I can't get over the gay thing

[ClearWater]

Ask yourself, “If everyone did this, would it be a good thing?” If it is, then promote it. If not, don’t.

 

[Joe_5859]

I can understand how this is a sticking point for you. Back when I was in college, I went through a period where I doubted Christ and the Church yet curiously still held to the Church’s moral teaching with regards to things like abortion, contraception, fornication, etc. That was because the reasoning for the teachings made sense to me apart from any Church infallibility. The one thing that didn’t make sense to me at the time was this issue. And I know that it is the same for many. Even if people disagree, it is easy for them to at least appreciate that the Church teaches abortion is wrong because we are talking about killing babies. But this issue is very difficult to explain to a modern audience in a convincing way.

I think a large part of the reason is precisely what you are experiencing: we know people. We have a friend or relative or even just an acquaintance and it makes us feel like we would be an ogre to tell them they cannot be happy. But these experiences make poor measuring sticks for ascertaining moral truth.

As JimG said, it’s a whole cloth of sexual morality. The Church doesn’t teach what she teaches about same sex acts because She wants to make gay people unhappy. It is simply the natural corollary to what sex is and what it was designed for. For the Church to teach otherwise would be to completely undermine sexual ethics in general. If sex is just about two people bonding in order to be happy, then why would premarital sex be wrong? Why would it be wrong to have sex with three people simultaneously? Why would masturbation be wrong? If you pull on that thread, the whole garment falls apart.

You mentioned about it being “natural.” Even if it be admitted that gay people are “born that way”, that doesn’t make it natural in the sense of how things are designed to be. Since the Fall, our nature is fallen and that manifests itself in many ways. A person can be born blind. In a sense, the blindness is “natural” in that it is a phenomenon that really occurs in nature. But in a deeper sense, it is not natural because it runs contrary to what human eyes were designed for – to see.

It is similar with same sex attraction. Yes, it is “natural” in the sense that it occurs in the world around us. But same sex acts run contrary to what sex was designed for.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

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?

The natural pairing is a male and a female, but therein still lies boundaries, like the age factor (an adult male and an 8 yr. old female, even if the latter is a willing sexual partner) or familial connection (a 38 yr. old female and a male to whom she gave birth 20 years ago but did not raise, the two meeting later in life, each finding physical attraction for the other, for example).
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[InSearchofGrace]

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.

Why is it that some natural desires are bad desires?

Hunger (for food) is an important urge to satisfy, else we die. It can be said that the urge to mate is primal as well and has to be fulfilled, although sexual abstinence does not lead to death.

We need to eat to survive and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a well prepared meal or a feast. But what of the natural propensity by some people to eat non-nutritive substances, a known condition, called pica? There are individuals who crave and act on the craving to ingest clay, stones or dirt, to name a few things. Just as the homosexual condition was not in the open in previous generations, pica is mostly hidden by those with the condition from other people including their doctors. There is no medical or laboratory test for it, and it manifests and gets diagnosed only when complications such as gastrointestinal damage or blockage, or poisoning, arise.
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[Scottgun]

Somewhat related to the topic, but here is a worthwhile piece on why there is nothing “live and let live” about the onslaught to normalize homosexual sex and so-called same-sex “marriage”. Read the whole thing, but here is a bit:

Moreover, as any libertarian who has been breathing in and breathing out and reading the news for the last ten years should know now, if he didn’t before, the homosexual agenda is the biggest opponent of individual freedom from government interference to come down the pike in decades. The enactment of homosexual “marriages” and even civil unions, or for that matter even homosexual non-discrimination laws as a preface to homosexual “marriage,” has resulted in a dramatic crackdown on the freedom of adults to “make their own moral choices free of regulation when they don’t directly interfere with the lives of others.” That is, unless we take it that bakers who don’t want to bake wedding cakes for homosexuals are “directly interfering with the lives of others” and deserve to be forced to undergo reeducation, which hardly sounds like a libertarian position! And the same for photographers, inn owners, and so on and so forth. The idea that homosexual “marriage” is a separate issue from the blatant persecution of moral traditionalists in every avenue of life who refuse to get on the homosexual “marriage” bandwagon is a fantasy, a form of willful ignorance. Of course homosexual “marriage” isn’t about freedom, and it never has been. Hence, one finds again and again that the homosexual “marriage” activists tell the rest of us, in essence, “We won. Get with the program.”

The libertarian argument for homosexual “marriage” as a matter of individual liberty never had much to commend it. In 2014, as opposed to, say, 2005, it looks more ridiculous than ever. This one should be hung out to dry. Anyone who endorses homosexual “marriage” should just admit outright that this isn’t about individual liberty but about radical societal transformation, devil take the hindmost. (I believe we have one commentator who often serves as a good illustration of precisely this point in his gleeful anticipation of the punishments to be meted out to those who refuse to sign on.)

Moreover, if one sees that male-female complementarity is a theological non-negotiable, one has no reason for being taken in for a moment by the silly analogies to racial discrimination or by the pretense that the policy implications of homosexual “marriage” are morally praiseworthy. Male-female complementarity is indeed crucial to politics, but beyond that, government must either accept it or attack it. What government cannot be here is neutral. And homosexual “marriage” requires a stance of outright hostility on the part of the state to the foundational social units of the husband-wife pair and the nuclear family. Witness the government’s attack on the notion, expressed by the citizens of California, that children need both a mother and a father!

This is, as I have said again and again, a zero-sum game. There is no comfortable middle ground where one can let the homosexual lobby have what they want politically and hope to be left alone to till one’s own garden. This is an issue on which we cannot afford to be unclear. We must be prepared to hold the line, regardless of the political and personal consequences. We must do this, if for no other reason, for the sake of our own mental, moral, and metaphysical clarity.

Source: whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2014/09/political_accommodation_on_gay.html

 

[CBinNY]

The reasons that men want sex with men isn’t fully understood. it seems most people try to say it is genetic. The proverbial " I was born this way." For me that doesn’t make sense I was first attracted to women during puberty and then shortly after attracted to men also. Then the attraction to men dominated. Was I born with SSA who knows? Are gays born that way or is it environmental again who knows. There is no evidence for a gay gene that was malarkey posing as science and reported as fact by eager news people. The reality for me was at the moment of attraction the notion that it was bad I think added to its excitement. I sure did know it was bad but I wanted to do it because it felt good. Believe me that’s sin right there in a nut shell. We know sin when we feel it or do it but rationalize it away so we can then get to do it. It then becomes habit and we can barley remember how it started. We must have always been that way we say.
When you know God exists and he loves you you begin to see your actions in a new light and they can repulse you and shame you. Your excuses or explanations are feeble in the face of that love from God all you want to do it be clean and holy in response. You begin to see what Holy inside feels like and you love it. Try growing your faith and relationship with God. Don’t worry about having the absolute answer to this question of homosexuality right now. Trust that in time God will show you the truth. LOVE your friend even more because I know he is confused as to why he seems different. He needs good friends and love.

 

[HelenRose]

I try so hard to accept every teaching of the Catholic Church, and I wish to convert so badly. Many Catholic teachings, like abortion, make perfect sense to me and I agree with them wholeheartedly. But the homosexual issue has placed a seed of anger in me, and it will only grow if I do not fix this…

I just don’t understand the Catholic point of view. Are gay people going to hell for being with someone they love? Is this true? Someone, please tell me that this is not true. This makes no sense to me, no sense at all.

A friend of mine, in his senior year of high school, is currently dating another boy and they are both quite happy and in love. This friend, he is such a good and moral person, the sweetest guy I have ever met. But is he not allowed to go to Heaven because of his sexuality? (At seventeen, of course he is young, but he knows his sexuality very well. He has done a great amount of thinking, and I highly doubt that one day when he’s an adult he will just say “No, that was just a phase. I’m straight!” So please do not comment about how seventeen is a young age to determine your sexuality. That’s not what this thread is about)

I, of course, do not want my best friend to go to hell. But I also want him to be happy, and I have seen how he is only happy with other boys, not girls. So if I have to decide between begging my friend to give up his love to get to Heaven, or remaining happy in the flesh and blood, then I cannot choose. I cannot accept this.

No, I am not trying to argue with the Church. I’m trying to understand. Will someone with knowledge of this topic give me resources to look at, or thoughts to ponder? Someone help me understand.

P.S. I have read many articles on this website, but I still don’t understand.

No, you do not go to hell for loving someone. Loving someone and having sex with someone are two different things. Same sex attraction is not a sin. It is just as wrong for heterosexuals to engage in sex if they are not open to new life. It is exactly the same thing. Sex is God’s gift given to human beings for the procreation of humankind. It isn’t a tool to gain pleasure for one’s self.

If a teenage unmarried heterosexual couple are have sex then they are just as sinful as a homosexual couple. Same thing.

As far as going to hell. That is God’s decision. I have no comment to make on that.

 

[HelenRose]

No, you do not go to hell for loving someone. Loving someone and having sex with someone are two different things. Same sex attraction is not a sin. It is just as wrong for heterosexuals to engage in sex if they are not open to new life. It is exactly the same thing. Sex is God’s gift given to human beings for the procreation of humankind. It isn’t a tool to gain pleasure for one’s self.

If a teenage unmarried heterosexual couple are have sex then they are just as sinful as a homosexual couple. Same thing.

As far as going to hell. That is God’s decision. I have no comment to make on that.

I know that this sounds harsh because in a culture that places sexual ecstasy has the highest good possible, it seems an impossible goal to find happiness in chastity as love for another person.

 

[marymary1975]

I can’t get over the gay thing either.

There are things in the Hebrew Scriptures, as in the book of Leviticus (can’t give you chapter and verse) but you’ve probably heard in other places that Leviticus bans us from eating shrimp and other foods that were dispensed with in the book of Acts in the New Testament. (The part where Peter has the dream where a cloth full of unclean animals is lowered before him and he is told to “kill and eat.”)

Saint Paul has two spots where he comes down on homosexuality, but St. Paul believed in slavery, and that women should cover their heads in church, but we don’t do that anymore. Its day is over.

Jesus never said a thing about homosexuality. And yet he did say, in the three synoptic gospels, that remarriage of the divorced was adultry. So the No Remarriage Ban is authentic.

The gate is pretty narrow. I’m female, and predominantly gay. In college I acted on it. The only other times I was tempted, (and I mean violently tempted) I did not succumb because I was married to my husband, and the Bible is pretty emphatic about committing adultery.

My marriage was a failure sexually, but good in companionship, and it only got better as we aged. After 26 years, my husband died, God rest his soul. I could start dating women if I want to, but I don’t want to because I am sixty-one, and sick and dying.

I’m a cafeteria catholic, and I can’t see the big sin in that. I try and accept and obey all I can, but I can’t take it whole cloth.

You pray to God for both yourself and your friend. We all need the help of God to limp along in this sad and complicated life.

I want to clarify a couple of points from your post. As to leviticous, please note that the dietary restrictions and all the restrictions regarding higieme in the leviticous were expressly overthrown by Jesus. that is why the dietary restrictions don’t apply to catholics because Jesus expressly got rid if them. Note that Jesus never overthrew the fornication prohibition so that remains.

As to saint Paul, he did not supported slavery. Nowhere he says that slavery is acceptable. Slavery was an existing condition in his time and he did notices how unfair and charitable it was. Because he thought the way people of his times were doing wrong he comes out and says masters you shouldn’t do that. He is telling “masters” to be compassionate. That in no way is an approval of slavery. He is dealing with an existing problem and because he deals with an existing problem doesn’t mean that he is accepting of the problem.

As to Jesus never saying anything about homosexuality that is incorrect. He never said anything explicitly about homosexuality… On the same way he never said anything explicitly about robbery or any other of the ten commandments. At the time the issue if homosexual acts was not a disputed issue, as well as robbery for example. Jesus does not need to say homosexual acts are sinful or roberry is sinful because the law already states it is sinful. Instead Jesus says “follow the commandments” there hr is reinforcing that the existing law remains. Hence fornication is sinful, same sex acts are fornication hence they are sinful. And if you look more Jesus specifically defined marriage as between one man and one woman. So he closed the possibility of marriage for two people of the same sex hence leaving homosexual acts as fornication.

Being catholic and following Jesus is not easy. There may be many areas of religion which we may not understand. In fact I think everybody has a struggle with one area. But we have to trust. We trust that Jesus as gid knows better than us and that if we abandon outs lives to him and to his will he will guide us on The right path. Not undrrtsanding something happens to all. The problem is being obstinated and thinking we know better out god and wanting to do out will. But if we trust Jesus despite not understanding things are easier

 

[WilT]

I can’t get over the gay thing either.

There are things in the Hebrew Scriptures, as in the book of Leviticus (can’t give you chapter and verse) but you’ve probably heard in other places that Leviticus bans us from eating shrimp and other foods that were dispensed with in the book of Acts in the New Testament. (The part where Peter has the dream where a cloth full of unclean animals is lowered before him and he is told to “kill and eat.”)

Saint Paul has two spots where he comes down on homosexuality, but St. Paul believed in slavery, and that women should cover their heads in church, but we don’t do that anymore. Its day is over.

Jesus never said a thing about homosexuality. And yet he did say, in the three synoptic gospels, that remarriage of the divorced was adultry. So the No Remarriage Ban is authentic.

The gate is pretty narrow. I’m female, and predominantly gay. In college I acted on it. The only other times I was tempted, (and I mean violently tempted) I did not succumb because I was married to my husband, and the Bible is pretty emphatic about committing adultery.

My marriage was a failure sexually, but good in companionship, and it only got better as we aged. After 26 years, my husband died, God rest his soul. I could start dating women if I want to, but I don’t want to because I am sixty-one, and sick and dying.

I’m a cafeteria catholic, and I can’t see the big sin in that. I try and accept and obey all I can, but I can’t take it whole cloth.

You pray to God for both yourself and your friend. We all need the help of God to limp along in this sad and complicated life.

May God care for you and continue to love you.

 

[kozlosap]

I’m wondering if those of us who believe that sexual orientation is NOT a choice ever come to some kind off understanding with those who believe it is nothing more than a sinful choice on the part of a LGBTQ individual?

 

[WilT]

We have to submit our wills to God. We don’t make the rules here.

I’m heterosexual but have been celibate a long time.

If I can do it, people with same sex attraction could do the same thing.

Heaven is for the humble, not the self-willed who can’t become small and submit to God.

If we’re not married we must remain chaste.

 

[marymary1975]

Thank you, that makes sense.
Is a homosexual relationship allowed if it does not involve actual sex? What if there is just kissing and hugging? Just something to express how they feel without sex. Or are they not allowed to be together at all?

I think most posts have done a great job, particularly Jim G gave a great explanation. All I want to add is for you to remember we all have a natural inclination to sin. Is part of our fallen nature. As fallen nature we all have all kinds of sinful inclinations and all of us struggle with a temptation and sinful inclination of some kind. Call it same sex attraction, masturbatiom, sex outside of marriage, laziness, gluttony, and the list goes on. Same sex attraction is a temptation (as stated before the sin is the act itself) and we are all called to overcome our temptations. Also remember that the ideal state is our life is not human companionship or sex. Truthfully sex is just one momentarily pleasure of the world and none of us should focus on momentarily pleasures of the world. We all need to strive for God and the fullness and happiness that the relationship with God gives us. That is why st Paul states that the ideal state is celibacy. Being celibate and dedicating your life to Gid should be what people should focus their life. The only problem with everyone being celibate is that obviously the human race would end because no reproduction will happen. And only because we need to reproduce to continue the human race marriage is given us as an option. That is why people who suffer from SSA are called to chastity. We should not focus ourselves on carnal pleasures but on our spirit and our relationship with God. Marriage is just an option with the purpose of perpetuating the human race. Homosexual relations can’t produce children that is why they are out of the question.

And before someone brings the but infertile people can marry. Understand that even that a person who has been medically declared infertile in a heterosexual relation still does have a minimum possibility of procreating. It may be low maybe 1% but still there is a small chance. Because there is always at least a small chance on every heterosexual relation even if one person is supposedly infertile. With same sex it is plain impossible, never under no circumstance not even by the highest fluke two people of the same sex will produce a kid so that is why infertility is different. On the other hand, impotency invalidates a marriage because of the same reason. An impotent person cannot marry validly and something similar happens with same sex relations.

 

[WilT]

I have Same Sex Attraction and for years either ignored or tried to rationalize the Catholic teachings away so I could do what I felt was right. But I grew to hate the gay life, there is little real love. People are objectifying each other for what they can get. Not that Heterosexuals don’t do the same. I didn’t feel much joy.
. God drew me back to the church through actual grace and I had a conversion. I saw that SSA was a temptation not a lifestyle and started resisting the temptations through the grace of God, mostly through confession. Once I was free of the guilt and was in a state of grace I felt hope and eventually joy. I’m not cured of these temptations but live a chaste life.

I believe when we are pre-pubescent we naturally have a tendency to be a mature man/woman. If a male we are called to behave as a man and so we will look up to them for our male identity. If a woman I believe would be the same. There’s a lot of insecurities at that age but we eventually grow out of it. Some get stuck at that stage.

 

[marymary1975]

We have to submit our wills to God. We don’t make the rules here.

I’m heterosexual but have been celibate a long time.

If I can do it, people with same sex attraction could do the same thing.

People who submit their will to God’s Plan go to heaven.

We don’t judge gays and say Joey or Jenny are going to Hell because they are gay but if a person does not repent of a serious transgression against God’s laws, that is to say his will, and his love, then that person will exclude themselves from Heaven.

Heaven is for the humble, not the self-willed who can’t become small and submit to God.

:clapping::clapping:Jamal is right on point! Celibacy is for all. In fact I think that people who argue for same sex marriage forget that the church requires celibacy too for heterosexuals not married and that there are many heterosexuals that don’t get married and that many people don’t get married. I was too celibate for an extremely long period of my life. I happened to marry but sincerely it was one of those things that it came looking for me, I didn’t even put effort into getting married. But I was celibate for a long time so people need to understand that the celibacy requirement is for everybody who is not married and chastity is required for all.

 

[kozlosap]

Marymary1975- your last paragraph concerning the dogma that a couple it’s not able to marry if one is impotent should almost be the first line of offence against the marriage requirements found in Church teachings. Maybe a thousand years ago that piece of rule was justifiable since marriage was often used for economic reasons by the families involved. In the last 150 years, marriage has become more romantic in nature than economic. That is a good thing! If two adult human beings love each other and want to spend their lives together and not plan to have children, it is none of anyone’s business, even the CC. Should the two individuals just “fornicate” (as some here on CAF adore to write), or should they marry and normalize their relationship?

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

Marymary1975- your last paragraph concerning the dogma that a couple it’s not able to marry if one is impotent should almost be the first line of offence against the marriage requirements found in Church teachings. Maybe a thousand years ago that piece of rule was justifiable since marriage was often used for economic reasons by the families involved. In the last 150 years, marriage has become more romantic in nature than economic. That is a good thing! If two adult human beings love each other and want to spend their lives together and not plan to have children, it is none of anyone’s business, even the CC.

I take it in your opinion the Church has nothing to say about the Sacrament of Marriage or faith and morals?

I mean, if they live together - you didn’t mention marriage - that’s either fornication or adultery, and in my part of the Church that’s naughty.

And if they wish to marry, the Church is well within its authority to say who, how, when, and so on.

.

 

[Powdered_Sugar]

I’m wondering if those of us who believe that sexual orientation is NOT a choice ever come to some kind off understanding with those who believe it is nothing more than a sinful choice on the part of a LGBTQ individual?

The extent to which -being- homosexual is a sin is not at issue, nor is the extent to which it is a choice. It’s not immoral to -be- a homosexual, and whether it is a choice or not is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is a person’s choice of whether or not to act on a given inclination.

My sexual preference could be for thirteen year old girls. The fact that I have that predilection does not suddenly make it moral for me to engage in sexual activities with a thirteen year old girl. Similarly, I could have a preference for bestiality, that doesn’t make it okay for me to have sex with a sheep. Even if my sexual preference is for a woman of my own age, that doesn’t mean I can have sex with -any- woman my own age.

The existence of a given preference does not lend that preference credibility. The -ONLY- thing that determines if a sexual action is moral or not is God’s design for the human body. Anybody looking at the human body honestly will conclude that the male anatomy is expressly designed to work with the female anatomy to perform an act which is geared towards the creation of life. Therefore, we can further conclude that any actions which reject this obvious design intent are -not- moral, specifically because they work contrary to God’s design.

Whether we agree about the origin of homosexual inclinations or not has no meaning, because even if we were to agree that it’s genetic (a notion I in no way endorse), that doesn’t change the fact that engaging in a homosexual act remains morally indefensible.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

I’m wondering if those of us who believe that sexual orientation is NOT a choice ever come to some kind off understanding with those who believe it is nothing more than a sinful choice on the part of a LGBTQ individual?

The proposition on the part of the Church is that sexual orientation, per se, is not sinful.

It is having sex relations outside of marriage that is sinful.

Or is your understanding different?

.

 

[WilT]

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

Hi Hope, it may never be answered for you until God becomes the focus of ones life. There are many things in life that make me smile and happy but I chose not to indulge in these if they cause me to sin against God. The world offers many pleasures but we as Christians are called to not lust for them. You may not be completely satisfied with what you read. One day clarity may come to you. God Bless you and your friend.