help with gay friends

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pentecostbaby

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My husband and I work/ go to school at a state university. I understand why the Church views homosexuality as wrong, and I’m working hard to live that belief in my everyday life. I don’t. however, believe that sexuality is a choice. I think it’s something you’re born with.
However, before I came back to the Church, I had a LOT of gay friends. My sister is gay. In the environment I work in right now, “announcing” that I think gay marriage is wrong, etc, would seriously impact my job (most likely) and jeopardize just about every friendship I have. To most people I know, saying that you don’t believe in gay marriage would be the equivalent of saying you hate an entire race.
Moreover, my church used to be known as the “gay friendly parish”. We’ve gotten a new priest, but we still have a large homosexual population - including a friend of mine who lives with his boyfriend.
I don’t know what to say when people talk about gay rights. I don’t know how to deal with gay friends talking about their boyfriends, etc. In fact, I’m even scared to ask this question because I’m worried people will tell me to flat-out inform them they are living in sin. I love my friends, and I know that my telling them this would only make them feel betrayed and hurt - they aren’t going to go out and change.
I also have a friend who is working as a phone sex operator; all of my friends (the non-Catholic ones) believe in abortion … I’m a liberal. I don’t know what to say to them - especially since these were all people I knew before I returned to the Church.
How do I deal with these situations? How am I called to act? I try now just to love and not judge people. Is this okay?
 
A lady in a similar situation as yours approached a local priest and asked him how to handle the situation. His response was that there is no use throwing pearls before the swine. There are some people that we will not be able to change and you will be dragged down if you try. I might suggest finding a different group of friends that have similar religious beliefs as you do or just choose to ignore their beliefs and go on with your life.
 
I understand how you feel. My newest friend (who is also quickly becoming my closest) is gay. He has no interest whatsoever in women. He told me (quite honestly) that he finds the female form repulsive. But, he’s not hanging around me because I’m female.

Anywho…yes, you just keep loving them, and praying for them, and praying for the strength to be around them and to be their friend. And, if it comes up, remind them that it’s not the gay people that are being called to live a chaste life, it is ALL OF GOD’S CHILDREN!! You are also to live an abstinate life (did I say that right???) until marriage. Marriage was created so that a family of Father, Mother and Children could best express the idea of the love God has for his Church. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t get it.

Gay Marriage??? Sorry…as my best friend admits, the “plumbing doesn’t work that way”. Don’t lose your convictions just because you’ve known about these people longer than you’ve been going to church. But you don’t have to finger-point and name-call, and please PLEASE don’t tell them they are “going to hell” because they have an attraction to people of the same sex. That is not your place. Only God can judge. Your job is to love, and, if in that spirit of love you might have to gently point out the truth, then that is your job. But, again, always out of love.

My prayers are with you, for strength, and with your friends (and all gay people) because they need love, and are faced with so much hate.

:hug3:

stick a fork in me…I’m done…
 
pentecostbaby said:
My husband and I work/ go to school at a state university. I understand why the Church views homosexuality as wrong, and I’m working hard to live that belief in my everyday life. I don’t. however, believe that sexuality is a choice. I think it’s something you’re born with.
However, before I came back to the Church, I had a LOT of gay friends. My sister is gay. In the environment I work in right now, “announcing” that I think gay marriage is wrong, etc, would seriously impact my job (most likely) and jeopardize just about every friendship I have. To most people I know, saying that you don’t believe in gay marriage would be the equivalent of saying you hate an entire race.
Moreover, my church used to be known as the “gay friendly parish”. We’ve gotten a new priest, but we still have a large homosexual population - including a friend of mine who lives with his boyfriend.
I don’t know what to say when people talk about gay rights. I don’t know how to deal with gay friends talking about their boyfriends, etc. In fact, I’m even scared to ask this question because I’m worried people will tell me to flat-out inform them they are living in sin. I love my friends, and I know that my telling them this would only make them feel betrayed and hurt - they aren’t going to go out and change.
I also have a friend who is working as a phone sex operator; all of my friends (the non-Catholic ones) believe in abortion … I’m a liberal. I don’t know what to say to them - especially since these were all people I knew before I returned to the Church.
How do I deal with these situations? How am I called to act? I try now just to love and not judge people. Is this okay?
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You raise a number of interesting points. To begin with, the Catholic Church does not weigh in on the question of sexuality as choice. The choice comes in whether to live the lifestyle. Heterosexual choice does not allow for sexual contact outside of marriage–and neither does homosexual choice.

I have had the liberty of speaking to those who I know who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle and explain to them that I disapprove of their choice of lifestyle, in much the same way that I disapprove of premarital sex, as outside of God’s will.

Love comes in telling those you know whose eternal lives are in jeapordy that they need to draw themselves closer to Jesus. And they do that by living out the Catholic faith.

Homosexual attraction isn’t a race (if it were, it would be dying out!). They are a part of the human race. You would strongly disapprove of those who sexually forced themselves on others, and claimed that God made them that way. The preference isn’t the issue, the actions are.

The priest of your parish, just as you do, has a obligation to treat others with love and respect. But that love extends to welcoming them to parish life, while welcoming them to live as Jesus calls. Remember, Jesus admonished sinners to sin no more. We should do no less.

Gay rights are the same as straight rights. They have the right to marry (to someone of the opposite sex and of appropriate age and consent). They have the right to live in this country in peace. It sounds as if they confuse license and rights.

I believe you underestimate others. Frequently, our pastors have made the same mistake. Out of fear of rejection, they fear telling us we are wrong. Jesus did not have that fear. But he faced the burden of carrying the cross for his actions. Remember he asked the same of us.

You don’t need to begin a crusade. But remember, your inaction can constitute action.
 
You know what I found valuable?

Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, Jeffrey Satinover, a book you can perhaps get through your library. This presents parts of the “gay story” that the media and gay propagandists will not tell you and do not want the public to know about, e.g., how protesters forced the American Psychological Association to define deviancy down.

An anecdote here. When in grad school, I rented part of a house that had been turned into an apartment. The owner, an old guy, lived next door. He went to church each Sunday. The house I lived in, was something he tended and rented, helped his retirement.

At about this time, there was the first noise about homosexual rights, etc. I thought this a bit nutty. Who’s going to discriminate against you, unless you’re wearing a pink tuttu? Well, then, I realized that old guy could likely be forced to rent the place against his will to some sodomite. And I felt (and still feel), that this is a kind of violation against his rights.
 
pentecostbaby said:
My husband and I work/ go to school at a state university. I understand why the Church views homosexuality as wrong, and I’m working hard to live that belief in my everyday life. I don’t. however, believe that sexuality is a choice. I** think it’s something you’re born with. **
Click to expand...
You are not born gay. There is no gay gene.
People are gay as a result of upbringing, environment, choice.
 
Monsterkittie said:
I don’t understand. How are you raised gay?
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Researchers were curious when they found homosexuality occurs seven times more often in men than in women.

They found that in the first years of life a masculinization occurs by a strong father presence. (in other words the father teaches him to be a male) They found where fathers were absent the nurturing mother effeminized the boy.

Other possibilities - estrogen in the food supply, pesticides, plastics, etc… disrupt the male hormones. Soy milk also has been implicated.
 
buffalo said:
Researchers were curious when they found homosexuality occurs seven times more often in men than in women.

They found that in the first years of life a masculinization occurs by a strong father presence. (in other words the father teaches him to be a male) They found where fathers were absent the nurturing mother effeminized the boy.

Other possibilities - estrogen in the food supply, pesticides, plastics, etc… disrupt the male hormones. Soy milk also has been implicated.
Click to expand...
Haha. Non-religious source please? There is no definitive answer either way whether being gay is a choice or enviromental factors–but the evidence (twin studies, etc) suggest that there is a combination of the two. Anyone who suggests otherwise in misinformed.

I would tell your friends that they are your friends, regardless of their personal life. Homosexualiity should not disqualify anyone from friendship.

Matt
 
mattyc4 said:
I would tell your friends that they are your friends, regardless of their personal life. Homosexualiity should not disqualify anyone from friendship.

Matt
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This is true.

I have many gay and lesbian friends that I’ve acquired over the years due to my involvement in the arts. I love each and every one of them. After having known so many over the years, I see the turmoil exhibited in the lives of some who choose to live the homosexual lifestyle. The ones who chose not to and remain chaste seem to have happier lives.

Quite a few of my friends have died because of their choice to live the homosexual lifestyle. I pray often for them, and I suggest that the OP do the same thing too.
 
from pentecostbaby:
Click to expand...
… In the environment I work in right now, “announcing” that I think gay marriage is wrong, etc, would seriously impact my job (most likely) and jeopardize just about every friendship I have. To most people I know, saying that you don’t believe in gay marriage would be the equivalent of saying you hate an entire race.
Click to expand...
… I don’t know what to say when people talk about gay rights. I don’t know how to deal with gay friends talking about their boyfriends, etc. In fact, I’m even scared to ask this question because I’m worried people will tell me to flat-out inform them they are living in sin. I love my friends, and I know that my telling them this would only make them feel betrayed and hurt - they aren’t going to go out and change.
Click to expand...
… How do I deal with these situations? How am I called to act? I try now just to love and not judge people. Is this okay?
Click to expand...
This distress is what so many people felt when male-female cohabitation became “acceptable” after the birth control pill became popular. We would be cricitized, when sharing our concerns of our loved ones living in sin. If we hated the sin, we couldn’t say anything about it without being accused of judging the sinner. We’d be told to “get with the times” etc. Now it just seems people (including Catholics) just shrug their shoulders at male-female cohabitation.

I wish I knew the answer to your questions about what to say about same-gender “rights” – especially now that California’s Supreme Court has ruled gay marriage is legal. I think we need to discuss this, rather than merely shrug our shoulders about it.
 
The Church teaches that although sexual orientation my not be a choice, the act is. Sex outside of marriage, is sinful, according to Church teaching.

Also, those who try to make the argument that sexual orientation is the result of choice, or the environment that the child is raised in, is flawed.

Science leans more toward biological reasons for sexual orientation than anything else.

Years ago, I read an article on a study that was done on male homosexuality. The report showed that a high percentage of male homosexuals who were part of the study, their mothers went through some stressful event during their pregnancy. The study presented the possibility that the mother’s own body, used the hormone testosterone, during this stressful period to protect itself. The female body has a small amount of testosterone, and the mother’s body used the testosterone for herself, and thereby short changed the male fetus she was carrying. In the study, they injected testosterone into gay males, and for a short period, they had stronger attraction to females. However, because the hormone doesn’t remain in the body, they quickly reverted to their attraction toward other men.

The report made no conclusive claims, and it was only conducted on gay males.

Jim
 
mattyc4 said:
Haha. Non-religious source please? There is no definitive answer either way whether being gay is a choice or enviromental factors–but the evidence (twin studies, etc) suggest that there is a combination of the two. Anyone who suggests otherwise in misinformed.

I would tell your friends that they are your friends, regardless of their personal life. Homosexualiity should not disqualify anyone from friendship.

Matt
Click to expand...
FATHERS OF MALE HOMOSEXUALS:
A Collective Clinical Profile
 
mattyc4 said:
rofl. Look how your psuedo-science group was formed and then tell me its not associated with religion. Furthermore, that info was pure bile. I have rarely seen anything as insulting, discriminatory, and outrageous. I am sickened to the level some people sink to deride others.

Matt
Click to expand...
Evidently, it appears that the American Psychological Association is starting to see merit in the extensive research that NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexual) is trying to provide.

narth.com/docs/deemphasizes.html

I’ve looked through the site - and I don’t see how you think this organization was formed on a religious basis. They’re trying to explore alternative reasons why people have same-sex attraction other than the widely-held but poorly-supported notion that people are born with SSA. As a college student, I’m surprised you can’t explore the possibility to see things in a more wider view - isn’t that what college is suppose to help you with?

BTW, buffalo, thanks for that link!
 
Honestly, I would say that you need to stand up for the faith when people start saying things like “Gay marriage is my right” or something like that. You may lose friends but then again, it sounds like you need some new ones anyway. You need to make more friends who are devout Catholics. But then again, so do I. It’s kind of hard to do so though when you live in a town that is highly Protestant.
 
mattyc4 said:
rofl. Look how your psuedo-science group was formed and then tell me its not associated with religion. Furthermore, that info was pure bile. I have rarely seen anything as insulting, discriminatory, and outrageous. I am sickened to the level some people sink to deride others.

Matt
Click to expand...
seems like you have been well programmed. 😦
 
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