Homosexuality...and my girlfriend

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Chase54

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My girlfriend and I are both Christian…I, Catholic, her Prestbyterian (mind the spelling).

I love my girlfriend a lot and we have been together a little over 2 years. Yesterday we got into a discussion about 2 things: 1. homosexuality, and 2. abortion.

I’m not sure what to do about this situation…should we end our relationship? she would seek counseling? I’m not quite sure if counseling matters.

In terms of homosexuality, she is an actress and knows many people and has been exposed to many people who are homosexual and finds there to be nothing wrong with it. She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”. I look at homosexuality as the Catholic (and many other Christian faiths) do…and as we discussed on whether or not we would ever have children, she would want to raise them that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. I have a problem with that. I don’t dislike homosexuals, i believe they live their lives how they want to, if they are curious to my opinion, I tell them what I think. I don’t judge them based off of that…but I don’t want to have my children raised thinking it is okay.

I don’t know what to do…
 
Well I can’t tell you what to do but this does seem like a sticking point for an ongoing relationship. If you are dating her with the intention of moving into a more serious relationship, I would be very concerned about this.

You didn’t reference her stance on abortion, but as far as homosexuality goes, would you want your children raised by someone with this viewpoint? If not, and if you are currently dating with the intention of seeking a spouse, then I think your decision is clear.
 
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Chase54:
My girlfriend and I are both Christian…I, Catholic, her Prestbyterian (mind the spelling).

I love my girlfriend a lot and we have been together a little over 2 years. Yesterday we got into a discussion about 2 things: 1. homosexuality, and 2. abortion.

I’m not sure what to do about this situation…should we end our relationship? she would seek counseling? I’m not quite sure if counseling matters.

In terms of homosexuality, she is an actress and knows many people and has been exposed to many people who are homosexual and finds there to be nothing wrong with it. She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”. I look at homosexuality as the Catholic (and many other Christian faiths) do…and as we discussed on whether or not we would ever have children, she would want to raise them that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. I have a problem with that. I don’t dislike homosexuals, i believe they live their lives how they want to, if they are curious to my opinion, I tell them what I think. I don’t judge them based off of that…but I don’t want to have my children raised thinking it is okay.

I don’t know what to do…
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Sounds like you are in quite a dilemma – and just on the homosexual issue, not to mention the abortion issue.:ehh:

I guess if you’re thinking about marriage, you’ve discussed with her the possibility of her becoming Catholic?
 
personally i would not marry someone that was in favor of legal abortion and homosexual acts.
 
I too had a Presbyterian girlfriend with more liberal views than mine. Now she is my wife and while we agree with most moral issues, she is much more “lenient”. Fortunately, we have not had these issues present themselves in reality but only the hypothetical but if GF does not agree now it is highly unlikely that you will make any headway later.

We disagree over many issues of a non-moral nature such as how many pairs of sheets so we need and does our two year-old REALLY need 20 pairs of pajamas(gifts, hand me downs from older daughter, hand me downs from friends)? As the laundry guy, I hate putting this stuff away because it does not fit in one tiny drawer.

The non-moral spills over into church issues because we never have time to do activities at either parish. I force the issue on Sunday Mass and CCD for our oldest child but am constantly struggling to see how home improvement projects justify missing church in her mind? We give the same monetary contributions to both churches but my parish at least has my weekly Mass attendance and son’s CCD attendance. She sees her church a handful of times through out the year and a few Masses thrown in. She can’t find time to go at Christmas and it irks her that I insist on going and go two days in a row depending on what day of the week Christmas is.

Marriage is a meeting of the couple on a host of issues and if you don’t agree, move on. I thought we agreed on the essentials and to a certain extent we do but you should not have to when you are not married. Keep looking for a solid Catholic woman. I do love my wife and will see this through but I hope others can learn from my experience.

Just before our marriage I saw a brochure for the Religious Coaltion for Abortion Rights in the rack at her Prebyterian church’s literature rack. I was livid and said I would not have agreed to have her pastor attend and participate in the wedding at our Catholic university chapel if I had known that. She said it may have been the Session of the congregation which rules the congregation that put it there but obviously he agreed at least implicitly. Again, just because she is not in line with our moral teaching does not make her a not-nice person, but just because she is nice is not enough to marry her and raise a family.

I doubt GF would follow NFP and accept limits on fertility treatments should you have those issues. We have been low fertility and able to use chlomid to have kids but now are doing nothing and trusting that since it has been three years since our last conception, that we will not have a surprise pregnancy due to history and age. We will accept any child that comes but should a 4th child come, sterilization would rear her ugly head and I had hoped we would both be Catholic by now and that would not be an issue. People do not usually change at least not on core things like morals etc.

Good luck to you.
 
My advice would be to do some serious research into the “Why is homosexuality wrong” question. See if you can find some apologetics-type arguments and talk it out. I can’t blame her for thinking the way she does with respect to homosexuality. The message that it’s OK is being hammered into us from this culture of death. Don’t give up on her yet 😉 Think about it–it’s taken her many years to get to this point in her life, and it will be hard for her to suddenly change her beliefs. You will need some proof and good Biblical arguments (as well as some great Catholic-perspective arguments). Good luck!
 
My wife is not Catholic and she believes there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. As stated above, marriage is a compromise but some things can’t be compromised. Before we got married my wife agreed to raise the children Catholic. This is a requirement before we could get married in the CC. This means we teach our children that homosexuality is a sin but we are required to be charitable to homosexuals.

I agree that you should study the CC true position on homosexuality together with your girlfriend and see if she would be willing to teach this to her children.
 
Prayer is your most powerful instrument. I have a friend who is what I thought to be a devout Catholic. Now that she’s having her third baby in 5 years, she’s making her husband get a vasectomy so she doesn’t get pregnant again. They used to practice NFP. I wish I could understand but I can’t…

My little blurp is because not all people that are Catholic follow devoutly, so don’t judge your GF off one converstation. My DH is not Catholic but over the course of 4 years, he’s been leaning more and more towards Catholicism. He’s allowed us to turn to NFP, he’s allowing the children to be raised Catholic. His views on abortion have changed dramatically, although he’s not in full line with CC teaching. And forget homosexuality… he’s against it totally, although he does agree with the CC teaching on it.

Keep the discussions going though. There is hope yet because if she loves you and can trust that you won’t give her bunk information, she just might learn something. I know my DH enjoys it when I give him information that I’ve taken the time to research in order to GENTLY show him my point of view and he knows I leave the rest in the hands of God as I can’t force him to accept my information.

Abortion is a big issue to discuss with a future spouse because "Marriage - 51% of women who are unmarried when they become pregnant will receive an abortion. Unmarried women are 6 times more likely than married women to have an abortion. 67% of abortions are from women who have never been married. "
Source Which means that 49% of women that are married get abortions. The contraception mentality can really lead to the phenomenon of “I DON’T WANT ANOTHER BABY” and if a pregnancy occurs… abortion is an option to them. It’s unfortunate.

Keep the dialogue open, keep the prayers going and if it gets to a point where you just can’t see her changing, look for a Catholic gal.

**woohoo! I inserted an html without the entire shabang! I’m still learning with these forums!!! 🙂 And yes, I’m very well aware of who the abortion stats are done by… which makes it even more scary.
 
Trying to evangelize when dating and considering marriage is just asking for too much hassle and trouble down the road. Why don’t you just seek out friends from the Catholic Church and find a good woman there? You can’t tell me there are no Catholic girls you could be dating who believe as you do? :yup:
 
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Della:
Trying to evangelize when dating and considering marriage is just asking for too much hassle and trouble down the road. Why don’t you just seek out friends from the Catholic Church and find a good woman there? You can’t tell me there are no Catholic girls you could be dating who believe as you do? :yup:
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If the two of you get married you may be able to sweep these issues under the rug for a little while but if you are blessed with children, they will come back to haunt you and your marriage. I agree with Della, seek a good Catholic girl who believes like you do. If you are already having to negotiate your beliefs now before you are married, it will get worse when you are. Plus we need some more strong united Catholic families, we do not need more divided ones.
 
I’ll be blunt- NEVER have sex with someone who doesn’t think abortion is wrong, NEVER! You could continue this relationship for a time and see if her views on these things are firm or not, but I wouldn’t stick with it for too long, lest hearts will be broken.

Even if you wouldn’t have pre-marital sex(which I am sure you wouldn’t ;)), when she is your wife, she could abort a child who is “imperfect” even if she says “she wouldn’t personally do it”, anyone who thinks others should be allowed abortion do not truly understand the humanity of the unborn and will not make the same decisions as those of us who understand would.

The homosexuality issue is big too, but the abortion issue is HUGE IMO, and cannot be overlooked, it could be your child’s life which is chosen to be ended all too soon.

Good luck!
 
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Chase54:
She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”
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Oh, yes you can! Sadists derive pleasure from torturing their victims. Does that make it okay? (Agreed that this is an extreme example, but it does show the flaw in her argument.)

I agree with the above posters that you should iron this out with her before even considering marriage. Do not go into marriage thinking you will change her (would you want her going into marriage thinking she’s going to change you?)

What you need to do is show her why the Church condemns homosexual acts–and be sure she understands the Church condemns the *acts *but not the person.

Here’s an audio lecture by Peter Kreeft that may help: peterkreeft.com/audio/11_moral-theology.htm
 
If it all possible, marry a Catholic. If you have any doubts about that advice, do a search in this forum for all the heart-wrenching threads that appear here written by people having problems in their marriage due to religious differences.

You can’t ignore religious differences when it comes to raising kids or when it comes to using artificial birth control.

There really is no point dating someone you shouldn’t marry. Sure, maybe she’ll convert…but let me caution you against “missionary dating”. It is usually a very bad idea.
Just be her friend for now, until such time as she has a sincere conversion, at least on abortion and homosexuality.

I know it’s tough to do…I waited until I was 32 to marry. It took me that long to find the a perfect beautiful woman who is 100% Catholic. It was very tempting to settle for less along the way, but thank God I didn’t.

Good luck.
 
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Chase54:
She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”.
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The nature of male sexuality is to be with as many women as possible. I’m sure she would demand you deny yourself the happiness of being with other women if you ever got married to her.

Married men deny this nature everday.
 
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Chase54:
She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”.
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True. Also this is true: “A homosexual person cannot deny themselves happiness because of their orientation.” For this reason, homosexual persons are called to lives of chastity that do not gravely violate natural law and separation from God, who is the source of true happiness.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
I understand where your GF is coming from - I believed the same things about 3 years ago (and for a long time prior to that). Here are some points:
  1. If she believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God, it’s pretty clear about homosexuality being sinful. People have the freedom to be happy, but they do not have the license to sin. We should not confirm people in their sinfulness (which also applies to those having pre-marital sex of any kind).
  2. If she does not believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, you may want to start here rather than starting by arguing against homosexuality or abortion. If she will accept the Bible as the inerrant word of God, the argument should be much easier.
  3. As Kay Cee said above, Peter Kreeft is an excellent resource. Please visit his site, www.peterkreeft.com, and listen to the audio / read the essays. It’s pretty logical stuff, and he seldom relies on the Bible for his arguments. You might find him more useful if you are unsuccessful with the above 1 or 2.
  4. Here’s an example of his argument against abortion:
    Logical Argument:
    Code: 
    **Moral Premise: **It is always morally wrong to kill an innocent human being
    **Factual Premise: **Abortion is the killing of an innocent human being

    **Conclusion: **Abortion is always morally wrong
Definition of Terms:
Code: 
    **Kill** – to, by voluntary and willful conduct, take positive action (as opposed to inaction or omission) by which death is forced upon another human being

 **Innocent** – being undeserving of death; having no personal culpability; having done nothing by which to justify killing

 **Human being** – a biological entity possessing life in the species of Homo sapiens
Life – the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.

Underlying Legal Premise:
Code: 
    **Legal Premise: **The purpose of Law is to protect people, specifically to protect innocent and weak people from guilty and strong people; consequently, an immoral killing, which is the killing of the innocent and weak by the guilty and strong, should never justified by the law.
I haven’t found a better way to argue it or another way to see it. Furthermore, Peter Kreeft examines all of the possible objections to his argument, and knocks them all down. Truly, his are excellent lectures.

Peter Kreeft also takes an ecumenical approach to religious arguments, taking a stance that could be held by a Protestant as well as a Catholic. This should make things much easier to argue.

Hope this helps.

God Bless,
RyanL

P.S.,
If you want more arguments against homosexuality or abortion, either start a new thread or PM me. As for the GF…well…the late Holy Father called us to a New Evangelization. I’m not convinced that inter-religious relationships aren’t a significant part of that.
 
I would see this as a huge problem. I am all for equal rights for people with homosexual tendencies, but I don’t see it as normal and an against changing the definition of marriage to include any union other than a man and a woman. You can love and accept people without supporting special rights.

I am assuming that you are prolife and she is prochoice?

I see this as a huge red flag for you. Do you really want to be in a relationship with a young woman who would abort a baby? Do you want to have babies with a woman who has so little value for your unborn baby/ fetus? What if you are married and she becomes pregnant at a “bad” time for her in her career, or you find out that your baby has serious birth defects? Would you be comfortable with her going out and having an abortion? You have no legal rights in that situation.

I know how difficult it will be for you, but this is a serious red flag and will only lead to a difficult marriage. The Lord has someone better in mind for you. I can understand a young woman being confused about changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual marriage, at least that comes from a place of compassion, though it is misplaced. The lack of value for human life in abortion is a problem.
 
My husband and I were highschool sweethearts and dated for 5 years. We went to a Catholic college and he got high marks on his interviews and counselling for Pre Cana before we got married. It was assumed that he would convert. He is staunchly Catholic in many ways. He believes in Apostolic Tradition, Authority of the Church, the True meaning and necessity of the Sacraments, and most of the moral teachings of the Church, whereas I desire to follow all of them. We go to Mass every Sunday and most Holy Days… So what’s the problem?

He has never gone through Confirmation or conversion After 10 years no matter how much I encourage him he finds an excuse. He is an Air Force Man and on his dog tags it says “Catholic” I have a happy, healthy family. We are a relatively devout family and I would marry him all over again… with on exception. I would have required him to convert first, rather then assume that he would do it in the future. So you see, even in my marriage where we agree with all the issues (even more than many Cafeteria Catholics I know) I would still recommend that you find a nice Catholic girl. Even if it doesn’t seem important now, it will be when you have children. My husband threw me for a loop when he decided to have a vasectomy two years ago. He was convinced that if I had another child I would die. I wanted to use NFP to prevent pregnancy until we could be sure my body was healthy. I begged him not to do it, but all I can do is love him and hope that Christ will transform him into the fullness of the Church. His choice resulted in a long 6 months of sadness for me over this past spring and summer. I am finally out of that deep sadness and regret and I would have to say it was like mourning the children I feel I was meant to have. I believe down to the bone that I was meant to have more children. I am finally accepting that now and going on with my life, despite the ache of loss I feel.

Until the vasectomy we have been exceedingly happy. We are in love and respect one another and the best of friends. We are committed for life, and happy to be.

I would still recommend that you try to find a Catholic girl who has the same beliefs and desire to follow the same moral path as you.
 
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Chase54:
My girlfriend and I are both Christian…I, Catholic, her Prestbyterian (mind the spelling).

I love my girlfriend a lot and we have been together a little over 2 years. Yesterday we got into a discussion about 2 things: 1. homosexuality, and 2. abortion.

I’m not sure what to do about this situation…should we end our relationship? she would seek counseling? I’m not quite sure if counseling matters.

In terms of homosexuality, she is an actress and knows many people and has been exposed to many people who are homosexual and finds there to be nothing wrong with it. She says “You can’t deny a person happiness just because of their orientation”. I look at homosexuality as the Catholic (and many other Christian faiths) do…and as we discussed on whether or not we would ever have children, she would want to raise them that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. I have a problem with that. I don’t dislike homosexuals, i believe they live their lives how they want to, if they are curious to my opinion, I tell them what I think. I don’t judge them based off of that…but I don’t want to have my children raised thinking it is okay.

I don’t know what to do…
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What to do? **Find a woman who shares your faith life, beliefs, values, and your child-rearing views. ** You will have so much heartache if you do not.

Yes, I believe you should discontinue the relationship and find a practicing Catholic who believes as you do and practices the faith 100%. The Scriptures give good wisdom: Be Not Unequally Yoked.
 
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