Let's STOP gay marriage now!

[China123]

My point was that making something legal does not make it right.

I am not doing any imposing. Misguided compassion does not do anyone any good.

 

[EasterJoy]

My point was that making something legal does not make it right.

I am not doing any imposing. Misguided compassion does not do anyone any good.

I want to know how this got to be yet another thread about homosexuals.

From the Catechism it is entirely clear that homosexual acts are sinful:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Homosexual persons, OTOH, are people with a temptation that poses a trial. That is true for everyone:
*The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. *

To say that even a civil marriage cannot be contracted between two persons of the same sex without by its very nature being an offense against chastity and the integrity of the human person is not an unjust discrimination against persons with same-sex attraction. It is the truth. In contrast, marriages between persons with different skin color or ethnic backgrounds have no intrinsic error to them, and are neither more nor less legitimate than marriages between persons of similar skin color and ethnic background. That is also the truth.

 

[China123]

I want to know how this got to be yet another thread about homosexuals.

From the Catechism it is entirely clear that homosexual acts are sinful:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Homosexual persons, OTOH, are people with a temptation that poses a trial. That is true for everyone:
*The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. *

To say that even a civil marriage cannot be contracted between two persons of the same sex without by its very nature being an offense against chastity and the integrity of the human person is not an unjust discrimination against persons with same-sex attraction. It is the truth. In contrast, marriages between persons with different skin color or ethnic backgrounds have no intrinsic error to them, and are neither more nor less legitimate than marriages between persons of similar skin color and ethnic background. That is also the truth.

I completely agree with you. I was answering an accusation that making something legal makes it ok. I certainly do not want to make yet another homesexual thread. However, legal vs right and wrong was what I was answering.

 

[PaulGH]

More and more people are changing their views and believe Homosexuality is NOT a sin, and more importantly, are speaking up for wanting to marry the one they love.

Agreed. But if “the one they love” is a person of the same sex, then what they mean by “marry” is a radically new definition of that word that did not exist up until maybe 15 or 20 years ago.

Now any Church may continue to have their OPINION that Homosexuality is a sin,

And you may have your opinion that it is not a sin.

but we as a culture are changing and there is no going back.

Do you mean just that you don’t *want *to go back, or are you predicting that in fact we will not go back? If you are predicting that we will not go back, then how do you know? Even if your position were the morally right position, where is the guarantee that we will not regress to a less enlightened attitude, as you might see it? It would not be hard to find historical examples where something changed from A to B, and then eventually back to A again.

We have friends, family and others close to us coming out as Gay, and more power to them.

Why not wish them more power to follow Christ and to do what is right, as everyone is called to do?

Want to Stop Gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person.

Actually, marrying a gay person could be a perfectly valid marriage, if you mean, for example, a woman marrying a gay man. (It might not be a particularly wise or prudent marriage, but it certainly could be valid.)

However, I assume you meant “don’t marry a person of the same sex as you.” If so, I would counter with the following similar statements:

Want to stop abortion? Don’t have an abortion.
Want to stop slavery? Don’t own a slave.
Want to stop gun violence? Don’t shoot anyone.
Want to stop alcoholism? Don’t drink alcohol.
Want to stop child abuse? Don’t abuse children.
Want to stop theft in your neighborhood? Don’t break into your neighbor’s house.
Want to stop nuclear weapons proliferation? Don’t own a nuclear weapon.

Clearly, in each of these examples, the thing to be stopped would be stopped by this advice, if and only if every single person and institution in the world follows this advice, without exception. Otherwise, this type of advice doesn’t really go far enough, does it? Really what these statements are saying is, “You are trying to put a stop to ‘X’. I don’t agree that X should be stopped. So I am telling you to do the absolute bare minimum in your pursuit of stopping X.”

 

[EasterJoy]

I completely agree with you. I was answering an accusation that making something legal makes it ok. I certainly do not want to make yet another homesexual thread. However, legal vs right and wrong was what I was answering.

I should have been clear: I agree with you. To oppose extending the benefits of marriage to people who have chosen to have same-sex households is not the same as being judgmental or even disapproving of same-sex couples, though. It is simply to say that a same-sex couple is a very different relationship than an opposite-sex couple, with different societal effects. This is true even for opposite-sex couples who are infertile.

To say that opposition to pretending that same-sex couples have the same societal impact as opposite-sex couples and therefore can be justly treated as intrinsically different is “imposing a personal opinion” is a popular thing to say, but the logic of it is over the top. Unless we agree that society should not have any say in what is to be encouraged or given status or forbid real differences from being treated differently, it doesn’t make any sense.

 

[JimG]

Are you saying you don’t care what unjust laws are passed or what unwise policies are kept in place in civil society, so long as these aren’t imposed on you personally? This is compassion? This is being “non-judgmental”?

A natural marriage is a real thing and a valuable thing, not an artificial cultural construct. It is based on a real biological complementarity that exists between the sexes, a complementarity that even the most avowed atheist can see is fundamentally different than a union based on the inherently sterile mutual sexual stimulation that exists between homosexuals. Can two homosexuals have real and valuable relationship? Of course they can. So can a brother and a sister; that doesn’t mean their valuable and intimate relationship ought to be extended to sexual intimacy. It doesn’t mean their relationship is the same as a marriage. Natural marriage is based on an archetypical relationship that has kept life going in all animals higher than sponges and flatworms for millions of years.

There is nothing unloving or judgmental in defending the plain truth that a natural marriage has a nature entirely distinct from a homosexual union, even if the marriage is not sacramental. How someone who is not entirely ignorant of human sexuality and even basic biology can fail to see that or acknowledge the importance of that is beyond me. This is what the invention of contraception has done to people’s appreciation of our nature, I guess.

I have rarely seen gay marriage activists address this fundamental issue. When they do, they seem to try to deny basic biology and anatomy, upon which natural marriage is based.

Human beings come in sexually complementary varieties–men and women–for a reason. Religion didn’t create men and woman. Religion didn’t make man and woman sexually complementary. Religion didn’t create natural marriage. It has existed since the dawn of civilization. It is only in the last few decades that we have the idea that nature can be sidestepped and overturned.

 

[HappyCatholic01]

Brothers and Sisters, here are the facts:

More and more people are changing their views and believe Homosexuality is NOT a sin, and more importantly, are speaking up for wanting to marry the one they love.

Now any Church may continue to have their OPINION that Homosexuality is a sin, but we as a culture are changing and there is no going back. We have friends, family and others close to us coming out as Gay, and more power to them.

Want to Stop Gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person. Otherwise, they should and they WILL have the right to marry anyone they love as well.

So the irony is, love will ALWAYS Win. God is Love. And therefore Gay Marriage will soon be legal in all 50 states.

1. Anyone telling Catholics who have allegiance to God to give up to fatalism on a Catholic website is wasting their time.
2. One cannot say they are presenting facts and then speak about what will happen in the future. Those are posits, not facts.
3. Regardless, even with Roe vs Wade, the tide on abortion has slowly turned. opposition grows yearly, at least in most cases. As catholics, we know if we continue to serve God and fight for His causes, we will always have the ultimate victory. Telling Catholics to accept it and give up is silly, pointless, and akin to telling slaves to suck it up, because slavery is legal, like it or not.

 

[mjwise]

I have rarely seen gay marriage activists address this fundamental issue. When they do, they seem to try to deny basic biology and anatomy, upon which natural marriage is based.

Human beings come in sexually complementary varieties–men and women–for a reason. Religion didn’t create men and woman. Religion didn’t make man and woman sexually complementary. Religion didn’t create natural marriage. It has existed since the dawn of civilization. It is only in the last few decades that we have the idea that nature can be sidestepped and overturned.

Americans stopped believing marriage (the legal institution) was mostly exclusively for the creation of biological children quite some years ago. “Sexual complementarity” is a specific philosophical term that really just means “completing acts creating biological children” in this context (not to be confused with a more lay reading which could be taken to mean “sexually compatible”). This sort of philosophical argument you are advancing is rarely seen in the courts because in most places it hasn’t been part of statutory marriage requirements for some years, if ever.

I agree that marriage is a good institution for the raising of children, but the reality is there is no parenting qualification or ability test to get legally married, let alone a biological test of any sort. Even scoundrels and deadbeats can marry, even if you could show to a high degree of likelihood that they will be a terrible parent.

I also think this is very unlikely to resolve in the same manner as public opinion regarding abortion. This is an issue mostly of what two adults choose to do on their own and what legal benefits and responsibilities they can avail themselves of. Whatever defects may be involved in the child-raising aspects of same-sex marriage will always pale in comparison to the scourge of abortion. The generational divide in opinion on the same-sex marriage question is quite profound.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have rarely seen gay marriage activists address this fundamental issue. When they do, they seem to try to deny basic biology and anatomy, upon which natural marriage is based.

Human beings come in sexually complementary varieties–men and women–for a reason. Religion didn’t create men and woman. Religion didn’t make man and woman sexually complementary. Religion didn’t create natural marriage. It has existed since the dawn of civilization. It is only in the last few decades that we have the idea that nature can be sidestepped and overturned.

Civil marriage civilizes and protects a natural good that exists in human biology and indeed makes the continuation of the race possible. If someone were to have DNA that encoded some different kind of relationship, that relationship would not be that same natural good.

 

[China123]

I should have been clear: I agree with you. To oppose extending the benefits of marriage to people who have chosen to have same-sex households is not the same as being judgmental or even disapproving of same-sex couples, though. It is simply to say that a same-sex couple is a very different relationship than an opposite-sex couple, with different societal effects. This is true even for opposite-sex couples who are infertile.

To say that opposition to pretending that same-sex couples have the same societal impact as opposite-sex couples and therefore can be justly treated as intrinsically different is “imposing a personal opinion” is a popular thing to say, but the logic of it is over the top. Unless we agree that society should not have any say in what is to be encouraged or given status or forbid real differences from being treated differently, it doesn’t make any sense.

Agreed. I just worry sometimes that things written on the internet come across clearly. My opossition of ssm does not mean I am contrary to people with ssa. Everyone struggles with something in our human walks. And maybe I did not come across clearly in stating that. I wrote short sentences which is not my norm…lol.

I am not sure as to why the outcry of SSM as opposed to the decades of other problems of moral decay. As another poster pointed out, the introduction of artiifcial contraception and the breakdown of the family hastened the run down the hill to moral decay more, IMO, than the SSM dilemma. The slippery slope does seem to be real phenomenon.

 

[EasterJoy]

Brothers and Sisters, here are the facts:

More and more people are changing their views and believe Homosexuality is NOT a sin, and more importantly, are speaking up for wanting to marry the one they love.

Now any Church may continue to have their OPINION that Homosexuality is a sin, but we as a culture are changing and there is no going back. We have friends, family and others close to us coming out as Gay, and more power to them.

Want to Stop Gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person. Otherwise, they should and they WILL have the right to marry anyone they love as well.

So the irony is, love will ALWAYS Win. God is Love. And therefore Gay Marriage will soon be legal in all 50 states.

Homosexuality is a condition. Homosexual acts are a sin. It isn’t up for a vote. If you have a moral code that* is *up for a vote and standards that vary with the political wind, heaven help you.

Homosexual relations are not based on love, but on sexual license. The idea of marriage for persons of the same sex is a deception that uses durable filial affection–a good thing!–and uses it as an excuse for becoming comfortable in immoral license. It is despair of self-control, masquerading as an awakening, an expression of “true self.” May heaven pardon those who have misled so many on this point. There are many people whose integrity would not have given themselves over to this lie, if they had not been so convincingly misled by others trying to justify their own self-deception by achievement of a quorum of agreement.

License destroyed many civilizations before ours. If things continue as you predict, not only in the area of sexuality but in all the other areas where license has the final say in our law and culture, then our civilization is going to implode.

The difference between your extrapolation of present into future and mine is that mine has precedents, whereas yours does not. Not many civilizations have ever pulled themselves out of the spiral ours seems to be in. Still, we have been known to have moral re-awakenings, so perhaps we will again.

 

[JimG]

Americans stopped believing marriage (the legal institution) was mostly exclusively for the creation of biological children quite some years ago.

Yes, they did, as a result of the sexual revolution and contraception. That was the beginning of the end for marriage, and if trends continue, for society. That’s why I say that gay marriage isn’t the cause of the destruction of marriage, but a result of it.

“Sexual complementarity” is a specific philosophical term that really just means “completing acts creating biological children”

I use it as a physical and anatomical term, not a philosophical term. It also means “the ability to have conjugal relations,” an essential element of natural marriage.

I agree that marriage is a good institution for the raising of children, but the reality is there is no parenting qualification or ability test to get legally married, let alone a biological test of any sort. Even scoundrels and deadbeats can marry, even if you could show to a high degree of likelihood that they will be a terrible parent.

Marriage is the natural institution ordered to the procreation and raising of children–the only such institution. As it is deconstructed, so is our civilization deconstructed.

I also think this is very unlikely to resolve in the same manner as public opinion regarding abortion. This is an issue mostly of what two adults choose to do on their own and what legal benefits and responsibilities they can avail themselves of. Whatever defects may be involved in the child-raising aspects of same-sex marriage will always pale in comparison to the scourge of abortion. The generational divide in opinion on the same-sex marriage question is quite profound.

Both abortion and and same sex marriage are forms of abuse of children. They both arose from the same root of contraceptive mentality. The rights of children ought to come before the right to children. Children are not commodities. They have a natural human right to know and love and be loved by those who generated them—their mothers and fathers.

 

[mjwise]

Yes, they did, as a result of the sexual revolution and contraception. That was the beginning of the end for marriage, and if trends continue, for society. That’s why I say that gay marriage isn’t the cause of the destruction of marriage, but a result of it.

I use it as a physical and anatomical term, not a philosophical term. It also means “the ability to have conjugal relations,” an essential element of natural marriage.

I think the tern would also have to be taken to mean actually having conjugal relations too for the term to make any sense within marriage. Obviously, if an absolute foundation of marriage is to have (uncontracepted) conjugal relations, your reasoning is solid.

Both abortion and and same sex marriage are forms of abuse of children. They both arose from the same root of contraceptive mentality. The rights of children ought to come before the right to children. Children are not commodities. They have a natural human right to know and love and be loved by those who generated them—their mothers and fathers.

This is a nice general statement (but is not really a “human right” in any legal sense), but there will always be some children who are better off, physically, materially, and psychologically, without their biological parent(s) in the picture.

The hypothesis that two men or two women cannot serve as adequate parents is a scientific question and I will let science answer that.

 

[aTraditionalist]

cheese_sdc:

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilT

We must speak out against these unholy alliances. Write your Bishops, priests, and pray, pray, pray for the protection of marriage between a man and woman.

My best friend is transgendered and I will do everything in my power to ensure that he has the same legal rights that you enjoy. He is not “unholy”.

My cousin is a lesbian, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that she has the same legal rights that you enjoy. She is not “unholy”.

My friends are Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, and Questioning, and you have to believe that I will fight for my friends’ civil rights with my dying breath. They are not “unholy”.

I don’t care if your church won’t marry them. I do care that our laws treat them as equal.

Marriage is a sacrament of the Church. Thus is defined by the Church. All sin is unholy, thus their actions are unholy. You discriminate against them by defining their person hood by what they enjoy to do with their genitals. They are more than that. Don’t bother with the love argument either. I have plenty of people that I love and we have zero sexual activity.

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android

 

[QuasiCatholic]

There’s absolutely no reason for the Catholic Church to oppose same-sex marriage, as long as – as at least one poster already said – it is limited to a civil issue and no laws are passed requiring the church to perform such marriages.

Marriage, from a civil perspective, is a simple two-party legal contract. It’s a combining of fortunes (or debts, in some cases ) and legal responsibilities. It confers various rights regarding inheritance, health care decisions, etc. that do not otherwise exist.

It has nothing to do with children, sex, even living together (keep in mind I’m talking about civil marriage here – the kind you get from filing your marriage license – not religious marriage). And marriage, in that respect, has nothing to do with religion or the lack thereof.

Last I checked, there is nothing in church doctrine that says two men can’t share financial responsibilities. Or that one woman can’t leave her belongings to one another. There isn’t even anything saying two people of the same sex can’t live together, or can’t be attracted to each other even, as long as they don’t act on it.

Jesus said give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The right for any two competent adults to enter into a legal contract with one another is Caesar’s.

 

[JimG]

There’s absolutely no reason for the Catholic Church to oppose same-sex marriage, as long as – as at least one poster already said – it is limited to a civil issue and no laws are passed requiring the church to perform such marriages.

Marriage, from a civil perspective, is a simple two-party legal contract. It’s a combining of fortunes (or debts, in some cases ) and legal responsibilities. It confers various rights regarding inheritance, health care decisions, etc. that do not otherwise exist.

It has nothing to do with children, sex, even living together (keep in mind I’m talking about civil marriage here – the kind you get from filing your marriage license – not religious marriage). And marriage, in that respect, has nothing to do with religion or the lack thereof.

Last I checked, there is nothing in church doctrine that says two men can’t share financial responsibilities. Or that one woman can’t leave her belongings to one another. There isn’t even anything saying two people of the same sex can’t live together, or can’t be attracted to each other even, as long as they don’t act on it.

Jesus said give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The right for any two competent adults to enter into a legal contract with one another is Caesar’s.

Interesting. Jesus didn’t actually say what was God’s vs what was Caesar’s, because he was avoiding answering the question that was asked.

You think he was approving of same sex marriage? That would be a remarkable change in the judgment of theologians throughout the centuries.

 

[Demetra2]

We have gay marriage now because straight people are very comfortable living an immoral lifestyle by embracing premarital sex, living together before marriage, pornography, divorce, contraception and abortion. If a straight person finds sexually immorality to be suitable then he can’t point the finger at gays and say that gay marriage is not OK. Take love for God and the Church out of the picture and this is what happens. We are a decaying culture and only an act of God will prevent gay marriage. Our government also is in favor of it. It seems to be a sort of insanity for our nation but then again sin is always a type of insanity. We must pray.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

You think he was approving of same sex marriage? That would be a remarkable change in the judgment of theologians throughout the centuries.

I think that for most of human history, various churches and states have been so entwined that there was no concept of there being a difference civil marriage and religious marriage.

Since we are lucky enough to live in a country that has separated them, I see no reason to project our religious beliefs on society at large and deny people legal protections on that basis.

What if the Methodists (which I was until recently) made it so we couldn’t have wine in church anymore because they don’t believe in drinking alcohol?

Separation of church and state is a good thing, and it exists for a reason.

 

[JimG]

I think that for most of human history, various churches and states have been so entwined that there was no concept of there being a difference civil marriage and religious marriage.

Since we are lucky enough to live in a country that has separated them, I see no reason to project our religious beliefs on society at large and deny people legal protections on that basis.

What if the Methodists (which I was until recently) made it so we couldn’t have wine in church anymore because they don’t believe in drinking alcohol?

Separation of church and state is a good thing, and it exists for a reason.

Why are there men and women?
Is the fact that human beings are made male and female a religious belief?
Or is it a fact of biology and anatomy?
Marriage grew out of the nature of man and woman as sexually complementary, and necessary to the procreation and raising of children.
It wasn’t created by religion.
It’s the way we are made.
There are men. There are women. There are children as a result.
In some era’s those facts are forgotten. Children become commodities. Families atomize into individualism.
It is in those eras that society plunges into chaos.
We are well on our way.

 

[JimG]

We have gay marriage now because straight people are very comfortable living an immoral lifestyle by embracing premarital sex, living together before marriage, pornography, divorce, contraception and abortion. If a straight person finds sexually immorality to be suitable then he can’t point the finger at gays and say that gay marriage is not OK. Take love for God and the Church out of the picture and this is what happens. We are a decaying culture and only an act of God will prevent gay marriage. Our government also is in favor of it. It seems to be a sort of insanity for our nation but then again sin is always a type of insanity. We must pray.

It is true that in order for same sex ‘marriage’ to become a possibility, sexual morality had first to be destroyed, as did natural marriage. We are indeed a dying culture, falling into darkness.