How to respond to a religiously active person with a same sex spouse / partner

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Lillypilly said:
Why should he need to know better.
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Meaning that some religions “allow” for persons to be sexually active outside of marriage .RC isn’t one of them. It’s no secret.

The other things you mention are outside of the scope of this thread. You may start a thread to address them if you like.
 
Unless they are having sex and explicitly telling you about their sex life, then there shouldn’t be a problem, to begin with. There are many things that you as a Christian can affirm about a same-sex relationship, even if aspects are disordered, according to Catholic teaching.

Saying this will be shocking to some in the CAF crowd, but it simply represents reality. The real world is messy and complicated. It’s never just black and white. Proceed in a friendly manner, and know that they already probably know how Catholics consider their same-sex relationship, for instance.
 
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Did Jesus consent to sin when he dined with tax collectors and prostitutes? No.

The first step is to be kind, loving, to treat them like any other people.

WHEN you have established a relationship it WILL eventually come up and then you can kindly, gently, with charity explain your position. If done well and with love, they will accept your position, explain theirs and you will agree to disagree.

If you handle it poorly, they will reject your position and you.

I have many gay friends, trans friends and fornicating friends. They ALL know my position but they didn’t come to know my position until after a long period of growing in love and comraderie. When I eventually told them my position they accepted it and were not offended because they knew first that I loved them and second that I believe certain actions and lifestyles are sinful.

My gay friends and atheist friends came to my confirmation because they support me as a human being even if they disagree with my beliefs and I afford them the same grace.

Live the faith. The best and biggest thing you can do for lost souls is to love them and live the faith. Stop worrying so much about preaching and forcing others to respect your beliefs and worry more about loving them where they are, building relationships, and gently offering instruction when/where the spirit prompts.

PS: If they know you are Catholic, they will have an inkling of your beliefs. There is no need to bring it up right away or to clarify it with them until a relationship is formed.
 
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MockSock:
“She’s a very attractive young woman”
“Actually, I’m more interested in men. You’re a Catholic, why do all Catholics hate gay people?”
[/quote]

This is where you can get creative.
“We hate the gays because…”
😉
 
on_the_hill said:
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MockSock:
“She’s a very attractive young woman”
“Actually, I’m more interested in men. You’re a Catholic, why do all Catholics hate gay people?”
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This is where you can get creative.
“We hate the gays because…”
😉
[/quote]

I’ll add to my reply:
“…they lisp.”
“…Steven Sondheim ruined the genre of Broadway musicals.”
“…I despise track lighting.”
“…they took the word ‘gay’ from us.”
“…they took the rainbow from us.”
“…women seem to like their kind more.”
“…Liberace.”
 
If these are adults of normal mental capacity who have had exposure to society (not been raised in a very insular sect), they already know the Catholic Church’s stand.

You simply need to be loving and kind.
 
I don’t mean to start a whole argument, but I am just curious which religions ‘allow’ for people to be sexually active outside of marriage? I’m just not aware of any. (Not that I want to convert to any of those.)
 
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Well that’s the last straw: defamation of Liberace! I saw his act once at Atlantic City and he put on a great show.
 
A lot of the Protestant denominations and (I think ) some Jewish congregations, groups like the UU, that I can think up on the top of my head
 
Well the thread has gotten far less bizarre since yesterday. Maybe I needed to clarify that I’m looking for general advice and not a specific response to a real life event.

It depends heavily on who you are with, but some crowds of people DO NOT have filters when it comes to where a conversation might go, and you run into the occasional person that deliberately likes to talk about political things because they sit at home and yell at the news every night, etc. I had an experience as a fresh post-undergraduate where I worked with four vindictive gray-haired liberal Christian New England women for a year and they constantly talked about whatever they felt like and in more than 50% of the conversations they nosedived like blood-thirsty falcons into sensitive subjects. Maybe they aren’t explicitly asking for your point of view, but you’re basically forced to A) sit there and grin like an idiot, which I’m not convinced is morally okay, B) dodge the conversation, or C) at some point, you just need to give your thoughts.

For those who haven’t had these experiences in life: kudos.

Thank you for the reponses.
 
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TK421 said:
you run into the occasional person that deliberately likes to talk about political things because they sit at home and yell at the news every night,
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Unless your job is with a political organization or a news organization, these types of people are best avoided in a workplace. I realize maybe you were in a situation where you couldn’t avoid it, but in normal non-political non-news workplaces, these kind of folks often come off as having anger management issues or otherwise unhealthy or weird. Work colleagues often just don’t want to be around them, except for the one or two colleagues who agree with the ranter’s views and want to spend time together ranting about the same stuff. In a lot of big corporate workplaces, discussions about religious or gender or sexual orientation issues can also get you disciplined by HR or maybe even fired.

Assuming that your workplace wasn’t a political or news organization, that situation you describe with the four New England women would to me be a hostile work environment and I would not want to engage with any of those people. I’m not so much concerned with “morally okay” as I would be with just surviving until I could get a job transfer or just find a new job. In this day and age where angry people at work might show up tomorrow with a gun, it’s better to err on the side of caution.
 
I work in a group.of eight people. Six out of the eight are very vocal about their liberal views and talk about the news on a daily basis. I don’t think that some people on this thread realize how outnumbered and isolated some of us feel on an everyday basis. Trust me, lots of people openly talk politics at work. You are lucky if this is not your experience.
 
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TK421 said:
I had an experience as a fresh post-undergraduate where I worked with four vindictive gray-haired liberal Christian New England women for a year and they constantly talked about whatever they felt like and in more than 50% of the conversations they nosedived like blood-thirsty falcons into sensitive subjects. Maybe they aren’t explicitly asking for your point of view, but you’re basically forced to A) sit there and grin like an idiot, which I’m not convinced is morally okay, B) dodge the conversation, or C) at some point, you just need to give your thoughts.
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What exactly do you consider to be sensitive subjects? Would it be a sensitive subject, for example, if a co-worker mentioned that their nephew is getting married to another man and that they will be attending the wedding?
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
I work in a group.of eight people. Six out of the eight are very vocal about their liberal views and talk about the news on a daily basis. I don’t think that some people on this thread realize how outnumbered and isolated some of us feel on an everyday basis. Trust me, lots of people openly talk politics at work. You are lucky if this is not your experience.
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I, too, have this problem. I have been successful thus far in making my views known and in being left alone. However, one supervisor I had some years ago informed me that my Christmas nativity scene would have to be taken down due to its religious nature. I informed her that I would be happy to do so, so long as it was an across-the-board restriction so that the many elaborate Buddhist and Islamic displays on view in the office were also removed. I heard no more on the subject. I am apprehensive, however, about the gender pronoun issue. There are a number of transgender people where I work, and the Agency’s leadership are liberal to a fault. So far I have managed to skirt catastrophe in my daily duties, and I am hoping this continues. As a faithful Catholic who is rather more on the conservative side than otherwise, however, I can’t help feeling there is a target on my back in my particular work environment.
 
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TK421 said:
I would be perfectly happy to relocate to the alien planet you and TechieGuy live on where political topics never come up in discussions between adults.
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I also have never had a gay person ask me anything about their living arrangements or sexual practices. I’m 58 and been involved in parish ministry for quite a while.
 
kill051 said:
I am apprehensive, however, about the gender pronoun issue. There are a number of transgender people where I work, and the Agency’s leadership are liberal to a fault. So far I have managed to skirt catastrophe in my daily duties, and I am hoping this continues. As a faithful Catholic who is rather more on the conservative side than otherwise, however, I can’t help feeling there is a target on my back in my particular work environment.
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This is something where I don’t understand why it’s an issue at all. Just out of politeness and kindness, I would address someone in whatever way they want to be addressed, especially in a work environment where I’m going to have to interact with this person. If someone said that their name is Bob and that’s the name they prefer to be called by, I wouldn’t insist on calling them Robert. And if a trans-man wants to be called “he”, that’s the pronoun I’d use in talking about him to other colleagues. There are way too many other more important issues in life to be worried about than what pronoun someone wants to be addressed with.
 
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