your religion is, but the Catholic Church does teach the heretics are damned. Of course we will never know the state of the soul at the point of death. The Church does not declare a person damned, but acts which can lead to damnation. Heresy is a mortal sin. The Church teaches that one who dies in mortal sin is damned. Again, we cannot know the state of the persons soul at death. It is not for us to judge.
I hope this helps.

Thank you. It has helped me.

 

[StAnastasia]

These are why I have trouble believing your “story”. It is just fabricated hearsay with a political motive. And like most falsehoods, it circled the globe before truth had a chance to get on its pants.

"The story of how elderly gay couple, Clay and Harold, were treated by the County of Sonoma in California could shock even the most homophobic. Using every legal protection available to them wasn’t enough to protect them from being separated at the end of Harold’s life. Clay was forcibly removed from his home, put in a nursing home against his will; all of his possessions were taken by the county and sold at auction. The only thing he has left from his life with Harold is a scrap book. The information is preliminary, assuming these facts are correct, we have a major problem on our hands in Sonoma County.

“Sonoma County has long been the place where people “get it.” We don’t tolerate fag-haters or bigots here. Yet, our newspaper, The Press Democrat, has turned a blind eye to the story.”

laraemeadows.livejournal.com/83450.html

 

[LittleSoldier]

I think you might be unclear as to what a heretic is. According to the CCC (see my earlier post). A heretic is a Catholic baptized person who willfully and obstinately rejects the teachings of the Church. A person born outside the faith is not a heretic. For example, Arius was a heretic. If he had any children who he raised as Arians, they would not be heretics.

There is a difference between declaring a person damned and teaching what sins lead to damnation if unrepented at the hour of death.

Just as an attempt to clarify, this is what I believe the Church teaches (and if I am wrong I hope somebody tells me):

We do not know the state of anyone’s soul at the time of death, nor does the Church teach that any particular person has been damned.

The only sin that will not be forgiven by God is a sin against the Holy Spirit (that bothered me when I read it because I had no idea what this horrible sin could be and so I asked someone I trust about it). A sin against the Holy Spirit is a refusal to atone for a mortal sin.

Heresy is a grevious act. Whether it constitutes a mortal sin depends on whether the act meets all of the following three conditions:
(1) it is a grevious act.
(2) the person engaged in this act has knowledge that it is a grevious act.
(3) the person engaged in this act does so with full consent.

I know that isn’t worded very well but I’m having serious computer problems (this morning I couldn’t even access CAF and thought I had been banned) so I’ll leave it at that.

 

[LittleSoldier]

But your posts indicate you can oppose the Church have salvation. That’s patently false.
We’re not Catholics because it’s True (although it is). We’re Catholics because we’ve been given the incredible gift of spiritual adoption through Baptism, and are kept spiritually alive through the sacraments.

Meanwhile Pope Innocent III declared infallibly in 1208:

At the risk of taking this thread further off-topic I just want to state that a lot of people, including a Fr. Feeney, believed and taught that one must be a member of the Catholic Church to be saved. That is a heresy. Everyone who is saved is saved through the Church - even non-Catholics.

 

[qui_est_ce]

You are quite wrong. This happened in my father’s town in 2010. The man’s name was not on his partner’s deed. The house was sold at auction with all of it’s contents, including all their photographs and the surviving partner’s clothing.

StAnatasia-
This sort of thing is totally preventable if one is willing. Society shouldn’t have to change because of someone’s negligence.

Maybe the dead partner wanted it that way. You can’t know.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I think your judgmentalism is one of the reasons we have such a high attrition orate among young people. Who with any experience outside their little community would want to belong to a church “outside which we believe that no one is saved”?

Here’s an interesting study: christianpost.com/news/study-why-young-christians-leave-the-church-56722/

"Nearly three out of every five young Christians disconnect from their churches after the age of 15, but why? A new research study released by the Barna Group points to six different reasons as to why young people aren’t staying in their pews.

"First, the study says, churches appear to be overprotective. Nearly one-fourth of the 18- to 29-year-olds interviewed said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” most of the time. Twenty-two percent also said the church ignores real-world problems and 18 percent said that their church was too concerned about the negative impact of movies, music and video games.

"The study also found many young adults do not like the way churches appear to be against science. Over one-third of young adults said that “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” and one-fourth of them said that “Christianity is anti-science.”

I left the Church when I was a teen. My reason was laziness although I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t like the sisters at the school I had attended (I even eventually put a bumper sticker on my car which read “I Survived Catholic School”), I was a socialist, full of new ideas or at least what I *thought *were new ideas (now I realize I probably haven’t had an original thought in my life). Outside of the Church everything appeared new and exciting. I believed that the Church had been holding me back, that my parents were stupid and unquestioning about their faith (even though my mother was a convert), that I knew more than anyone else. I was snobbish, full of myself, and I’m ashamed of the way I used to be.

I hadn’t taken the time to find out what the Church really teaches. I’ve mentioned before that I am poorly catechized. It’s true. I didn’t know what “Real Presence” meant until I joined this forum. I had no idea about what a novena was, what the Mass meant, I was confirmed by regurgitating what I had been told to say, I knew squat about what is now the most important thing in my life.

When I began to study the Church and her teachings I discovered to my immense surprise that she is not anti-science but actually embraces science, although many believe that she is anti-science and many want her to be that way, especially when it comes to theories of evolution. As for being “over-protective” I admit that I never thought the Church was that way. My comment about that part of the study is that it’s my understanding that many Protestant churches do not allow their members to attend other churches or to question what their churches state as official teaching. *That *is being over-protective and the study you cited is referring to Christian churches, not the Catholic Church specifically.

I think the study is more indicative of the way a lot of young people just happen to be.

 

[tm30]

Not to intrude, but can you set out what heretical viewpoints have been put forth by StAnastasia? I must’ve missed them, because I don’t recall any.

Satan is merely a symbol. Hell is a superstition. God is a “She”. The infallible Magisterium is bigoted (i.e., unjust).

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnatasia-This sort of thing is totally preventable if one is willing.

That’s good to know.

Society shouldn’t have to change because of someone’s negligence.

 

[michelleds]

If you can show me why I think you mean “how”?SS couples enjoy all legal protections for themselves and their adoptive or half-biological children, I would be less convinced that we need civil unions. I have read too many horror stories in which one partner is stripped of everything upon the death of the other, because he or she was not allowed to have legal titles to house, car, assets, etc. I have encountered horror stories in which one partner was excluded from the bedside of the dying loved one by that person’s biological family.

If you can show me how LGBT people can be protected from such travesties, I will gladly relinquish my defense of civil unions.

You are quite wrong. This happened in my father’s town in 2010. The man’s name was not on his partner’s deed. The house was sold at auction with all of it’s contents, including all their photographs and the surviving partner’s clothing.

"The story of how elderly gay couple, Clay and Harold, were treated by the County of Sonoma in California could shock even the most homophobic. Using every legal protection available to them wasn’t enough to protect them from being separated at the end of Harold’s life. Clay was forcibly removed from his home, put in a nursing home against his will; all of his possessions were taken by the county and sold at auction. The only thing he has left from his life with Harold is a scrap book. The information is preliminary, assuming these facts are correct, we have a major problem on our hands in Sonoma County.

StAnastasia

I will attempt to address each of the above issues. First, I am aware of those stories about visitation rights etc. All of those stories can be traced back to the 50’s when hospitals were quite dictatorial in their visiting policies. No children under 14 for any reason. No non-family members. No father allowed at the birth. OR in the one case I know of from the 80’s where there was no legal paperwork done prior to a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and the mother/father of the TBI patient would not allow the lesbian partner to visit.

ALL of the legal protections except for the tax code exemptions can be easily duplicated by a good attorney (not attorney in a box, not legal forms over the internet). These are all bundled under Advanced Directives. They include a will and/or trust, durable power of attorney, health care power of attorney, guardianships, etc. A good attorney, in your state, will know how and what to draft.

In the case i refer to above with the TBI, if you are incapacitated, and you did not draw up legal papers ahead of time, decisions about your care will go to your “next of kin” which is a legal term of art. if you are unmarried with no children, your next of kin, under the law, is your parents. if your parents are deceased, then your siblings. a spouse trumps all. if no spouse, but you have kids, the kids trump all unless they are under age.

See why just doing the paperwork is a good idea for EVERYONE?

As to the story about the partner not being on the deed: same thing. the same result would have occured if the partners were unmarried heterosexuals. it’s not a discrimination against SS couples, it’s the law of testate (how property passes at death. Merely having a will would have prevented that entirely.

Now, as to the Sonoma County story. In my line of work, I see stories like this frequently, having nothing to do with gender or marital status of the parties. It would seem to me that Harold was so ill that he was dying and Clay was unable to care for himself any longer. My reading would be that Clay was involuntarily hospitalized by court order due to physical or mental illness. It could be that Harold had been Clay’s primary caretaker for some period of time until Harold became so ill that he had to be put in the hospital or hospice. Clay was unable to live on his own without Harold. Change the genders, and the story is no less sad or true. this is what happens in our world–with straight married couples, cousins, mother/son, gay couples, friends, you name it. it’s not homophobia, it’s a tragedy of a modern society.

 

[tm30]

I am happy to agree that gay couples should meet the same standards as the straight couples and single people that are currently allowed to adopt. I don’t think anyone is saying they should get special treatment, just the same treatment.

Adoption into a SS household does spiritual violence to the children. The Church is clear on its opposition to SS adoption and marriage. Catholic Charities isn’t out of the adoption business for the heck of it.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I am opposed to SSM.

Where in my post did I accuse you of being for SSM?

That seems an uncharitable assumption.

Where did I assume anything? I merely stated a possibility.

 

[StAnastasia]

I think the study is more indicative of the way a lot of young people just happen to be.

That could be so, but the attrition among kids does concern me greatly. My sons are so far not that way, but there are precious few of their classmates who continue on with weekly Mass attendance after they graduate from the parish school. I hope this won’t be a battle for us in coming years, but you can’t always tell. So far my brilliant sophomore still comes to church with us, and has even joined on with the confirmation class for next spring!

 

[StAnastasia]

Change the genders, and the story is no less sad or true. this is what happens in our world–with straight married couples, cousins, mother/son, gay couples, friends, you name it. it’s not homophobia, it’s a tragedy of a modern society.

Thanks for the clarification. It’s a tragedy we should work to reverse.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I will attempt to address each of the above issues. First, I am aware of those stories about visitation rights etc. All of those stories can be traced back to the 50’s when hospitals were quite dictatorial in their visiting policies. No children under 14 for any reason. No non-family members. No father allowed at the birth. OR in the one case I know of from the 80’s where there was no legal paperwork done prior to a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and the mother/father of the TBI patient would not allow the lesbian partner to visit.

ALL of the legal protections except for the tax code exemptions can be easily duplicated by a good attorney (not attorney in a box, not legal forms over the internet). These are all bundled under Advanced Directives. They include a will and/or trust, durable power of attorney, health care power of attorney, guardianships, etc. A good attorney, in your state, will know how and what to draft.

In the case i refer to above with the TBI, if you are incapacitated, and you did not draw up legal papers ahead of time, decisions about your care will go to your “next of kin” which is a legal term of art. if you are unmarried with no children, your next of kin, under the law, is your parents. if your parents are deceased, then your siblings. a spouse trumps all. if no spouse, but you have kids, the kids trump all unless they are under age.

See why just doing the paperwork is a good idea for EVERYONE?

As to the story about the partner not being on the deed: same thing. the same result would have occured if the partners were unmarried heterosexuals. it’s not a discrimination against SS couples, it’s the law of testate (how property passes at death. Merely having a will would have prevented that entirely.

Now, as to the Sonoma County story. In my line of work, I see stories like this frequently, having nothing to do with gender or marital status of the parties. It would seem to me that Harold was so ill that he was dying and Clay was unable to care for himself any longer. My reading would be that Clay was involuntarily hospitalized by court order due to physical or mental illness. It could be that Harold had been Clay’s primary caretaker for some period of time until Harold became so ill that he had to be put in the hospital or hospice. Clay was unable to live on his own without Harold. Change the genders, and the story is no less sad or true. this is what happens in our world–with straight married couples, cousins, mother/son, gay couples, friends, you name it. it’s not homophobia, it’s a tragedy of a modern society.

That was may point, but you said it much more eloquently!