Gay Marriage

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DaddyGirl said:
Ah. But the majority of people in this world do not consider this immoral behavior.
That is why you should not get in the way of it.
You cannot and should not impose your beliefs on others who disagree with you.
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This is, in fact, a democracy. Those others in this majority you claim exists (in actuality, it varies based on location, and I doubt world wide numbers are available) have their own votes, and they can use them. I do not need to vote against what I believe because I have been told that the majority disagrees with me. If the majority disagrees with me, then I will lose the vote - I vote according to how I believe, they vote according to how they believe, and we see who wins.

Further: Every single law is an imposition of beliefs upon society at large. Every. Single. One.

I have a brother who believes he should be able to drive 95mph on the interstate. Most people believe that he should not, and they impose these beliefs on him by forcing him, against his will, to either drive slower or face fines and other penalties.

A thief believes that he ought to be able to take my stuff. I, and the majority of society, disagree, and we impose our beliefs about property rights on this thief.

The question of what the law should and should not be is not so simple as “don’t impose your beliefs.” That would be what we call anarchy. There is a question of what immoral things ought to be illegal (and how many inherently morally neutral things can be prohibited to accomplish a moral goal), but the answer is not as simple as you pretend.
Orthodox Jews feel it’s “immoral behavior” for a man and woman who are not married to dance together and do not allow it.
So does that mean they should stop* you *from dancing with someone from the opposite sex?
No.
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You missed the entire point.

Should they stop me? No. Not all things that (we think) are immoral ought to be illegal. But we aren’t stopping those to wish to to live in homosexual relationships either. What we are doing by voting against gay marriage is stopping the government from creating an institution in support of it. Outlawing men and women dancing together is an entirely different kind of thing.
 
"Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if this contradicts the “logic” of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an “adult faith”. It is the faith that he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the time as infantile.

Thus, being committed to the inviolability of human life from its first instant, thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely in the defence of the most defenceless human creatures is part of an adult faith.

It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for the whole of life as the Creator’s ordering, newly re-established by Christ.

Adult faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes the winds of fashion.

It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit; it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ. However, here too Paul does not stop at saying “no”, but rather leads us to the great “yes”. He describes the mature, truly adult faith positively with the words: “speaking the truth in love” (cf. Eph 4: 15)."

~ Pope Benedict XVI

From: w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090628_chius-anno-paolino.html (a very great homily - perfect too for Lent --do not let the first paragraph through one off --one has to keep reading -it is all about the renewal of our minds…)
 
underacloud said:
The great thing about the Catholic faith and the Church is that each individual is not encumbered with the complex task of understanding and working through difficult moral issues. God doesn’t expect each of us to be able to do that, and has thus provided the Church as a sure teacher of morals.

So it really doesn’t matter if you understand any particular teaching; what matters is that you follow it. And the Church teaches that we cannot support gay marriage (or even civil unions).

I don’t really know what you mean though when you say you “do not wish to vote against it or to vote for it”. Do you live in a country/electorate where these issues are put to a wider vote? In most places, these issues are addressed by representatives in parliament/congress, not directly by the wider electorate.
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Do you really believe that we are to live out our lives as lemmings? Thank goodness that the majority of Catholics understand the concepts of freewill and forming their own consciences through prayer and education. If your belief about what the Church expects was true, then we would not have any need for a brain - we would be little robots who just have different hair color, etc, but live out our lives like we are in Stalin’s Soviet Union, supporting the party line even if it might be unjust in some manner.🤷
 
kozlosap said:
Do you really believe that we are to live out our lives as lemmings?
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How does being a follower of Christ equate to being a lemming?
Thank goodness that the majority of Catholics understand the concepts of freewill and forming their own consciences through prayer and education.
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Where does Jesus teach that we should form our consciences contrary to the Truth.
If your belief about what the Church expects was true, then we would not have any need for a brain - we would be little robots who just have different hair color, etc, but live out our lives like we are in Stalin’s Soviet Union, supporting the party line even if it might be unjust in some manner.🤷
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This very huge straw man is burning fiercely. However, it is of little consequence to the post this was in response to.
 
kozlosap said:
Do you really believe that we are to live out our lives as lemmings? Thank goodness that the majority of Catholics understand the concepts of freewill and forming their own consciences through prayer and education. If your belief about what the Church expects was true, then we would not have any need for a brain - we would be little robots who just have different hair color, etc, but live out our lives like we are in Stalin’s Soviet Union, supporting the party line even if it might be unjust in some manner.🤷
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Lemmings?

Those critters have nothing to do with any of this…

The Teachings of the Church are not those of the Soviet Union…and they are quite just.

We are yes to form our conscience (which includes following the Teachings of the Church) and act yes as Christians as Catholics.

Thus following the Teachings of the Church.

Not robots… but Christians

Living out the YES of our Baptism! Which involves all sorts of no’s to the proposals of the society around us. Just as did the early Christians.
 
Rau said:
The laws of the land can be changed with the support of a majority - that is a fact. But why this particular change? And everyone, including Catholics, gets to ask that question and express their opinion.
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And here’s your answer - to deny gay couples the rights and privileges of civil marriage has been determined (and will soon be determined) to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Catholics (along with everyone else) have every right as citizens to question and criticize this argument and reasoning. But the problem is, implicit (when not explicit) in this criticism is the assumption that is that government is redefining someone else’s definition of marriage instead of their own. That’s clearly not the case.
 
AyJSimon said:
And here’s your answer - to deny gay couples the rights and privileges of civil marriage has been determined (and will soon be determined) to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Catholics (along with everyone else) have every right as citizens to question and criticize this argument and reasoning. But the problem is, implicit (when not explicit) in this criticism is the assumption that is that government is redefining someone else’s definition of marriage instead of their own. That’s clearly not the case.
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There is no natural right at stake here. One is being hypothesized and granted by the State.

A simple examination of human bodies may suggest that the sexual relationship of marriage is not ordained by the Goverment either. Governments supported marriage with societal features, and then forgot its real nature and origin.
 
Iron_Donkey said:
In addition to what everyone else said, it is important to realize that in the current state of the US, a vote against gay marriage is not a vote to outlaw gay people living together as though they were married. It is a vote to prevent the government from creating a legal institution in support of such actions.
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It seems to me that the issue of how to vote on same-sex marriage is purely academic since there will be nothing to vote on. Just today, for example:
Same-sex marriage could begin in Nebraska as early as next week, after a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on Monday.
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Almost immediately after the decision was announced, state attorney general Doug Peterson filed an appeal to the ruling made by US district judge Joseph Bataillon, which ordered an end to enforcing the ban.
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Bataillon said the ban was unconstitutional because it was an “unabashedly gender-specific infringement of the equal rights of [Nebraska’s] citizens”. He ordered all state officials to give same-sex couples the same marriage licensing rights and protections as different-sex couples, starting on 9 March at 8am CT.
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Battalion predicted in his memorandum that the supreme court would rule in favor of marriage equality, in line with marriage equality decisions made in the fourth, seventh, ninth and 10th circuit courts of appeal. He went on to say the court itself has “telegraphed its leanings” in other same-sex marriage cases.
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In the memorandum, Bataillon denied the state’s oral request for a stay, saying it would cause “severe irreparable harm”, but put the decision on temporary hold so the state could deal with “administrative turmoil”.
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theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/02/nebraska-same-sex-marriage-ban-blocked-federal-judge

So what’s to vote on in the state of Nebraska or in most of the US? And in a few months the Supreme Court will most likely, as Judge Battalion stated in his opinion, rule in favor of same-sex marriage everywhere in the US. According to a Pew Research Center survey from last year:
Today, 61% of Republicans and Republican leaners under 30 favor same-sex marriage while just 35% oppose it.
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pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/10/61-of-young-republicans-favor-same-sex-marriage/

Even among Catholics:
Similarly, despite the church’s continued opposition to same-sex marriage, most U.S. Catholics (57%) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally wed, according to aggregated 2014 Pew Research surveys. And again, younger Catholics are particularly likely to express this view. Three-quarters of Catholic adults under 30 support legal same-sex marriage, compared with 53% of Catholics ages 30 and older (including just 38% of those 65 and older).
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pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/16/young-u-s-catholics-overwhelmingly-accepting-of-homosexuality/

It looks to me like the battle against same-sex marriage is lost.
 
Can we just talk logically and not be rude to each other, gosh, this is a thread not an argument. The anger from this is bringing my day down
 
Iron_Donkey said:
In addition to what everyone else said, it is important to realize that in the current state of the US, a vote against gay marriage is not a vote to outlaw gay people living together as though they were married. It is a vote to prevent the government from creating a legal institution in support of such actions.

There are things that are immoral that ought not be illegal, true enough. But that’s not what’s at issue here. People who desire to do so can already live with members of the same sex as though married, even in places where gay marriage does not exist. Rather, voting against gay marriage is voting to stop the government from creating an institution to support immoral behavior.
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Can you show me proof of this being valid, perhaps through some sort of listing of the law, for the whole USA and individual states, thank you.
 
Ilovejesus1234 said:
Can you show me proof of this being valid, perhaps through some sort of listing of the law, for the whole USA and individual states, thank you.
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All adults, including same sex, are permitted to live together in a sexual relationship is they wish. If you disagree, please identify the laws in the U.S. that forbid that.
 
Ilovejesus1234 said:
Wait what?
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Would you like me to repeat that? I said:
Adults, including same sex, are permitted to live together in a sexual relationship if they wish. If you disagree, please identify the laws in the U.S. that forbid that.
 
I disagree that “society will still know that marriage is specifically between men and women” in the long term. Right now that’s true, as we, who know better, are watching these changes happen before our eyes. But generations down the road will be influenced by the decisions of today, and marriage has already lost its moral value to a huge number of the masses. People today make marriage all about being “happy” when it’s so much more than that (hence the high divorce rate among people who are no longer “happy” in their relationships)…but as gay marriage becomes more the norm, with the absence of natural law and the possibility of procreation, the idea of marriage itself will become even more self-serving. “Married” gay people are not only people masquerading as married couples…they (and the media, politicians and people who enable them) are changing what marriage IS in the eyes of the public. So as far as that aspect is concerned, I definitely think it will affect how people view marriage in the future.
 
AllieT said:
I disagree that “society will still know that marriage is specifically between men and women” in the long term. Right now that’s true, as we, who know better, are watching these changes happen before our eyes. But generations down the road will be influenced by the decisions of today, and marriage has already lost its moral value to a huge number of the masses. People today make marriage all about being “happy” when it’s so much more than that (hence the high divorce rate among people who are no longer “happy” in their relationships)…but as gay marriage becomes more the norm, with the absence of natural law and the possibility of procreation, the idea of marriage itself will become even more self-serving. “Married” gay people are not only people masquerading as married couples…they (and the media, politicians and people who enable them) are changing what marriage IS in the eyes of the public. So as far as that aspect is concerned, I definitely think it will affect how people view marriage in the future.
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We will see.
 
Rau said:
Would you like me to repeat that? I said:
Adults, including same sex, are permitted to live together in a sexual relationship if they wish. If you disagree, please identify the laws in the U.S. that forbid that.
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I don’t know of any, are there any ?
 
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