Gay marriage : who cares?

[ERose]

If you had the courage of your convictions, and consistency, you would take on the fight because it was the right thing to do. Whether it would “get the liberals up in arms” would have no bearing on it, and nor would the prospects of success. I did give these links a read, and to the extent these people are putting their money where their mouth is on their beliefs, my hat is off to them. They could tell me they’re against gay marriage and I would respect where they’re coming from. But this ain’t the Phillippines, and I don’t see anyone here walking the walk on the issue. I see lots of excuses why it can’t be done and suggestions that making a good faith effort on this belief, whether rooted in Church law or natural law, just somehow isn’t germane to anything.

Yes. you all say you’re “against” easy divorce and remmariage and the various crimes agaisnt nature perpetrated by even straight people, but thoughts don’t mean much if they’re not translated into action, do they? Saying a Rosary is an action, to be sure, but it’s nowhere near equivalent to the actions you undertake, and insist must be undertaken regarding gays. Yes, of course more straight couples will have children, even unintentional ones, than will same sex couples. But at the end of the day we have one class of people who can and often does flip the bird to nature’s intentions and gets a marriage license, with YOUR tacit approval (nonexistent opposition is tacit approval), and another class of people who would be denied the same civil standing for the same thing.

K., I have used the exact same tactics to fight the oxymoronic concept of gay-marriage as I use to fight divorce, adultery, abortion, etc. by defending the truth on these forums, when I speak with people in everyday life, and living what I preach, by not committing adultery, by not divorcing my wife, and difinitely not partaking in homosexual activity. If you want to call me a hypocrite for being consistent in my beliefs so that it makes you feel better, well do whatever it takes to allow you sleep at night I guess.

 

[Leela]

The whole consensual issue is a red herring and distracts from the fundamental point that bestiality is regarded as *a priori *unnatural and morally wrong in the first place by the consistent and general consent of mankind.

The weakness of your “moral view” is that not only is it totally irrelevant as a criterion of right and wrong behaviour, but it is also a highly subjectivist position. For example, some avant-garde types might argue that because an animal is not a rational being the issue of consent is unimportant and as long as the animal is deeply loved then it is quite permissible. Now from the point of view of moral relativism there is no legitimate reason why such an opinion should be dismissed as absurd or morally depraved, unconventional maybe, but not intrinsically immoral. This warped thinking ultimately leads to a pernicious pluralism where every man does that which is right in his own eyes because there is no moral absolutism and everything becomes negotiable or arbitrary - the everybody is right and nobody is wrong mindset where the only thing people are intolerant of is, well intolerance!

In contradistinction to this moral free-for-all, the Judeo-Christian ethic teaches that bestiality transgresses the God-given boundaries between man and the animal kingdom. Thus holiness in the Pentateuch is a matter of purity, of keeping apart what the Creator designed to be separate.

I am not asking for a moral free-for-all. I’m asking for us to have good reasons for our moral beliefs. All I’m getting from you is that it is immoral because it has always been regarded as immoral. What leads to moral relativism is not asking for justification for beliefs since doing so presupposes that we can either be right or wrong on the matter and be justified in thinking believing something or not justified in believing something. What leads to moral relativism is this last bit where the only thing that passes for any justification for your claim is that your particular religion teaches that it is bad. If that is the only possible justification then someone will be quick to point out that all religions do not agree about morals and start wonderring whether morality is just a matter of what religion you happen to be born into. The antidote to such relativism is to start thinking of morality as something that has a rational basis, as something that has to do with the well-being of conscious creatures, as something that isn’t mere divine whim and can be studied and learned about in all the usual ways that we try to learn about things. There are right and wrong answers to moral questions not because your Chruch says so (since someone else’s probably disagrees with you) but because some practices really do contribute to human well-being and some do not. Moral questions are questions about this world and actual human expereinces, and we will come to learn their answers by studying this world.

Interestingly, the O.T. book of Leviticus places the prohibition of homosexual deviant acts side by side with bestial deviant acts, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with with any beast and defile yourself with it, neither shall any woman give herself to a beast to lie with it: it is perversion” (Lev. 18: 22,23).

Interestingly, just after that in Lev 19 it says “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.”

 

[ERose]

I am not asking for a moral free-for-all. I’m asking for us to have good reasons for our moral beliefs. All I’m getting from you is that it is immoral because it has always been regarded as immoral. What leads to moral relativism is not asking for justification for beliefs since doing so presupposes that we can either be right or wrong on the matter and be justified in thinking believing something or not justified in believing something. What leads to moral relativism is this last bit where the only thing that passes for any justification for your claim is that your particular religion teaches that it is bad. If that is the only possible justification then someone will be quick to point out that all religions do not agree about morals and start wonderring whether morality is just a matter of what religion you happen to be born into. The antidote to such relativism is to start thinking of morality as something that has a rational basis, as something that has to do with the well-being of conscious creatures, as something that isn’t mere divine whim and can be studied and learned about in all the usual ways that we try to learn about things. There are right and wrong answers to moral questions not because your Chruch says so (since someone else’s probably disagrees with you) but because some practices really do contribute to human well-being and some do not. Moral questions are questions about this world and actual human expereinces, and we will come to learn their answers by studying this world.

It is called ethics which is a philosophical field. It has been around for a while. What you, Seeker, and K have been proposing since the beginning of this thread is moral relativism. Look online and read the definition of this term and then go back and read your posts with an open mind and you will discover that is exactly what you have been proposing all along. It has really been the only argument we have gotten from your side of the argument because you have nothing else. And again there has been many an argument on this thread that has been proposed that has not been religiously based that obviously you, Seeker, or K cannot debate against because you have dodged them and only attack the ones you think you can beat.

Also explain to me all the people in this world that are against gay marriage that are not religious? I know alot of people (more than not) that are against gay marriage but do not go to church and do not claim to be Christian, Catholic, Hindu, or whatever else. The facts are that even in your group of agnostics and atheist you are most probably in the minority of your view.

What has been shown is that when voters have been given the opportunity to vote for or against redefining marriage it has always went the way of keeping marriage as it is defined today. We are not talking about conservative states, which it can easily be understood, but liberal states! CA is probably the most liberal state in the union and yet when voters got a chance to express their view in the ballot box after a year of being inundated with the debate they chose to keep it the way it is.

My opinion is this: You have probably 10-15% of the population that is for gay marriage after they have spent time thinking about it. Another 30-40% of the population that is against gay marriage after spending time thinking about it. The rest of the population hasn’t spent anytime whatsoever thinking about what gay marriage means. But in the states that this group of people in the middle have been force to think about it. It has gone to keeping marriage the way it is.

My opinion is this. The biggest dread for gay marriage advocates should be if this prop8 apeal apeal gets to the Supreme Court. If it does there is a big chance that they will loose and in my opinion not just by the 5-4 vote but rather by a 6-3 or 7-2 decision. Alot of people haven’t thought about the two women that have become members of the Supreme court recently. They are going to be the x-factor in this whether or not this is a blowout. These two women where nominated by Pres Obama who is for gay rights but against gay marriage. I think that he nominated these women because they have the same world view that he does. Are they liberal yes. But there are many liberal people who are for gay rights but against gay marriage. And some of the comments I have heard from these women are starting to make me believe that they will vote against gay marriage if given the opportunity.

 

[CradleCath]

Wrong again K. We have gone over this time and time again.** The reason is not unnatural sexual behavior it is because 100% of all homosexual couples cannot bear children on their own. ** To have children, it ALWAYS requires a third party. No matter how you shake it gay marriage is an oxymoron. Until you prove otherwise you will NEVER win this argument. You cannot use the perversion of the masses to justify your perversion.

I disagree with the emboldened sentence ERose.** Natural Law" says that things in God’s Creation should be used according to their purpose.** (i.e., Gay sex is inserting a reproductive organ into a digestive tract, which hardly seems to follow any natural or biological law.)

Natural Law is a body of law or a specific principle held to be derived from nature and binding upon human society in the absence of or in addition to positive law.

This issue goes beyond the fact that gays cannot bear children, the inabiliby to produce children is a result of an ACT, that in & of itself, is morally wrong.

We (everyone, no matter their faith or lack thereof) can KNOW that
the “designedness” of things in general not only draws our attention to the design itself, but also the Designer. The fact that the design of the male & female body speaks of a “completeness” when the two are joined is something we don’t need to be taught. We can, by the reasoning ability that is innate in every sane person KNOW that the joining of two males (or two females) does not bring “completeness”, In fact we cannot NOT know this. The results of gay sex is childlessness, & disease of both the body & the soul.

Natural law, is the still, quiet voice within us that tells us that some laws are basic and fundamental to human nature and** are discoverable by human reason without reference to specific legislative enactments or judicial decisions.** Belief in Natural Law goes clear back to the Stoics who had come to these conclusions even before the birth of Christ. Stoicism, with its roots in earlier doctrines and theories of the human person and the universe, built up an ideal of the virtuous, wise man. They regarded philosophy as an entity to be divided into physics, logic, and ethics, **the Stoics made **logic and physics a foundation for ethics.

To simplify all of this, Natural Law can pretty much be considered common sense for anyone who wants to know Truth & delves deeply enough into their own soul to find it.

 

[Leela]

It is called ethics which is a philosophical field. It has been around for a while. What you, Seeker, and K have been proposing since the beginning of this thread is moral relativism. Look online and read the definition of this term and then go back and read your posts with an open mind and you will discover that is exactly what you have been proposing all along.

I don’t think you understand what moral relativism is. (You seem to be suffering from a typical misunderstanding of the term among Catholics where relativism is taken to mean disagreeing with the Church.)

I have said that I think there is such a thing as moral truth and that it is possible to be justified in believing true moral claims. I am saying that I think you are wrong about what is moral and what is immoral. For a moral relativist, there is no such thing as right and wrong.

I think it is immoral for the church to teach that contraception use is sinful. I think it is immoral that the Chruch teaches that women who try to become priests need to be excommunicated while males priests who rape children ought not be excommunicated and don’t need to be reported to the civil authorities. I think it is immoral to excommunicate a doctor who helps a 14 girl pregnant with twins after being raped to get an abortion. I think it is immoral to tell people in AIDS infested Africa not to use condoms.

These aren’t the complaints of a moral relativist, they are the those of a moral realist who thinks that the Church has lot of things wrong about what is really right and wrong.

 

[CradleCath]

I don’t think you understand what moral relativism is. (You seem to be suffering from a typical misunderstanding of the term among Catholics **where relativism is taken to mean disagreeing with the Church.) **

You’ve got to be kidding. The poster asked you to do some research on Moral Relativism & you think that it’s a "teaching of the Catholic Church??? Do you know nothing of philosophy, it’s history, it’s conclusions??? Mabye that’s why you are so hung up on the “sins of the Catholic Church”.

Moral relativism is the **philosophical theory **that morality is relative, that different moral truths hold for different people. It comes in two forms: ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism.

Ethical subjectivism holds that morality is relative to individuals; cultural relativism holds that it is relative to culture. Both deny the existence of moral absolutes, of objective moral truths that hold for all people in all places at all times.

The definition of philosophical is:
of or relating to philosophers or philosophy b.based on philosophy
Moral relativity has nothing to do with any particular Church. It simply means that there are no **objective, inherent, moral **truths.

Natural Law is that which we can know by reason alone. This also has nothing to do with what religion one belongs to, it has little to do with scripture.

One great example is…stealing that which you have not earned is against Natural Law. We can with our own reasoning ability figure out that this is not good for society. Now, is a man stealing food for his family as culpable for breaking this Moral Law as a man embezzling $100,000 from his bank??? Will their punishment be the same? I don’t think so, however that does not make stealing OK.

Having an aunt, who was very important to me & was a Methodist…having a dear friend who is a Baptist…I’d have to say, with NO malice toward either faith, that much of their beliefs are tied to the emotions & almost all of their services are based on emotion. The preacher who pounds the pulpit, or beams upon the congregation with his true message of “God is Love”…the message received is an emotional response. You’ll find that the Catholic faith (& the Orthodox Jewish faith) are much more scholastic & based on reason.

Do some studying before you post again…especially on the PHILOSOPHICAL forum. Read some of the works of Aristotle or the Stoics, of Aquinas.

Do some studying before you post again…especially on the PHILOSOPHICAL forum. Read some of the works of Aristotle of the Stoics, of Aquinas.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

kenofken

*But at the end of the day we have one class of people who can and often does flip the bird to nature’s intentions and gets a marriage license, with YOUR tacit approval (nonexistent opposition is tacit approval), and another class of people who would be denied the same civil standing for the same thing. *

Sodomy is not heterosexual sex, in case you didn’t know it! The marriage license is granted because protection for all parties is needed, including the children. Gay marriages will not produce children. So the civil standing is certainly not the same. Civilization’s progress, never mind its survival, depends on heterosexual marriage and the offspring. Those offspring, even when abandoned by their parents, ought to be offered to heterosexual parents for adoption, not gay couples who have nothing to offer a heterosexual child by way of providing models for heterosexual family life.

But I guess if you’re going to keep offering the same arguments, you should not be surprised to get, over and over again, the same answers.

 

[Leela]

You’ve got to be kidding. The poster asked you to do some research on Moral Relativism & you think that it’s a "teaching of the Catholic Church??? Do you know nothing of philosophy, it’s history, it’s conclusions??? Mabye that’s why you are so hung up on the “sins of the Catholic Church”.
…
Do some studying before you post again…especially on the PHILOSOPHICAL forum. Read some of the works of Aristotle or the Stoics, of Aquinas.

 

[Leela]

I disagree with the emboldened sentence ERose.** Natural Law" says that things in God’s Creation should be used according to their purpose.** (i.e., Gay sex is inserting a reproductive organ into a digestive tract, which hardly seems to follow any natural or biological law.)

Do you have any citation for this claim that the Church regards “inserting a reproductive organ into a digestive tract” as unnatural? It was my understanding that the Catholic Church does not forbid anal or oral sex. The only issue is that the male “finishes” in the right place.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

*I’m asking for us to have good reasons for our moral beliefs. All I’m getting from you is that it is immoral because it has always been regarded as immoral. *

Because something has always been regarded as immoral is in favor of the likelihood that** it is immoral**. Go back to the ancient Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, and others. They agree with Moses without ever having heard of him. At no time in the history of the human race has marriage ever been seriously proposed without being laughed out of court. That too is in favor of the likelihood that sodomy is something to be ashamed of, not bragged about and celebrated and licensed by the state.

Only in a sick and decadent society such as ours would gay people be so shameless as to demand the rights accorded to heterosexuals only throughout history.

I repeat: the state has no obligation to officially validate unnatural relations. It is not obliged to give marriage licenses to accommodate people who are into incest, bestiality, and sodomy.

I repeat again, Leela. Nature (everything that happens - your definition) and the natural law are not the same. It is natural to have babies. It is unnatural to kill babies. It is natural for men to have sex with women. It is unnatural for men to have sex with men. Marriage was designed to protect the family and advance the race and the interests of the state. Gay marriage would do no such thing. In gay marriage there is no family because there is only one sex and no possibility of more than one sex. It is two bachelors making out with each other. It may include friendship, fine. But men can live together without a marriage. There is no legal impediment to their living together, their friendship, and their unnatural sex. But neither is there a legal obligation to elevate their status to that of heterosexual marriage.

The idea is simply bereft of common sense and common decency. To the extent that any Catholics welcome the idea of legalized abortion or gay marriage, that is a sign of how depraved political correctness has become.

 

[PassingThru]

What has been shown is that when voters have been given the opportunity to vote for or against redefining marriage it has always went the way of keeping marriage as it is defined today. We are not talking about conservative states, which it can easily be understood, but liberal states! CA is probably the most liberal state in the union and yet when voters got a chance to express their view in the ballot box after a year of being inundated with the debate they chose to keep it the way it is.

My opinion is this: You have probably 10-15% of the population that is for gay marriage after they have spent time thinking about it. Another 30-40% of the population that is against gay marriage after spending time thinking about it. The rest of the population hasn’t spent anytime whatsoever thinking about what gay marriage means. But in the states that this group of people in the middle have been force to think about it. It has gone to keeping marriage the way it is.

My opinion is this. The biggest dread for gay marriage advocates should be if this prop8 apeal apeal gets to the Supreme Court. If it does there is a big chance that they will loose and in my opinion not just by the 5-4 vote but rather by a 6-3 or 7-2 decision. Alot of people haven’t thought about the two women that have become members of the Supreme court recently. They are going to be the x-factor in this whether or not this is a blowout. These two women where nominated by Pres Obama who is for gay rights but against gay marriage. I think that he nominated these women because they have the same world view that he does. Are they liberal yes. But there are many liberal people who are for gay rights but against gay marriage. And some of the comments I have heard from these women are starting to make me believe that they will vote against gay marriage if given the opportunity.

Ill try to stay out of the religious/moral debate, as the only question that interests me is why this applies to the legal status of gay marriage. There is a reason none of this discussion was brought up in the Prop 8 case, and that is because the court could care less if someone thinks it is “moral relativism”. Prop 8 is the biggest test yet, and they avoid this line of thinking like plague ridden corpse. Do you ever wonder why?

As to some of your other points: California is NOT a liberal state. It is no Wyoming (or Louisiana for that matter), but there is a VERY large conservative and military population. San Diego and Orange County being two of the larger concentrations, with of course the San Francisco and Berkley areas to balance. I would call CA a moderate state with some large populations on both the far left and far right. (I live in CA for last 15 years) And it was a very tight vote on Prop 8 BTW, a percent or two within 50-50.

Also, I was born and raised in Iowa, where gay marriage is law. Is that a liberal state too?

For your 10-15% support argument. Well, its just wrong, I don’t know what else to say. CA is as close to 50-50 as you can get. Some states are swing more towards yes, others towards no. If you are somehow diluting yourself into thinking that only 10-15% of the population (roughly speaking) would support gay marriage, you really are in a dream world. Doesnt make it right or wrong, but the US as a whole is much closer to 50-50 in any legit poll you wish to use. I agree, we are likely still below the 50% threshold. Have you looked at the stats on the populations opinion on gay rights (gay marriage included)? If you look at the age trend, it is staggering. It is almost a straight line. If you graphed age on the bottom, and support for hetero only marriage on the sides, it is almost a straight line, with 18 year olds with something like less than 10% support, all the way up to the 80 years and older group with over 90% support. Statistically speaking, demographics will take care of getting “over the hump” so to speak in a matter of a few years. Again, these are just the facts of US demographics at this point.

Oh, and i would not be so sure Obama does not support gay marriage. He straddled the issue, as it is the only thing he can say as a presidential candidate. It is the same thing I would say, or at least advise him to say as well! If 50-60% of the population is going to get up in arms for showing support, he is better off giving a non-answer. Doubly so for an issue the president does not really have any control over. (Not an Obama supporter BTW, just reality as I see it)

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela
*
The only issue is that the male “finishes” in the right place. *

Well, the right place is certainly not in another man’s behind!

 

[CradleCath]

Do you have any citation for this claim that the Church regards “inserting a reproductive organ into a digestive tract” as unnatural? It was my understanding that the Catholic Church does not forbid anal or oral sex. The only issue is that the male “finishes” in the right place.

**You have’nt a clue, do you? ** My post had to do with Natural Law, not the Catholic Church. I said: “Natural Law” says that things in God’s Creation should be used according to their purpose. in the case of our sexual organs, their purpose is twofold:

1. the procreation of children
2. the deepening of love & oneness between a married couple, i.e. one man & woman, who have pledged that they will love another & their children “until death do them part”.

I won’t answer another of your posts until I see some evidence that you understand Natural Law, Moral Relativism & philosophy in general.

 

[Leela]

I won’t answer another of your posts until I see some evidence that you understand Natural Law, Moral Relativism & philosophy in general.

I think I asked you before, but in case I didn’t, please, please, please, put me on your ignore list. You don’t seem to actually read my posts before flying off the handle anyway.

 

[PassingThru]

Also explain to me all the people in this world that are against gay marriage that are not religious? I know alot of people (more than not) that are against gay marriage but do not go to church and do not claim to be Christian, Catholic, Hindu, or whatever else. The facts are that even in your group of agnostics and atheist you are most probably in the minority of your view.

Ehhh, no. Based on your group of friends, you are asserting that the non-religious population as a whole does not support gay marriage? You will have to excuse me if I dismiss your statement. Feel free to google some stats on recent gay marriage exit polls. Among those that consider themselves actively religious, I fully expect a very strong showing against gay marriage as you propose.

Your contact list is NOT a reputable source, sorry. Plus it makes no sense, logically.

 

[tonyrey]

Leela
*
The only issue is that the male “finishes” in the right place. *

Well, the right place is certainly not in another man’s behind!

I can’t wait to see the response to that!

 

[Leela]

Leela
*
The only issue is that the male “finishes” in the right place. *

Well, the right place is certainly not in another man’s behind!

Ok, but I take it you undrstand, pace CradleCath, that the issue is not inserting a penis into a mouth or behind. Neither practice is regarded as unnatural/immoral by the Church. It is when these things are done between males that they are forbidden as unnatural.

People tend to focus on how icky they think anal sex is when thinking about homosexuality, but of course the practice is not limited to homosexuals.

 

[Leela]

Leela

*I’m asking for us to have good reasons for our moral beliefs. All I’m getting from you is that it is immoral because it has always been regarded as immoral. *

Because something has always been regarded as immoral is in favor of the likelihood that** it is immoral**. Go back to the ancient Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, and others. They agree with Moses without ever having heard of him. At no time in the history of the human race has marriage ever been seriously proposed without being laughed out of court. That too is in favor of the likelihood that sodomy is something to be ashamed of, not bragged about and celebrated and licensed by the state…

It may be thought of as in favor of it turning out to be immoral, but tradition is not suficient to justify something as immoral especially given the fact that people were wrong in the past about many important morals.

There was a time before couples of mixed race were not laughed out of court, before black people where permitted to testify in court, before women were permitted to vote, before people recognized that it is wrong to buy and sell human beings, etc. To me, homosexuality is exactloy the sort of thing that tradition has so often gotten wrong.

 

[tonyrey]

What we wonder is what possible reason you could have for wanting to make gay marriage illegal if you don’t want to make laws about these other moral concerns related to marriage?

Would you have agreed to the adoption of your children by a married gay couple if you had been unable to care for them? (assuming that it was legal)

 

[Leela]

Would you have agreed to the adoption of your children by a married gay couple if you were unable to care for them?

Sure. In our society and the current level of bigorty toward homosexuals, having homosexual parents could result in some social problems, but there would be a hundred other things I would worry about before I would worry about the adopting parent’s sexual orientation.