LGBT, secular unions

[EphelDuath]

Is it objectively sinful by official Church teaching to be against gay marriage, though support secular LGBT unions?

The U.S. was founded on the principal of religious freedom, so I can’t see any arguments apart from religious morality that same-sex unions should not be allowed from a government standpoint, even if it is obvious they shouldn’t be allowed religious-wise.

 

[jmcrae]

I think what needs to happen is that the government needs to find a more direct way to solve whatever problem it is that GLBT “marriages” are supposed to be solving.

GLBT persons have no more need of marriage licenses than blind people have of driver’s licenses, because it is not physically possible for them to do the thing that the license permits them to do.

If it is a matter of inheritance rights, then maybe we should open up inheritance rights so that people who have been living together in the same house for years can inherit each other’s property when one of them dies.

I think that Catholic politicians have a duty to figure out what the actual problem is, and apply a solution that makes sense for the problem, rather than inventing legal fictions to get around them in some way.

 

[1ke]

Is it objectively sinful by official Church teaching to be against gay marriage, though support secular LGBT unions?

Yes.

The U.S. was founded on the principal of religious freedom, so I can’t see any arguments apart from religious morality that same-sex unions should not be allowed from a government standpoint, even if it is obvious they shouldn’t be allowed religious-wise.

Do some searches, there are *many *reasons.

First, marriage is regulated by the state *because *society has a vested insterest in promoting it. Tax laws, benefits, etc, are all civil, not religious. They are given to married couples because marriage is the base unit of society, promotes stability and children.

In short, the government gets involved in marriage for civil/societal reasons, not religious reasons.

For the same reasons that civil government *promotes *marriage for the good of society, it is in society’s interest to *discourage *same-sex unions. They are bad for society and for children. Study after study continues to confirm this.

Remember, counter to what gay activists try to portray, same sex attraction is a disorder and disordered desires and activities can NEVER be good for society.

 

[EphelDuath]

Now, before I respond, I want to make something clear: my goal here is not to deride the Church’s teachings, only to convince myself that I am wrong.

In short, the government gets involved in marriage for civil/societal reasons, not religious reasons.

The government was designed to protect our freedoms, not our best interests. The Founding Fathers would argue that discriminating against two people because they’re the same sex would be contrary to the liberalism theory.

For the same reasons that civil government promotes marriage for the good of society, it is in society’s interest to discourage same-sex unions. They are bad for society and for children. Study after study continues to confirm this.

That’s subjective. The bias in this field is research is too thick to draw any real conclusions. I’ve seen many statistics support both sides of the coin.

 

[EphelDuath]

An addendum to my previous post.

I believe I am a “faithful” Christian because even if I cannot live up to the Church’s standards, I at least acknowledge that it is the Truth. Though I cannot help but feel like the Church is pushing me towards a medieval Caesaropapist government.

If homosexuals prefer to accept their sexual tendencies in spite of God’s imperative, fine; it’s your choice, we can’t force you to be Christian. Except by telling them that they cannot receive the government’s tax benefits in unions, we are attempting to force them to conform to a Christian worldview.

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

For the same reasons that civil government *promotes *marriage for the good of society, it is in society’s interest to *discourage *same-sex unions. They are bad for society and for children. Study after study continues to confirm this.

Remember, counter to what gay activists try to portray, same sex attraction is a disorder and disordered desires and activities can NEVER be good for society.

No, you are stereotyping if you say it is against society’s interest.

Also, the use of “disorder” and “disordered” portrays them as lesser people in all of our eyes, which is not the case.

My personal relationships are not threatened by what my neighbors do or do not do, they rise and fall on myself and my girlfriend etc… It does not matter if my neighbors have good or bad homosexual or heterosexual relationships, it does not effect me.

I also use the second greatest commandment and want (if possible for two monogamous people) the chance to be together with each other for the rest of their lives and all the ups and downs a relationship like that pertains. I see the other person as their love of their life, and if that is their life partner then I wish them the best until their natural deaths.

 

[jmcrae]

If homosexuals prefer to accept their sexual tendencies in spite of God’s imperative, fine; it’s your choice, we can’t force you to be Christian. Except by telling them that they cannot receive the government’s tax benefits in unions, we are attempting to force them to conform to a Christian worldview.

And by attempting “marriage,” they are forcing themselves into an ill-fitting heterosexual world-view. There is absolutely nothing about the GLBT lifestyle that requires them to operate in pairs.

Sex outside of marriage, of every kind, is already legal. The problem is elsewhere. I suspect that the problem is inheritance rights - if it is, then the easiest way to solve it is to say that one’s “next of kin” is defined as whomever one designates in one’s will, or if one has no will, the person one has been most closely sharing one’s life with.

This would have wider ramifications as well - for example, if in my dotage my children abandon me and I am cared for by someone not related to me by blood, it is more fitting (I think) that any money, property, and goods I leave behind should go to that person (especially if they are living in the same house with me), rather than to children who didn’t lift a finger during my lifetime - assuming I die without a will, of course. Otherwise, everything goes to my god son.

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

And by attempting “marriage,” they are forcing themselves into an ill-fitting heterosexual world-view. There is absolutely nothing about the GLBT lifestyle that requires them to operate in pairs.

Actually, there is nothing in heterosexual livelong unions that require operations in pairs. This is a relativity recent sociatial construct (relative to beginning of species).

 

[jmcrae]

Actually, there is nothing in heterosexual livelong unions that require operations in pairs. This is a relativity recent sociatial construct (relative to beginning of species).

With heterosexuals, the purpose of sex is children, and the only way to get children is to have one woman with one man, doing it in (generally speaking) one particular way.

 

[dwc]

I think the movement for gay marriage is really about finances, and not about love and commitment, although the sentimental aspect is what is heavily portrayed in the media, because people do feel sympathetic to the plight of two lovers forbidden to be together by society’s prejudice, etc, etc.

Underneath it all is the desire to have the tax, social security, pension, employee health benefits and whatnot that are available to married couples. As for inheritance rights – that’s a nonissue. As long as you draw up a will, you can leave your property to your cat or your gay lover as easily as your children.

To me, the real issue is this: the above benefits are very expensive to society. The government loses tax dollars, and spends money on “entitlements;” employers pay to provide benefits to their employees’ spouses and children. What do LGBT unions bring to the bargaining table to justify the expense to society? What benefits do they provide, how do they contribute to the overall good? These unions are not neutral, with no cost, so that the issue is “are they bad enough to prohibit?”; rather, they would be quite costly for all of us, so that the question becomes, “do they provide benefits to the common good such that society as a whole should be willing to assume the expense of supporting them?”

 

[Steeltemplar]

The Church’s teaching makes it clear that homosexual unions are sinful:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. 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.

Anything which has been said contrary to this is not true Catholic doctrine.

Pope Benedict XVI has addressed the issue of homosexual unions. This is from a speech given on June 6th 2005:

Today, the various forms of the erosion of marriage, such as free unions and “trial marriage”, and even pseudo-marriages between people of the same sex, are instead an expression of anarchic freedom that are wrongly made to pass as true human liberation. This pseudo-freedom is based on a trivialization of the body, which inevitably entails the trivialization of the person. Its premise is that the human being can do to himself or herself whatever he or she likes: thus, the body becomes a secondary thing that can be manipulated, from the human point of view, and used as one likes. Licentiousness, which passes for the discovery of the body and its value, is actually a dualism that makes the body despicable, placing it, so to speak, outside the person’s authentic being and dignity.

The truth about marriage and the family, deeply rooted in the truth about the human being, has been actuated in the history of salvation, at whose heart lie the words: “God loves his people”. The biblical revelation, in fact, is first and foremost the expression of a history of love, the history of God’s Covenant with humankind.

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/june/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050606_convegno-famiglia_en.html

And this is from a speech he gave on January 11th 2007:

Indeed, those projects that aim to attribute to other forms of union inappropriate legal recognition, inevitably lead to weakening and destabilizing the legitimate family founded on marriage and appear to be dangerous and counterproductive.

 

[blessedtoo]

The government was designed to protect our freedoms, not our best interests.

Without a citizenry, there is no “freedom” to protect. In other words, the state has no interest in bestowing benefits and rewards for “unions” that can bring no more citizens into society. It’s interest in marriage has nothing to do with sentiment or “love”. It has to do with what is best for the CONTINUATION of it’s citizenry.

The Founding Fathers would argue that discriminating against two people because they’re the same sex would be contrary to the liberalism theory.

No. The FF would argue that there is no discrimination. Every person has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex.

That’s subjective. The bias in this field is research is too thick to draw any real conclusions. I’ve seen many statistics support both sides of the coin.

Not everything is subjective. There are some unbiased works out there. When I was struggling with this issue, I read this book, written by a liberal author with no religious ax to grind. It is an anthropological and secular examination of the institution of marriage.
amazon.com/Future-Marriage-David-Blankenhorn/dp/1594030812

If you really wish

to convince myself that I am wrong.

then you should read this book.

 

[1ke]

The government was designed to protect our freedoms, not our best interests.

This is a false view of government. Government exists to protect the civil order and the COMMON good. Individual freedoms exist only subordinate to that aim.

That is why the government regulates and denies so many individual freedoms, and uses social policy to influence desired outcomes.

The Founding Fathers would argue that discriminating against two people because they’re the same sex would be contrary to the liberalism theory.

The founding fathers had no problem excluding slaves or women from government, immigrants and non-landholders. You are looking at our founding fathers through rose color glasses, not based in reality.

 

[1ke]

No, you are stereotyping if you say it is against society’s interest.

Procreation and education of children in stable homes is in society’s interest. Same-sex homes are not. They produce nothing of value to society, and they destabilize the nuclear family.

Also, the use of “disorder” and “disordered” portrays them as lesser people in all of our eyes, which is not the case.

It states a fact, nothing more and nothing less. Homosexual persons are equal in dignity to any other person, they have a disorder just as many other persons do. If they allow that disorder to define them, then they are the ones potraying themselves in a particular manner, not me.

My personal relationships are not threatened by what my neighbors do or do not do, they rise and fall on myself and my girlfriend etc… It does not matter if my neighbors have good or bad homosexual or heterosexual relationships, it does not effect me.

You are so very wrong, and shortsighted.

I also use the second greatest commandment and want (if possible for two monogamous people) the chance to be together with each other for the rest of their lives and all the ups and downs a relationship like that pertains. I see the other person as their love of their life, and if that is their life partner then I wish them the best until their natural deaths.

You distort God’s command, how sad. God command us to love in accordance with his Law, not in transgression of it.

 

[1ke]

If homosexuals prefer to accept their sexual tendencies in spite of God’s imperative, fine; it’s your choice, we can’t force you to be Christian.

Yes, that is true. Every person has free will.

Except by telling them that they cannot receive the government’s tax benefits in unions, we are attempting to force them to conform to a Christian worldview.

I disagree.

Right now, at least 5 countries in the world are offering tax benefits to couples who produce more children because of their birth dearth. There is no religious motivation there, it is purely economical. As long as you continue to frame the denial of same sex unions as a religious argument, you are missing the point of government. Governments are in the business of promoting, through tax benefits and preferential treatment, those behaviors that are GOOD for society. And, society needs more people, that’s why everyone is on the baby bandwagon-- we are depopulating. Same sex unions offer NOTHING to society. That is why they should NOT be tax advantaged, protected, or treated the same way as marriages. They are not marriages and do not produce benefits for societey.

Any civil protection such as inheritance, power of attorney, etc, can be taken care of now WITHOUT a legal “same sex unions” by simply creating wills and trusts.

 

[KathleenElsie]

Is it objectively sinful by official Church teaching to be against gay marriage, though support secular LGBT unions?

The U.S. was founded on the principal of religious freedom, so I can’t see any arguments apart from religious morality that same-sex unions should not be allowed from a government standpoint, even if it is obvious they shouldn’t be allowed religious-wise.

All these “unions” are is secular marriage by another name.

 

[KathleenElsie]

I think the movement for gay marriage is really about finances, and not about love and commitment, although the sentimental aspect is what is heavily portrayed in the media, because people do feel sympathetic to the plight of two lovers forbidden to be together by society’s prejudice, etc, etc.

Underneath it all is the desire to have the tax, social security, pension, employee health benefits and whatnot that are available to married couples. As for inheritance rights – that’s a nonissue. As long as you draw up a will, you can leave your property to your cat or your gay lover as easily as your children.

To me, the real issue is this: the above benefits are very expensive to society. The government loses tax dollars, and spends money on “entitlements;” employers pay to provide benefits to their employees’ spouses and children. What do LGBT unions bring to the bargaining table to justify the expense to society? What benefits do they provide, how do they contribute to the overall good? These unions are not neutral, with no cost, so that the issue is “are they bad enough to prohibit?”; rather, they would be quite costly for all of us, so that the question becomes, “do they provide benefits to the common good such that society as a whole should be willing to assume the expense of supporting them?”

Here is an idea. Change the tax laws. End the income tax and go to a consumption tax with a credit for each human being (same amount for every living breathing person). Then secular marriage would end and religious marriage can continue as it was meant to be A BLESSING ON THE PERSONS BY GOD.

 

[dwc]

Change the tax laws. End the income tax and go to a consumption tax with a credit for each human being (same amount for every living breathing person). Then secular marriage would end and religious marriage can continue as it was meant to be A BLESSING ON THE PERSONS BY GOD.

Except that secular marriage, even among people who have no faith, provides important benefits to society. Many knowledgable people argue that many of our current societal ills result from the breakdown of secular marriage and the resulting instability in family and child rearing. There is no sane reason to do anything to further erode civil marriage.

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[KathleenElsie]

Except that secular marriage, even among people who have no faith, provides important benefits to society. Many knowledgable people argue that many of our current societal ills result from the breakdown of secular marriage and the resulting instability in family and child rearing. There is no sane reason to do anything to further erode civil marriage.

---

Secular marriage is just in many cases polygamy two people at a time. This does nothing to protect society or its children. What we have now does not provide for the good of the nation. If secular marriage does not protect those involved then it should not exist IMHO.

 

[CapIV]

I still can’t believe that the US government has the “right” to marry people at all. I think marriage should be left up to the individual churches, or in our case, THE Church.