Gay marriage : who cares?

[edwest2]

I’m gonna give you ( and everybody ) a scenario: a man and a woman are about to get married . The man regularly beats the woman but the woman does nothing to get out of the relationship, fearing she might be killed if she does. That marriage can take place while a two man, who love eachother more than anything in the world wan’t to get married but can’t b/c they are not man and woman. Does that seem fair ? ( the man and woman scenario is a true story about one of my ( former) friends

I would encourage everyone here to abandon the idea that this example represents a majority occurrence.

This is not about fairness but about the truth. There are no alternatives. Once you have the true and correct answer, there is no other true and correct answer. Right now, two men and two women can do whatever they want. They don’t need anybody’s permission.

God bless,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Wait a minute. Are you saying that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality? Is that only in the OT. If somebody has something on this.

Uh, the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are the same God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, you are just playing the rules lawyer game: “It’s not in the New Testament so it doesn’t count.” Both Old and New Testaments make up sacred scripture. Jesus refers to the Old Testament prophets.

God bless,
Ed

 

[LittleSoldier]

Here is a father who was arrested because he objected to his six year old son being given a gay storybook in a public school.

massresistance.org/docs/parker/

God bless,
Ed

If that story is true as presented in the article you linked then it is indeed a shame. But I can’t help but feel that the story is extremely biased in favor of the Parkers. We need to know both sides of the story and it must be presented truthfully. I’m taking this with a grain of salt.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Uh, the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are the same God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, you are just playing the rules lawyer game: “It’s not in the New Testament so it doesn’t count.” Both Old and New Testaments make up sacred scripture. Jesus refers to the Old Testament prophets.

God bless,
Ed

It would be nice to provide some answers to the poster’s question and concerns instead of ridiculing her. I’m sure she is aware that Jesus is God. She is asking specifically about the Jesus of the NT, when He became God incarnate, after He was born of the Virgin Mary. She never said that if it’s not in the NT it doesn’t count.

So, did Jesus say anything in the NT times about homosexuality?

 

[edwest2]

It would be nice to provide some answers to the poster’s question and concerns instead of ridiculing her. I’m sure she is aware that Jesus is God. She is asking specifically about the Jesus of the NT, when He became God incarnate, after He was born of the Virgin Mary. She never said that if it’s not in the NT it doesn’t count.

So, did Jesus say anything in the NT times about homosexuality?

Only you are perceiving ridicule. I have noticed on more than one occasion people separating the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New.

To answer your question, no.

God bless,
Ed

 

[LittleSoldier]

I’m gonna give you ( and everybody ) a scenario: a man and a woman are about to get married . The man regularly beats the woman but the woman does nothing to get out of the relationship, fearing she might be killed if she does. That marriage can take place while a two man, who love eachother more than anything in the world wan’t to get married but can’t b/c they are not man and woman. Does that seem fair ? ( the man and woman scenario is a true story about one of my ( former) friends

If the woman who is being beaten is honest with her priest during the time before the marriage, I doubt the marriage will take place. Beating indicates, no, beating means a lack of love. How can a covenant take place without love, especially in a relationship that is based on fear and power struggles?

That is not a marriage. That is a shame.

The two men who love each other have a hard road to walk. Lots of people have hard roads to walk. Instead of attempting to marry each other they need to realize that homosexual unions are not recognized by the Catholic Church and they need to carry their crosses, just like the rest of us who have loved deeply and haven’t been able to spend our lives with the person we love the most. Just like Jesus, who carried His cross to His death.

Who said the world was fair? I don’t think Jesus ever said the world was fair! The world is hard. People in India live in dumps, children are starving all over the world. Is that fair? The world does not need to be fair. We all need to do the best we can in this world until we can enter the world which is perfect - heaven.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Only you are perceiving ridicule. I have noticed on more than one occasion people separating the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New.

To answer your question, no.

God bless,
Ed

I’m not going to get into it with you, Ed. I am too tired. But I doubt I am the only one who saw ridicule and I very much wonder about someone who is so sure of himself that he can make statements such as “only you are perceiving ridicule.” You don’t know that! And you don’t know that she is attempting to separate the God of the OT with the God of the NT. Why not give her the benefit of the doubt?

But thank you for your answer. I believe you are correct, although Paul did comment on homosexuality between both men and women.

 

[Veronica7978]

Uh, the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are the same God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, you are just playing the rules lawyer game: “It’s not in the New Testament so it doesn’t count.” Both Old and New Testaments make up sacred scripture. Jesus refers to the Old Testament prophets.

God bless,
Ed

Do you eat shellfish? It says in the OT that you can’t. It also says you may give your wife a bill of divorce. You ok with that?

P.S. The article you mention about teaching about homosexuality in schools is teaching tolerance, not how to be gay. Here’s the deal, in Catholic school, they do not accept the child of gay parents. In public schools, all children are welcome. If there are children of gay kids, they are working towards acceptance for the child (so the child doesn’t feel like an oddball); They are teaching tolerance, which is what our church teaches. Just because she has two moms doesn’t mean they are active homosexuals, perhaps they are celibate. You cannot know this.

 

[Veronica7978]

If that story is true as presented in the article you linked then it is indeed a shame. But I can’t help but feel that the story is extremely biased in favor of the Parkers. We need to know both sides of the story and it must be presented truthfully. I’m taking this with a grain of salt.

Wise.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

So institutionalized adultery and the reduction of marriage to a temporary casual situation among hundreds of millions of people isn’t a problem? Can I get that in writing from Rome?

There’s no need to be snarky.

“Institutionalized adultery” and “the reduction of marriage to a temporary casual situation…” are your words, not mine. The current prevailing attitude toward marriage, divorce, and fornication is a societal problem; the government is not forcing it on us. To enshrine gay “marriage” as having the same status as real marriage would amount to the government forcing us to accept something we can’t accept.

Peace,
Dante

 

[LittleSoldier]

Many heterosexual couples who commit to each other are also not monogamous. I know this because I am one of them, and I know many hundreds of others. So what?

If you are not monogamous you are not committed to each other. Once the covenant is made it cannot be broken. It is a holy and sacred thing and represents love between one man and one woman just as one God loves His bride (His Church). God does not cheat on us; we should not cheat on our spouses and even if it is a mutual decision it is still cheating and is a grevious sin.

"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. [Mark 9:10, Douay-Rheims]

Let not man put asunder. That includes you.

 

[LittleSoldier]

All well and good, but Old Testament doesn’t carry much weight with me on the subject, unless all of you start obeying the prohibitions on mixed fabrics, kosher law, death for insolent children etc.

As for the rest, why is it only spoken of by men with obvious cultural agendas and never Jesus himself. I mean, I know he had a brief and busy ministry, but you’d think he’d have found time to say something about it, if it were that important. He did speak quite clearly about divorce and remarriage amounting to adultery. And yet, we have the Prop 8 movement taking it on themselves to legislate morality and conscience and marriage for a whole nation, and they’re totally ignoring the one directive on the subject from their founder. From where I stand, it’s pretty transparent that they’re just dressing up their own hatred of gays as divine imperative. If they were not, I would expect to see a parallel campaign to outlaw divorce and remarriage. I wouldn’t support either thing, but they would have some credibility in my eyes.

All we know is that the bible is silent on the issue. But we don’t know why. It’s possible that it was such an important subject that everyone already knew that Jesus spoke against homosexual behavior. Paper (papyrus) and ink were scarce and the illiteracy rate was very high. The people who painstakingly wrote the documents included in the NT did not write down everything Jesus did. Please see the last passage in John for further info on this.

It is also possible that the original documents that indicate Jesus spoke against homosexual activity have been lost.

A lot of bible history was taught orally. That is how the Apostles taught. They didn’t have a bible. It didn’t float down from the sky. And even when the bible was written there was no printing press and still the illiteracy rate was very high.

We don’t know.

 

[LittleSoldier]

There’s no need to be snarky.

“Institutionalized adultery” and “the reduction of marriage to a temporary casual situation…” are your words, not mine. The current prevailing attitude toward marriage, divorce, and fornication is a societal problem; the government is not forcing it on us. To enshrine gay “marriage” as having the same status as real marriage would amount to the government forcing us to accept something we can’t accept.

Peace,
Dante

“Snarky.” I love that word!! Sorry, I just had to write that.

 

[kenofken]

All we know is that the bible is silent on the issue. But we don’t know why. It’s possible that it was such an important subject that everyone already knew that Jesus spoke against homosexual behavior. Paper (papyrus) and ink were scarce and the illiteracy rate was very high. The people who painstakingly wrote the documents included in the NT did not write down everything Jesus did. Please see the last passage in John for further info on this.

It is also possible that the original documents that indicate Jesus spoke against homosexual activity have been lost.

A lot of bible history was taught orally. That is how the Apostles taught. They didn’t have a bible. It didn’t float down from the sky. And even when the bible was written there was no printing press and still the illiteracy rate was very high.

We don’t know.

You’re right. We don’t know. Not with even a fraction of the certainty that Prop 8 folks insist they do. We basically have people speaking in God’s voice like the Wizard of Oz behind a curtain trying to advance their own agenda as something much grander…

They virtually ignore the one pronouncement about marriage that Jesus DID make, but they’re 100% certain that government needs to enforce sweeping laws against gay marriage based on fourth hand suppositions about what people think Jesus* would have said or meant to say.* And it’s just a happenstance that God meant to say something that justify’s his human interpreter’s very thoughts on the matter…

 

[ProVobis]

I agree with the OP. We should care about gay marriage (from a Spiritual standpoint, I oppose it. From a legal standpoint, I support it), but instead of rallying so much against gay marriage, why don’t Catholics start focusing on our own silent killer—the divorce/annulment rates.

I somewhat agree with you. If it’s all about legal contracts, I don’t have a problem with it. But the real problem is that income taxes are driven by the marital state and it has probably driven many to marriage where the couples had no business getting married in the first place. Then again you have the cohabitation problem which more often than not has a lot to do with two-living-as-cheaply-as-one philosophy.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

kenofken

There is considerable debate among scholars as to what Sodom’s great sin was.

There never was considerable debate on that subject until recent times. If you can find an alternate explanation before the last fifty years, please document it. Obviously, it is in the interest of homosexuals to hope there is another explanation, and it’s pretty clear that homosexuals are the ones offering the alternative explanation. More revisionist history. John Boswell, a well know homosexual historian, tried to make out that ancient Greece was awash in homosexuality, though there is plenty of evidence that the Greeks scorned homosexuals. Plato certainly did. Boswell died of Aids at the age of 47.

 

[kenofken]

There’s no need to be snarky.

“Institutionalized adultery” and “the reduction of marriage to a temporary casual situation…” are your words, not mine. The current prevailing attitude toward marriage, divorce, and fornication is a societal problem; the government is not forcing it on us. To enshrine gay “marriage” as having the same status as real marriage would amount to the government forcing us to accept something we can’t accept.

Peace,
Dante

That’s not snarkiness at all. I’m raising a point which NO ONE seems to have an answer for. According to the Prop 8 folks, government MUST outlaw anything which poses a threat to “traditional marriage” and family. By not outlawing divorce, and by allowing marriage of divorced people, the government is “sanctioning” that lifestyle as surely as they would be by allowing gay marriage.

If the “defense of marriage” campaign really was waged on objective concern and not homophobia, this would be a much higher priority than gay marriage. There is no real evidence that having gay parents harms families, and the gay population is a small minority in society. The population of children who will live through divorce and remarriage is enormous - we’re talking like half the population in this country. The evidence of harm in this “lifestyle” is very well documented. By any measure you choose - academic acheivement, substance abuse, behaivor problems, survivors of divorce fare worse. Not all of us crash and burn of course, but no one escapes the experience without scars, and some don’t come through at all.

Not only don’t we see any crusade to deal with this on a legislative basis, but a good many of the conservative luminaries and politicians aiming to “safeguard marriage” are themselves divorcees. I sometimes wish people would just come clean and admit that they want to outlaw gay marriage because they find gay people icky. I could respect that, on some level. But when people try to sell it to me on the basis that they’re “saving marriage” and there’s a rift of hypocrisy the size of the Grand Canyon, it insults even my meager intelligence.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

That’s not snarkiness at all. I’m raising a point which NO ONE seems to have an answer for. According to the Prop 8 folks, government MUST outlaw anything which poses a threat to “traditional marriage” and family. By not outlawing divorce, and by allowing marriage of divorced people, the government is “sanctioning” that lifestyle as surely as they would be by allowing gay marriage.

If the “defense of marriage” campaign really was waged on objective concern and not homophobia, this would be a much higher priority than gay marriage. There is no real evidence that having gay parents harms families, and the gay population is a small minority in society. The population of children who will live through divorce and remarriage is enormous - we’re talking like half the population in this country. The evidence of harm in this “lifestyle” is very well documented. By any measure you choose - academic acheivement, substance abuse, behaivor problems, survivors of divorce fare worse. Not all of us crash and burn of course, but no one escapes the experience without scars, and some don’t come through at all.

Not only don’t we see any crusade to deal with this on a legislative basis, but a good many of the conservative luminaries and politicians aiming to “safeguard marriage” are themselves divorcees. I sometimes wish people would just come clean and admit that they want to outlaw gay marriage because they find gay people icky. I could respect that, on some level. But when people try to sell it to me on the basis that they’re “saving marriage” and there’s a rift of hypocrisy the size of the Grand Canyon, it insults even my meager intelligence.

You’re missing the point. To legitimize gay “marriage” changes the very definition of marriage such that it is essentially meaningless. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of one of the sacraments. It is not possible to engage in gay “marriage” without essentially committing sacrilege while also undermining the concept of family, placing children in harms way, etc.

On the other hand, it is possible to divorce one’s spouse without even committing a sin. So long as one lives a celibate lifestyle and has just cause to do it (e.g., safety of the children), divorce is permissible.

Divorce, per se, does not wreck the nature of marriage. It may (and has) shaken our society’s perception of its permanence, but it does not attempt to change the meaning of the word or to extend the sacrament to those who are not eligible for it. Gay “marriage” is far more unsavory because it denies the fundamental definition of marriage and institutionalizes and legitimizes behavior that is inherently sinful.

Peace,
Dante

 

[edwest2]

That’s not snarkiness at all. I’m raising a point which NO ONE seems to have an answer for. According to the Prop 8 folks, government MUST outlaw anything which poses a threat to “traditional marriage” and family. By not outlawing divorce, and by allowing marriage of divorced people, the government is “sanctioning” that lifestyle as surely as they would be by allowing gay marriage.

If the “defense of marriage” campaign really was waged on objective concern and not homophobia, this would be a much higher priority than gay marriage. There is no real evidence that having gay parents harms families, and the gay population is a small minority in society. The population of children who will live through divorce and remarriage is enormous - we’re talking like half the population in this country. The evidence of harm in this “lifestyle” is very well documented. By any measure you choose - academic acheivement, substance abuse, behaivor problems, survivors of divorce fare worse. Not all of us crash and burn of course, but no one escapes the experience without scars, and some don’t come through at all.

Not only don’t we see any crusade to deal with this on a legislative basis, but a good many of the conservative luminaries and politicians aiming to “safeguard marriage” are themselves divorcees. I sometimes wish people would just come clean and admit that they want to outlaw gay marriage because they find gay people icky. I could respect that, on some level. But when people try to sell it to me on the basis that they’re “saving marriage” and there’s a rift of hypocrisy the size of the Grand Canyon, it insults even my meager intelligence.

Nice touch, that last sentence. Let’s stay on topic. Gay people never had the right to get married. This was invented in the last few years.

The hypocrisy argument is just a way to divert attention. Here are the facts. I watched as society was reengineered to slowly, gradually poison people into believing things that were promoted by Intellectuals and Great Speakers. These people made convincing sounding arguments. The National Organization for Women put fear into the hearts of women that men - all men – will exploit them or harm them in some way. This was in the late 1970s. Then, in the 1980s, when No-Fault Divorce appeared, some just decided to hear men instead of following what they had been taught.

This country was not changed overnight, but the soil was prepared so that sex without love is being marketed today. Sex without commitment as well. “Destroy the family and you destroy society.” V.I. Lenin

The people who did this left behind a well documented trail of gradual social engineering events that were reinforced by the media. It took 40 years to do this. I wish they would come clean about their handiwork.

In the meantime, the Holy Spirit of God is being poured out over the earth. The tide is turning, not because I said so but because the Church has announced the new evangelization. And the guarantee of Jesus Christ protects His Church on earth.

God bless,
Ed

 

[kenofken]

You’re missing the point. To legitimize gay “marriage” changes the very definition of marriage such that it is essentially meaningless. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of one of the sacraments. It is not possible to engage in gay “marriage” without essentially committing sacrilege while also undermining the concept of family, placing children in harms way, etc.

On the other hand, it is possible to divorce one’s spouse without even committing a sin. So long as one lives a celibate lifestyle and has just cause to do it (e.g., safety of the children), divorce is permissible.

Divorce, per se, does not wreck the nature of marriage. It may (and has) shaken our society’s perception of its permanence, but it does not attempt to change the meaning of the word or to extend the sacrament to those who are not eligible for it. Gay “marriage” is far more unsavory because it denies the fundamental definition of marriage and institutionalizes and legitimizes behavior that is inherently sinful.

Peace,
Dante

This conveniently ignores the reality that 99.99% of people who divorce do not remain single or celibate the rest of their lives. Allowing divorce, and most especially remarriage for the divorced, most certainly does change the fundamental nature of marriage from a lifelong comittment to one’s partner (addressed directly by Jesus, BTW), into a lifestyle accessory which may be discarded, at will with the law’s blessing. Many, many tens of millions of people are receiving this “sacrament” via civil law that are not eligible for it. The law we have, that Prop 8 people are turning a blind eye to, institutionalizes and legitimizes behaivor that is inherently sinful in their religion. To pretend that gay marriage is somehow qualitatively different on this basis from what straight people already do en masse is transparently false.