My personal take on gay "marriage"

[Bradski]

Will everyone agree on a given determination of what is moral?

Nope. But if you base your ideas, not on reasoned arguments, but on religious beliefs, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever.

 

[Cimachol]

But on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, more and more people see nothing wrong or immoral about them. That’s even more the case with younger people, including younger Catholics:

If those of us who believe that homosexual marriage is immoral aren’t able to persuade others in society, we aren’t going to get the laws we believe should exist, no matter how right we are. Just like abolitionists weren’t able to end slavery until they convinced enough people that slavery was wrong. The right moral argument doesn’t always win the day, but it doesn’t mean we stop trying.

I don’t know if I believe the poll is totally accurate, since most states that had voted on gay marriage had rejected it, but certainly the number of those in favor of legalizing homosexual “marriages” has been on the rise for some time.

Still, popular opinion can be wrong, and those of us who believe it is wrong have every right to try to correct it.

 

[Cimachol]

Nope. But if you base your ideas, not on reasoned arguments, but on religious beliefs, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever.

OK. But if you base your ideas not on reasoned arguments, but on a desire for a godless society, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever.

 

[Bradski]

OK. But if you base your ideas not on reasoned arguments, but on a desire for a godless society, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever.

Well I’m all for a society that includes your God. And any other deity you’d care to mention. I’m not anti religion. I think it does a lot of good for a lot of people.

But my arguments won’t include any reference to your God or anyone else’s. If yours don’t, then we’re on the same page, which is a good thing. I mean, if the ONLY reason you are going to argue against, in this case, gay marriage turns out to be ‘because God says so’, then it won’t be a very fruitful discussion.

One assumes that you’d have reasons other than that. Because I can’t just accept that line of reasoning or we’d both have to accept that line from people with other beliefs.

Let me know what yours are when you get the chance.

 

[Lydia739]

1. Were we a democracy, this issue would not have surfaced. The alternatively-sexual and progressive sectors do not compose a majority of the citizenry.

However, heterosexual people who believe that alternatively-sexual people should be treated equally are now a large and increasing proportion of the citizenry in many western countries. This is how changes in the law have gained sufficient support that they have happened.

Think about it - laws to protect, for example, disabled people from discrimination get passed not because disabled people are a majority, but because the majority want them to be protected. Women have almost always been about half the population, but we didn’t get legal rights to various things (eg the vote) until a majority of the people who already had power (ie men) came to believe that we should.

However much we Christians may believe that homosexual acts are sin, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the legal system to treat them as such in a largely post-Christian society where the majority regard homosexuality as something equivalent to race or sex - ie as something that it is wrong to discriminate against.

Edit: Just seen that Cimachol has already made this point. Sorry - I think I hadn’t noticed there was another page of this thread when I posted.

 

[Rau]

…However, as Christians, we have a duty to obey God. And he has made it very clear that marriage is between ONE MAN and ONE woman. To pretend otherwise is both foolish and impious. Thus, it pains me whenever an ordained clergy figure, regardless of which church they belong to, brushes aside their commitment to obey the words of the bible. Likewise, its important to understand that the First Amendment works both ways, and any attempt to FORCE churches to accept gay "marriage should be vigorously opposed. Feel free to agree or disagree with anything I say.

Personally, I don’t see a need to rely on religious beliefs to sustain a view that marriage requires man+ woman. If you accept that marriage is a permanent commitment to a sexual relationship, and arises from the natural (sexual) faculties of man and woman, and you accept that the primary aspect of our sexual faculty is reproduction, it makes no sense to view marriage as being relevant between other than man and woman.

 

[EleanorArr]

Personally, I don’t see a need to rely on religious beliefs to sustain a view that marriage requires man+ woman. If you accept that marriage is a permanent commitment to a sexual relationship, and arises from the natural (sexual) faculties of man and woman, and you accept that the primary aspect of our sexual faculty is reproduction, it makes no sense to view marriage as being relevant between other than man and woman.

As with so many aspects of Church/Christian social or moral teaching (regarding abortion or contraception might be other obvious examples), one doesn’t actually need any religious belief to derive them. They basically make sense on their own…

 

[Rau]

… I just don’t see that I need to take something that is my belief (homosexuality is a sin) and make it illegal. If society as a whole decides it’s a sin, let the collective society make it illegal.

Nobody proposes to make homosexual activity illegal. The view being put by many is simply that a same sex sexual relationship isn’t marriage, so why ought the State to recognise and support it as such. Which is not to say that there can’t be other forms of relationship that the State might recognise/support.

 

[clem456]

An observation??
Well, if that’s true…then millions of people do not observe this.

.

Just as a starting thought: there are millions of people who believe in lots of things. We have discussions about the merits of their beliefs using common sense observation.
In other words, you might agree that might does not make right. Nor does habit make right. Nor popularity.
Starvation is popular around the world for instance…
So if you accept that morality is not rigidly subject to popular opinion then we can dig deeper and talk about a just society.
If it is all about popular opinion, we can just go mow the lawn with a Budweiser and forget about all this.

 

[clem456]

An observation??
Well, if that’s true…then millions of people do not observe this.

.

Just as a starting thought: there are millions of people who believe in lots of things. We have discussions about the merits of their beliefs using common sense observation.
In other words, you might agree that might does not make right. Nor does habit make right. Nor popularity.
Starvation is popular around the world for instance…
So if you accept that morality is not rigidly subject to popular opinion then we can dig deeper and talk about a just society.
If it is all about popular opinion, we can just go mow the lawn with a Budweiser and forget about all this.

 

[Stephen_says]

Personally, I don’t see a need to rely on religious beliefs to sustain a view that marriage requires man+ woman. If you accept that marriage is a permanent commitment to a sexual relationship, and arises from the natural (sexual) faculties of man and woman, and you accept that the primary aspect of our sexual faculty is reproduction, it makes no sense to view marriage as being relevant between other than man and woman.

Many people do not accept that marriage arises primarily for reasons of reproduction. It makes sense to you, but not to them.

There are countless heterosexual married couples who are doing everything in their power to not have children, therefore the United States Government sees no way to prevent homosexual couples to marry just because they can’t have children.

Marriage is now defined by the pleasure of those participating in the marriage. Marriage isn’t fun anymore? Get a divorce! Kids aren’t fun? Don’t have them! Two dudes/chicks wanna get married? Sure! Why not?!

See how it works?

 

[ialsop]

But…even if the God that Christians worship made this clear to them (tho I don’t agree this is the case)…the Gods of other religions/beliefs may not teach their worshippers the same thing.

1. Do you feel it’s okay to tell people of other religions that they must follow what your God says?
2. Or do you believe in religious freedom?

.

1. Yes. Do you believe truth applies to everybody?
2. If you mean “everybody can have the freedom to literally bend truth” then no. Why should I? That’s illogical.

 

[ialsop]

An observation??
Well, if that’s true…then millions of people do not observe this.

.

Did it ever occur to you that what millions of people think or don’t think doesn’t actually change TRUTH? No matter what that truth is, people’s opinions don’t change it.

 

[ialsop]

Nope. But if you base your ideas, not on reasoned arguments, but on religious beliefs, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever.

“But if you base your ideas, not on reasoned arguments, but on arguments that support your beliefs, then I will discount them without any compunction whatsoever”

Such a scientific way of thinking.

 

[ialsop]

Well I’m all for a society that includes your God. And any other deity you’d care to mention. I’m not anti religion. I think it does a lot of good for a lot of people.

But my arguments won’t include any reference to your God or anyone else’s. If yours don’t, then we’re on the same page, which is a good thing. I mean, if the ONLY reason you are going to argue against, in this case, gay marriage turns out to be ‘because God says so’, then it won’t be a very fruitful discussion.

One assumes that you’d have reasons other than that. Because I can’t just accept that line of reasoning or we’d both have to accept that line from people with other beliefs.

Let me know what yours are when you get the chance.

Fair enough!

But you don’t need a Bible to see that homosexuality is wrong, you need a high school biology textbook. Or, heck, just ask anybody where babies come from.

 

[Lydia739]

Many people do not accept that marriage arises primarily for reasons of reproduction. It makes sense to you, but not to them.

There are countless heterosexual married couples who are doing everything in their power to not have children, therefore the United States Government sees no way to prevent homosexual couples to marry just because they can’t have children.

Marriage is now defined by the pleasure of those participating in the marriage. Marriage isn’t fun anymore? Get a divorce! Kids aren’t fun? Don’t have them! Two dudes/chicks wanna get married? Sure! Why not?!

See how it works?

It’s not just marriage - the overwhelming majority of non-Catholics do not believe that sex is primarily for reproduction either, and are therefore baffled by RC teaching on ABC.

They do, however, generally accept that stable and lasting marriage are a good thing, that divorce is damaging (especially for children) and that adultery is wrong (although if they are tempted to adultery themselves they may come up with all sorts of justifications why it’s understandable in their particular case).

 

[Stephen_says]

It’s not just marriage - the overwhelming majority of non-Catholics do not believe that sex is primarily for reproduction either, and are therefore baffled by RC teaching on ABC.

It is sad, because the RC does not say that sex is primarily for reproduction! Sex is primarily an expression of love, and love is necessarily open to the creation of life, or else it’s not love.

 

[ialsop]

It is sad, because the RC does not say that sex is primarily for reproduction! Sex is primarily an expression of love, and love is necessarily open to the creation of life, or else it’s not love.

But you know what DOES say sex is primarily for reproduction?

Science.

For it to be anything beyond that, people have to say there is something beyond science. Interesting…

 

[kozlosap]

It’s not just marriage - the overwhelming majority of non-Catholics do not believe that sex is primarily for reproduction either, and are therefore baffled by RC teaching on ABC.

They do, however, generally accept that stable and lasting marriage are a good thing, that divorce is damaging (especially for children) and that adultery is wrong (although if they are tempted to adultery themselves they may come up with all sorts of justifications why it’s understandable in their particular case).

The vast majority of Western Catholics believe the same thing as evidenced by their use of ABC.

 

[Thorolfr]

Sex is primarily an expression of love, and love is necessarily open to the creation of life, or else it’s not love.

So if all love is necessarily open to the creation of life (or else it’s not love), when Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he’s saying that you should be doing something with your neighbor that is “open to the creation of life”?