Homosexuality, marriage and use of condoms

[AlexisTherese]

Although this might be a basic question, it’s something I am really struggling to understand.
Why are gay people not allowed to get married if a couple who cannot have children can get married in Church? Also after a married couple over 50 can continue having sex, even without the ability to have children. I just can’t get to grips with this. We acknowledge that being gay is not a sin, yet it is if they engage with their sexuality…? Yet we allow infertile couples to get married? We also acknowledge that a gay couple can have the same experience of love that a straight couple has. Is it because allowing a gay couple to get married in the church would challenge the use of condoms (I understand the pill is different in this case). I am embarrassed about asking and I am not trying to change church doctrine, I just cannot understand this. The way I see it is that it would bring up the question that condoms should be okay to use during marriage if a gay couple were able to get married in a Catholic church. Please be kind, I know this is a heated question.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

I’m not sure I understand your question. I don’t see any direct connection between the Church’s teachings on condoms and its teachings on homosexuality. These are separate issues. Or have I misunderstood your question?

Concerning the question of marriages of older people or infertile people, I understand it is a church position that this merely reduces the probability of conception but does not exclude it completely. For example Eliztabeth was already old when she concieved St John the Baptist. Elizabeth told the angel she thought it ws impossible that she could coneieve, so presumably she was already post-menopause at the time. From a medical point of view it was thus a miracle.

 

[Roguish]

Why are gay people not allowed to get married if a couple who cannot have children can get married in Church?

Because the attraction between a man and a woman corresponds to God’s natural order, regardless of whether children are engendered or not. Same-sex attraction is intrinsically disordered.

We acknowledge that being gay is not a sin, yet it is if they engage with their sexuality…?

No. This is new “trendy” thinking among Catholics. The attraction itself is already disordered. It is true that one has not sinned if one does not act on the attraction, but that does not make the attraction properly ordered. It is no different with greed, lust, or any other feeling that pulls you toward sin. If I feel lust or greed, and resist it completely (not only in action but also in thought), I haven’t sinned. That doesn’t make greed and lust alright though. Likewise, being gay is not “fine as long as you don’t act on it”, in the same way that being greedy or lustful isn’t “fine as long as you don’t act on it”.

We also acknowledge that a gay couple can have the same experience of love that a straight couple has.

Again, this isn’t so. The attraction and love between a man and a woman is intrinsically different from that between two people of the same gender. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that two homosexual individuals cannot feel some sort of love for each other; I trust that they can. But to claim that it is the same love that exists between man and woman (when properly matched) is patently false.

Is it because allowing a gay couple to get married in the church would challenge the use of condoms

Contraceptives have nothing to do with the Church’s stance on homosexuality. It is an entirely different topic.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

If I feel lust or greed, and resist it completely (not only in action but also in thought), I haven’t sinned. That doesn’t make greed and lust alright though. Likewise, being gay is not “fine as long as you don’t act on it”, in the same way that being greedy or lustful isn’t “fine as long as you don’t act on it”.

I don’t this comparison is completely applicable , as greed, lust etc are vices. I have never heard the Church teach that homosexuality is a vice and I don’t think it is fair to say that it is.

 

[AlexisTherese]

Why is it disordered if it cannot be helped, if love is there and if infertile couples can get married?

 

[Roguish]

I don’t this comparison is completely applicable , as greed, lust etc are vices. I have never heard the Church teach that homosexuality is a vice and I don’t think it is fair to say that it is.

I hardly ever hear the term “vice” anymore. I don’t think a vice is substantially different from a sin, really. A quick peek at Wikipedia reveals that indeed the 7 cardinal sins (which is what I call them) are also called the 7 cardinal vice. (Not that Wikipedia is a gold standard, but it is a decent indicator of current usage of certain terms.) Also a “vice cop”, as far as I know, investigates just about anything that goes against good morals, so again “vice” doesn’t seem to be different from sin.

 

[Roguish]

Why is it disordered if it cannot be helped

For the same reason that greed and lust don’t become “okay” if I can’t help them. To take an extreme example, most caught serial killers openly and remorselessly admit that they felt compelled to kill, and could not have acted differently. That’s extreme, but it goes to show that a “can’t-be-helped” argument does not validly disprove the sinfulness of certain tendencies.

if love is there

I addressed this in my earlier post. There may be some sort of love, but it is not the same love that exists between a properly matched husband and wife.

if infertile couples can get married?

This too I addressed in my earlier post. Infertility does not alter the nature of the attraction, which, in the case of a properly matched heterosexual couple corresponds to the natural order as created by God. In other words, fertility or lack thereof isn’t a relevant consideration.

 

[HeDa]

A marriage is supposed to be both lifegiving and unitive. In the Catholic Church a marriage is between a man and woman, they enter into the marriage by free will, it lasts until the natural death of one of the spouses and they promise to receive the children God will give them.

Physical relations between two of the same sex are not unitive in that their bodies do not “fit together”. (There are younger people reading.) There are women who have gone through cancer treatment and were told that they would not be able to conceive a child but still have. Likewise other women with very irregular women´s periods or illnesses have been able to give birth to a child. No third party, except God, is involved and allowed in the physical act of conceiving a child. Communication between the two spouses is very important.

One of the best talks about marriage and family that I have heard is this one with Kimberly Hahn. Well worth listening to the 51 minutes for understanding what a marriage is in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

For the same reason that greed and lust don’t become “okay” if I can’t help them. To take an extreme example, most caught serial killers openly and remorselessly admit that they felt compelled to kill, and could not have acted differently. That’s extreme, but it goes to show that a “can’t-be-helped” argument does not validly disprove the sinfulness of certain tendencies.

AlexisTherese:

There is a difference here.

If somebody is compelled to kill and control that, that does not make it Ok but it does make it a condition that can or should be treated and the person may well get sent to a high security mental hospital rather than a regular prison.

Even in prison, the person might seek to kill other prisoners because of this compulsion, which thus needs to be brought under control medically, as well as precautions being taken to protect staff and other prisoners…

However if somebody kills not through compulsion but while in fulll control of their mind and body, then they get sent to regular prison.

So if you want to draw parallels to homosexuality here, the question is, is it a condition that can or should be treated? Some protestant and free churches do indeed offer treatments, voluntairly of course. I think the Catholic church is more in the camp of “deal with it yourself”. But I may be mistaken.

 

[Guest1]

 

[AlexisTherese]

Roguish @ Roguish
Explain natural law

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Not entirely.

You argue from a Darwinian perspective, so allow me to pick up the same language.

You argue that a homosexual individual has no evolutionary utility because he or she does not ceoncieve offspring.

What about a post menopausal femaies. In many species you don’t find the phenomenon of menopause but the animals involved keep on pushing out offspring until they are so weak that they drop dead in the process. Why is it different in humans and other higher animals? The reason is social society. Some individuals may have greater utility investing their time and energy in their grandchildren (in the case of post menopausal females) or nephews, neices etc, in the case of infertile individuals. Or just in defending or seeking food for the community as a whole, in which case not haveing offspring in tow may make them more agile and less vulnerable and thus better suited for the task. There is thus no strong natural selection against any genes that cause infertility, as longas there is a net benefit to the wider group.

Think of bees, wasps and ants. The vast majoroty of individuals within a social group are completely infertile and functionally asexual. This doesn’t give them an evolutionary disadvantage. On the contrary.

Of course transferring lessons from animals to humans is not always applicable, as humans are not animals but something different on account of morality, which compliactes things a bit more.

Morality and civilization rise above natural behaviours and attractions because in contrast to the animals, man tasted of the forbidden fruit and can and must distinguish good from evil. This gives him greater responsibility.

 

[AlexisTherese]

Can I ask why homosexuality is considered as intrinsically disordered?

 

[Guest1]

Correct me if I’m wrong but when catholics say disordered they mean not in order. Something like that.
Not diseased.? @Salmonslayer

 

[AlexisTherese]

That’s what I thought they meant

 

[theCardinalbird]

Do infertile couples clinch the case for same-sex marriage?

Nope. All infertilities are not equal. There is a crucial difference between an infertile heterosexual union and an impotent homosexual one.This week, the US Supreme Court began its deliberations on the contentious issue of same-sex marriage. One of the two cases it will hear concerns...

www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

[neophyte]

Why are gay people not allowed to get married…

People with homosexual attractions are allowed to get married, and always have been. The problem is that most of them aren’t interested in being joined to someone of the opposite sex, which by definition is what marriage is.

 

[AlexisTherese]

Why do you believe the above, like explain it with back up

 

[Elf01]

Why are gay people not allowed to get married if a couple who cannot have children can get married in Church? Also after a married couple over 50 can continue having sex, even without the ability to have children.

The way I make the most sense of it is by comparing it to impotence rather than infertility. If the mechanics of the martial act are specific i.e. certain parts have to go together, which is not possible for a same sex couple it makes more sense.

 

[c1949]

Virtue and vice are habits of good and evil behaviors, respectively. So, a vice is evil because of the underlying sins. I’m not a moral theologian but I suspect that the habit of practicing evil – a vice – is a sin in itself, as well. If we don’t immediately recognize an individual sin in our lives, maybe the habit or vice comes into focus for us at first.

Maybe the terms go out of use because of the secularization of society, which increasingly distances itself from religious concepts.

When you know the definitions of these as habits or practices, the expression “practicing virtue” makes more sense – intentionally doing good works, abstractly as prayer, for example, or concretely as helping your neighbor regularly.

I have a couple modern books on Jewish morality and ethics. While their advice is different from the Catholic perspective (and allows things of which Catholic authorities would not approve), I like the way they spell out the requirements of God’s law. Elliot Dorff is a rabbi who writes such books. He gets down to the nitty gritty of honoring one’s parents, for example" buying them food, giving them shelter, making sure they are not lonely, making sure they have medical care, etc. Jewish law contains both positive and negative commands, as you read in the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament). Dorff encourages virtuous acts, the positive commands of scripture and obeying the negative commands as well – don’t do this or that or the other thing.