Gay Marriage: What's the problem?

[jmisk]

My question is, “How does the legalization of Gay Marriage effect the Church?”

I would argue that it doesn’t. If I was a gay man and wanted to marry my partner in the Catholic church, the church would say no and we would move on to another religious establishment that would grant our desire to marry in a religious place. It is my understanding that the SCOTUS decision does not require Religious institutions to officiate marriage services. Is that correct?

I understand the social significance of fighting the culture war but is the Catholic church really impacted by federal law? The chasm the separates Church and State seems to be unaffected by any federal or state laws.

Is this a correct view of the situation or is it more severe than I’m giving it credit for.

 

[edwest2]

It’s all here:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[TK421]

This is why it’s a good thing that zoned church institutions in the States aren’t tax and don’t receive investments from taxpayers. If there’s a financial link, there’s going to be more risk that churches might somehow be forced to cave in to any couple’s demands.

 

[cornbread_r2]

If overturning laws banning interracial marriage didn’t result in forcing churches to perform interracial marriages (and it didn’t), then I don’t see how legalizing SSM is going to force churches to perform SSMs.

 

[JimG]

Cardinal George says, hopefully, that “Nonetheless, the legal creation of what is naturally impossible is not inevitable.”

One hopes that the nation will not decide to make the impossible legal, but one never knows. There will indeed be problems. The Catholic Church might be permitted to not allow same sex ‘marriages’ in its church buildings. But if a gay parishioner wants to rent the parish hall for his son or daughter’s same-sex wedding reception, after holding the marriage itself elsewhere, and the parish refuses, it will no doubt be sued. Likewise the Knights of Columbus Hall.

There are already instance of private businesses being sued by homosexual couples because the owner’s conscience prohibits him from cooperating in gay marriage–photographers, bakers, florists. Anyone who refuses cooperation with the gay marriage agenda will risk being sued and forced out of business.

The government will no doubt also get into the act. Already, HHS has something like 30 lawsuits pending against it because the HHS mandated regulations force people to act against their religious beliefs. The same thing will happen with gay marriage.

 

[Corki]

My question is, “How does the legalization of Gay Marriage effect the Church?”

I would argue that it doesn’t. If I was a gay man and wanted to marry my partner in the Catholic church, the church would say no and we would move on to another religious establishment that would grant our desire to marry in a religious place. It is my understanding that the SCOTUS decision does not require Religious institutions to officiate marriage services. Is that correct?

I understand the social significance of fighting the culture war but is the Catholic church really impacted by federal law? The chasm the separates Church and State seems to be unaffected by any federal or state laws.

Is this a correct view of the situation or is it more severe than I’m giving it credit for.

The Church doesn’t argue against same sex “marriage” on the basis that it will hurt the Church. The objection to SS"M" is that it affects society in a negative way. The Church looks out for her members. Even if SS"M" doesn’t affect the Church as an institution, it affects all of the people who belong to the Church.

 

[jmisk]

Why can’t Catholic Churches nail up a “reserve the right to refuse service” sign? Seriously? That works in most businesses right? Is that a legally binding sign?

Where are my Catholic lawyers at? We need some legal speak for this question?

 

[Usige]

For those that say it doesn’t impact the church, what about if a gay man is employed by a catholic church and then wants to add his new “husband” to his health insurance? Do you think that the church can simply not allow that or will they be forced to add his partner just like anyone else in an actual marriage? Are they then not forced to acknowledge the lie as it if were truth?

 

[polytropos]

I understand the social significance of fighting the culture war but is the Catholic church really impacted by federal law? The chasm the separates Church and State seems to be unaffected by any federal or state laws.

Not now. But think: 50 years down the line, if secular society continues apace, will it still allow the Catholic Church to keep practicing its beliefs about marriage?

Right now it sounds like a conspiracy theory to imply that secular society will turn around in the future and force the Catholic Church to perform same-sex marriages, but it would not be surprising.

Or something will happen, like any group that does not support same-sex marriage or acts will be deemed a “hate group.” This is pretty likely, considering how employers are currently liable for any discrimination in that realm. It will take longer for requirements to strike religious institutions, but when it happens, there will be an army of people arguing that the changes don’t violate the First Amendment.

 

[JimG]

Why can’t Catholic Churches nail up a “reserve the right to refuse service” sign? Seriously? That works in most businesses right? Is that a legally binding sign?

Where are my Catholic lawyers at? We need some legal speak for this question?

Such a sign does not and will not keep people and businesses from being sued–because in nearly every jurisdiction “sexual orientation” is now a protected class. So a business which does not wish to be involved with gay weddings but handles regular weddings will be sued.

(In my view, the term ‘sexual orientation’ is sufficiently broad that it will eventually be used to offer similar protection to polygamists, pederasts, and fetishists of all sorts. Leave it to the enterprising jurists.)

 

[Lancer]

The Common Good and Human Dignity

What does “intrinsic dignity of the human person” mean?
The Church firmly teaches that each and every human being is a unique and irreplaceable person, created in the image of God (see Gen 1:27). Because of this, every man, woman, and child has great dignity and worth, a dignity that can never be taken away (i.e., it is intrinsic and inviolable). Respecting a person’s dignity means treating them justly. It also means helping them to flourish as a human being. The intrinsic dignity of the human person should be the starting point for all moral principles.

Does the Church believe that people who experience same-sex attraction have equal dignity?

Of course! Every single human person has great inviolable dignity and worth, including those who experience same-sex attraction. All persons should be treated with respect, sensitivity, and love. The Church calls everyone to a life of holiness and chastity, and to live in accord with God’s will for their lives. For more information on the Church’s ministry to persons with same-sex attraction, see USCCB, Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination (2006).
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Isn’t marriage a private relationship? What does it have to do with the common good?

Marriage is a personal relationship, but not a private one. In fact, marriages play a crucial role in society. By publicly joining hands in marriage, husband and wife enter into a unique communion and sharing of their whole lives that not only joins their distinct families into one, fostering greater connections between people, but also provides the essential context for welcoming new human life. By being open to children, each marriage is the foundation of a new family, rightly called the “key cell” of society (CCC, nos. 2207). In fact, because of its procreative aspect, marriage can be said to be the very source of society (see CSDC, no. 214), the “cradle of life and love” (CL, no. 40). Furthermore, both the irrevocable bond that unites husband and wife in marriage, as well as the sacrificial love that fathers and mothers show their children, create a “dynamic of love” that makes the family the “first and irreplaceable school of social life” (CSDC, no. 221; FC, no. 43). By practicing loving interdependence, husband and wife teach society to reject individualism and seek the common good for all. In modeling love and communion by welcoming and raising new human life and by taking care of the weak, sick and old, marriages and families provide social stability and thus foster the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.

Is marriage a basic human right?

The Church does speak of a “right of marriage”: “No human law can abolish the natural and primitive right of marriage, or in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage…‘Increase and multiply’” (RN, no. 9). But having the right to marry does not mean having the right to enter into a relationship that is not marriage, and then to force others by civil law to treat it as marriage. All persons have the right to marry, but not the right to redefine marriage. Relationships between two persons of the same sex are not, and can never be, marriages, because two people of the same sex fail to meet a basic defining element for a married couple (sexual difference); they are not denied the right to marry any more than different-sex couples that fail to meet the other basic defining elements of marriage (e.g., age, consanguinity). Thus, the right to marry does not include the right to a so-called same-sex “union.”

 

[Lancer]

What’s the harm of same-sex “marriage”?
Marriage has great public significance (see question #5, above). And laws always promote a vision of “the good life.” Because of this, redefining civil “marriage” to include two persons of the same sex would have far-reaching consequences in society. Law is a teacher, and such a law would teach many bad lessons, backed by the moral authority, financial resources, and coercive power of the state, such as the following: that marriage is only about the romantic fulfillment of adults and has nothing to do with legally attaching parents to the children they procreate, so that each child may have his or her right to a mother and father safeguarded, and his or her development and well-being served to the greatest extent possible; that mothers and fathers are wholly interchangeable and, in turn, that gender is inconsequential, both to the development of children and more broadly; that same-sex sexual conduct is not merely morally permissible, but a positive good equal in moral value to marital sex, and so worthy of the same protection and support of society by law; that people who adhere to the perennial and universal definition of marriage are bigots, whose beliefs can only be explained by hatred for persons with a homosexual inclination, and whom, in turn, the state has a duty to punish and marginalize for persisting in those beliefs. (See section 4, below, regarding religious freedom)
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But isn’t it unjust discrimination to not allow two men (or two women) to marry?
Treating different things differently is not unjust discrimination. Marriage can only be between a man and a woman. There’s nothing else like it. Only a man and a woman are capable of giving themselves to each other so that “the two become one flesh.” And only a man and a woman are capable of sexual activity that may yield children. The government has a very strong interest in protecting the right of those children to a mother and a father, and in reducing the likelihood that those children will become wards of the state. The civil law of marriage serves both these interests by legally bonding adult couples to any children they may create, and to each other. The sexual activity of two persons of the same-sex never yields children, so the government’s interest in bonding same-sex “couples” is different and weaker. Government is thus eminently reasonable, and in no way unjust, in distinguishing between two persons of the same sex and a different-sex couple in conferring the rights and duties of legal marriage.
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What about civil rights?
Respecting everyone’s civil rights is unmistakably important, and the right to marry is unmistakably a civil right. But the “right to marry” is the right to enter into a very particular kind of relationship having distinct characteristics that serve important social purposes; the “right to marry” is not the right to enter a relationship that is not a marriage, and then force others by law to treat that relationship as if it were a marriage. Advocates for same-sex “marriage” ignore this distinction. Far from serving the cause of civil rights, redefining marriage would threaten the civil right of religious freedom: it would compel everyone—even those opposed in conscience to same-sex sexual conduct—to treat same-sex relationships as if they represented the same moral good as marital relationships.
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What about equality and fairness?
All persons deserve fair and equal treatment, in recognition of their great dignity. But protecting and promoting marriage as the union of one man and one woman is not denying equality or being unfair. Every person has the right to marry, but those who seek to enter same-sex unions seek something other than to marry; instead, they seek to have the civil law force others treat their non-marital relationships as if they were marriage. But the relationships are not the same, either functionally or morally. Defending marriage is not unfair, it’s just respecting reality – the reality of marriage as the total, fruitful union of man and woman. Real fairness, real equality, depends on truth.

usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/frequently-asked-questions-on-defense-of-marriage.cfm#m4

 

[jmisk]

Please don’t read the title of the Thread and just post your view.

My question was in regards to the Federal or State laws requiring Catholic Priests to marry Gays.

I understand the social significance. I’m not arguing that at this time. I am trying to see if there is a great probability of legal authority that the Federal or State legislature can invoke upon the Catholic Churches in America.

Please read the entire original post.

This is a Government Vs Catholic Law question

NOT NOT NOT NOT

Is Gay marriage wrong or not? Thread

 

[Jon_S_1]

Why can’t Catholic Churches nail up a “reserve the right to refuse service” sign? Seriously? That works in most businesses right? Is that a legally binding sign?

Where are my Catholic lawyers at? We need some legal speak for this question?

Yeah, those signs that say, “we refuse the right to serve blacks” go over real well.

Of course you can’t put a sign up like that. And if course the church is going to be forced to allow these people to use our facilities eventually or else. I am pretty sure the church will do “the or else” part. Hello religious persecution.

 

[Corki]

Please don’t read the title of the Thread and just post your view.

My question was in regards to the Federal or State laws requiring Catholic Priests to marry Gays.

I understand the social significance. I’m not arguing that at this time. I am trying to see if there is a great probability of legal authority that the Federal or State legislature can invoke upon the Catholic Churches in America.

Please read the entire original post.

This is a Government Vs Catholic Law question

NOT NOT NOT NOT

Is Gay marriage wrong or not? Thread

Yes, there has already been moves by local governments to remove tax exemption or other rights due to the Church’s position on same-sex “marriage”. There have already been such consequences against other churches (not Catholic). The federal government has previously removed tax exempt status on the basis of religious objection to mixed race relationships. There is at least a reasonable suspicion that the government would do the same regarding the Church’s view on SS"M".

 

[cornbread_r2]

For those that say it doesn’t impact the church, what about if a gay man is employed by a catholic church and then wants to add his new “husband” to his health insurance? Do you think that the church can simply not allow that or will they be forced to add his partner just like anyone else in an actual marriage? Are they then not forced to acknowledge the lie as it if were truth?

SS couples who are legally married are legally married. The church may not like that, but they are legally married. I don’t see how acknowledging that a legal marriage has taken place is in any way necessarily an endorsement of that marriage. By way of a comparable example: Junebug marries the idiot down the road. Junebug’s dad doesn’t much like that, but that doesn’t change the fact that Junebug is, indeed, married to the idiot down the road.

In any case, I don’t see why the principle of double effect couldn’t apply here. To wit:

– Providing health insurance to employees is a moral good, or at least, morally neutral.

– The church intends the good of providing insurance and not the evil of acknowledging that a SSM has taken place.

– The evil of acknowledging that a SSM has taken place is outweighed by the good of providing insurance.

All of the above assumes, for the sake of discussion, that merely acknowledging that a SSM has taken place is an evil. I don’t think that can actually be demonstrated.

 

[cornbread_r2]

Yes, there has already been moves by local governments to remove tax exemption or other rights due to the Church’s position on same-sex “marriage”. There have already been such consequences against other churches (not Catholic). **The federal government has previously removed tax exempt status on the basis of religious objection to mixed race relationships. ** There is at least a reasonable suspicion that the government would do the same regarding the Church’s view on SS"M".

Source for the bolded part please.

 

[Michael57]

My question is, “How does the legalization of Gay Marriage effect the Church?”

I would argue that it doesn’t. If I was a gay man and wanted to marry my partner in the Catholic church, the church would say no and we would move on to another religious establishment that would grant our desire to marry in a religious place. It is my understanding that the SCOTUS decision does not require Religious institutions to officiate marriage services. Is that correct?

I understand the social significance of fighting the culture war but is the Catholic church really impacted by federal law? The chasm the separates Church and State seems to be unaffected by any federal or state laws.

Is this a correct view of the situation or is it more severe than I’m giving it credit for.

It is more severe than you are giving credit for here, if you are asking for a Catholic’s opinion.

Homosexual acts are intrinsically evil according to the teaching of the Church. It is abominable in the sight of God, according to scripture and the Magisterium.

There is also the effect on society at large, and on individual exercise of conscience which is supposed to be protected by the First Amendment.

If you believe that homosexual acts, the “lifestyle” as it were, is intrinsically evil per the teaching of the Church, then, under the current atmosphere of intolerance toward dissent that the proponents of homosexual marriage (abortion, birth-control, pornography, prostitution, etc.) have, you will be punished for any expression of that belief and branded a bigot or worse for your beliefs.

It has already happened in other areas. The conscience clause under 0bamacare for those that oppose abortion or birth control has been gutted so that there are no protections for people of faith. It used to be there under all previous administrations since Roe vs. Wade.

Already there are lawsuits against people for exercising their conscience over homosexual marriage. And having a sign expressing a “right to refuse service” is of no consequence. The State will punish whomever it chooses, whenever it chooses. People are being punished in the military over the issue of homosexuality, not because they are homosexual, but because they believe the conduct is immoral.

To think that this will not affect the Catholic Church, with the State’s attempting to force Catholic institutions already to do what is against their beliefs is, in my opinion, very naïve.

But you are entitled to your opinion. It is not in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. And it is not in accordance with scripture.

See: scripturecatholic.com/homosexuality.html

And: catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality

The Church hasn’t changed it’s position on this in 2,000 years, and won’t in the future (and remain Catholic).

 

[jmisk]

From my own expierence as a married Catholic, there is no legally binding document that the church offers or provides by its own authority. The marriage certificate from the state that was signed by the priest is a legally valid document and is controlled by the state. So if the Gay couple is refused by the priest why would they not seek a different religion or legal means of becoming married in the states eyes. Since the Catholic Church does not marry in the States presence but the presence of God.

How I understand it. Catholic marriages are overseen by priests but carried out by God by way of the vows and promises the couples takes in his presence.

The state though marries by its own authority. This is the authority that grants rights, privileges etc that the Gays want and can legally obtain.

I just don’t see how the Church can be forced to supply a legal service it never claimed to form (ours is a covenent through God and honored by the state) by a group that can freely receive the service and stutus by other means.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

From my own expierence as a married Catholic, there is no legally binding document that the church offers or provides by its own authority. The marriage certificate from the state that was signed by the priest is a legally valid document and is controlled by the state. So if the Gay couple is refused by the priest why would they not seek a different religion or legal means of becoming married in the states eyes. Since the Catholic Church does not marry in the States presence but the presence of God.

How I understand it. Catholic marriages are overseen by priests but carried out by God by way of the vows and promises the couples takes in his presence.

The state though marries by its own authority. This is the authority that grants rights, privileges etc that the Gays want and can legally obtain.

I just don’t see how the Church can be forced to supply a legal service it never claimed to form (ours is a covenent through God and honored by the state) by a group that can freely receive the service and stutus by other means.

This is the essential point. A piece of paper, no matter how it was enacted or whether it was given the appearance of legality by a human government body, is not legal according to the divine order if it is in violation of God’s revelation or the natural law.

Gay marriage can never be legal according to this order no matter what the paper says, or what the human government body says, or however well the partners in question recite their supposed vows and mimic the actions.

No human can validate that which is inherently invalid.