How to Respond Gracefully - Gay Friend Getting Married

[27lw]

There is no problem. We are not forbidden from eating with sinners. If we were, we could not ever share a meal with anyone.

Is there a difference between someone who is pushing the boundaries, or someone who is a “garden variety” sinner?
It seems to me that at a certain point, you have to accept that being Catholic is counter-cultural. I personally find it difficult to be actual close friends with someone who has different bedrock moral values than I do. Acquaintances / co-workers, yes, close friends, not really.
People who are okay with gay “marriage” have different bedrock moral values than serious Catholics, I think.

 

[phil19034]

Despite being a Catholic, I don’t have anything against gay marriage. This is the only area of conflict I find myself in Catholicism. My sexual orientation is straight but I don’t understand it why one human loving another of the same sex should be a sin. But then, I’m not God and these are beyond my understanding.

Sorry, if I’ve offended fellow Catholic members.

Well, part of the problem here is modern people are mistaken when they think marriage is primarily about love. It isn’t. It’s about the creation and rearing of children.

Love & companionship are secondary. One doesn’t have to be married to seek out love & companionship. Additionally, one doesn’t have to be in a sexual relationship in order to have love & companionship.

Loving another person of the same sex is not a sin. I hope all people who experience same sex attraction can experience love (if they desire it). Sexual activity is the sin, because the purpose of sex is the creation of children.

In reality, this is very similar to the divorced & “remarried” (without an annulment). We Catholics should not be celebrating such “weddings” either.

“Same sex marriage” and divorce & “remarriage” (without annulment) both advertise to the world & celebrate that the couple plans to engage in “community sanctioned” sexual intercourse. After all, that’s why sex is often called the “marital act.”

A person who is divorced & “remarried” (without annulment) commits adultery every single time they engage in sexual intercourse & activity.

A person who is in a “same sex marriage” commits sodomy every single time they engage in sexual intercourse (not to mention other homosexual acts).

Furthermore: we need to remember that sodomy is a sin that BOTH hetrosexual couples & homosexual couples can commit. Sodomy between two hetrosexual couples is equally as sinful, even in a valid marriage. The difference though, is because of biology, hetrosexual couples can engage in sexual intercourse naturally - without sodomy. While homosexual couples cannot engage in sexual intercourse without sodomy.

Finally, all sexual acts (whether intercourse or not) are sinful when performed outside a valid marriage. Therefore, we should not celebrate ANY “marriage” that results in only sinful sexual activity.

 

[TMC]

People who are okay with gay “marriage” have different bedrock moral values than serious Catholics, I think.

How so?

8910

 

[fide]

There are levels of hell, fitting for the levels of evil that are possible - the degrees of mortal sin that are possible. And thus the importance of the call to sexual purity is more or less grave, for different kinds of sexual impurity.

Opposite-sex adultery is gravely wrong, but even worse is same-sex adultery - because same-sex activity, in addition to a violation of the sacred intention of (normal) marriage, also is a violation of the natural conjugal order of human sexuality: man was designed and intended for woman, and woman for man. Even worse still than (usual) homosexual activity is homosexual sexual union involving also the embrace of gender ideology that we see today, with men rejecting their masculinity and engaging in sexual activity that is inappropriate. Gender ideology rejects not only the natural law and the natural order, but the human nature itself, as expressed biologically as man or woman.

The rebellion of modern man against God continues to deepen and escalate. The teachings of Fatima express the obvious importance of sexual fidelity - and thus the danger and gravity of sexual sins. Fatima taught that “More are condemned to hell for sexual sins, than for any other.” We are more vulnerable to sexual sins, than for doctrinal ones, I suppose. For this reason, it is extremely important that we in the modern West - if not the whole modern world, must become more aware of the singular importance of the virtues of (sexual) purity - chastity, whether in the married state or single, whether celibate clergy or unmarried or married lay persons.

 

[phil19034]

There are levels of hell, fitting for the levels of evil that are possible - the degrees of mortal sin that are possible. And thus the importance of the call to sexual purity is more or less grave, for different kinds of sexual impurity.

Yes, I know. However, this doesn’t mean that we should be making excuses for adultery and fornication.

Besides, I don’t think you can argue that adultery is a lesser sin than homosexual acts. Adultery is specifically mentioned in the Ten Commandments, and adultery hurts the spouse, the children, other family members, etc. Adultery is not just a private sin, it’s a sin against the family and community.

My point isn’t that we are too hard on same-sex marriage. My point is that we are too easy on adultery and fornication.

People will simply think we are bigoted against homosexuals if our actions are not consistent.

For example:

• If a Catholic school teacher enters into a “same sex marriage” they should be fired. AND
• If a Catholic school teacher enters into an “opposite sex marriage” that the Church doesn’t recognize, they should be fired too (note: I might give them the opportunity to regularize it, but if they won’t or can’t, then they need to be fired.)

The only difference between same-sex “marriage” & invalid / unlawful opposite sex “marriages” is that the “ssm” is in obvious disregard to Catholic teaching, while the invalid/unlawful opposite sex “marriage” can be hidden.

My point: we focus too much on their differences, while we should be focusing more on their sinful similarities.

In my opinion, the main reason we have same-sex marriage today is because far too many Christians made excuses for adulterous & other invalid/unlawful “marriages.”

 

[F_Marturana]

I’m not sure many gay people decide to stop being gay when their friends tell them they can no longer be their friends.

 

[redbetta]

I think what that poster meant was living the lifestyle.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

There is no problem. We are not forbidden from eating with sinners. If we were, we could not ever share a meal with anyone.

Not even with ourselves. (I speak first and foremost for me.)

My guess is the friendship will not hold up anyhow. You may already suspect that. What will you do in two years time when they hire their sperm donor? And after their kids are born, you will still feel uncomfortable. They may raise their children with no gender expectations, or not even assign them a gender at birth, allowing them to choose that later. Or call their daughters Hunter and Parker and raise them as boys. You’ll show up at the baby showers with pink nighties as gifts, and they’ll quietly place them aside.

Seems to me that if you don’t go to the wedding then you shouldn’t buy a present. Or send any congratulations. And quite possibly not visit them in their home or invite them into yours. If they have children then the same things apply. Wouldn’t any contact be a sign of approval?

There don’t appear to be any half measures available here.

Life in the messy, imperfect real world consists of “half measures” all the time. The wedding, no. “Congratulations” per se, no, but there are ways to nuance that, so that you do not actually approve of the wedding nor the relationship, but you wish the people all the best. If they want to interpret that as “oh, so you are okay with our lesbian marriage, right?”, then that’s on them. If they want to take the conversation a bit further and say “all right, let’s get this straight (no pun intended), you wouldn’t come to our wedding, but then here you are wishing us all the best, aren’t you talking out of both corners of your mouth?”, then that opens the door to (a) affirm the friendship and (b) explain why not being able to approve of behaviors is different from loving them as people. Visiting one another’s homes is a manifestation of friendship, not approval of lifestyle. And any children who get dragged into this mess are innocent and didn’t have any say-so on who their legal and/or biological parents were. They shouldn’t be punished or stigmatized for what their parents did.

If a couple (gay or straight) is raising their children as “theybies”, gender-free, you could always take neutral gifts. I can’t even begin to say how abominable I find this — doing such a thing to innocent children — but the operative word here is “innocent”. It’s their parents who are to blame, not the babies.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

In reality, this is very similar to the divorced & “remarried” (without an annulment). We Catholics should not be celebrating such “weddings” either.

“Same sex marriage” annd divorce & “remarriage” (without annulment) both advertise to the world & celebrate that the couple plans to engage in “community sanctioned” sexual intercourse. After all, that’s what sex is often called the “marital act.”

A person who is divorced & “remarried” (without annulment) commits adultery every single time they engage in sexual intercourse & activity.

How true. I do not attend “remarriages” of Catholics without annulments either.

Would attending the wedding of a heterosexual person who has been divorced and is now re-marrying be acceptable if they are not Catholic?

As for non-Catholics — and there is no nice way to say this — very often, in spite of what the Church says about non-Catholic marriages being assumed valid until proven otherwise, non-Catholic marriage situations are impossibly tangled (we are quickly following suit), with sometimes multiple marriages and divorces in each spouse’s past. As long as there is no question of valid Catholic marriages in that stew, I would just go ahead and attend, and let God sort it all out. They don’t even begin to comprehend that a judge’s gavel doesn’t dissolve a marriage and free the spouses to find new partners (many times they’ve already done that). And I also submit that they don’t even begin to comprehend the idea of a marriage that binds for life, no matter what. Just ask one of them “all right, let’s say it’s five years from now, your spouse takes a knock on the head, it totally changes their personality, and they become a serial killer and get sentenced to life in prison — are you able to get a divorce and marry someone else, or aren’t you?”. I think it’s obvious what pretty much anybody outside the Catholic Church would say (and, sadly, far too many within it).

I don’t get invited to that many weddings. Our family isn’t that social, and our extended family is long since dispersed. Guess I’m kind of a loner. (Or maybe they just think I’m a knuckle-dragging troglodyte jerk who lives back in the Dark Ages.)

 

[Welshrabbit]

As long as there is no question of valid Catholic marriages in that stew, I would just go ahead and attend, and let God sort it all out.

I’m inclined to agree with you HSD.

I guess what I don’t understand is why from a Church’s teaching standpoint, it would be okay to attend such a ceremony and not a same-sex “wedding.”

For example: I have a brother and my wife has a brother. My brother is divorced and is planning to “marry” another woman. Her brother is planning on “marrying” another man. None of the parties involved are Catholic.

Why would it be permissible to attend one but not the other? Is it because there is a chance (however slim) that the heterosexual couple may someday “normalize” their marriage in the eyes of the Church and it is impossible for the homosexual couple to do so?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

As long as there is no question of valid Catholic marriages in that stew, I would just go ahead and attend, and let God sort it all out.

I’m inclined to agree with you HSD.

I guess what I don’t understand is why from a Church’s teaching standpoint, it would be okay to attend such a ceremony and not a same-sex “wedding.”

For example: I have a brother and my wife has a brother. My brother is divorced and is planning to “marry” another woman. Her brother is planning on “marrying” another man. None of the parties involved are Catholic.

Why would it be permissible to attend one but not the other?

Because a heterosexual wedding, even if it turns out to be invalid, is within the order of nature, and consummating it doesn’t involve an abomination. Homosexual weddings are another thing entirely.

I suppose it is hypothetically possible for a gay couple to wish to get married, but for some reason they cannot or do not have any sort of sexual relations — they just want to have a home together, and possibly they are imbued enough with traditional Christian morality, that they realize, in spite of their mutual attraction, anything they “do” will be mortally sinful, and they will exchange no physical affections that a brother and sister wouldn’t exchange. In short, a Josephite same-sex marriage. I guess it’s possible — I have heard that some lesbian couples eventually stop having sex — but it would be the exception, rather than the rule, especially for young couples.

 

[Welshrabbit]

Because a heterosexual wedding, even if it turns out to be invalid, is within the order of nature, and consummating it doesn’t involve an abomination. Homosexual weddings are another thing entirely.

So because homosexual sex is classified as an abomination and heterosexual sex outside of valid marriage is not, attendance at one would be permissible for a Catholic and attendance at the other would not?

I’m not being argumentative, I’m just failing to see the difference. If one is an endorsement of sin, the other is as well.

 

[fide]

Well, let’s compare bad apples with worse apples: Is a man who commits adultery with a woman on a different level of sin, from a man who commits adultery with another man? I would argue that yes, the homosexual crime is worse than the opposite-sex crime, because one is different by way of the additional sin of homosexuality, going against God’s design and intention in the created gift of sexual union.

St. Paul is certainly not arguing “equivalence” of sin, in his teachings

Rom 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
Rom 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
Rom 1:27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
Rom 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
Rom 1:29 They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom 1:32 Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.

But I agree with your point: we should be focusing more on their sinful similarities.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Because a heterosexual wedding, even if it turns out to be invalid, is within the order of nature, and consummating it doesn’t involve an abomination. Homosexual weddings are another thing entirely.

So because homosexual sex is classified as an abomination and heterosexual sex outside of valid marriage is not, attendance at one would be permissible for a Catholic and attendance at the other would not?

I’m not being argumentative, I’m just failing to see the difference. If one is an endorsement of sin, the other is as well.

No, I am saying that in the modern world, with all of the motley past that so many spouses, especially those beyond a certain age, bring to the altar in non-Catholic weddings, it is almost impossible sometimes to ascertain “which of those marriages, if any, would the Catholic Church regard as the ‘real’ one?”. I don’t think we’re called upon to be walking marriage tribunals, especially where non-Catholics are concerned. It’s like separating spaghetti and sauce! (Fun fact: anyone, even two non-Catholics, can approach the Catholic Church to declare on the validity or invalidity of their marriages. I didn’t know that until fairly recently.)

With gay marriage, there can be no question of validity, nor whether the “spouses” are “free to marry”. Moreover, in a run-of-the-mill gay marriage, the various “conjugal” acts will be sodomitical abominations. The sin of Sodom (which, some say, includes the pride and inhospitability of the residents of Sodom, as well as unnatural sex) is one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. Fornication and adultery, evil as they are, do not.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Well, let’s compare bad apples with worse apples: Is a man who commits adultery with a woman on a different level of sin, from a man who commits adultery with another man? I would argue that yes, the homosexual crime is worse than the opposite-sex crime, because one is different by way of the additional sin of homosexuality, going against God’s design and intention in the created gift of sexual union.

St. Paul is certainly not arguing “equivalence” of sin, in his teachings

Rom 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
Rom 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,
Rom 1:27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
Rom 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
Rom 1:29 They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom 1:32 Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.

This. Ditto.

The Word of God says what it says, and there is absolutely no “wiggle room” in these passages.

 

[goout]

“a housewarming gift” sounds like an endorsement of their new “home together”, to me…

It is also simple kindness.

 

[fide]

“a housewarming gift” sounds like an endorsement of their new “home together”, to me…
and in itself, is also lacking in more important expressions of Christian concern that reflect God’s intentions and will for His creations, human persons.

 

[Welshrabbit]

I see your point…we don’t know which one of the heterosexual marriages would be considered valid and which ones would not.

I really wish the powers that be would just come out and give a direct answer as to which ceremonies are permissible to attend which ones are not.

 

[phil19034]

Well, let’s compare bad apples with worse apples: Is a man who commits adultery with a woman on a different level of sin, from a man who commits adultery with another man?

If a man is cheating on his wife with another man, than yes (one has to be married in order to commit adultery)

St. Paul is certainly not arguing “equivalence” of sin, in his teachings

I am NOT arguing for “equivalence” of sin. I know there are different levels.

My argument is that no where in the Bible or Catholic teaching does it say which is worse (sodomy vs adultery). They are BOTH bad and should be BOTH CONDEMNED equally.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

“a housewarming gift” sounds like an endorsement of their new “home together”, to me…
and in itself, is also lacking in more important expressions of Christian concern that reflect God’s intentions and will for His creations, human persons.

The gift is what it is. What one calls it is rather beside the point.

I really wish the powers that be would just come out and give a direct answer as to which ceremonies are permissible to attend which ones are not.

Perhaps because there is no “one size fits all”, and each situation is different. Unless one wishes to be very absolutist, there is a world of difference between a parent being forced to attend the “wedding” of their gay son to another man, or else the gay son will never allow the parent to see their grandchildren again (ditto for an invalid heterosexual marriage, mutatis mutandis), and someone who is making the broad assumption that they are going to invite me, to cajole me into admitting, implicitly, “there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, and I am going to put your wishes above the teaching of the magisterium concerning marriages such as yours”.

I have found that, very often, people who are contemplating courses of action, and lifestyles, that are at variance with Catholic teaching, are absolutely frantic to get a Catholic to “go along with them”, and to condone what they’re doing — as though they are trying to get a “vote of confidence” and to be able to say “see there, everybody, even HomeschoolDad approves of what I’m doing, so there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with it, right?”. In such cases, I have to think that their issue isn’t with you, or with me, but with God Himself and His clear commandments. They’re desperate to get a “free pass” to do what they know, deep in their heart of hearts, is wrong.