Gay Marriage

[NekoNecro]

In respect of the comments on gay sexual relations that you’ve made:

Not sure what you mean by “accept”, but as to scientific understanding, **the cause it not known **and there is not a preponderance of evidence that says it is genetic.

These might only be research at present, but it is in such great and credible folume that Governments around the world have impartially read through a number of causes and found genetics to posses the most compelling argument and evidence.Gravity is also still only a theory lacking solid proof of it’s actual existence (since we can’t actually see the force itself, only its effects), but I don’t see anyone disproving it by floating off the ground into space.

The cause isn’t cemented as undeniable fact yet, but scientists do mostly agree that homosexuality is developed in the womb, so it is likely genetic (since it’s so common in comparison to other birth defects) or at the very, very, very least to do with natural hormonal development during pregnancy.

I don’t consider fertility to be relevant to the debate. In respect of civil law, there is only one intrinsically sexual union that States ought to care about, and that is Marriage. The class of unions “Man + Woman” is uniquely significant to the State for its society building potential. I agree that States should be free to provide **legal frameworks **that meet the needs of arbitrary persons who wish to live together, share assets, care for each other on-going, etc. Of course, that relationship need not be sexual and the State need take no interest in whether it is or it is not. However, that is not Marriage, and common sense says that the institution should not be called Marriage nor thought to be equivalent to it.

I’m afraid fertility is absolutely essential to the debate on multiple fronts, since this is what is required for a valid licit marriage in Catholicism. For hundreds of years, impotence has been a perfectly valid reason to bar a man from the sacrament of marriage, or for a woman to obtain an annulment. It’s also for the reason why those who have undergone a sex change (lets say a man got all the operations to become a woman) cannot marry, since he is neither capable of fruitful intercourse (and marry a woman) nor is he able to marry another man (he is still male in the churches eyes, and cannot bear child).

I think the state has every right to define what a marriage is, let’s not forget marriage as a state institution has records of marriages taking place pre-dating Christianity from the days of ancient Egypt and beyond. Hell, if we go down that route even homosexual marriage as sanctioned by the state is older than Holy Matrimony by at very least 500 years (The Historian Plutarch describes such arrangements taking place in ceremonies in Thebes during the early 4th century BC along with a select few other Ancient writers). If you want to go back even earlier than that, the Greek historian Dinarchus writing from the 3rd Century BC refers to a number of homosexual men as spouses to one another during conflicts dating roughly 400 years prior to that!)

Gay marriage is actually older than Holy matrimony. I’m sorry, the state clearly has every right to define it however it pleases. Catholic Holy Matrimony is another matter.

I don’t know in what sense you consider yourself a moral relativist, but I suggest that is a freedom only God should exercise. He will hold us to the standard he sees fit in light of our talents and privileges, but the line between moral and immoral is fixed and we can’t rationally move it around to fit circumstances.

I’m a moral relativist in that I do not belive there are (very often) clear cases of good or evil when making a decision, very few choices are black or white, almost all of them are varying shades of grey.

It used to be absolutely fine for a man to beat his wife to death or murder his children, no questions asked but we now have learnt this is unacceptable and morally wrong. Likewise, we used to think it a great sacrilege for a woman to become a teacher and have rule over men (for this was an abomination before the Lord), we have since learnt better and now women may teach, read the Gospels and worst of all (which St.Paul himself seemed to dread especially!) Actually speak inside churches! .

In many parts of the middle east it would be seen as highly immoral for a woman to show her hair in public, in Europe we think little of it other than covering up one’s hair to be oppressive and immoral.

Natural / Unnatural is a difficult concept and different people think it means different things. I believe homosexuality is “naturally occurring”, in the sense that we don’t manufacture it in the lab. By the same token, it does not really conform with the human blueprint, does it? - the proclivity is somewhat at odds with the body. A man emitting his gametes together with another man looks in some sense to be a “broken” act, because, under no eventuality, despite the full health of the participants, despite even the (albeit fanciful) wishes of the participants, those gametes **can never **fulfil their reason to exist and be emitted.
…

Ok, so now we return to the fertility argument essentially. I’ll help you banning gay marriage if you agree to help me take children away from widows, the impotent from getting married and ensuring couples who are so old they can no longer have intercourse obtain an annulment and separate from one another. Since the correct union of man and woman is so essential after all.

 

[NekoNecro]

Homosexuality is an epigenetic condition, which means there are typically environmental stressors or triggers that inhibit or suppress certain genetic traits, in this case, complete gender expression. That is not necessarily a desirable characteristic.

There are many undesirable characteristics for a human to have. Obviously I’d much rather be a sexy blonde nordic looking supermodel then as I actually do appear but…That’s just how we were made/How the dice roll/whichever analogy you subscribe to.

Until we start forcing the red haired to shave their heads to hide their undesirable characteristics (and they do get a rough time in the UK I’ve noticed) I don’t really think we can say anything about the gays. It’s pot luck what attributes you get, you just have to make the most of what you got.

For example, obesity has been found to have been triggered by food scarcity by studies done in Northern Europe. We wouldn’t say that just because obesity is “genetic,” it is thereby a desirable trait. It would make much more sense to treat homosexual tendencies as indicators of possible environmental (social, physiological, chemical) issues. To say “it doesn’t matter to me” and treat a potentially problematic conditon as if it isn’t, is simply being short sighted.

This is not a reasoned position, nor is it good science. What it is is bad politics, period.

The difference is here that while for centuries nobody really cared if you happened to be fat or not there are now so many obese men and women in North America/Europe that it is placing a huge strain upon the medical services. We’re only tackling obesity now because it’s causing harm to the system of support for everyone at the moment. If the number ever reduced and no harm was being done to wider society, I really don’t think anyone would see it as an issue needing to be tackled, since becoming fat would be a personal development and not one that required outside correction unless desired.

We can criticize the gays for not reproducing to expand society one most of the human population stops making babies. The population in France and the UK is growing far faster than either of our countries want, indeed we’d prefer people not to reproduce as much at the moment.

It is one thing to say we ought to treat individuals who carry certain epigenetic conditions with respect and dignity, it is another to say the condition ought to be promoted. Take autism, for example. It is clear that the right thing to do is to treat autistic individuals as having full human dignity, it is quite another to thereby claim that autism is a desirable human condition.

I’m not suggesting we teach young boys to go and have sex with other men, but by the same token I wouldn’t want to tell them to go have casual sex with another woman.

Compared to Autism and other birth defects and anomalies Homosexuality is so common I think it irrational to assume it to be a defect in requirement of treatment. There are more gays than left handed humans, and we do not believe the lefties (anymore) to be requiring “correction”.

 

[NekoNecro]

This is not true. There have been Church Fathers even before Augustine who treated Genesis as allegorical, so did many Jewish scholars. If anything there are likely more absolute literalists today than there have been throughout history. Could you support your position about the literal reading of Genesis in earlier times with some actual references? In particular, influential individuals or at least those who were likely to be representative of a large body of believers.

Absolutely! I’ve not got the works of Church fathers to hand at this very moment, but perhaps some names of individual fathers will satisfy you for now.

Most of the Church Fathers interpreted Genesis 1 in a plain and straightforward way, as actual history. The six days were 24-hour days. Ephraim (Ephrem) the Syrian (306–373) and Basil of Caesarea (329–379) argued for the literal sense of Scripture against the distortions of allegory. Basil said twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day. Even Ambrose of Milan (330–397), mentor of Augustine, believed each day consisted of twenty-four hours, including both day and night. In addition to this, the Fathers believed that the earth was less than 6,000 years old.

answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n4/early-church-on-creation

I may be mistaken but I belive it was Augsstine who was the first to suggest that Genesis wasn’t to be taken literally, but even then this view held very little support. It wasn’t really until the Renaissance anyone started to pay it any serious heed.

 

[NekoNecro]

Homosexuals exist for the same reason that adulterers and pedaphiles and bestialists exist: disordered practices of sexuality.

The difference is that there are large numbers, evidence and statistics to indicate Homosexual desires are entirely natural whereas Pedophilia and Bestiality posses none and are still identified by Psychiatry as mental disorders developed later in life.

It’s almost unheard of hearing about a teenager who wants to have sex with young girls, but it’s not that uncommon to find one that wants to have sex with his own gender.

 

[NekoNecro]

Sad. This is a modern invention. The capitulation of the American Psychiatric Association to radical gay activists and closeted gays within the organization. They threw out years of research and voted that what was a disorder yesterday was not a disorder after the vote. The next steps? Sexual Reassignment surgery, the overturning of sodomy laws.

It’s funny that we’re all willing to use arguments from fringe psychologists of dubious qualification and reputation to support any arguments of Homosexuals being mentally disordered but as soon as the vast majority come to a solid conclusion that the Church finds displeasing we’ve got to label the field as corrupted and false.

Transgender? All the LGBT community had to do was lobby the APA for years.

To my knowledge the Church has no teachings against Transgenders as of yet, other than that the ones who have undergone surgical reassignment can no longer undertake the sacrament of marriage. Why is this of concern to Catholics when you are still free to form your own opinions on the matter?

“Whereas previously a man who “self-identified” as a woman (or vice versa) could have been classified as mentally ill, now the DSM-5 uses the term “gender dysphoria,” which means it is only a mental illness if you’re troubled by this self-identification. Elated activists in the “LGBT” community had lobbied the APA for the change for years.”

I’m reluctant to tackle the issue of Trangenderism myself since it’s not a field I’m very well read on (so I thank you for the links). As peculiar as the lifestyle might seem to be I don’t think of it as really any better or worse than people who were ceremonial/religious costume everyday. It’s certainly unusual, but so’s a person without a leg. We’d probably all stare either way.

Pope Benedict:

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]”

I think it admirable that people are seeking to life a life filled with joy and wonder, seeking to bring happiness and comfort into the lifes of others rather than abject misery purely because they themselves or one of many traditions do not approve. The Church’s message is one meant to being comfort and cause the listener to rejoice, not inflict a lifetime of depression and eventually be the root cause of multiple LGBT suicides as it does today.

It is one thing to bear a cross, it is another to make one yourself that doesn’t need to exist to make ones load heavier than it need be.

Truth is truth. It doesn’t change. The world is quite black and white regardless of any who attempt to impose grayness on it.

No it isn’t. Why are we not beating women to death who read from the Gospels in churches anymore? Because morality does develop in lieu of our historical cultural background and societal development.

 

[Nacho45]

When God commanded us not to murder, when Jesus commanded to spread the faith throughout the world, or any other rule provided to man, why is it thoses are not as often and with less vigor looked through for imaginary loopholes as is done with homosexual conduct? It doesn’t matter how many ways we attempt to rationalize or justify homosexual relations (or any other unauthorized sexual activity), or how savvy we think our debating points may be, it will still be wrong. So, why waste time in a losing battle? Accept what has already and clearly been explained. Nothing is going to be changed and no real benefit will unfold as a result.

 

[shelby_sun]

Pope Benedict:

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]”

Truth is truth. It doesn’t change. The world is quite black and white regardless of any who attempt to impose grayness on it.

So we should go with a dictatorship of the Catholic Church, that is exactly what you make it sound like. I hardly think every American believes in every single thing in the Constitution or all its Amendments or we would not have Republicans and Democrats, that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in are country and are not good Americans.

It is not truth, it is faith and it is belief. The Church itself is not infallible, nor are all its teaching. If it were truth it would be fact and not faith. No you are black and white and I know hundreds of Catholics who are very gray on a only a few issue with Church and its teaching, but they would just never waste there time trying to come on this site.
Peace,
Ed

 

[NekoNecro]

When God commanded us not to murder, when Jesus commanded to spread the faith throughout the world, or any other rule provided to man, why is it thoses are not as often and with less vigor looked through for imaginary loopholes as is done with homosexual conduct?

Because supposedly benevolent organizations such as Families for America who should be condemning and working to end great evils like theft and murder in society are far more preoccupied for persecuting homosexuals, on virtue of the fact they feel the need to do some "good2 in the world, but they’re too cowardly to actually pick a target that actually poses a threat to the world. Instead, they seem to favor picking on smaller sections who don’t have as much power to defend themselves.

Of course, times are changing and the once feeble LGBT movement is now quite a well supported popular movement. I’m sure once gay marriage becomes legal (which it inevitably will) Catholicism will pick out a new “great evil” to focus on.

We had Atheists and non-theocratic goverment last century, Women’s Sufferage (and later feminism) in the early 20th and Homosexuals for most of the latter part. Seeing as the New Age isn’t all that organized and is generally seen by society as a joke religion I think it will be them next.

It doesn’t matter how many ways we attempt to rationalize or justify homosexual relations (or any other unauthorized sexual activity), or how savvy we think our debating points may be, it will still be wrong. So, why waste time in a losing battle? Accept what has already and clearly been explained. Nothing is going to be changed and no real benefit will unfold as a result.

No, your wrong and thankfully your not going to convince most of rational society anymore. It’s impossible, nay, utterly ridiculous to propose we use any single religious tradition as a source of modern day governance.

You might think God disapproves of Homosexuality, but you just wait there five minutes while I go grab my copy of the Veda’s or the Mahabharata. According to this God, homosexuality and sex is absolutely ok. Shall we have a fight over it, or just accept we’re not actually going to convince one another and should just leave one another to get on with each others business.

It took until the fall of the Papal states for the CC to quite grasp this concept when Italy refused to tolerate Pius’s IX treatment of Jews (amongst other things) but does seem to have got the basics of it. It’s long past time it accepted the rest and stopped forcing itself upon society by the power of law and wealth at the very least. Ideally I would hope and pray it comes to acknowledge though the power of reason that there is nothing intrinsically good or evil about Homosexual relationships.

And for the record saying this, I am no Athiest. I would prefer to describe myself as a Catholic, since most aspects of Church teaching I see no fault or irrationality behind it. This topic though? This is nuts.

 

[NekoNecro]

So we should go with a dictatorship of the Catholic Church, that is exactly what you make it sound like. I hardly think every American believes in every single thing in the Constitution or all its Amendments or we would not have Republicans and Democrats, that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in are country and are not good Americans.

It is not truth, it is faith and it is belief. The Church itself is not infallible, nor are all its teaching. If it were truth it would be fact and not faith. No you are black and white and I know hundreds of Catholics who are very gray on a only a few issue with Church and its teaching, but they would just never waste there time trying to come on this site.

Amen to that! :yup:

I once believed in infallibility myself, but after reading and seeing what this attitude has done?..Nah. The Church has a great authority when it comes to scripture, I never place any doubt on that for one moment but…to never err in it’s office of teaching the Christian faithful?

It has. From the…The Corpse synod, The Heretic yet still Infallible Honorius (Irony?), the sin of Ursury, Women theologians…Oh, there’s hundreds of “amendments”, “Infallible decrees found lacking” and “developments” in church teaching that have occurred as massive U-turns from the original doctrines. Nothing is black and white, as pretty as it sounds and as much as we might want it to be.

 

[JimG]

Alright, I’ll agree with you as soon as you also agree that we need to return to the standard required by the Irish parenting laws promoted during the 40-50’s (all promoted by the Church as the standard required of any good Catholic during this time).

Ya’know, single mothers have to have their children taken away because they don’t present the perfect imitation of the holy family, same as widows and widowers. The disabled, rape victims, parents who just don’t like one another, couples who miss mass. We’d be doing them a /terrible/ disservice not to take them away.

I grew up in the '50’s but I have no idea what you mean by the Irish parenting laws. I don’t recall a push to remove children from widows, the disabled, or non-practicing Catholics. I didn’t grow up in Ireland; did they really have such laws?

I honestly don’t even want to dignify this bit with a response. I can…assure you. The gays are not trying to take over the world, they just want to get on with their own lives. Most them are more concerned with what cushions they have on their couches than forming a new world order in the name of Satan.

I agree; so are most heterosexual couples more concerned with the couch cushions than any societal effects they may be having.

I don’t say that homosexuals are suddenly trying to begin a social revolution. They are the recipients of the social revolution begun by heterosexuals. It began when the 1930 Lambeth Conference changed Anglican doctrine on contraception, which all of Protestantism had condemned for 400 years, having the same doctrine on the matter as the Catholic Church. It was continued in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and beyond. Contraception destroyed the conjugal nature of marriage, separating marriage from children, and turning children into options rather than persons. That enabled fornication, adultery, made abortion a necessity, and enabled an ‘anything goes’ mentality when it came to sex and family.

(Read Mary Eberstadt’s “Adam and Eve After the Pill” for an analysis of the detrimental effects which followed.)

Now, when heterosexuals wish to rationalize their own bad behavior, they pretty much have to accept the bad behavior of others in return. That’s where we are today.

I have to make a comment on a subsequent post about fertility. For Catholics at least, fertility is not an issue with respect to the validity of marriage. But impotence is. An infertile couple can validly marry. But a couple who are not capable of the marital act cannot validly marry, because the capacity for marital relations is of the essence of marriage.

 

[edwest2]

The APA ran into the issue that they couldn’t identify homosexuals from heterosexuals through the Rorschach, MMPI or TAT, see “The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual”.

The only successful treatment is hormones and/or transitioning to some degree.

Indeed

The APA couldn’t identify homosexuals from heterosexuals? Then who were they studying? People who did not tell them they were gay? I think people need to understand that homosexuality was being studied for decades before this unscientific and political vote was taken by the APA in 1973. Which changed the political situation for gay persons.

"Dr. Socarides, writing in Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic : The Issue of Homosexuality writes: “To declare a condition a ‘non-condition,’ a group of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders. The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved an out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also a number of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators over the past seventy years…”

"Socarides continued: “For the next 18 years, the APA decision served as a Trojan horse, opening the gates to widespread psychological and social change in sexual customs and mores. The decision was to be used on numerous occasions for numerous purposes with the goal of normalizing homosexuality and elevating it to an esteemed status.”

Again, the Church’s position is to treat all LGBT persons with respect. I always did. The decision by certain closeted gay persons, especially celebrities, to abandon their privacy was not the doing of anyone else. Calling people in general “bigots” or “homophobes” is another issue.

Respectfully,
Ed

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

The APA couldn’t identify homosexuals from heterosexuals? Then who were they studying? People who did not tell them they were gay? I think people need to understand that homosexuality was being studied for decades before this unscientific and political vote was taken by the APA in 1973. Which changed the political situation for gay persons.

"Dr. Socarides, writing in Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic : The Issue of Homosexuality writes: “To declare a condition a ‘non-condition,’ a group of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders. The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved an out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also a number of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators over the past seventy years…”

"Socarides continued: “For the next 18 years, the APA decision served as a Trojan horse, opening the gates to widespread psychological and social change in sexual customs and mores. The decision was to be used on numerous occasions for numerous purposes with the goal of normalizing homosexuality and elevating it to an esteemed status.”

Again, the Church’s position is to treat all LGBT persons with respect. I always did. The decision by certain closeted gay persons, especially celebrities, to abandon their privacy was not the doing of anyone else. Calling people in general “bigots” or “homophobes” is another issue.

Respectfully,
Ed

When given the results of those tests experts were unable to tell which of the subjects were homosexual and which were heterosexual.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Absolutely! I’ve not got the works of Church fathers to hand at this very moment, but perhaps some names of individual fathers will satisfy you for now.

answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n4/early-church-on-creation

I may be mistaken but I belive it was Augsstine who was the first to suggest that Genesis wasn’t to be taken literally, but even then this view held very little support. It wasn’t really until the Renaissance anyone started to pay it any serious heed.

Yup, you are mistaken.

St. Justin Martyr,
St. Theophilus of Antioch
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
St. Clement of Alexandria
Origen
Cyprian of Carthage
Lactantius
Basil of Caesarea
Ambrose of Milan

Most made reference to the “one day is as a thousand years” (1 Peter 3:8) but others like Origen (Homilies on Genesis 1) were very clear that motions of the sun and moon could not be used to demarcate day and night precise because they did not exist until later in the creative sequence. Therefore, it was argued, the meaning of day and night had to be allegorical in nature. Others, like Theophilius (To Autolycus 2:15) were clear that since the length of days were not demarcated until after creation, neither were weeks, months, years nor thousands of years, so the entire question of duration was not to be settled by human reckoning.

 

[Rau]

These might only be research at present, but it is in such great and credible folume that Governments around the world have impartially read through a number of causes and found genetics to posses the most compelling argument and evidence…

The cause isn’t cemented as undeniable fact yet, but scientists do mostly agree that homosexuality is developed in the womb, so it is likely genetic (since it’s so common in comparison to other birth defects) or at the very, very, very least to do with natural hormonal development during pregnancy.

So - it seems we agree that it is premature to conclude the cause is genetic. Not sure what you understand “natural hormonal development” to mean. At the end of the day, a person who experiences same sex attraction finds him/herself with a proclivity at odds with their body and unable to reproduce. This does appear to be an unfortunate outcome.

I’m afraid fertility is absolutely essential to the debate on multiple fronts, since this is what is required for a valid licit marriage in Catholicism.

No, this is wrong - fertility is not a requirement, though the physical capability to complete intercourse is.

I think the state has every right to define what a marriage is, …

I agree with you. In democracies, the State has the right to make whatever laws it wishes for which it has the support of the people.

I’m a moral relativist in that I do not belive there are (very often) clear cases of good or evil when making a decision, very few choices are black or white, almost all of them are varying shades of grey.

Interesting - I see the exact opposite. Dilemmas arise, but not often. What is right we generally know, or can discover. It is when the “right” is “hard” that we struggle, and will often then question whether it’s really right “in this circumstance”. [Thinking about abortion makes this clear in my mind.]

Ok, so now we return to the fertility argument essentially. I’ll help you banning gay marriage if you agree to help me take children away from widows, the impotent from getting married and ensuring couples who are so old they can no longer have intercourse obtain an annulment and separate from one another. Since the correct union of man and woman is so essential after all.

You lost me there! We should separate the question of same sex sex relationships, civil marriage, civil unions, and “gay civil marriage”.

Same sex sex relationships don’t make sense to me for the reasons I described. It is an intrinsically broken and futile act. It is objectively evident that something is wrong with the image.

(Civil) Marriage is an intrinsically sexual institution that the State takes an interest in because of its society building nature and purpose. **The class of unions (“Man + Woman”) is obviously special and significant. ** Does this mean the State should check potency or undo marriages after menopause? Hard to see why one would advocate that.

Civil Unions (my view of what they should be) - as a state provided legal framework that addresses the needs of arbitrary persons who wish to live together, share assets, care for each other indefinitely - are perfectly fine with me. Such arrangements are not intrinsically sexual (maybe they are, maybe they are not - the State need take no interest) and, in my opinion, are so different from “Marriage” that they should not be called that, or mistaken for something equivalent to Marriage.

 

[Rau]

When given the results of those tests experts were unable to tell which of the subjects were homosexual and which were heterosexual.

Joie - what conclusion is to be taken from that?

It seems to me the key (medical science) issue is not so much “is homosexuality mental illness?”, but rather, to agree that:

1. Homosexuality is an unusual outcome; it denies sexual reproduction to the individual; it is a trial to many who experience it;
2. It is at odds with our bodily design;
3. We should try and study why this happens and is it avoidable or not.

[Comparisons to red hair and left handedness I saw on this thread seem ludicrous.]

 

[Nacho45]

Because supposedly benevolent organizations such as Families for America who should be condemning and working to end great evils like theft and murder in society are far more preoccupied for persecuting homosexuals, on virtue of the fact they feel the need to do some "good2 in the world, but they’re too cowardly to actually pick a target that actually poses a threat to the world. Instead, they seem to favor picking on smaller sections who don’t have as much power to defend themselves.

Of course, times are changing and the once feeble LGBT movement is now quite a well supported popular movement. I’m sure once gay marriage becomes legal (which it inevitably will) Catholicism will pick out a new “great evil” to focus on.

We had Atheists and non-theocratic goverment last century, Women’s Sufferage (and later feminism) in the early 20th and Homosexuals for most of the latter part. Seeing as the New Age isn’t all that organized and is generally seen by society as a joke religion I think it will be them next.

No, your wrong and thankfully your not going to convince most of rational society anymore. It’s impossible, nay, utterly ridiculous to propose we use any single religious tradition as a source of modern day governance.

You might think God disapproves of Homosexuality, but you just wait there five minutes while I go grab my copy of the Veda’s or the Mahabharata. According to this God, homosexuality and sex is absolutely ok. Shall we have a fight over it, or just accept we’re not actually going to convince one another and should just leave one another to get on with each others business.

It took until the fall of the Papal states for the CC to quite grasp this concept when Italy refused to tolerate Pius’s IX treatment of Jews (amongst other things) but does seem to have got the basics of it. It’s long past time it accepted the rest and stopped forcing itself upon society by the power of law and wealth at the very least. Ideally I would hope and pray it comes to acknowledge though the power of reason that there is nothing intrinsically good or evil about Homosexual relationships.

And for the record saying this, I am no Athiest. I would prefer to describe myself as a Catholic, since most aspects of Church teaching I see no fault or irrationality behind it. This topic though? This is nuts.

I stand by my post. If people desire to foolishly try to change what God had commanded thinking it will somehow actually work…this time…let them. It will not change anything and they will be very sorrowful one day for their actions. As for the distracting diatribe you provided, it also changes nothing. God spoke and unless He makes a change, it remains the same no matter how many times a persons says differently to convince their self.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Joie - what conclusion is to be taken from that?

It seems to me the key (medical science) issue is not so much “is homosexuality mental illness?”, but rather, to agree that:

1. Homosexuality is an unusual outcome; it denies sexual reproduction to the individual; it is a trial to many who experience it;
2. It is at odds with our bodily design;
3. We should try and study why this happens and is it avoidable or not.

[Comparisons to red hair and left handedness I saw on this thread seem ludicrous.]

That they got rid of it as a classification because they realized it wasn’t actually a mental illness.

 

[Rau]

That they got rid of it as a classification because they realized it wasn’t actually a mental illness.

I am inclined to say that it is not a mental illness, but the fact that the tests don’t detect it does not itself seem persuasive, unless we define the term “mental illness” to mean that which the test detects! Perhaps this is how it needs to be for the term to have any meaning.

Does the medical fraternity consider the condition to be an affliction at all, or does it consider it to be no more worthy of study than red hair?

 

[vsedriver]

Well good for those gay couples that are willing to love, feed, and care for a abandoned child. It makes me sick to hear some of the things being said on this site with such moral snobbery.

It’s one thing to take in a child no one wants. It’s another to produce a child knowing you are going to separate that child from one of his or her parents on purpose to satisfy a personal vanity.

I do not think gay unions belong in the Church at this time, but I do see the reason gay people want them as a legal bind. Like I said before, this all came about because families rejected their children’s wishes of having a partner be with them when they were dying of AIDS

 

[vsedriver]

Or maybe you were unclear in stating your point. BTW you are actually the one diverting the point as I was talking about gay married couples being able to adopt not what was the best parental situation for a child