D
Dorothy
Guest
Thank you for your post CBinNY! With the Lord all things are possible. His grace is available to those who will receive it.
- Status
H
Hope_Philomena
Guest
Thank you all for your replies, many of your words have helped me greatly. But I know that some questions I have will never be answered.
You must understand… I just wish for my friend to be happy, and I’d do anything to make him smile. We all must make sacrifices, though, ones within reason.
Again, thank you guys
You must understand… I just wish for my friend to be happy, and I’d do anything to make him smile. We all must make sacrifices, though, ones within reason.
Again, thank you guys
S
Scottgun
Guest
You are missing my point. It’s not to equate all those things. Rather it is to show that “love” is ambiguous terminology that is often used to fog the central issue. Almost no one says they did something out of hate, but plenty of people do awful things and claim they did it out of love.
Because the pleasure is a secondary effect of sex, not the purpose. Anytime one places secondary things in front of primary things, we call it disordered. Bear in mind we’re not just picking on homosexuals. Other grave misuses of sex are masturbation, fornication (heterosexual sex outside of marriage), pornography, and heterosexual acts between married couples that are contraceptive or degrading to the dignity of human beings. In fact, heterosexuals share most of the blame for the abandonment of God’s will because abortion, contraception, cohabitation have all contributed to this race to the bottom of which homosexuality is just the latest mile marker.
The bonding IS an essential element, but it cannot be divorced from the procreative aspect with poisoning both. Now, let head off a common objection at the pass. Some people like to trot out the fact that infertile heterosexual couples can get married, so why not anyone else? This is because infertile couples are still ordered toward procreation whether it results in children or not. It’s kinda like how a football team is still ordered toward playing and winning football games even if they lose every game they play.
Our Lord is merciful, but He is also truthful. And He tells us: “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
H
Hope_Philomena
Guest
Why should the football team remain a team if they know they will lose every time?
Aren’t some people ordered toward an attraction for certain sexes, something genetic? If so, then why should those people stop playing their respective “football games” even if it’s the natural thing for them to do? Why are some natural things wrong, and other natural things right?
R
Rob_Arnzen
Guest
Hold hell for a moment while we take a look at the Church’s teaching.
The Church, following in Christ’s footsteps, teaches that the proper use of our sexual organs is only morally permissible within a valid marriage by a husband and a wife.
This precludes the practices of same sex relations, masturbation, fornication, adultery, and so on.
The Church also teaches that same sex attraction is “intrinsically disordered”, that is, it is an inclination contrary to God’s law, similar to other attractions to immoral activity such as kleptomania, pyromania, and other inclinations to immorality.
All of us have some inclination to sin, and this is just another one.
Now to hell - unlike some of our Protestant brothers, the Church teaches that the culpability for sin involves knowledge and freedom of the will. That is, in order to sin you have to (1) know it is a sin and (2) despite that freely choose to do it.
So, if you do something which you do not believe is a sin through complete ignorance, we do not believe God - who is infinitely just - will condemn you to a punishment.
In addition if you know it is a sin, but do not have free will or your free will is impaired, God will take that into account. Someone who is under a compulsion from a mental illness, for example, or under duress is not as culpable as someone who simply decides that they would like to commit this particular sin and literally “to hell with it”.
So, how many - if any - “gay people going to hell for being with someone they love” is something only God Himself knows.
The Church recognizes that we are all sinners. This is a pilgrim Church on a journey through a sea of trials. So the Church offers the Sacrament of Penance in which we can seek spiritual counsel, forgiveness, and sustenance to aid is in our race to meet God.
As to being happy, it would hardly make one happy to violate God’s laws for whatever pleasure it brings us, and then merit punishment in the next world for doing so. This life is short, that life is eternal, and doing the hard things is what we must do in this life. Jesus said “If you love me you will keep my commandments”.
We cannot purport to wish to see someone happy and then assist them or endorse them in doing things which take them away from their ultimate happiness and goal - which is God Himself.
.
D
DeniseNY
Guest
Thank you for sharing this
P
Prodigal_Son
Guest
Because we have a fallen nature. Thus, we naturally desire to take other people’s stuff, we naturally desire sex without consequences, and we naturally desire to gossip. Natural desires are not a good guide to behavior.
R
Rob_Arnzen
Guest
Among the other things Jesus never said a thing about are fornication, Ponzi schemes, and slavery.
Catholics do not subscribe to a literalist interpretation that requires a proof text for every moral conclusion.
The other sources of morality are the Natural Law, tradition, and the law written in the hearts of every human.
Jesus did say that God made us man and woman, and that the two should become one. That pretty much summarizes what the Catholic Church teaches about sex relations.
.
S
Scottgun
Guest
Right. I would also add that Our Lord does say something indirectly about homosexuality when he speaks of the punishment meted out to Sodom and Gemmorah without any hedging about it. Usually at this point someone squawks that these towns were actually destroyed for “inhospitality”, but they are out to lunch.
H
Hope_Philomena
Guest
That did not really answer my question… Why is it that some natural desires, such as a woman wanting to be with a man, a good thing, while others, a man with a man, are bad desires? Some desires seem to be part of that fallen nature, but then others don’t seem to be.
S
Scottgun
Guest
I think you are laboring the analogy. The point is that there is a major difference between an couple infertile through no fault of their own, and homosexual “couples” which are barren by nature. Barren isn’t even the right word because it implies that somehow it would normally be fruitful. You can’t even really call what homosexuals do “sex”. It might more accurately called mutual masturbation. This is why offenses against Chastity are in way a form of idolatry, with the idol being the Self.
If we accept that same-sex attraction is genetic (which isn’t settled science, and anyone that tells you is full of it) it is still irrelevant. Let’s say I had a genetic disposition toward rage. Does that mean I get to punch a guy in the face who cuts me off in traffic? Of course not. And not just because it’s illegal, but it is actually immoral in and of itself.
A discussion of why people have certain desires is interesting, but really tangential to the topic at hand, because we can know the rightness or wrongness of chosen acts. To wit: a disposition or desire to do something is not a justification for doing it.
What is really is astounding is how people are willing to barter away their dignity as a human being in order to defend eveyone’s immediate urges of the genitalia. The two excuses for homosexual acts I always hear are: 1. It’s genetic or I’m born this way and 2. We can find examples of homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom, therefore, it’s natural. Listen to what they are really saying: I’m either a robot slave programmed by my genetics, or I am an animal. This is a degraded view of Man and demonstrates how low people will sink in order to rationalize wicked acts.
P
PietroPaolo
Guest
Other posters have done a nice job covering this issue, I’ll simply ask why you are so sure homosexual sex is not immoral. It was only a few years ago that basically no one (including our “first gay president”) supported “same sex marriage” and only a few decades before that that no one would have publicly argued for an equivalency between the life giving love of a man and a woman with the intrinsically sterile sexual acts of two men or two women. Might you, perhaps, be caught up in the political and cultural tsunami that is the “gay rights movement”? Might this movement, fueled by a complete misunderstanding of what sex is for, perhaps be wrong and the 2,000 year old Church (backed by God Himself) be right? Just Something to consider.
crystal_waters
New member
Heres a link which may answer some of your questions
www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_014.htm
www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_014.htm
C
clintonm
Guest
Not sure what you are asking here. But there are bonds beyond wins and losses that hold a team together. However, if they “know” they are going to lose every time why would they still play the game? They should find some other way to reach fulfillment because they are lousy at football. I am going to assume that this is a metaphor for homosexual conduct. Meaning that a football team still plays even if they lose, so a homosexual couple should have sex even if they are going to hell. They should find some other means of fulfillment.
So you are saying a genetic test, or blood test can identify me as 100% gay or straight? That is interesting, because I have never heard that claim before. If there is no way to test for something genetically then how can it be genetic? Real genetic abnormalities can be identified and either coped with or treated.
Who says homosexuality is natural? If it was the natural means of human behavior there would be no species.
P
Prodigal_Son
Guest
The short answer is this: because of their consequences. So, for example, insofar as I have followed where my sexual attraction to men has led me, it has resulted in me being miserable. I can’t speak to other people’s experiences, and I’m happy to let them live their own lives. There’s no reason you have to judge your friend.
By the way, I deny that a man wanting to be with a man is a bad desire. The intimacy two men can share is a good thing, and there’s nothing wrong with a man desiring it. But this intimacy does not become deeper or more meaningful through sexual contact. Having gay sex in order to deepen a close friendship is kind of like putting horseradish on dessert in order to make it sweeter. That’s not what gay sex does.
R
Rob_Arnzen
Guest
The answer is in defining “natural” correctly.
“Natural” in a moral sense means comporting with the Natural Law, doing that which is proper to the nature of mankind. For example, seeking God is natural, avoiding murder is natural, adversion to incest is natural.
In the 20th century, particularly due to the rise of Freud and other purveyors of mind monkey twaddle, the notion arose that pyromania is “natural”, incest is “natural”, and an inclination towards some sex is “natural”.
Obviously because of the imprecision of English, which generally requires a context in order to be understood, we’re using “natural” in two different senses.
It is unnatural, it is intrinsically disordered, to seek same sex sexual relations.
We know this first of all from revelation and second of all from the Natural Law. As mankind has increased in knowledge and awareness, with some bumps in the road like the Holocaust, toleration of homosexual behavior has decreased.
The recent move to “approve” it, like the approval of divorce, the approval of abortion, the approval of euthanasia, and the approval of mass warfare against civilian populations, has nothing to do with any of them being “natural”. It has to do with the reappearance of a pagan morality based on the ends justifying the means and pleasure.
.
S
Scottgun
Guest
Quote of the Day.
P
Powdered_Sugar
Guest
I’m in a support group for men trying to overcome sexual addictions, and one of the members in the group has SSA, and he shared a similar opinion to your own. When he stopped engaging in the lifestyle for a little and really considered the affect it was having on him, and how he was feeling about himself and his life, he had no choice but to realize that he was not evenly remotely happy. He didn’t use the word miserable, but he did say that it brought him absolutely no fulfillment like he had been lead to believe it would.The short answer is this: because of their consequences. So, for example, insofar as I have followed where my sexual attraction to men has led me, it has resulted in me being miserable. I can’t speak to other people’s experiences, and I’m happy to let them live their own lives. There’s no reason you have to judge your friend.
By the way, I deny that a man wanting to be with a man is a bad desire. The intimacy two men can share is a good thing, and there’s nothing wrong with a man desiring it. But this intimacy does not become deeper or more meaningful through sexual contact. Having gay sex in order to deepen a close friendship is kind of like putting horseradish on dessert in order to make it sweeter. That’s not what gay sex does.
He’s since gotten out of that culture, repaired his relationship with his parents (who had been supportive of -him- but firm in the declaration that they couldn’t support his choice to engage in the lifestyle), returned to the Church, and started going to COURAGE meetings. He said, quite plainly, that he has never been happier. He still struggles, of course, but his entire outlook on his life and his actions has changed.
To the OP, I understand why this is a sticking point for you. I have a handful of people I would consider to be close friends who are homosexual; all of whom are engaged in the lifestyle. I love these friends dearly, which is exactly why I am not afraid to tell them what I think of their decisions. I try to be as supportive as I can, but I also see the sort of relationships they are engaged in, and the sorts of lives they live. Each of them is ‘dating’ someone who is… significantly older than them… old enough to be their father in fact. I recognize that similar age disparities exist among heterosexual relationships, however, the invariability of it is disturbing, and according to my friends it is not an uncommon trend. About half of them are engaged in sexual activities outside of their primary relationship, and really don’t believe that there is anything wrong with it… If I did not love these friends, I wouldn’t care what they do, but since I do love them, I can’t help but be worried about them.
The fact of the matter is that God, and by extension Christ, has made it explicitly clear that homosexual actions are intrinsically evil. There is really no scriptural way around this declaration… I mean… He wiped out an entire town for it… Romans 1:26-27 (well, 18-32, but more specifically 26 and 27), make it abundantly clear that choosing to engage in homosexual activities is the result of a heart that has set itself apart form God, and turned its back on Him, who is the source of all that is good. Since we desire salvation for all people, especially those who struggle with such a burdensome cross, we simply cannot remain silent on this issue. We -must- admonish them or we are contributors to their sin, however indirectly.
You love your homosexual borers and sisters deeply, that much is evident. So do we, which is why we cannot be silent and accept that which set it’s against God.
C
Cone
Guest
The Catholic Church didn’t make up the rule against homosexual conduct. It comes from God and the Church has no authority to change God’s laws. (See Corinthians 6:9-10.) God calls us to holiness, and sex outside marriage between a man and a woman is unholy. That covers a vast array of sexual conduct, not just homosexuality.
Our ways are not God’s ways, and to say that your feelings about right and wrong trump God’s will is the sin of pride. That’s what landed Lucifer in the hoosegow.
Our ways are not God’s ways, and to say that your feelings about right and wrong trump God’s will is the sin of pride. That’s what landed Lucifer in the hoosegow.
C
ClearWater
Guest
God bless you!
- Status