Gay Marriage: What's the problem?

[jonathan_hili]

If you can’t tell the difference roommates and a married couple, then you need to correct that problem yourself. I can’t do it for you over the Internet.

Okay, Slavonic, give me some characteristics of what you would consider a “married” couple that would not apply to roommates or close friends.

 

[epan]

There is no comparison with Nazi Germany. Hitler was a nobody with a good speaking voice. Some people think he paid for the war out of his own pocket. The US and Europe were in the grip of the First Great Depression. Hitler promised and delivered jobs and revived national pride and a collective duty to work together. He too was backed by powerful interests.

Gay so-called marriage is a fiction. As gay divorce increases, it will be interesting to see what happens then.

Drastic remarks about the family without context don’t mean anything. The family and the Church are seeing the fruit of seeds planted and those that continue to be planted.

Peace,
Ed

Well, we have our share of politicians who are all talk, and little substance. Some are admired for their oratory skills.

The world is in the worst “recession” since the Great Depression. The major difference is that the bread lines have been replaced by food assistance issued by the government. The numbers are staggering. In many countries, a case could be made that the current unemployment rates are permanent.

 

[epan]

Yes, I think that atomization, or excessive individualism, or collapse of family structure, all tend to moral and social anarchy, which soon does lead to totalitarianism. Nobody knows how it will play out. But without a common moral base, a society flounders.

I agree. I think that one is the normal reaction to the other. The current economic stresses also act as a catalyst. The world economy has changed structurally, due largely to technology. In the US, opportunistic manipulation of tax laws and other legislation are exacerbating the problems, serving to eliminate the middle class. None of this portends to end well.

One challenge, which I perceive, and which I have sometimes been tempted toward myself, is the impulse to withdraw and become selfish, to turn my back on society and the welfare of others. The problems seem so intractable, that with the apparent social collapse, the economic problems, and the looming potential environmental disasters (the atmosphere is approaching 400 PPM CO2, and the acidification of the oceans), which our leaders are doing nothing to address, there is an impulse to pursue what might be called a “greedy algorithm”. Take care of myself and mine, and ignore the rest.

I have managed to form my life in a way that I am in service to others. But there is this nagging little voice which says that I should be working in a fancy ski resort fixing broken legs and socking away the big bucks for coming hard times.

 

[Slavonic]

Okay, Slavonic, give me some characteristics of what you would consider a “married” couple that would not apply to roommates or close friends.

A married couple is a family; it is a unit. Close friends and roommates are not.

 

[casey_cates]

“A married couple is a family.”

You are missing the whole point of moral relativism - Ideally there will be no societal definitions of anything anymore. Gay marriage is part and parcel but just the beginning of that. What is a family? It’s whatever, I say it is because defining marriage, defining a family has moral implications. And morals cannot be societal, only individual.

What’s to stop other groups from saying they should be married and be a family (polygamists, etc.)?

 

[casey_cates]

As, I have stated in other posts, I am not trying to bash anyone whether gay or straight. I am trying to defend my Christian views as best I can.

I know that God loves all sinners including myself. I am no better than anyone else.

 

[edwest2]

Yeah…try telling the black churches that they can’t invite Democrat candidates to speak. It’s always a huge deal when (insert candidate name) comes to one of the historically black churches in Dtwn Detroit. Republicans never get “equal time” in the same churches.

There’s really not a lot of room to complain about church/political involvement when both sides do it.

It’s hard to image the civil rights movement w/o the black church. (Hello, MLK, was the Reverend Martin Luther King.) Should he not have participated in (or mobilized) people to participate in the civil rights movement because of his religious status?

At what point is political interference by a church bad? Is it only acceptable when the church agrees with your viewpoint? That seems awfully narrow-minded.

Prohibition was the churches and women’s temperance societies lobbying politicians to end drinking.

Slavery, again, abolitionists mobilized church people to lobby politicians and society to stop slavery.

So, the church shouldn’t care what happens outside of its property line? Huh? Since when has the church ever acted that way???

Non-profits have just as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else.

If we believe that everyone has the right to be represented, then we can’t say to some organizations that they can’t participate just because they are religious. People are allowed to freely associate with religious groups, so if it’s a compelling issue to their members, then why should they be prohibited from speaking out? Not only does that exclude a lot of Catholic organizations, but people of other faiths.

Just some food for thought.

We can’t be neutral. The State controlled media in the US always refers to Doctor King on Martin Luther King Day. Read his biography. Jesus was with him when he was in jail. Truth crushed to earth will rise again. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man and counted his faith as a prized possession.

Today, the media only allows tolerance in one direction. Religion is ignored or demonized in too many cases.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

This is a totally bogus analogy. The state is creating no fiction by instituting same-sex marriage. It is simply recognizing something that exists. It is recognizing that people of the same sex pair in what are in fact marriages. People of the same sex were coupling long before any same-sex marriage law was on the books.

Marriage is impossible between members of the same sex.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

If the Church focused on performing sacramental marriages and stopped pumping millions into anti-same-sex civil marriage causes, I think the attacks against it regarding this issue would largely disappear.

That is a false argument. The radical LGBT activists worship money. That is how they’ve gotten this far. The Church is defending marriage which has been foundational to societies for millenia.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Porpoises do have sophisticated social networks. I would not call it an advanced civilization. There is a high degree of tolerance for each other, and for other species, which is one of the first steps toward civilization. This is why there are theories that dogs actually provided the model for humans to civilize. There are fossil records which show human brain size decreasing, and jaws getting smaller (all signs of domestication), right around the time that humans started interacted with dogs.

But back to the point, there is a trend toward an ever expanding definition of what constitutes a civil right. There was some controversial police activity in San Diego, when I was there. The City Attorney decided to prosecute individuals who were at a private sex party. The result was a lot of publicity, and the City Attorney was scolded by the jury for raiding the party, and bringing the charges. This then led to public meetings, attended by the Chief of Police, and representatives of the City Attorney’s Office, with members of the public, in a town hall forum.

I attended once of these meetings, out of curiosity, and I was surprised by some of the statements made. There were two who were particularly memorable. One was a man who stood up to demand that the City create, or designate, a sex park, where public sex could take place. Another man, whom I later learned had been imprisoned for some of his behaviors, stood up and made a very eloquent statement about government interference in private lives. I was impressed by the diversity of what individuals took to be their “civil rights”.

We see from old movies and television, that the standards for denigration of one group of people over another, for the purpose of comedy has changed. Also, with modern transportation, and communications, our society is as diverse as ever, and will continue to diversify further. The divergent interests of various individuals and groups are seen more and more as civil rights, not the be imposed upon, or limited, by the state.

This is a challenge, for someone who holds that there is a static moral code. I suspect that, more and more, what was once accepted as “mainstream” thinking, which was uniform in our country, will be regarded as unrealistic or quaint, due to the ever increasing diversity of our democratic population.

On the contrary, the Catholic Church preaches a static moral code and nothing will wipe that out. Nothing. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

Peace,
Ed

 

[mek42]

Marriage is impossible between members of the same sex.

Peace,
Ed

This is an incorrect statement in the state of New York. The Sacrement of Holy Matrimony is impossible between two people of the same sex, but marriage, in NY, is quite possible.

 

[edwest2]

This is an incorrect statement in the state of New York.

A fiction is still a fiction even after it becomes a law.

Peace,
Ed

 

[mek42]

A fiction is still a fiction even after it becomes a law.

Peace,
Ed

I was editing my post when you were replying, not sure if this changes your response.

 

[jonathan_hili]

A married couple is a family; it is a unit. Close friends and roommates are not.

There may be very close friends who are roommates who consider themselves a family.

I agree that marriage makes families, but what is it about a married couple that makes a family? It isn’t being a “unit”.

 

[jonathan_hili]

“A married couple is a family.”

You are missing the whole point of moral relativism - Ideally there will be no societal definitions of anything anymore. Gay marriage is part and parcel but just the beginning of that. What is a family? It’s whatever, I say it is because defining marriage, defining a family has moral implications. And morals cannot be societal, only individual.

What’s to stop other groups from saying they should be married and be a family (polygamists, etc.)?

You’re precisely correct there, Casey.

Is it a surprise, that in England the official governmental use of “husband” and “wife” has been expanded to include both genders, and in France, legal documents no longer use the terms “mother” and “father”. This is a revolution against common sense and natural humanity. It is, as C.S. Lewis put it, the “abolition of man”. For several decades now, ideologues and others have been attempting to re-craft humanity in its own image. This is merely party of it.

To be honest, I thank God for the Catholic Church. If it wasn’t for the Church, there would be no - and I emphasise: no, not one - voice that can stand against the status quo, the media and government. Everyone else is a slave to the times, that is, a slave to fashion. Only the Church has the gall to oppose the world. And just as the world hated Christ first, it will hate the Church.

 

[epan]

On the contrary, the Catholic Church preaches a static moral code and nothing will wipe that out. Nothing. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

Peace,
Ed

Maybe you can help me to understand that statement. Historically speaking, the Church did at one time burn heretics, and employ torture. Popes did advise rulers to put Jews into ghettos. In the case of extreme antisemitism, it was practiced for about 700 years by the leaders of the Church.

Today, these very same practices would be condemned as immoral by the leaders of the Church, as they should be.

I have never gotten a straightforward and reasonable answer out of anyone here, as to why this change in moral perspective is not an example of changing morality by the Church. Can you provide an explanation?

 

[gracepoole]

Maybe you can help me to understand that statement. Historically speaking, the Church did at one time burn heretics, and employ torture. Popes did advise rulers to put Jews into ghettos. In the case of extreme antisemitism, it was practiced for about 700 years by the leaders of the Church.

Today, these very same practices would be condemned as immoral by the leaders of the Church, as they should be.

I have never gotten a straightforward and reasonable answer out of anyone here, as to why this change in moral perspective is not an example of changing morality by the Church. Can you provide an explanation?

The answer you’re likely to receive is that the Church’s doctrines don’t and haven’t changed so that even if there were unscrupulous Church leaders who claimed that heretics should be tortured and burned, the Church itself did not teach this. Of course, this answer doesn’t satisfactorily address something like slavery… And it’s interesting to see how the Church’s views on the death penalty seem to be shifting as we speak in the wake of modern penal advances.

There’s an old Catholic joke that each time a new edict is proclaimed, a pope claims, “As it has always been…”

 

[epan]

The answer you’re likely to receive is that the Church’s doctrines don’t and haven’t changed so that even if there were unscrupulous Church leaders who claimed that heretics should be tortured and burned, the Church itself did not teach this. Of course, this answer doesn’t satisfactorily address something like slavery… And it’s interesting to see how the Church’s views on the death penalty seem to be shifting as we speak in the wake of modern penal advances.

There’s an old Catholic joke that each time a new edict is proclaimed, a pope claims, “As it has always been…”

When one is considering a long standing practice, spanning centuries, engaged in by the popes, themselves, I don’t see how this is not considered to be the actions of the Church. It is well documented that there were papal instructions to heads of state, asking that Jews be confined to ghettos, be required to wear identifying patches on their clothing, be restricted to certain occupations, be prohibited from buying certain consumer goods, etc… This is not just one unscrupulous leader. It was, in practice, a Church doctrine, which would be unthinkable today.

I can think of a number of other examples, but I mention this one because it is so opposed to what the Church teaches today, and it was practiced over a long period of time by multiple popes.

How can the claim be made that this antisemitism was not Church doctrine, and not taught by the Church?

 

[edwest2]

You’re precisely correct there, Casey.

Is it a surprise, that in England the official governmental use of “husband” and “wife” has been expanded to include both genders, and in France, legal documents no longer use the terms “mother” and “father”. This is a revolution against common sense and natural humanity. It is, as C.S. Lewis put it, the “abolition of man”. For several decades now, ideologues and others have been attempting to re-craft humanity in its own image. This is merely party of it.

To be honest, I thank God for the Catholic Church. If it wasn’t for the Church, there would be no - and I emphasise: no, not one - voice that can stand against the status quo, the media and government. Everyone else is a slave to the times, that is, a slave to fashion. Only the Church has the gall to oppose the world. And just as the world hated Christ first, it will hate the Church.

Think about it. If this life is all there is then perverse imaginings are required to combat the only secular sin out there - boredom. Look at Karl Marx and a whole history of people who tried to reorder society to suit their - not God’s - unnatural order. If you don’t do it the right way, the only alternative is to build on man’s fallen nature. This will run off the tracks.

Peace,
Ed

 

[gracepoole]

When one is considering a long standing practice, spanning centuries, engaged in by the popes, themselves, I don’t see how this is not considered to be the actions of the Church. It is well documented that there were papal instructions to heads of state, asking that Jews be confined to ghettos, be required to wear identifying patches on their clothing, be restricted to certain occupations, be prohibited from buying certain consumer goods, etc… This is not just one unscrupulous leader. It was, in practice, a Church doctrine, which would be unthinkable today.

I can think of a number of other examples, but I mention this one because it is so opposed to what the Church teaches today, and it was practiced over a long period of time by multiple popes.

How can the claim be made that this antisemitism was not Church doctrine, and not taught by the Church?

Oh, I hear ya. Excellent question.