Is having homosexual acts illegal in a country correct or incorrect?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harry123
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Harry123

Guest
As a Catholic, should i be for a country currently having homosexual acts illegal or against a country doing this. Here are the two positions i’m having difficulty deciding over:
  • It Should Not be illegal: Homosexual acts should not be illegal as you can’t make every sin illegal. Homosexual acts are on a par with adultery in Gods eyes (i think). Therefore, if homosexual acts should be illegal then so should adultery …and every other sin for that matter. In which case, we’d all be in prison. Homosexuals in this sense should not be unfairly discriminated against over people who commit adultery in same sex relationships.
  • It Should be illegal: Homosexual acts should be illegal because our children should not be subject to two same-sex individuals kissing in the street in front of them. We should allow children be children and protect them at a time in their life when they are still developing their own character and trying to understand their own sexuality.
I’d imagine Pope Francis would be against any country that has homosexual acts illegal. But i don’t know as he’s never said. Should I be for all countries in the world legalizing homosexual acts? Or against this?

P.S. I’m a conservative catholic and want to maintain a position that is congruent with conservative values. I’m not interested in a liberal catholic viewpoint where someone is in favor of same-sex marriage/relationships in the catholic church, and thereby default in favor of legalizing same-sex acts worldwide.
 
Depends on the perspective. Initially when I saw your question, I thought from a secular standpoint that it is neutral in a sense. But if a country looks historically at countries where homosexuality has been approved of, invariably a decline of the country follows shortly thereafter. Is that correct or not? It just is. The US has decided it doesn’t mind.

AS A CATHOLIC the question is already answered for you by Scripture and the CCC.

PAX
 
Hi Harry123,

Thanks for posting! This question ties into a deeper question of what our role as Catholics are in the political realm.

Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote an excellent doctrinal note on this that I encourage you to read in full, but here is a relevant quote from it:
Analogously, the family
Click to expand...
needs to be safeguarded and promoted, based on monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, and protected in its unity and stability in the face of modern laws on divorce: in no way can other forms of cohabitation be placed on the same level as marriage, nor can they receive legal recognition as such.

To me, this clearly indicates that we are to protect marriage as a monogamous union between a man and a woman and to deny other forms of cohabitation the same legal status.

Nothing in that indicates any direction about outlawing other forms of cohabitation or penalizing those who participate in them. Such laws would be impractical, unwise and put us at odds with our own teachings of charity. Also, as you noted, sins are immoral, but not necessarily illegal. We have to weigh additional factors before making that determination.

Remember: we Catholics are in the repentance and forgiveness business, not the crime and punishment business.

Hope that helps! Peace and God bless! 🙂
 
My position is that homosexual acts should be illegal. However, I also think that the ideal country is one which gives the electorate the right to decide whether such acts ought to be illegal. I would be willing to accept (not that I would approve) that the nation I reside in allows homosexual acts to be legal. The United States is not such a country since the Supreme Court took the right of it’s citizens to decide what acts ought to or not ought to be illegal out of it’s hands.
 
Stylteralmaldo said:
My position is that homosexual acts should be illegal. However, I also think that the ideal country is one which gives the electorate the right to decide whether such acts ought to be illegal. I would be willing to accept (not that I would approve) that the nation I reside in allows homosexual acts to be legal. The United States is not such a country since the Supreme Court took the right of it’s citizens to decide what acts ought to or not ought to be illegal out of it’s hands.
Click to expand...
Very sad. very scary. Every government should stay out of people’s bedrooms. How would one enforce this rule, and how would one determine what “act” is illegal? Genitals only? Kissing? Holding hands?

It’s quite offensive, obscene and despicable that some people would support such a clear violation of human dignity and freedom.
 
smichhertz said:
…Nothing in that indicates any direction about outlawing other forms of cohabitation or penalizing those who participate in them. Such laws would be impractical, unwise and put us at odds with our own teachings of charity. Also, as you noted, sins are immoral, but not necessarily illegal. We have to weigh additional factors before making that determination.

Remember: we Catholics are in the repentance and forgiveness business, not the crime and punishment business.
Click to expand...
All sin is a crime against God. The question becomes: what crimes ought to be illegal in the nation I live in?

A society without law and order is one destined for chaos. Our faith teaches that grave sin can lead us to hell. Hell is chaos.

My position is that for the good of society, we ought to oppose anything that causes chaos to society, of which includes anything that is gravely sinful. Homosexual acts fall into this category.
 
There are already quite a few current threads about this most recently the “punishments for sodomy” in the social justice thread. And it’s been pretty much universally condemned as a horrible vile idea.

Sadly, just being homosexual is illegal in many countries and punishable by prison and even death. Is this the kind of world we want to live in? Absolutely not. This is exactly the way of thinking which led to the holocaust and I do not say that lightly, but seriously.
 
Stylteralmaldo said:
All sin is a crime against God. The question becomes: what crimes ought to be illegal in the nation I live in?

A society without law and order is one destined for chaos. Our faith teaches that grave sin can lead us to hell. Hell is chaos.

My position is that for the good of society, we ought to oppose anything that causes chaos to society, of which includes anything that is gravely sinful. Homosexual acts fall into this category.
Click to expand...
Stop. Just stop. I thank God we don’t live in a theocracy, no pun intended. So which sins shall we make illegal today :rolleyes:
 
Strydersroom said:
It’s quite offensive, obscene and despicable that some people would support such a clear violation of human dignity and freedom.
Click to expand...
Children must be protected too. Public gay acts of affection could be messing with children’s heads and confusing them about their own sexuality thereby creating unnecessary problems for them.
 
Harry123 said:
Children must be protected too. Public gay acts of affection could be messing with children’s heads and confusing them about their own sexuality thereby creating unnecessary problems for them.
Click to expand...
I think intolerant acts of hatred, fear and bigotry and messing with children’s heads actually. And I am gay and have children. 👍
 
Strydersroom said:
Stop. Just stop. I thank God we don’t live in a theocracy, no pun intended. So which sins shall we make illegal today :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I do not wish to live in a theocracy either. However, the reality (from my perspective) is that the United States is more and more not allowing differing opinions to be heard or legislated on - theocratic rather than democratic.
 
Stylteralmaldo said:
I do not wish to live in a theocracy either. However, the reality (from my perspective) is that the United States is more and more not allowing differing opinions to be heard or legislated on - theocratic rather than democratic.
Click to expand...
HUGE difference between being heard and legislated on. Any group can have their opinions heard, just look at the vile Westboro Baptist church. I’m sure they’d love the idea of making homosexual acts illegal and punishable. The saddest thing of all is that this is the same idea put forward in this thread. Un American, Un Christian, simply inhuman and despicable.
 
I think an appropriate situation would be homosexual acts to be legal worldwide but not in public in front of children. I know that is a controversial position, but at least this way children are allowed to grow up and naturally come to their own conclusion about their own sexuality rather than being potentially influenced into a sexuality that they otherwise would not have adopted.

I’m worried that with all this normalizing of homosexuality in public, that some children that would otherwise have grown up to be straight would now grow up to be bisexual because they were exposed to public homosexual acts of affection at a time in their life when they were still developing and understanding their own sexuality.

I know some gay people would love it if there was more bi and gay people around as this would help normalize their lifestyle more in society (we all want to normalize the positions we hold in life), but if a child would otherwise have grown up to be straight, they should be left grow up to be straight unhindered.
 
I would say that you should be in favor of criminalizing sodomy. This was the case in some parts of Medieval Europe and the United States. Making homosexual acts illegal doesn’t mean that every other sin should be illegal as well. There isn’t much hope that sodomy laws will be implemented in any country any time soon, though, so it doesn’t matter very much.
 
smichhertz said:
Such laws would be impractical, unwise and put us at odds with our own teachings of charity. Also, as you noted, sins are immoral, but not necessarily illegal. We have to weigh additional factors before making that determination.

Remember: we Catholics are in the repentance and forgiveness business, not the crime and punishment business.
Click to expand...
👍
 
I do not think that homosexual acts should be illegal. The government has no place legislating what goes on in the bedroom. I say this as a libertarian. God is the one who beings justice to those who engage in homosexual acts. Sodomy laws are similar to fascism.
 
Strydersroom said:
HUGE difference between being heard and legislated on. Any group can have their opinions heard, just look at the vile Westboro Baptist church. I’m sure they’d love the idea of making homosexual acts illegal and punishable. The saddest thing of all is that this is the same idea put forward in this thread. Un American, Un Christian, simply inhuman and despicable.
Click to expand...
If you can’t effect change, you don’t have the ability to be heard. All groups like Westboro Baptist church has the ability to do is protest.
 
Strydersroom said:
I think intolerant acts of hatred, fear and bigotry and messing with children’s heads actually. And I am gay and have children. 👍
Click to expand...
The difficulty is that increasingly, the personal freedom you expect is being normalised into society to the point where the meaning of marriage and family are being generalized. What was a private freedom is now required to be endorsed by the State as identical to the marriage of man and woman. It is unavoidable now that young children, through their reading books, will have same sex “parents” presented from an early age. It is unavoidable that TV and film will present same sex relationships (including between young people / pre-sexual) to the same audiences as opposite sex.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top