how does gay marriage harm society?

[Eugenius]

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.
,

First I want to thank you for your well-presented and well-worded response. I have come to appreciate that in your comments.

I do not think I said anyone was defending divorce, so I’m not misstating anything. I said I do not see the church defending us from divorce with the same intensity that it does the gay marriage measures. Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard that the church has spent millions of dollars enacting anti-divorce legislation the way it has defeating gay marriage legislation. Pre-Canna is an internal program of the church, where is the national and financial focus? Divorce affects roughly 50% of marriages, I would like us to defend traditional marriage on all fronts, reduce the divorce rate, make families more self-reliant and less state dependent, etc. Like I said earlier, to want to defend traditional marriage and be questioned about my motives for doing so on a Catholic forum is truly bizarre to me.

I’ve always been like the boy in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” story that shouts out that the king is naked when everybody else is afraid to. Yes, I understand the church’s teaching. Yes, with the grace of God I try to live that teaching to the best of my ability. But I’m not going to tell homosexuals, “you shouldn’t be allowed to get married because x% of homosexuals in San Francisvo in 1987 had AIDS, or x% in a survey of willing respondents admitted they were promiscuous.” People are going to say, “but that’s not me.” And in the case of the two men and their nephew they would be correct in saying that. For me to tell you that is not a conflict of Catholic teaching. It is merely the other side of the statistics that people don’t like to admit or talk about. That is not defending gay marriage, I’m just seeing things that other people either aren’t or don’t want to. If you tell me that x% of the population does something, my natural tendency is to ask “hmmm, what about the remaining % nobody is talking about.” To accuse a person who dares to ask such questions is really the magician’s diversion.

In addition it is not disingenuous to describe a heterosexual family situation that unfortunately is having problems. Homosexuals are constantly being told that they are destroying and attacking holy sanctimony and then they see divorce all around them. I can understand how it can be puzzling to them.

I feel like I have hogged this thread for long enough, I probably won’t respond to any more comments directed at me. If you have questions about what I said please reread my previous posts carefully before claiming I said something that I didn’t.

Thanks!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Eugenius

I feel like I have hogged this thread for long enough, I probably won’t respond to any more comments directed at me. If you have questions about what I said please reread my previous posts carefully before claiming I said something that I didn’t.

What I think is that on this topic you are not following the lead of the bishops, so I think you should read carefully what they said before going off on a tangent and suppose that they are inconsistent by being concerned about gay marriage.

**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? **

Whether the voice of the Church is heard in our pagan society is not the point. The point is that the Church cannot muffle its own voice on any new perversion while the pagans preach it from the hilltops.

 

[Elizabeth502]

It is evident, Eugenius, that your entire line of argument is that because things happen, they are therefore morally OK. You have said this repeatedly with regard to homosexual adoption and homosexual living arrangements which you merely descirbed as “two men and their nephew.” There is no such thing in Catholic moral theology as using modern life as a barometer of moral theology. Nor is bringing up divorce statistics a line of reasoning supporting the so-called morality of either homosexual marriage or homosexual adoption.

Two sexually active men and their nephew is radically different from two unrelated heterosexual men (or women) agreeing to step in and voluntarily raise a displaced relative or a stranger who is parentless. The fact that you don’t see that is evidence of how profoundly you misunderstand the entire basis of Catholic theology and spirituality about marriage and the family, and how you have adopted the secular viewpoint that because it happens, and because you personally don’t see “harm” in it, it must be morally acceptable.

I have read your posts. I don’t need to re-read them. They are emblematic of a view which puts Catholic theology on no higher a plane than secular standards of what is moral and immoral, what is preferable and less so.

 

[Elizabeth502]

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.

It’s not misguided. It’s spot-on with Catholic theology. I have not misrepresented you whatsoever. Your views are transparent here.

The fact that homosexuals live together in long-term relationships and some raise children is precisely what is against church teaching. That’s what you don’t get.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

How does gay marriage harm society?

By ridiculing the society that promotes it?

If anyone had seriously promoted it in the 1950s, he would have been locked up for a nut case.

Today the nuts cases are running the asylum.

 

[tws]

Homosexual marriage clearly hurts society because it is another significant step in eroding what is acceptable sexual behavior and bonding between people. The traditional marriage formula is one man and one women. By opening the formula to admit the marriage of two men, or two women, it calls into question the flexibility of other parameters of the marriage formula. I will provide three examples.

1. Polygamy: If we open the marriage formula so two same-sex people can marry, it is reasonable to ask why it must be only two people marrying? Why not three or four or more? There are places in the world that openly practice it. There are groups such as pro-polygamy.com trying to make it happen. Check out their website and note the parallels to the fight for homosexual marriage rights.
2. Incest: Similarly, if we open the marriage formula to same-sex partners, then we should also be open to people within the same family marrying, such as a father and daughter, mother and son, sibling and sibling. There are many historical examples of sexual relationships between same-family members. There are people who want it recognized today and a web search will return multiple supporting websites. The gay movement has made same-sex marriage seem palatable, and a narrative could be woven to make incest seem acceptable, too.
3. Marrying children: If same-sex people can marry, then we should also be open to modifying the marriage formula so that not only adults can marry, but so can children, or a mix of ages, such as an older man and a nine year old boy or girl. This type of relationship is tolerated in other parts of the world today, as well as past cultures. There are advocacy groups in the US, such as North American Man/Boy Love Association. Check out their website. Their reasoning borrows from the history and language used to advocate sex between adults of the same gender, and by extension, marital rights. nambla.org/pederasty.htm

Same-sex marriage damages society by blurring the boundaries of what we tolerate, legally recognize, and celebrate. *Once we change one part of the traditional marriage formula, advocates of many other unorthodox marital unions can build a platform based on the underlying arguments used by the homosexual marriage movement. Advocates of polygamy, incest or pederastry could prop up themselves as a similarly oppressed minority demanding the right to freely express their sexual and martial preferences and be recognized as equals and protected under the law. The homosexual movement has demonstrated that with the right mix of money, manpower, and media support, virtually any sexual or marital persuasion could become the next civil rights movement, however horrible and twisted it may seem right now.

A solution is to continue to defend the traditional view of marriage as currently defined within the US by the Defense of Marriage Act:* “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” This standard provides a protective hedge against legally honoring a range of abominable sexual practices, including homosexuality.

 

[Elizabeth502]

^ Outstanding post, and welcome to the forum.

I love people who actually take the time to think concepts through, as you have. You are so correct: the concept of boundaries (relative to societal structure & functioning) is really important, and not mentioned enough in the entire debate on this subject (on and off this forum!). I’ve mentioned it on one or two threads myself, regarding the subject of homosexual “marriage.” But I really appreciate the way you’ve framed it here. And when we fail to respect those proper natural boundaries, the result is destructive to self and others, which naturally affects societal functioning.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Here is more evidence that the Obama Administration is behind increasing adoption by gay couples of troubled children.

Apparently the gay parents are qualified to psychologically cure these children?

cnsnews.com/news/article/hhs-official-teens-gov-t-lgbt-youth-summ

 

[Eugenius]

It is evident, Eugenius, that your entire line of argument is that because things happen, they are therefore morally OK. You have said this repeatedly with regard to homosexual adoption and homosexual living arrangements which you merely descirbed as “two men and their nephew.” There is no such thing in Catholic moral theology as using modern life as a barometer of moral theology. Nor is bringing up divorce statistics a line of reasoning supporting the so-called morality of either homosexual marriage or homosexual adoption.

Two sexually active men and their nephew is radically different from two unrelated heterosexual men (or women) agreeing to step in and voluntarily raise a displaced relative or a stranger who is parentless. The fact that you don’t see that is evidence of how profoundly you misunderstand the entire basis of Catholic theology and spirituality about marriage and the family, and how you have adopted the secular viewpoint that because it happens, and because you personally don’t see “harm” in it, it must be morally acceptable.

I have read your posts. I don’t need to re-read them. They are emblematic of a view which puts Catholic theology on no higher a plane than secular standards of what is moral and immoral, what is preferable and less so.

Elizabeth, you are attacking me like a hound from hell for something I never said. I never said I support gay marriage or gay adoption or said that they were morally acceptable. I have repeatedly said that I believe the catechism and try to live it to the best of my ability with the grace of God and yet you persist in misrepresenting me. The next time it happens I am reporting it to the moderator, enough is enough. I try to understand where people (heterosexual and homosexual) are coming from so I can talk to them about what the CC believes and how it personally relates to their lives. They seem to appreciate that and are willing to listen to what I have to share with them instead of shouting me down in anger. To me this is what evangelization is about.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Eugenius

In addition it is not disingenuous to describe a heterosexual family situation that unfortunately is having problems. Homosexuals are constantly being told that they are destroying and attacking holy sanctimony and then they see divorce all around them. I can understand how it can be puzzling to them.

Can you also see how puzzling it should also be to them that they are the ones qualified to “cure” the troubled children they want to “cure” by adoption?

Or do you think gay couples are not psychologically troubled?

You don’t really make it easy to get a handle on where you are coming from, so perhaps you have opened yourself to all kinds of doubts by other members of CAF.

Is it your assumption that gay couples would never get divorced, and that they would never carry with them their own special set of neuroses that may be more damaging to a developing heterosexual child than the neuroses that often bring about the divorces of heterosexual couples?

 

[Elizabeth502]

I never said I support gay marriage or gay adoption or said that they were morally acceptable.

At least four responders on this thread have a problem with the way you communicate. Here is just one example to demonstrate:

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, …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.

Her responses (among others) are derived from posts such as these, before and after hers:

I get frustrated with these gay marriage discussions. The justifications for being against gay marriage (role models, promiscuity, God’s intent, procreation, agendas, etc.) are meaningless when the divorce rate is around 50%.

the Church gives the impression that it picks and chooses which parts of the Bible it is going to enforce. In the verses I can think of homosexual prohibitions are surrounded by other verses that the church now ignores, rites of purification and dietary laws, for example.

To give an excuse that people can’t do a good job raising children under less than ideal circumstances rings false with me as a justification for denying someone to get married.

Are you serious? You see, this is exactly the kind of nonsense that we Catholics seem to enjoy perpetuating when many people are experiencing exactly the opposite on a day-to-day basis. Do we think kids grow up in a vacuum isolated from the rest of society? I actually do know a boy that was raised from a very young age by a homosexual man and his long-term partner. The parents of the boy were both killed in a car accident and he was left to be raised by his gay uncle. He has grown up to be a bright, intelligent young man, graduated college with good grades and has a beautiful wife and three young children. Pity him?

I do pity the family down the street from me that is going through a divorce. The couple have five young children and the mother was having an affair with the young man working at the convenience store on the corner. The father is a hot head who can’t control his spending and the family car has been repossessed twice, yet he has a cabinet full of guns that he refuses to sell because it is his constitutional right to have them. Thankfully they will not be condemned to stoning because Christianity has thrown those ancient laws out the window and they will most likely end up getting married again…and again…because this too is now permissible. But somehow this will be okay, my tax money will probably help keep them going and nobody will use them as an example for why heterosexual marriage harms society.

Okay, I see your point. **I’ll pity the young successful kid raised by the two homosexuals. He had an awful upbringing and poses a treat to my marriage. I’m sure my wife will appreciate that we are safe now **

The boy’s parents (man and woman) were in an accident. They were raised by his homosexual uncle and his uncle’s long-term partner.
Homosexuals can and do successfully live in long-term relationships and raise children.
Heterosexuals can and do mess things up, get divorced (aren’t current statistics around 50%), and serve as poor role models for holy sanctimony.

The fact is, Catholics are called to practice what is defined in the Cathecism. In my opinion anything else is just an excuse for discrimination. I have to thank people on CAF for this knowledge. I grew so disgusted with statements that go beyond what the Cathecism really says that I set out to meet some long-term homosexual couples and talk to them myself. What people here are claiming is not the reality that I am seeing.

I’m not going to pre-judge the success of personal relationships or their ability to raise children until I’ve been given due cause in their particular case.

[cont’d]

 

[Elizabeth502]

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

Homosexuals live together in long-term relationships and some raise children, regardless of what we or the church think about it.

I’m not going to tell homosexuals, “you shouldn’t be allowed to get married because x% of homosexuals in San Francisvo in 1987 had AIDS, or x% in a survey of willing respondents admitted they were promiscuous.” People are going to say, “but that’s not me.” And in the case of the two men and their nephew they would be correct in saying that. For me to tell you that is not a conflict of Catholic teaching…

In addition it is not disingenuous to describe a heterosexual family situation that unfortunately is having problems. Homosexuals are constantly being told that they are destroying and attacking holy sanctimony and then they see divorce all around them.*** I can understand how it can be puzzling to them***.

It is extremely clear that you do not understand the basis for Catholic teaching on homosexual parenting and homosexual “marriage,” because you continue to state that proportionality is involved (relative to heterosexual divorce rate, relative to imperfect cases of heterosexual parenting). You want to relativize the discussion; the Church, OTOH, stands for the absolute principle of heterosexual marriage exclusively and heterosexual parenting exclusively, both as an absolute theoretical standard and an absolute practical necessity.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Elizabeth, you are attacking me like a hound from hell for something I never said. I never said I support gay marriage or gay adoption or said that they were morally acceptable. I have repeatedly said that I believe the catechism and try to live it to the best of my ability with the grace of God and yet you persist in misrepresenting me. The next time it happens I am reporting it to the moderator, enough is enough. I try to understand where people (heterosexual and homosexual) are coming from so I can talk to them about what the CC believes and how it personally relates to their lives. They seem to appreciate that and are willing to listen to what I have to share with them instead of shouting me down in anger. To me this is what evangelization is about.

Fail.

The fact is you have asserted generalizations on the basis of exception, resulting in disagreement and correction by not just Elizabeth but other posters as well.

As pointed out, your posts suggest that gay unions and gay ‘parenting’ are benign on the whole, or are producing good instead of harm to the next generations of families in society. And to muddle the debate, you bring to the forefront the high divorce rate and mention neighbors who make up the poster dysfunctional and broken family. You argue the best case of gay unions to the worst case of heterosexual marriage. By your views, you justify error and perpetuation of sin, because you say, in effect, that the Church and Catholics should just mind the front door by solving the failure of heterosexual marriages, but should leave the back door open through which the insidious twin gay activist causes of pseudo marriage and parenting would bring ill and chaos to the house just the same. Bad logic. A losing strategy.

The Church wants the front and back doors secure and all Catholics are called to help. It is obvious that some are undermining Church teachings wittingly or unwittingly.
,

 

[Charlemagne_II]

InSearch

The Church wants the front and back doors secure and all Catholics are called to help. It is obvious that some are undermining Church teachings wittingly or unwittingly.

Very often more wittingly than unwittingly.

I have noticed that shallow thinkers often want to make up for their shallowness by taking absurd positions to draw attention to themselves, as if making themselves targets of the orthodox Catholics somehow elevates their importance in the grand scheme of things.

It doesn’t. All they earn is low esteem and high reproof.

Look at Nancy Pelosi or the president of Notre Dame.

Or Sister Elizabeth Johnson.
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[Eugenius]

It is extremely clear that you do not understand the basis for Catholic teaching on homosexual parenting and homosexual “marriage,” because you continue to state that proportionality is involved (relative to heterosexual divorce rate, relative to imperfect cases of heterosexual parenting). You want to relativize the discussion; the Church, OTOH, stands for the absolute principle of heterosexual marriage exclusively and heterosexual parenting exclusively, both as an absolute theoretical standard and an absolute practical necessity.

It is beyond me how you continue to misrepresent what I’ve said. We would probably see more eye to eye over a cup of coffee and discuss it in person.

 

[Elizabeth502]

It is beyond me how you continue to misrepresent what I’ve said.

I have taken care to do quite the opposite. In two long posts I reveal precisely what you say, by quoting your words exactly, for you and others to view how you communicate. If you did not mean that sometimes homosexual “marriage” should be OK because (a) many heterosexuals have bad marriages, or (b) you know a couple of nice guys, or (c) you have heard bad information about AIDS, or (d) the Catholic Church, in your view (though Catholic yourself) spends too much money against gay marriage versus supposedly taking responsibility for the millions of bad marriages on the globe, or (d) homosexual adoption is supposedly sometimes OK, because you know about some bad heterosexual parenting somewhere…

Then you should correct these views that you have stated repeatedly in the several posts in which I quote only you.

Because, as it stands, your views are not, repeat not, in compliance with what the Catechism teaches, and with what your bishops have informed you – on links I provided – you should support and not support regarding public policy. It doesn’t matter how often you restate the phrase, “I agree with the Catechism.” Your statements reveal quite the opposite. The links I’ve provided, and quoted, including those from the Vatican itself, interpret that catechism, and you are bound, as a Catholic, to inform your conscience regarding how the Pope and the rest of the hierarchy authentically interpret that catechism.

We would probably see more eye to eye over a cup of coffee and discuss it in person.

Normally I might even agree with such an offer, but probably not when a person tells me I am “a ten-year-old” and “a hound from Hell.” Name-calling is the refuge for those who have lost the debate, or are not interested in congeniality.

 

[Eugenius]

The fact is you have asserted generalizations on the basis of exception, resulting in disagreement and correction by not just Elizabeth but other posters as well.

As pointed out, your posts suggest that gay unions and gay ‘parenting’ are benign on the whole, or are producing good instead of harm to the next generations of families in society. And to muddle the debate, you bring to the forefront the high divorce rate and mention neighbors who make up the poster dysfunctional and broken family. You argue the best case of gay unions to the worst case of heterosexual marriage. By your views, you justify error and perpetuation of sin, because you say, in effect, that the Church and Catholics should just mind the front door by solving the failure of heterosexual marriages, but should leave the back door open through which the insidious twin gay activist causes of pseudo marriage and parenting would bring ill and chaos to the house just the same. Bad logic. A losing strategy.

The Church wants the front and back doors secure and all Catholics are called to help. It is obvious that some are undermining Church teachings wittingly or unwittingly.
,

Odd how talking about strengthening marriage is “muddling.” I guess I’ll never understand how we can talk about “marriage” but not talk about marriage. But thanks for agreeing with what I said in an earlier post about needing to protect traditional marriage on all fronts! I obviously agree with you 100%.

It is obvious that people are up in arms because I portrayed a young man being brought up by two men in a positive light. Since we aren’t allowed to talk about…shhh, “exceptions”… what do we do with them when we find them? The situation I described is very real. We live in a city where under 50% of the kids graduate from school. Unemployment among them is high. There are problems with violence, drugs, guns and prostitution. Of those that graduate only something like 4% go on to college. For any kid to come through all that with good grades, a good job, good wife and kids…well it is difficult not to hold him up as an example. Yet I am supposed to tell everyone about all the harm he is doing to society when almost every night of the week I hear gunshots from somewhere in the city? I met this young man after he was married and no longer living with his uncle, so I did not personally witness his upbringing. I never said that I approved of gay marriage. So seriously, what am I supposed to say about this young man that won’t result in me being accused of something?

 

[Eugenius]

Then you should correct these views that you have stated repeatedly in the several posts in which I quote only you.

You got it.

Normally I might even agree with such an offer, but probably not when a person tells me I am “a ten-year-old” and “a hound from Hell.” Name-calling is the refuge for those who have lost the debate, or are not interested in congeniality.

Yeah me too. It goes both ways.

 

[zach_dunn]

Odd how talking about strengthening marriage is “muddling.” I guess I’ll never understand how we can talk about “marriage” but not talk about marriage. But thanks for agreeing with what I said in an earlier post about needing to protect traditional marriage on all fronts! I obviously agree with you 100%.

It is obvious that people are up in arms because I portrayed a young man being brought up by two men in a positive light. Since we aren’t allowed to talk about…shhh, “exceptions”… what do we do with them when we find them? The situation I described is very real. We live in a city where under 50% of the kids graduate from school. Unemployment among them is high. There are problems with violence, drugs, guns and prostitution. Of those that graduate only something like 4% go on to college. For any kid to come through all that with good grades, a good job, good wife and kids…well it is difficult not to hold him up as an example. Yet I am supposed to tell everyone about all the harm he is doing to society when almost every night of the week I hear gunshots from somewhere in the city? I met this young man after he was married and no longer living with his uncle, so I did not personally witness his upbringing. I never said that I approved of gay marriage. So seriously, what am I supposed to say about this young man that won’t result in me being accused of something?

I have a question for you then. Do you oppose this young man’s upbringing by a homosexual couple as immoral?

 

[Eugenius]

I have a question for you then. Do you oppose this young man’s upbringing by a homosexual couple as immoral?

He had an immoral upbringing and then went on to do well in school, get married, have children, have a good job, etc. Now what?