Is buying music from a pro-gay marriage musician sinful? This is really causing some distress

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iHeartThe60s

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During confession today I (out of simple inquiry) asked the priest of buying music from a musician who was pro-gay marriage was a sin and without batting an eye said yes and proceeded to ask me “Why do a man and a woman get married?” I was going to say to have kids AND be in a monogamous, loving relationship, but I let him answer and, as expected, he only said the first part and that buying music from an artist who supports gay marriage causes is a sin because you’re giving them the funding to do so. I did not wish to get into a disagreement since time was limited to the others waiting to confess. I would like to add that he was very pleasant and put me at ease regarding other sins I had to confess so I DO NOT want to make him look like the bad guy in this situation. To me he just came across as being very conservative and I remained obedient to him nonetheless.

But in regards to the issue of buying or owning music (or any form of entertainment for that matter) from artists who are pro-LGBT/pro-gay marriage, etc., is it really sinful at all to buy, say music by Elton John, The Indigo Girls (who I mostly like for their rich acoustically-textured folk-ish sound), Lady Gaga, etc who have all supported some form of gay rights. Now for some being pro-LGBT is NOT about marriage/civil union rights, but about having the same rights as say straight single men and women (employment, housing, healthcare, etc.). Therefore, upon hearing that an artist is “pro-LGBT” is a very general term and doesn’t automatically or necessarily mean “pro-gay marriage”.

Lastly, if it is sinful, do we as Catholics have an obligation to try and find out if each and every one of the artists we have in our music collection, etc. (I have hundreds according to my iTunes library btw lol) has contributed in any way to any causes that are in direct or even indirect contradiction to the Catholic faith (even if they’ve also given very generously to other very worthy causes)?

Thank you for any answers/help/assistance/etc. 🙂
 
iHeartThe60s said:
During confession today I (out of simple inquiry) asked the priest of buying music from a musician who was pro-gay marriage was a sin and without batting an eye said yes and proceeded to ask me “Why do a man and a woman get married?” I was going to say to have kids AND be in a monogamous, loving relationship, but I let him answer and, as expected, he only said the first part and that buying music from an artist who supports gay marriage causes is a sin because you’re giving them the funding to do so. I did not wish to get into a disagreement since time was limited to the others waiting to confess. I would like to add that he was very pleasant and put me at ease regarding other sins I had to confess so I DO NOT want to make him look like the bad guy in this situation. To me he just came across as being very conservative and I remained obedient to him nonetheless.

But in regards to the issue of buying or owning music (or any form of entertainment for that matter) from artists who are pro-LGBT/pro-gay marriage, etc., is it really sinful at all to buy, say music by Elton John, The Indigo Girls (who I mostly like for their rich acoustically-textured folk-ish sound), Lady Gaga, etc who have all supported some form of gay rights. Now for some being pro-LGBT is NOT about marriage/civil union rights, but about having the same rights as say straight single men and women (employment, housing, healthcare, etc.). Therefore, upon hearing that an artist is “pro-LGBT” is a very general term and doesn’t automatically or necessarily mean “pro-gay marriage”.

Lastly, if it is sinful, do we as Catholics have an obligation to try and find out if each and every one of the artists we have in our music collection, etc. (I have hundreds according to my iTunes library btw lol) has contributed in any way to any causes that are in direct or even indirect contradiction to the Catholic faith (even if they’ve also given very generously to other very worthy causes)?

Thank you for any answers/help/assistance/etc. 🙂
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When you appreciate art you appreciate the art not what the artist does in bed, or, for the same matter, in the toilet…
Why should we buy music from heterosexual musics with funny sexual practices? Should we ask them what position they use before buying the music?
 
Many of the old artists we appreciate today, had very liberal views. And even Hitler liked to paint. 😛
 
From what I’ve heard, being pro-gay marriage is the least of sins most popular musician has. One word, “groupies”.
 
iHeartThe60s said:
But in regards to the issue of buying or owning music (or any form of entertainment for that matter) from artists who are pro-LGBT/pro-gay marriage, etc., is it really sinful at all to buy, say music by Elton John, The Indigo Girls (who I mostly like for their rich acoustically-textured folk-ish sound), Lady Gaga, etc who have all supported some form of gay rights. Now for some being pro-LGBT is NOT about marriage/civil union rights, but about having the same rights as say straight single men and women (employment, housing, healthcare, etc.). Therefore, upon hearing that an artist is “pro-LGBT” is a very general term and doesn’t automatically or necessarily mean “pro-gay marriage”.

Lastly, if it is sinful, do we as Catholics have an obligation to try and find out if each and every one of the artists we have in our music collection, etc. (I have hundreds according to my iTunes library btw lol) has contributed in any way to any causes that are in direct or even indirect contradiction to the Catholic faith (even if they’ve also given very generously to other very worthy causes)?
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Yes, it is sinful to buy music when you know the artist supports an agenda that is sinful.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
  • by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
  • by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
  • by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
  • by protecting evil-doers.
Second question - no, you are not obligated to try and find out, but once you know, you are required to act.

🙂
 
JM3 said:
Yes, it is sinful to buy music when you know the artist supports an agenda that is sinful.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
  • by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
  • by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
  • by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
  • by protecting evil-doers.
Second question - no, you are not obligated to try and find out, but once you know, you are required to act.

🙂
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Waaait a second. I’m a Rush fan. I know they’re atheists. But I didn’t know they were atheists until their album Presto. I’ve bought their albums since then.

I studied Hiedegger in the seminary. He was a Nazi.

The works of Oscar Wilde were recently praised by L’Osservatore Romano: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200167/Vatican-does-U-turn-praise-Oscar-Wilde.html Apparently we are now allowed to read the works of this homosexual sinner.

You see where I’m going with this?
 
Many Catholics should abandon the entertainments they have. For example, some enjoy music that openly celebrates sinful behavior. Or other forms of popular entertainment that celebrates sinful behavior. It is difficult to love such things and love God too. If we are Christians we should look first to the good of our souls. That said, I am not entirely sure about this advice from your confessor myself. You could seek counsel from another priest (who is orthodox) to see what he has to say. Still, what a priest says in confession as advice should be respected and you should seriously look into the question as to whether he is right or not.
 
We need to review the principles of cooperation with evil.

We are agreed that homosexual simulation of marriage is a grave evil. I don’t think you would have even asked the priest that question had you believed that homosexual simulation of marriage was morally neutral or morally good.

“Cooperation” in this sense means the participation of more than one person in an immoral act. The act in question is the homosexual simulation of marriage.

Cooperation is subdivided into two categories: formal and material.

Formal cooperation is where you actually take part in the act with the same intent as the others involved in this immoral act. This cooperation could be explicitly formal or implicitly formal. If the participation is direct and the intent is the same as the others, the formal cooperation is explicit. If the participation is direct but the cooperator claims to be doing it for another purpose, the cooperation would be implicitly formal.

For example, let us say that you are the minister who actually conducts the ceremony for the happy couple. It is your full intent to “marry” the two. You are explicitly formally cooperating in evil. Let’s say that you really didn’t intend for them to be “married” but that you “married” them in order to achieve some other goal (for example, let’s say that they offered to pay you $10,000 and you wanted the money to feed the poor). You would still implicitly be formally cooperating.

Formal cooperation with evil is always considered illicit (a/k/a sinful)

Then you have material cooperation. Material cooperation is where you do an act that, in of itself, is morally neutral or good, but that act is somehow involved in the evil act. This material cooperation could either be immediate or mediate.

Immediate material cooperation is where your participation, though indirect, is essential to committing that act and you know what’s going on. For example, let us say you own the hall where this “marriage” ceremony is to take place. Renting it to the happy couple, although, renting your hall out for a function is in of itself morally neutral, would still be immediate material cooperation, as it would be difficult to have a big wedding without some kind of hall.

Immediate material cooperation with evil is always considered illicit…unless there is duress involved. For example, let us say that you, as the owner of the hall, are seriously threatened if you don’t rent it to them, then that could limit your freedom of choice and mitigates your moral liability for your act.

Mediate material cooperation is where your action, while it assists in the commission of the immoral act, is not essential to the act occurring. You may or may not even know that you are cooperating in evil. This is further subdivided into proximate and remote, depending upon your moral “location”. For example, if you were a member of the band that was hired to play the reception and you knew what the event was you were playing for, it would probably be classed as “proximate” mediate material cooperation, while if you were the florist delivering flowers for a wedding and didn’t know that it was “Rob and Bob” getting married instead of “Rob and Sally”, your material cooperation would be extremely remote.

The culpability for mediate material cooperation is largely up to prudential judgment. Obviously if you didn’t know what the act was that you were materially cooperating in, you would not be culpable for the act. But the closer you move to the knowledge of the act, the more culpable you would be.

What does that have to do with this situation?

Artists who are homosexual activists (whether they, themselves, are homosexual or not) are, in my opinion, providing immediate material cooperation to evil. I say this because their roles are essential in effecting the culture change needed to “normalize” homosexual behavior in our society, that is, to make people think that homosexual behavior is no more inherently sinful than heterosexual behavior. The Church has warned us about this danger. In 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a letter to the bishops of the world that stated, in part:

There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil-statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups’ concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved.

The Church can never be so callous. It is true that her clear position cannot be revised by pressure from civil legislation or the trend of the moment. But she is really concerned about the many who are not represented by the pro-homosexual movement and about those who may have been tempted to believe its deceitful propaganda. She is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society’s understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.

By buying their music, you are providing financial support that enables them to continue spreading their propaganda. This is obviously “mediate” material cooperation in evil, even though it is pretty remote. As for culpability, well, that’s really a prudential call on your part. The pennies and dimes they make from your buying tracks is insignificant, but if a few million of your closest friends agreed with you…
 
iHeartThe60s said:
But in regards to the issue of buying or owning music (or any form of entertainment for that matter) from artists who are pro-LGBT/pro-gay marriage, etc., is it really sinful at all to buy, say music by Elton John, The Indigo Girls (who I mostly like for their rich acoustically-textured folk-ish sound), Lady Gaga, etc who have all supported some form of gay rights. Now for some being pro-LGBT is NOT about marriage/civil union rights, but about having the same rights as say straight single men and women (employment, housing, healthcare, etc.). Therefore, upon hearing that an artist is “pro-LGBT” is a very general term and doesn’t automatically or necessarily mean “pro-gay marriage”.
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Quit trying to rationalize what is an intent to mainstream the homosexual agenda. Employment, housing, and healthcare are not denied to homosexuals and are not a valid concern to anyone who claims to be pro-LGBT. There are many fabrications by this crowd to illustrate a discrimination that does not exist in an effort to get you to swallow whole, as an act of empathy, a deviant lifestyle. Apparently, you have swallowed it. Stop contributing to the enemy of souls.
 
markomalley said:
By buying their music, you are providing financial support that enables them to continue spreading their propaganda. This is obviously “mediate” material cooperation in evil, even though it is pretty remote. As for culpability, well, that’s really a prudential call on your part. The pennies and dimes they make from your buying tracks is insignificant, but if a few million of your closest friends agreed with you…
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Would you consider it mediate cooperation in evil if I owned a restaurant and a known gay marriage activist musician came into my restaurant and I served him lunch? If the world were full of faithful Catholics then such a musician would starve to death. Even God allows the sinner to live. Should we do any less?

I think the question of buying music must take into account the nature of the music and it’s message. If the music itself promotes an evil lifestyle, then there is more justification for calling the purchase cooperation with evil. But if the artist happens to produce an uncharacteristically good or neutral message in a particular work, then I think buying that work itself would not be cooperation with evil. It would be the same as if the gay marriage advocate happened to be a roofer instead of a musician and you hired him to roof your house. Buying his services in that case is merely allowing him to continue to live. It is not celebrating his views that are unrelated to roofing.
 
Yes, it is a sin. Everyone knows that homosexuality is contagious, by buying anything that has had anything to do with them you are leaving yourself open to suddenly developing a keen love for Lady Gaga and musicals.
 
When a recording from an artist is purchased, some of the proceeds go to the artist. Most of the money goes to support the industry. The industry is broad and includes many people with various morals.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Would you consider it mediate cooperation in evil if I owned a restaurant and a known gay marriage activist musician came into my restaurant and I served him lunch? If the world were full of faithful Catholics then such a musician would starve to death. Even God allows the sinner to live. Should we do any less?
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Hardly. You distort the example beyond measure.

Serving a person lunch has nothing whatsoever do to with his political positions. Please. Give me a break.
I think the question of buying music must take into account the nature of the music and it’s message. If the music itself promotes an evil lifestyle, then there is more justification for calling the purchase cooperation with evil. But if the artist happens to produce an uncharacteristically good or neutral message in a particular work, then I think buying that work itself would not be cooperation with evil. It would be the same as if the gay marriage advocate happened to be a roofer instead of a musician and you hired him to roof your house. Buying his services in that case is merely allowing him to continue to live. It is not celebrating his views that are unrelated to roofing.
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Different issue altogether. Famous artists (such as those the OP listed) use their fame as a platform to promote their evil agendas. I don’t know of too many roofers who are able to leverage their proficiency at roofing to promote anything (other than getting more roofing jobs). A roofer may be able to reach the family who’s house he’s roofing with his political agenda. Lady GaGa can reach hundreds of millions with her message when she’s hired, due to her popularity, to play at halftime at the Super Bowl.

When you buy her tracks from iTunes or listen to her music on the radio you are contributing to that fame. And you are increasing the size of her audience, thus making it more likely that she will be able to fill stadiums and propagate TV with her propaganda. Again, how many roofers have even an audience size that is even infinitesimally the same magnitude? How many roofers are featured in articles in popular magazines? How many roofers are given guest slots on TV talk shows (other than, perhaps, Jerry Springer or Maury Povich)?

I did NOT say that the material cooperation was immediate. I said that it was mediate…and pretty remotely mediate at that. But it is cooperation. Is it sinful? Don’t know. As I said above, that is a matter of prudential judgment. But in order to form the correct decision, you need to know that you are contributing to giving them a platform to spread their message.
 
iHeartThe60s said:
During confession today I (out of simple inquiry) asked the priest
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if you ask a priest a question in confession you abide by what he tells you. He knows what you said and knows the state of your soul. Don’t second guess it by asking third parties.

You approve of the content of the media you buy in the simple act of buying it. If you oppose the content, or oppose the person who produced it, you don’t buy it. If you do buy it, then you approve, endorse and adopt it.

No you don’t have an obligation as a Catholic to investigate every position held by every retailer, entertainment producer, manufacturer etc., but you spoke about a specific case where you do have the negative knowledge.

Regardless, nothing said here trumps what your priest told you in confession.
 
I might also add that the other side of this has no problem with not supporting artists/musicians/products that they believe are against them. For example, if a pop musician came out on a talk show and said that they believed marriage was between a man and a women, there would be an immediate backlash from the Gay Lobby. pro-gay marriage folks would stop listening to that person, would stop buying their music, and would generally tell everyone they knew to stop buying the music.

as a real life example, back in the 70’s, Coors would not knowingly sell beer to gay bars. gay people then refused to buy or drink Coors. when Coors changed policies, they spent a ton of advertising dollars on a major advertising campaign in the gay media in an attempt to correct that image and get the message out, because they believed they were losing significant amounts of revenue.
 
michelleds said:
I might also add that the other side of this has no problem with not supporting artists/musicians/products that they believe are against them. For example, if a pop musician came out on a talk show and said that they believed marriage was between a man and a women, there would be an immediate backlash from the Gay Lobby. pro-gay marriage folks would stop listening to that person, would stop buying their music, and would generally tell everyone they knew to stop buying the music.

as a real life example, back in the 70’s, Coors would not knowingly sell beer to gay bars. gay people then refused to buy or drink Coors. when Coors changed policies, they spent a ton of advertising dollars on a major advertising campaign in the gay media in an attempt to correct that image and get the message out, because they believed they were losing significant amounts of revenue.
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This is never a good argument: they do it so we should do it too.

That said, a consumer is entitled to decide what he or she will or will not consume. If you don’t like someone or their behaviour you are free not to buy that person’s products.
 
Cormacnl said:
This is never a good argument: they do it so we should do it too.

That said, a consumer is entitled to decide what he or she will or will not consume. If you don’t like someone or their behaviour you are free not to buy that person’s products.
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Yep. And as long as they keep it out of their music why be concerned? It seems very busybody to me.
infact I think the whole fiting homosexuality the way we do is busybody and we should consentrate on general secual morality and not broadcasting any relationships…gay or otherwise.

That being said i choose not to purchase/read or listen to things by covicted felons, especally those who have harmed children or animals. If it is a historical setting where they cannot benefit (eg. Book about hitler) thats different because it cannot be used for ill or seen as support.
 
Nom_the_Wise said:
Waaait a second. I’m a Rush fan. I know they’re atheists. But I didn’t know they were atheists until their album Presto. I’ve bought their albums since then.

I studied Hiedegger in the seminary. He was a Nazi.

The works of Oscar Wilde were recently praised by L’Osservatore Romano: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200167/Vatican-does-U-turn-praise-Oscar-Wilde.html Apparently we are now allowed to read the works of this homosexual sinner.

You see where I’m going with this?
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Rationalizing sin is never good for your soul.

🙂
 
michelleds said:
I might also add that the other side of this has no problem with not supporting artists/musicians/products that they believe are against them.
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I think this is something to consider. I’m a poet and trying to get published in literary journals when one of your artistic subjects is God is a decidedly uphill battle. There are many journals I don’t subscribe to anymore because the only works they seem to accept embrace atheism as a fact. There is a whole artistic culture out there just steam rolling Christians out of mainstream media.

That being said, I agree with Cormacnl who suggested that we should avoid the approach of “they do it so we should do it too” but then I think of all the Christian artists out there who cannot make a living off of their art, in many cases because the audience pool has been tainted against them before their works are even seen/heard.

I think this is an acceptable tangent without going off topic, because at least for me it helps me see that the OP’s question has deeper applications beyond just personal sin. There is an overwhelming impression that our culture is plotting against us, and I cannot help but have this feeling sometimes of “Why are we helping them?”
 
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