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Thorolfr
Guest
I guess I was wrong and that they do know what they’re doing
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franklinstower
Guest
I appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut but the thread is more about explaining why specifically Christians feel that it is right to legislate religious belief in our country onto people who do not share those beliefs.
Again I want to say that I am not interested in arguing much at all. I just want to understand fully the perspective of this position and the “why” of it. I have read the churches position on marriage that were posted on this thread but it does not seem to go into detail about why we feel we can place those positions on non believers.
There have been many good reasons put forth on this thread already. I am listening.
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Rau
Guest
When the State asks “What do you understand by ‘marriage’”, how should one answer? I believe it is no more complex than that.
Perhaps the State should ask a different question if the answer given by some of us to the previous question is problematic.
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JimG
Guest
Well, there are a number of article on Catholic.com about homosexuality and same sex marriage.
Here is one of them.
catholic.com/documents/gay-marriage
Here is one of them.
catholic.com/documents/gay-marriage
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Thorolfr
Guest
This article is ridiculous. For example, it says, “Life expectancy of homosexual men was only forty-eight years before the AIDS virus came on the scene, and it is now down to thirty-eight. Only 2 percent of homosexual men live past age sixty-five.”
These statistics come from Paul Cameron and have been totally discredited. Paul Cameron collected his statistics on life-spans from obituaries for gay men from gay community newspapers, but almost 90% of the people in his sample were ones who had died of AIDS. These must also be old obituaries from 20 or 30 years ago at the height of the AIDS pandemic when no medications were available. This is not a representative sample. See an analysis of these silly statistics by Dr. Gregory Herek, a professor of psychology at University of California, Davis. Here’s his conclusion:
psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_obit.html
I’m a gay man who is 54 and I know lots of other gay men who are older than me, many in their 70s and even their 80s. Almost none of my many gay friends died by the age of 38, especially not in recent years. Even people with HIV can be expected nowadays to live a normal life span because of the medications now available.
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franklinstower
Guest
The problem is that in a democracy they are not only asking Christians that question, there are Buddhists, Hindus, pagans atheists, agnostics, Jews etc… Marriage existed before religion- who gets to define it? It gets messy.
As far as I am concerned we are living in a democracy and that allows for public opinion to change our laws and even definitions of things whether we like it or not. Instead of condemning others for their choices we ought to be showing by example why what we are doing is better (it is) and more fulfilling.
Attraction to our approach is the only way I can see for winning people over. Condemnation just closes peoples hearts and minds to even wanting to see another way. The Pope is on to something here and I think it is the only way.
My job is to reach what is in my opinion one of the hardest to reach populations. Those who are deeply committed to spirituality and genuinely interested but who have no allegiance to any one religious tradition. The only way I have found to get them to come to Christ is by showing them this approach works better. They have to be attracted to it.
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Rau
Guest
That’s right, its a democracy. The majority will decide. C’est la vie. But don’t ask me to answer the question put to me to suit someone else. I understand marriage to be between a man and a woman. Should I say otherwise?
I’ve condemned no one. But if asked whether I think two men entering into a sexual relationship is right, I’ll answer that question as I understand it too.
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JimG
Guest
In a democracy, the majority can just as easily decide that a pederast ought to be able to marry a boy, or that a polygamist ought to be able to marry as many as he wishes. Really, it wouldn’t even take a majority of the people, just five justices out of nine, to say that the 14th amendment applies. There are a lot of cases where marriage equality could be applied. And once again, it will be said that to disagree means that one is forcing one’s religious convictions on others.
Still, for myself, I don’t consider the facts of anatomy to be religious convictions.
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JWH123
Guest
Have you read, or heard of, the book “Making Gay Okay”? What you said sounds like it was pulled right from the pages.
The principle is that God created marriage to be both unitive and procreative. That is the basis of natural law, and why God made man, and then when He made woman from a man’s rib, He didn’t make the woman identical to man. (If God wanted to make woman identical to man, He surely could have, because God can do anything and it was HIS creative work, not anybody else’s! God could have easily made everybody identical, and we’d be able to reproduce by ourselves, just like the cells in our bodies. Remember, God was not obligated to follow any rules when He created everything. But He did what He did.)
Back to my point. Marriage was designed by God to be unitive and porcreative.
When divorce was legalized, you can kiss the unitive (until death) aspect of marriage goodbye.
Once we made birth control and abortion legal, the procreative part of marriage flew right out the window.
So now, what do we have left? Marriage became just “a thing people do.” God’s design for it had been thrown in the trash heap because of what I just said.
Add in a government which treats married people and single people differently (over 1,000 laws on the books legalize differentiated treatment–everything from tax codes, to estate rules, to housing laws, and all kinds of other laws which probably shouldn’t be on the books as they are, but they are), and BAM! Now marriage becomes a civil rights matter, and civil rights cannot be denied to anybody on the basis of race, religion, gender, or SEXUAL ORIENTATION! Therefore, the court system had no alternative other than to legalize same sex marriage.
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JimG
Guest
I haven’t read “Making Gay Okay,” but I did read “Adam and Eve After the Pill,” which makes the points you mention, along with others.
Contraception unlinked sex from children. It unlinked children from marriage. It enabled fornication, adultery, cohabitation, and any sort of sexual license. It made sex a mere plaything and required abortion as a backup for failed birth control. Contraception, far from reducing abortion, made it abundant and necessary.
Divorce removed the element of permanence from marriage, as well as the element of fidelity. No fault divorce essentially negates the vows even as they are recited, making them less binding than a home mortgage, making it the least binding contract possible. Either party can opt out at any time for any reason. Till death do us part? No way.
Children became an optional accessory or a product to be obtained through third parties. Children were no longer blessings but products to be obtained or disposed of at will.
So, without fidelity, permanence, openness to life, what’s left of marriage? Not much.
Only when marriage reached this sad state did it become interesting to homosexual couples. Might as well remove the final vestige of what makes marriage marital: sexual complementarity. It is nonsense, of course, like demanding that circles be called triangles. But no matter. Reality was left behind long ago.
Now, I don’t think that because an institution has been 90% destroyed, that the solution is to finish it off completely. I think the best thing is to restore it. Whether that is possible before society finishes its collapse, I don’t know.
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Rau
Guest
In many jurisdictions, the government treatment (“benefits”) of married people and other cohabitating persons (claiming to be a “couple”), regardless of sex, is the same. This issue is not definitive in the mind of those demanding redefinition of marriage. Any “non-acceptance” of the new equivalence is simply unacceptable to those advocating for SSM.
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Thorolfr
Guest
You make it sound as if all these things are all fairly new developments since the pill was invented. The first indication that a kind of condom was used for birth control is from 1605. Induced abortions are mentioned in Ancient Egypt as far back as 1550 BC. I’m sure that fornication, adultery and sexual license have long histories, too.
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JimG
Guest
I was summarizing some of the things in the book “Adam and Eve After the Pill.” The 1960’s began the sexual revolution at a greatly accelerated pace. Yes, those things existed previously, but contraception was greatly expanded during this period and after.You make it sound as if all these things are all fairly new developments since the pill was invented. The first indication that a kind of condom was used for birth control is from 1605. Induced abortions are mentioned in Ancient Egypt as far back as 1550 BC. I’m sure that fornication, adultery and sexual license have long histories, too.
Also recall that until 1930 every single Protestant denomination had the exact same teaching as the Catholic Church regarding contraception: they universally condemned it. So the culture did take a rather sudden change following that. The book gives all the statistical data of the disastrous results that followed.
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vsedriver
Guest
yes, I live with my 83 year old mother. I am on the house and on the bank accounts. I’m on the cars, she’s on one although I don’t like her to drive at all if I can help it.Same-sex couples are a family unit. They share bank accounts, own houses and cars together, are responsible for each other’s debts, have medical and legal power of attorney for each other, spend most of their time with each other, etc. just like other married couples. So do you share bank accounts with your parents and your siblings, own your houses and cars in common with each other, assume full responsibility for each other’s debts, have medical and legal power-of-attorney for each other’s affairs, and spend most of your time together? If so, then maybe you should get benefits that are denied to others who don’t have those same kinds of commitments for each other.
I spend most of my time with her except when I am working or out at the barn with my pony. I can’t put her on my health insurance plan though which would save her a ton of money. I could add a ‘spouse’ for $50 a month and she has to pay $500 a month for supplemental health insurance.I also know couples who don’t share bank accounts, where only one has the home in their name, own their cars separately too. And I know some who spend very little time together, due to work/school or deployment. Yet they qualify for tax and legal benefits that my mother and I, and other ‘family units’ don’t qualify for.
Bank accounts, property, etc. do not define a family unit. So I really don’t see what that has to do with anything. How is it that two unrelated males are more of a family unit than my mother and I?
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vsedriver
Guest
so you are saying there is no such thing as a sexual disorder?
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Thorolfr
Guest
Well I think that you should be able to put your mother on your health insurance plan. And totally unrelated people rarely share all the things together that both same-sex and opposite sex couples do. When you talk about same sex couples as “unrelated males” you make is sound as if they are two strangers.yes, I live with my 83 year old mother. I am on the house and on the bank accounts. I’m on the cars, she’s on one although I don’t like her to drive at all if I can help it.
I also know couples who don’t share bank accounts, where only one has the home in their name, own their cars separately too. And I know some who spend very little time together, due to work/school or deployment. Yet they qualify for tax and legal benefits that my mother and I, and other ‘family units’ don’t qualify for.
Bank accounts, property, etc. do not define a family unit. So I really don’t see what that has to do with anything. How is it that two unrelated males are more of a family unit than my mother and I?
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vsedriver
Guest
I guess it would depend on how ‘Christian’ the people really are. The last thing a sinner wants in office is a truly moral man.
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Thorolfr
Guest
What do you mean by a “sexual disorder”? For example, “erectile dysfunction” would probably be considered a kind of sexual disorder that men take things like Viagra for.
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vsedriver
Guest
The problem is that the people did not get to decide to change or keep the law. The Supreme Court decided that for us.
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