how does gay marriage harm society?

[Eugenius]

From two situations, you choose to view the world through the prism of homosexualist ideology. Are you promoting this ideology, which goes against clear Church instruction?

The fact that there are bad traditional marriages is not justification to believe that homosexual marriages are better unions. Gay activists use exceptions so people would set aside the reality of the general picture of homosexual partnerships. Statistically, not based on two situations, homosexual couples have a higher incidence of promiscuity (also consensual infidelity), HIV, violence, substance abuse, and mental health problems.

Please don’t misrepresent what I said or cast doubt on my intentions, to do so is disingenuous. My statements above were pretty clear. I support what the Catechism says. Unfortunately, the inconvenient truth behind statistics is that they never add up to 100% and I refuse to pre-judge someone until given just cause to do so. This includes wishing the best for heterosexual marriages, even knowing the sad fact that 50% of them will end in failure and further harm to society. The fact that I keep getting attacked for wanting to protect traditional marriage on a Catholic forum and having it insinuated that by pointing out these facts is somehow supporting gay marriage just seems bizarre to me.

 

[michelleds]

Please don’t misrepresent what I said or cast doubt on my intentions, to do so is disingenuous. My statements above were pretty clear. I support what the Catechism says. Unfortunately, the inconvenient truth behind statistics is that they never add up to 100% and I refuse to pre-judge someone until given just cause to do so. This includes wishing the best for heterosexual marriages, even knowing the sad fact that 50% of them will end in failure and further harm to society. The fact that I keep getting attacked for wanting to protect traditional marriage on a Catholic forum and having it insinuated that by pointing out these facts is somehow supporting gay marriage just seems bizarre to me.

Okay, now I’m confused. granted, I just woke up and haven’t finished my coffee, but help me out. I thought that your posts were in support of gay marriage and gay couples adopting children. Are you saying something different?

 

[Eugenius]

Okay, now I’m confused. granted, I just woke up and haven’t finished my coffee, but help me out. I thought that your posts were in support of gay marriage and gay couples adopting children. Are you saying something different?

I support what is taught in the catechism. In my opinion that is how Catholics should respond to questions about gay marriage. Yet, these Catholic forums always carry the conversation further and make assertions about infidelity, promiscuity, disease, gender bias, etc., and use THOSE to justify being against gay marriage, even when the contrary is shown to them. This starts to enter the realm of being prejudiced, we are judging people based on what we think other people have done and I do not think that is just. On the other hand I rarely see discussions about divorce with the same intensity and I actually see more harm being done there than I do gay marriage! As a married man, I’m being told I am under attack by two people living in San Francisco who want to live together, visit each other in the hospital, inherit their shared property, etc., but if my wife got tired of me for whatever reason she could divorce me, take my kids, kick me out of my house, make me pay alimony and leave me in a condition where I can’t remarry because I would be committing adultery and as far as I can tell the church is doing NOTHING to change no-fault divorce laws, etc. After a while these “debates” start to seem lopsided and not focused on where the most harm is really being done. I hope this clarifies

 

[michelleds]

I support what is taught in the catechism. In my opinion that is how Catholics should respond to questions about gay marriage. Yet, these Catholic forums always carry the conversation further and make assertions about infidelity, promiscuity, disease, gender bias, etc., and use THOSE to justify being against gay marriage, even when the contrary is shown to them. This starts to enter the realm of being prejudiced, we are judging people based on what we think other people have done and I do not think that is just. On the other hand I rarely see discussions about divorce with the same intensity and I actually see more harm being done there than I do gay marriage! As a married man, I’m being told I am under attack by two people living in San Francisco who want to live together, visit each other in the hospital, inherit their shared property, etc., but if my wife got tired of me for whatever reason she could divorce me, take my kids, kick me out of my house, make me pay alimony and leave me in a condition where I can’t remarry because I would be committing adultery and as far as I can tell the church is doing NOTHING to change no-fault divorce laws, etc. After a while these “debates” start to seem lopsided and not focused on where the most harm is really being done. I hope this clarifies

yes, thank you.

Personally, I think that the answer to questions about gay sex and gay marriage are NOT sociological or psychological but moral. I hate to sound like one of the fundamentalist sunday school teachers from my youth, but God said it, I believe it. I think that when Catholics allow the gay agenda to set the parameters of the discussion, and move it outside of the realm of Morals, holiness, chastity, and outside of the Catechism, then we are giving up too much.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I support what is taught in the catechism.

You may think you do, but it is apparent that you do not understand what is taught in the catechism, and specifically how homosexual behavior and homosexual parenting are related, intrinsically, in the eyes of your Catholic Church.

catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp

Because gender is a real phenomenon, it should come as no surprise that men and women parent differently. Men and women bring different, complementary skills to childrearing. Men are more likely to play expansively with their children than to do mundane care taking; women tend to be more practical. Mothers tend to be more responsive to their child’s immediate needs, while fathers tend to be more firm, more oriented to abstract standards of justice (right and wrong).67 Kids need both.

Mothers tend to emphasize the emotional security of their children, while fathers tend to stress competition and risk taking. Mothers tend to seek the immediate well-being of the child, while fathers tend to foster long-term autonomy and independence.68 Children need both parents, because they learn different lessons from each. Neither fathers nor mothers are expendable. The presence of a father is critical to a male child’s learning self-control and appropriate male behavior, especially learning to respect women. Similarly, the presence of a father is vital for a female child’s self-respect and eventual development of a healthy adult sexuality.69 Children need mothers just as much. The presence of both parents seems to be necessary for ideally balanced emotional and mental development.

Put in technical psychological jargon, the social science evidence suggests that women teach children communion (in English, that means the drive toward inclusion, connectedness, and relationship) and that men teach children agency (the drive toward independence, individuality, and self-fulfillment). Further, children of both sexes appear to learn self-control and responsibility primarily from their father.70 They fail to learn them when he’s not involved in their lives. Our national epidemic of fatherlessness has spawned an epidemic of antisocial children.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Penalized for Putting ‘Best Interest of the Child’ First
Treating Children Like Pets / Why homosexual adoption in Illinois is a travesty: a guest commentary.
by WILLIAM B. MAY 05/28/2011

The implementation of the new civil-union law in Illinois is leading to a showdown between Catholic Charities as a provider of adoption services for children and a state law that places the private interest of adults over the human rights of children. Catholic Charities will actually be put in jeopardy of lawsuits and losing public funds to serve the poor if they refuse to deprive children they serve of married mothers and fathers. How crazy is that?
Catholic Charities sought an exemption from the law for religious organizations as a matter of conscience, but the bill is bottled up in committee and not likely to pass before June 1, when the civil-union law takes effect. As the clock ticks down, the question remains as to whether Catholic Charities will be forced out of the adoption business in Illinois, as has been the case in Boston, San Francisco, Washington and other places.
To understand the issue, one must first consider who the client is when there is a child in need of adoption or foster care. Is this a service for the child or is it a service to adults seeking to acquire a child? The qualifications for the adoptive parents can be quite different depending on the answer to that question.
If the clients are the adults, the child then becomes a precious commodity. The qualification for the adoptive parent(s) is merely competence in parenting. However, if the client is the child, the process for qualifying the prospective parent is quite different, taking into account the human rights and dignity of the child.
First, let us consider the state of the child up for adoption — deprived of his or her mother and father who for some reason were not able to fulfill their responsibilities to the child. Nevertheless, the child carries the flesh of these people and is a witness to their union for all of eternity. The child has not only lost a very real primordial connection associated with his or her identity, but something that is common to every person without exception and important to human flourishing.
As the child grows in age, the awareness of loss increases. Not only the connection with the persons from whom the child originated is missing, but there are also questions about siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, medical history, sense of family history and ethnic and cultural heritage. The ability, as far as possible, for a child to know and be cared for by his or her mother and father is so precious that it is an internationally recognized human right specified in the “U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
Considering the child’s status, adoption is really an accommodation for this privation. It is an act of charity in which strangers make an irrevocable promise to love, to stand in for and to represent the man and woman who gave the child life and who were not able to fulfill their responsibilities. In this sense, they are not only taking on responsibility to the child, but also to the parents of the child.

Only a Man Can Stand in for the Father
It is therefore common sense that only a man can stand in for the father and only a woman can stand in for the mother of which the child was deprived. It would seem that every effort should be made to accommodate the child in this way, as is the case with Catholic Charities’ policy. To disregard this would result in a second privation — a privation of the experience of being loved, cared for and reared by a man and a woman. This second privation, unlike the first, would therefore be intentional if the option of a married man and woman were available to the child. The Catholic Church teaches that this second, intentional privation would amount to an intolerable violation of the dignity and the rights of the child.
A second consideration in adoption is the principle of irreplaceability. What prepares a man and a woman to receive life from their union as a gift is to first freely choose to make themselves irreplaceable to each other through marriage. This starts the circle of irreplaceability that we call the family, both nuclear and extended. In the adoption process the parents choose to make the child irreplaceable to them. Is it not then a matter of common sense and justice for the child to expect the adoptive man and woman to first make themselves irreplaceable to each other through marriage? Should this not be a precondition for receiving the child as a person of equal value and dignity? This is what Catholic Charities does. How can anyone find this discriminatory — unless the child is seen as a person of little value, having no rights, or as a mere commodity? The child is effectively treated as a pet, with the primary consideration that he or she be treated humanely rather than humanly.
The question of adoption policy, as one can see, is really a matter of human rights. When people argue for the “best interest of the child” in the abstract, the perceptions of that can be skewed by the interest and experience of the adults making the argument. It is so easy for weak and vulnerable children to become abstractions, unless we ourselves “become like a child” (Matthew 18:3). Reflecting on the desire we have for connection with our own mother and father and recognizing that this is a common human experience helps us understand that the child in the state of privation is really another self.

cont’d…

 

[Elizabeth502]

Powerless
However, the deprived child is powerless to express or advocate for his or her interest. He or she does not vote or make political contributions. Children are completely dependent on the charity and sense of justice of adults. They depend on adults to defend their rights even when it is unpopular and takes courage to do so. They depend on adults to treat them with the respect and dignity of true clients, as Catholic Charities does. It is only then that justice for deprived children can be possible.
Human rights cannot be created or changed, only recognized. It is time for the state of Illinois to recognize the human rights of children in need of adoption. It is time for every person of good will to stand in solidarity with children less fortunate than themselves and stand with the Catholic Church against the powerful forces that would deprive these children of married mothers and fathers.

ncregister.com/daily-news/penalized-for-putting-best-interest-of-the-child-first/#ixzz1Oh7YnmUO

 

[Elizabeth502]

The Thomas More Law Center revealed today that it has sent a letter to over one hundred members of the Michigan state House of Representatives informing them of the Catholic Church’s unequivocal opposition to adoptions by homosexual partners. The Thomas More Law Center is a national Christian legal advocacy group based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Law Center’s letter extensively quotes from a 2003 document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. The document entitled, “Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to unions Between Homosexual Persons,” was intended to give direction to Catholic politicians and all persons committed to defending the common good of society. The document states: “Allowing children to be adopted by persons in such [homosexual] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.”
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented, “Not only does this House Bill violate Catholic doctrine, but it is a disguised effort to do an end-run around the state constitutional ban on same –sex marriages overwhelmingly passed by Michigan voters in 2004. Every citizen concerned with the common good of the community and our vulnerable children should oppose this Bill.”

The Law Center’s letter also expressed concern that if HB 4259 passed, it would cause Christian adoption agencies to withdraw from adoptions altogether rather than violate their religious principles. Typically, these Christian adoption agencies handle the hardest to place children. Thompson added, “Although the Catholic Church teaches respect for homosexual persons, the Church is emphatic that that respect ‘cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.’ Allowing homosexual partners to adopt children would be giving them such recognition.”

catholicnewsagency.com/news/law_center_defends_catholic_teaching_on_homoesxual_adoption/

www.thomasmore.org

 

[Elizabeth502]

And finally from the Vatican itself, which is the source of the Catechism:

1. Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involv- ing a grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15) does nothing to alter this inadequacy.
   Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality. Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life.
   As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/faith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

 

[GraceSofia]

It is my understanding that Catholic Charities can continue but without federal funding. It just means that Catholics need to step up to the plate and fund it ourselves. I believe in limited government anyway, the government should not be in the adoption business in the first place.

No. The issue is much larger.

That is my point, really, that homosexual “marriage” is like opening Pandora’s box. Not to derail the thread onto adoption agencies, but it is an example of how homosexual activists are forcing their agenda on everybody.

Okay, let’s say Catholic Charities refuses federal funding and continues with adoption services. Bam! They will immediately be hit with “discrimination” charges and law suits by homosexual activists.

However, Catholic Charities is the largest social services in the U.S. after the government; they provide meals, soup kitchens, disaster relief, senior services, job training, homeless shelters, on and on. All of this would be at risk as more than half of their funding comes from the government. It isn’t just about adoption.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Please don’t misrepresent what I said or cast doubt on my intentions, to do so is disingenuous. My statements above were pretty clear. I support what the Catechism says. Unfortunately, the inconvenient truth behind statistics is that they never add up to 100% and I refuse to pre-judge someone until given just cause to do so. This includes wishing the best for heterosexual marriages, even knowing the sad fact that 50% of them will end in failure and further harm to society. The fact that I keep getting attacked for wanting to protect traditional marriage on a Catholic forum and having it insinuated that by pointing out these facts is somehow supporting gay marriage just seems bizarre to me.

I support what is taught in the catechism. In my opinion that is how Catholics should respond to questions about gay marriage. Yet, these Catholic forums always carry the conversation further and make assertions about infidelity, promiscuity, disease, gender bias, etc., and use THOSE to justify being against gay marriage, even when the contrary is shown to them. This starts to enter the realm of being prejudiced, we are judging people based on what we think other people have done and I do not think that is just. On the other hand I rarely see discussions about divorce with the same intensity and I actually see more harm being done there than I do gay marriage! As a married man, I’m being told I am under attack by two people living in San Francisco who want to live together, visit each other in the hospital, inherit their shared property, etc., but if my wife got tired of me for whatever reason she could divorce me, take my kids, kick me out of my house, make me pay alimony and leave me in a condition where I can’t remarry because I would be committing adultery and as far as I can tell the church is doing NOTHING to change no-fault divorce laws, etc. After a while these “debates” start to seem lopsided and not focused on where the most harm is really being done. I hope this clarifies

You misstate a few things in what is being said in the forum. Nobody is defending the high divorce rate in the population including Catholics. The Church has admonished many times that marriages and families are to be preserved for society to flourish. It has programs and ministries with precisely this objective. Pre-Cana classes have been instituted as a pro-active step for engaged couples to prevent divorce after receiving the sacrament of matrimony. Marriage encounters and enrichment programs are also in place for those already married. But none of this grabs anyone’s or your attention.

Pope John Paul II reminded us that, “Marriage is indissoluble.” He also urged, “Among initiatives should be those that aim at obtaining the public recognition of indissoluble marriage in the civil juridical order.”

I hear what you’re saying that there should be more done in stemming the destruction of no-fault divorce laws. But to say that it is not on the table or the Church is doing nothing about it is not true. Surely, you realize that this is not just a Catholic problem with a Catholic solution. Instead of simply basing your conclusions on what is just happening on your street, how about getting the facts? For instance, did you catch this development: Catholic Church And N.O.W. Blast “Divorce on Demand”?

Divorce laws exist notwithstanding the efforts of the Church against it. There is increasing consensus that it should not be so easily obtained, which contributes greatly to the rot of society, but is the voice of the Church even heard in our secular, largely non-Catholic society?

However, the Church and her members would be in error if attention is not given to the rise and fervid pursuit of homosexual causes by: gay ‘marriage’ and its twin evil cause of gay ‘parenting’ that FURTHER deconstruct family and society.

It is confusing to read your posts defending gay unions and gay ‘parenting’ on one hand, and then you say upon challenge that you support the teaching on homosexuality in the catechism. So you have nice neighbors up the street in a gay ‘marriage’ that reared a young orphaned nephew whose parents died in a car crash. You do not accept that this gay couple may be the exception to the general profile that studies portray, which take into account prevalence and exceptions. When pointed out to you, you tell us “stop looking there, look over here” by bringing up divorces and bad traditional marriages, as again portrayed with a neighbor that fits the picture of one. It sounds like a theme for another TV or movie production to tout how crazy and upside down world we have now, a picture to be taken as representative.

Your two anecdotes do not paint a representative picture and a larger picture is being disregarded in your portrayal. The inference that Catholics should just roll over with gay ‘marriage’ and gay ‘parenting’ because of exceptions should not be accepted, just as we should not continue to support destructive laws such as no-fault divorce.
,

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Grace

**Your two anecdotes do not paint a representative picture and a larger picture is being disregarded in your portrayal. The inference that Catholics should just roll over with gay ‘marriage’ and gay ‘parenting’ because of exceptions should not be accepted, just as we should not continue to support destructive laws such as no-fault divorce. **

Sort of like arguing Catholics should cease to oppose abortion in general because in a single case an abortion seems to have saved the mother’s life.

 

[Eugenius]

yes, thank you.

Personally, I think that the answer to questions about gay sex and gay marriage are NOT sociological or psychological but moral. I hate to sound like one of the fundamentalist sunday school teachers from my youth, but God said it, I believe it. I think that when Catholics allow the gay agenda to set the parameters of the discussion, and move it outside of the realm of Morals, holiness, chastity, and outside of the Catechism, then we are giving up too much.

Unfortunately society’s acceptance of our rampant divorce rate as already taken us outside the realm of Morals, holiness, chastity, and outside of the Catechism. We’ve done it to ourselves by abandoning traditional marriage.

 

[GraceSofia]

Grace

**Your two anecdotes do not paint a representative picture and a larger picture is being disregarded in your portrayal. The inference that Catholics should just roll over with gay ‘marriage’ and gay ‘parenting’ because of exceptions should not be accepted, just as we should not continue to support destructive laws such as no-fault divorce. **

Sort of like arguing Catholics should cease to oppose abortion in general because in a single case an abortion seems to have saved the mother’s life.

Who are you talking to?

 

[GraceSofia]

Unfortunately society’s acceptance of our rampant divorce rate as already taken us outside the realm of Morals, holiness, chastity, and outside of the Catechism. We’ve done it to ourselves by abandoning traditional marriage.

Yes.
I agree that homosexual “marriage” is not the only threat to sacramental marriage, the family and society. We are seeing the result of decades of hedonistic philosophy lived out in the West, and it is not pretty.

However, since some religions (Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, Islam) have allowed/tolerated divorce for centuries, but none have ever allowed/tolerated “marriage” of homosexuals or accepted homosexual acts as normal, there is a huge difference, and you can’t really compare the two.

The solution to the implosion of morality and family life in the West is not to be found by allowing homosexual “marriage,” but in going back, much further back and banning abortion, “free” sex and all that stuff-- undoing the “Sexual Revoltion.” And if you think that is going to be difficult, imagine how much more difficult it will be if homosexual “marriage” becomes rampant.

 

[michelleds]

Unfortunately society’s acceptance of our rampant divorce rate as already taken us outside the realm of Morals, holiness, chastity, and outside of the Catechism. We’ve done it to ourselves by abandoning traditional marriage.

As already pointed out, no one here is disagreeing with you about divorce. However, the divorce rate is a separate issue from that of gay marriage, except that both are against the sanctity of marriage.

For instance, no one could logically argue that we shouldn’t be concerned about gang violence because drunk driving kills more people. Both are valid issues, both should be addressed, but you can’t just allow one because the other is perceived as more bad.

I never did debate in high school or college, but I’m pretty sure there’s a name for this technique.

EDIT: how embarrassing, it’s just the simple red herring or to sound more erudite, Ignorantio Elenchi.

 

[Eugenius]

You may think you do, but it is apparent that you do not understand what is taught in the catechism, and specifically how homosexual behavior and homosexual parenting are related, intrinsically, in the eyes of your Catholic Church.

catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp

This assessment is misguided and I’ll thank you to stop misrepresenting me. Homosexuals live together in long-term relationships and some raise children, regardless of what we or the church think about it. To state this fact is not against church teaching.

Your link to the article on the Catholic library was interesting. It uses the verb “seems” more than I would have thought, which makes it seem non-conclusive. It also describes situations that I do not really see in marriages. With work schedules and other obligations in modern life the caregiver or disciplinarian is likely to be either parent. With divorce being as rampant as it is, it is hard to think of anyone teaching communion and discipline to anyone, much less children, but I wish them success.

 

[Eugenius]

catholicnewsagency.com/news/law_center_defends_catholic_teaching_on_homoesxual_adoption/

www.thomasmore.org

“Allowing children to be adopted by persons in such [homosexual] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.”

This really isn’t about gay marriage, but I’m wondering about those children whom nobody wants to adopt. How do they fully develop? I’ve read stories where children with terminal illness were in foster care with homosexual couples because nobody else wanted them. When the child was cured all of a sudden heterosexuals wanted them. I’ve known several couples (heterosexual) who adopted, unfortunately there is some picking and choosing that goes on, like one would select a pet that best suited their needs. One couple even returned her foster child from Russia to the adoption agency because she couldn’t deal with the child’s behavior. Unfortunately all is not rosy in the heterosexual context either.

 

[Eugenius]

No. The issue is much larger.

That is my point, really, that homosexual “marriage” is like opening Pandora’s box. Not to derail the thread onto adoption agencies, but it is an example of how homosexual activists are forcing their agenda on everybody.

Okay, let’s say Catholic Charities refuses federal funding and continues with adoption services. Bam! They will immediately be hit with “discrimination” charges and law suits by homosexual activists.

However, Catholic Charities is the largest social services in the U.S. after the government; they provide meals, soup kitchens, disaster relief, senior services, job training, homeless shelters, on and on. All of this would be at risk as more than half of their funding comes from the government. It isn’t just about adoption.

Well to be fair, you have to ask yourself why there are so many children up for adoption to begin with. The unfortunate failure of the family (either mother/father or extended family) to take care of these children is what leads to them needing to be adopted to begin with. Homosexuals may believe they have something to offer and help these children, we may not agree with them, but we don’t have to blame them for our own failures.

I may be wrong, but from what I understand Catholic Charities allows adoption by non-Catholics and atheists (which are clearly not Catholic), the divorced (which are living in a state of sin), and mixed race (which some segments of our society would be against). Yet Catholic Charities apparently has no problems with this. We either stand up for Catholic teaching or we don’t, if we aren’t going to do so consistently then I can understand how homosexuals would accuse Catholic Charities for being discriminatory. I don’t agree with this stance, I’m just saying that when you look at all the issues I can understand how someone could draw that conclusion.

 

[GraceSofia]

I may be wrong, but from what I understand Catholic Charities allows adoption by … mixed race (which some segments of our society would be against). Yet Catholic Charities apparently has no problems with this.

Of course, Catholic Charities has no problems with mixed-race parents!
What on earth…
Well, I think this thread is going nowhere-- fast, so I shall wish everyone well, and say good-bye.