My Friend and I, both Catholic, are having a debate over “gay marriage”. Is there a nonreligious point of emphasis I can use? I gave her a copy of the Catholic Answers Special Report,“Gay Marriage”, and she’s already claiming most of the sources as biased and therefore invalid.
**First, I doubt she has read it; second, you know that she does not agree with Church teaching. Because of the latter, anything you say or direct will become invalid for her.
Think back to the 1960s, when illegitimacy and cohabitation were relatively rare. At that time many asked how one young woman having a baby out of wedlock or living with an unmarried man could hurt their neighbors. Now we know the negative social effects these two living arrangements have spawned: lower marriage rates, more instability in the marriages that are enacted, more fatherless children, increased rates of domestic violence and poverty, and a vast expansion of welfare state expenses.
Would gay marriage be bad for society? The entire definition of marriage would change after thousands of years. This itself will change the concept of family which has been a staple of continuity in any era. Families begat children to create future generations of human beings who become an integral part of a social structure. As for the notion of ‘creating’ the prospect for ‘stable’ gay relationships via marriage, statistics have shown (in the Netherlands, no less) that even among stable homosexual partnerships, men have an average of eight partners per year outside their “monogamous” relationship. Because of that, other types of relationships will need to be considered as legitimate, such as threesomes or more. This already is in the courts of Europe and has been upheld as acceptable.
Would gay marriage be bad for children? While gay marriage would encourage adoption of children by homosexual couples, which may be preferable to foster care, some lesbian couples want to have children through anonymous sperm donations, which means some children will be created purposely without knowledge of one of their biological parents. Research has also shown that children raised by homosexuals were more dissatisfied with their own gender, suffer a greater rate of molestation within the family, and have homosexual experiences more often. Gay marriage will also encourage teens who are unsure of their sexuality to embrace a lifestyle that suffers high rates of suicide, depression, HIV, drug abuse, STDs, and other pathogens. Acceptance of gay marriage will strengthen the notion that marriage is primarily about adult yearnings for intimacy and is not essentially connected to raising children. Children will be hurt by those who will too easily bail out of a marriage because it is not “fulfilling” to them.
Common sense tells us that it would be destructive of the moral fabric of society. We are already having trouble maintaining stability in both marriage and family life. This will only exasperate the problem further.
You could direct your friend to some of these sites and let her read them herself - if she is honest, the light bulb will click:
pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/87/6/869?maxtoshow=&HITS=80&hits=80&RESULTFORMAT=&searchid=1077133347863_11926&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=10&sortspec=relevance&volume=87&journalcode=pediatrics
hivandhepatitis.com/recent/2008/082908_b.html**
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! The theory of evolution concerns itself with the “survival of the species”. **How can gay unions ensure the survival of the species??? ** That contradicts the theory of evolution and therefore gay-marriages and unions (sex) are contrary to natural law. Therefore, they cannot be permitted.
