North Carolina voters ban gay marriage, civil unions

[ASimon]

Originally Posted by Midwest88 View Post
Anyone else slightly amused when people equate banning SSM to racism and say “Years from now we’ll be hanging our head in shame.” I can’t take this seriously when people do this. It’s absurd.

Because the only people voicing support for same-sex marriage are gay? You don’t seriously believe this, do you?

 

[matthau21]

You’re very welcome, although again, bear in mind, that is only one way to approach the issue. It’s not my way. I prefer a natural law approach. And I want civil law to largely mirror the natural law. But that’s a whole other set of arguments. My intention here was simply to demonstrate that there is a very simple reason why even a secular society would enact the definition of “marriage” we have normatively today and had exclusively until about 10 years ago.

To address your bolded questions (first paragraph first), I cannot imagine what rational benefits civil marriage would have besides those relevant to procreation. The common argument is that marriage enables couples to be covered under each others’ life insurance policies, for instance, so that gay couples are being unjustly discriminated against. But this, too, is related to procreation. My wife gets my life insurance because doing so enables us both to discharge our duties as spouses and parents. There is no reason for my brother to get my life insurance because I have no such duty towards him. If the state desires that everyone should be covered under health insurance, it has other means at its disposal to reach that end besides “marriage.” Marriage is not there as a means of giving people free stuff from the state’s largesse.

For the second paragraph, note that the point of marriage is not to be a permission slip for people to have kids. It’s intended to provide a framework of legal duties and rights on which couples can rely in order to discharge their duty to procreate more effectively. If they choose not to avail themselves of that framework, I don’t see that as the state’s problem; after all, welfare exists to help poor people, but no one imagines it’s an argument against welfare that it’s not the only means by which poor people can be helped. Likewise, I don’t see why someone would choose to avail themselves of that framework if they have no intention of having children, but again, I don’t see it as a problem: if I go to school to get an engineering degree and then don’t practice engineering, I haven’t really done anything but wasted my time and money. It doesn’t prove that engineering degrees are useless or should be abolished.

Yes, the natural law approach is another rebuttal, but thank you for keeping it out of this - it may just muddy the waters of what is being discussed and may make the back and forth confusing.

Yes, one of the reasons for a civil marriage for homosexuals is life insurance, but in my mind not the only thing. Another may be the ability to have your significant other make decisions regarding your health if you are unable to do so. Although some people may have family, some do not, and may rely on a partner to disclose any information necessary or to even visit their significant other while in the hospital.

Although the above may not necessarily be beneficial to the state in any way, it does not hinder the state.

One that may is the adoption of children. Civil marriages may give additional opportunity for couples to adopt children or even for a person to adopt the children that are genetically related to their spouse. This would benefit the state in that, if there was a death of the biological father/mother, the spouse would still have parental duties - if they did not, the children would end up “orphaned”.

For your last paragraph, I understand that marriage isn’t the permission slip to have kids, I was just trying to state that if the government would like to benefit purely on people have children - marriage is something that may or may not go along with reproducing. This was just arguing the point that there is no use for the government drawing a line in the sand in marriage based on the point of reproduction only - which is one of the main arguments against same-sex marriages (civil-based of course)

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

How absurd and irrelevant.

Hello, Elizabeth. I didn’t actually mean to engage you in this discussion as we know where our discussions often lead. But maybe this one will be different? We’ll see.

The Roman Church does not ask, nor even suggest, that any family other than the Holy Family itself is supposed to be celibate within marriage.

Who said it did? But the USCCB statement suggests that a celibate marriage is either not real or is only virtually real–so what does that say about how we are to understand the Holy Family and other Josephite marriages? But speaking of absurdities, if we’re going to start basing morality on virtualities, then I think we really do start onto a very slippery slope…

Further, a lack of fecundity as an accident, despite attempts, does not impact all of the other aspects of genuine self-giving uniquely possibly between persons of opposite gender in a covenantal and truly complementary (biologically, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally) love.

Of course not. Though I wasn’t really talking about infertile marriages–I was talking about Josephite marriages.

Because the language of the USCCB seems to suggest that the total gift of self is only possible within a marriage when the actual sexual act is part of the marriage. Or it invites us to believe that an actual absence of fecundity can be (somehow) re-construed as a virtual presence and therefore assume the force of an actual reality–which logic tends to render the actual maleness and femaleness of the husband and wife into purely abstract terms in order to somehow instantiate the virtual fecundity…which seems counter to what the USCCB would like to do, but is in fact what it winds up doing…unless, again, the sexual act is necessary for a marriage to be real.

But where, again, does that leave Josephite marriages?

Deo Volente:

Or it could be saying that the presence of a male and a female in a marriage, even without the sexual act, produces a virtual fecundity or a virtual sexual self-giving in the absence of an actual fecundity or self-giving.

“Could be,” and is.

That’s obvious when one reads the Catholic documents. Not a mystery, even an ersatz “mystery” that needs volumes of the same non-existent hypotheticals that have been repeated for a couple of years here.*

How is virtual fecundity more than a non-existent hypothetical in itself? A virtual presence is an actual absence. A simulacrum is not the real deal.

And what is a non-existent hypothetical anyway?

Happy Easter, Elizabeth.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[the_phoenix]

North Carolina voters support, uphold, and affirm traditional marriage.
Great news!

 

[sw85]

In order to see what’s wrong with your argument, plug in a belief from some other religion. For example, Hindus hold cows to be sacred. The Constitution would not allow a law to be passed that banned people from eating cows on the ground that cows are sacred.

If you want to believe that cows are sacred and that it’s wrong for people to eat them, then knock yourself out. You just don’t get to enshrine it in the law of the land.

It’s hard to know exactly how to respond to this without pointing at you and laughing.

Err, yes, that would be allowed Constitutionally speaking, provided it passed the minimal-rational-basis smell test.

Because the only people voicing support for same-sex marriage are gay? You don’t seriously believe this, do you?

I mean that liberals in general have below replacement level fertility, versus traditionally-minded Catholic types with their dozen-plus kids. Should’ve been obvious from the context but if not I apologize from the confusion.

Yes, one of the reasons for a civil marriage for homosexuals is life insurance, but in my mind not the only thing.

But that’s not a reason for it, because that isn’t the reason civil marriage exists. Insurance coverage is instrumental to the end of marriage, not the end in itself. Again, if the state wants everyone to have insurance coverage, it has means of providing for it that don’t involve arbitrarily redefining marriage. After all there would be no reason for the state to limit such arrangements to two people, hence there would be no reason to call them “marriages.”

Another may be the ability to have your significant other make decisions regarding your health if you are unable to do so. Although some people may have family, some do not, and may rely on a partner to disclose any information necessary or to even visit their significant other while in the hospital.

That can be accomplished without marriage. IIRC a bishop in Oregon recently suggested a compromise “civil union package” that included all the rights that accrue as a result of marriage without being essential to its procreative nature. Things like automatic inheritance rights were included. Its one proviso was that, since these arrangements were not marital, there would be no reason to limit them to groups of two people or unrelated people, etc. They should be open to larger groups of people, including siblings, business partners, etc. It should in other words be just another contract with no special social status or impetus attached to it. The gay “rights” lobby rejected this on the grounds that it didn’t sufficiently resemble “marriage” and that it wanted “civil unions” as a stepping stone to gay “marriage.”

Although the above may not necessarily be beneficial to the state in any way, it does not hinder the state.

That’s questionable, but also irrelevant. Lots of things don’t hinder the state, it doesn’t follow that all of them are promulgated by the state. The state promulgates laws on the basis that they serve some positive public interest. Where there is no positive public interest there is no basis for promulgating law.

One that may is the adoption of children. Civil marriages may give additional opportunity for couples to adopt children or even for a person to adopt the children that are genetically related to their spouse. This would benefit the state in that, if there was a death of the biological father/mother, the spouse would still have parental duties - if they did not, the children would end up “orphaned”.

That doesn’t really work for me. The primary consideration in adoption is the well-being of the child. There is no “right” to adopt for anyone, and that includes married heterosexual couples.

For your last paragraph, I understand that marriage isn’t the permission slip to have kids, I was just trying to state that if the government would like to benefit purely on people have children - marriage is something that may or may not go along with reproducing. This was just arguing the point that there is no use for the government drawing a line in the sand in marriage based on the point of reproduction only - which is one of the main arguments against same-sex marriages (civil-based of course)

Well, the obvious counterpoint here is that heterosexual unions are only incidentally infertile while homosexual unions are necessarily (i.e., essentially) infertile.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

There’s always prayer, I suppose, but I doubt Romney has a one of those, either.

Yes, I turn to prayer, and prayers by me and others were answered with the outcome in NC.

Don’t mean any disrespect, sir, but I am just curious. To whom or what do you pray?
,

 

[ASimon]

Yes, I turn to prayer, and prayers by me and others were answered with the outcome in NC.

Don’t mean any disrespect, sir, but I am just curious. To whom or what do you pray?
,

I don’t.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

I don’t.

Okay, I see what you meant with ‘prayer’ was in legal parlance. Obama was not expected as in a contractual obligation to keep to his word at pre-election. I was not that naive, anyway. Did not vote for him then and no chance will I in November!
,

 

[Bookcat]

Obama just affirmed his support for gay marriage. The evolution, as it were, is complete.

Yes I found that out on the way to my doctors appointment and thought of my post here…

 

[Julia_Mae]

Anyone else slightly amused when people equate banning SSM to racism and say “Years from now we’ll be hanging our head in shame.” I can’t take this seriously when people do this. It’s absurd.

I say it and do no believe it is absurd. Will people be ashamed? No, there are plenty of people in this country who believe giving black citizens the right to vote, or considering them citizens is a dreadful mistake and history will justify them. No one who thinks this vote is a victory will ever change their mind. We will enter an era (unless our country disappears as it is doing under the constant and so-far successful assault in on the Constitution) when SSM will be common and accepted, generally.

There is no objective reason to ban SSM. Just as there is no objective reason to consider blacks inferior to others.

The argument is entirely a religion-based one.

 

[ASimon]

I say it and do no believe it is absurd. Will people be ashamed? No, there are plenty of people in this country who believe giving black citizens the right to vote, or considering them citizens is a dreadful mistake and history will justify them. No one who thinks this vote is a victory will ever change their mind. We will enter an era (unless our country disappears as it is doing under the constant and so-far successful assault in on the Constitution) when SSM will be common and accepted, generally.

There is no objective reason to ban SSM. Just as there is no objective reason to consider blacks inferior to others.

The argument is entirely a religion-based one.

When I say it, I’m thinking more about future generations, looking back. The people standing on principle today won’t ever change, but thanks to humans having a finite life expectancy, it’s not necessary that they do change.

Actually, I could revise my earlier sentiment. Plenty of people are hanging their heads in shame over it today. In a hundred years, they’ll just be laughing and rolling their eyes at this sort of backwardness.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

I say it and do no believe it is absurd. Will people be ashamed? No, there are plenty of people in this country who believe giving black citizens the right to vote, or considering them citizens is a dreadful mistake and history will justify them. No one who thinks this vote is a victory will ever change their mind. We will enter an era (unless our country disappears as it is doing under the constant and so-far successful assault in on the Constitution) when SSM will be common and accepted, generally.

There is no objective reason to ban SSM. Just as there is no objective reason to consider blacks inferior to others.

The argument is entirely a religion-based one.

Blacks Speak for Themselves if Gay Marriage is a Civil Right

Michael Steele: Don’t Compare Gay Rights to Civil Rights
,

 

[Bookcat]

In a hundred years, they’ll just be laughing and rolling their eyes at this sort of backwardness.

Yes just like many did in the Soviet Union in the 1960s regarding the those Russian Christians who lived a hundred years prior…

Oh wait – you may not remember the Soviet Union – that was that real big Country that fell apart in later part of the 20th Century.

I am sure if you look it up you can find some info on it.

 

[SeekNFind]

Although this would be too unpopular to post on facebook I think this is the right decision.

I don’t hate gay people nor do I condone gay-bashing.

Christ loves us all, but I stand firm on what is in His Word.

 

[the_phoenix]

Yes, I turn to prayer, and prayers by me and others were answered with the outcome in NC.

,

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.”

~~ Ephesians 6:12

Praying that all Catholics will follow the Pope and the Teachings of the Catholic Church
when it comes to the definition and protection of the sanctity of marriage
between one man and one woman,
and for the conversion of non-Catholics.



Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

:angel1:

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

…

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Elizabeth502,

Well said!

God bless

Loving v Virginia pertained to heterosexual marriage as a universal right. It restored that right which had been illegitimately removed. It had nothing to do with homosexual “marriage.” You would do well to find a better argument to base yourself on, especially since you continue to bring up this false “argument” which has no legal legitimacy.

Have a nice day.

 

[sw85]

We will enter an era (unless our country disappears as it is doing under the constant and so-far successful assault in on the Constitution) when SSM will be common and accepted, generally.

Plenty of people are hanging their heads in shame over it today. In a hundred years, they’ll just be laughing and rolling their eyes at this sort of backwardness.

You people are silly (and I mean it in the sense of frivolous and unserious, i.e., a silly mistake). Let’s play the triumphalism game and look beyond the next two or three decades.

Demography is destiny, after all. And the people who support gay marriage are not reproducing. They are leftists with a fertility rate of near zero. And it is near zero precisely because they are pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-homosex., etc. etc. They are aborting and contracepting and sodomizing themselves and one another into oblivion. Because evil is always its own undoing.

The kinds of orthodox Christians who turn out in droves to support anti-gay “marriage” measures have fertility rates through the roof, by contrast. You don’t even have to go to an SSPX or FSSP chapel to find a family of half a dozen kids or more. They are all over the place, in the more devout parts of the country. Again, I compare any number of my Catholic friends to any of my radical leftist acquaintances, with their soft spot for state-subsidized perversity, and the numbers are simply going the wrong way for you all. My devoutly Catholic friends are badly outnumbered, but they’re having 4, 5, 6 or more kids each. My far-more-numerous leftist friends have a total combined fertility of ZERO. Bagel. There isn’t a single child between the lot of them. Most of them will probably die without children given that they hate them and wouldn’t dream of detracting from their plans for getting a master’s in poetry and backpacking through Europe to have even one baby.

Granted, the leftist establishment is very good at seizing and converting Christians, first in public school, then in universities, then in PC-addled corporate and government work environments. That’s what they’re relying on to carry this legacy forward: the fact that they have gotten very good at indoctrinating other people’s kids, with their own complicity. But all these things are dependent on an endless stream of taxpayer money that is drying up as the economy continues to deflate and debt-based money meets its grisly and mathematically inevitable end. The elaborate framework built up which gave birth to this ludicrous movement approximately five minutes ago is *collapsing *and there is nothing that any of you have the power to do to arrest these trends.

Seriously, where is this magical long-term-future pro-gay “marriage” consensus going to come from? You all certainly aren’t going to birth it, considering you won’t make the sacrifices necessary to bear enough kids to carry your legacy forward. How are you going to corrupt our children, then, since that’s your only other option? Through the universities we’re not going to be going to once the debt bubble collapses and emphasis begins shifting again toward trades and away from womyn’s studies and underwater bean farming? Through the mainstream media no one listens to or believes in? Through spiritual osmosis or something?

Granted, the difference in fertility is going to take two, three, or four generations or more before it catches up. Our position is similar to that of the devout Christians in the early Roman empire, a tiny and (soon-to-be, in our case) persecuted minority. But guess what – 300 years later and those devout Christians were running the show, and the idols of the pagan gods lay smashed in the streets. And it happened because the Christians were the ones having kids while the Romans cannibalized their young and entertained every perverse lust that flitted across their frontal lobes. Because evil is always its own undoing.

It’s going to take a while, but it’s going to happen. It can’t not happen. Homosexuality-enthusiasts and their hangers-on in the collapsing sectors of Christendom (e.g., mainline Protestantism and heterodox Catholicism) simply aren’t reproducing and for that reason, your beliefs come with an expiration date. How long can institutional support for this sort of meritless nonsense last when its committed enemies are outbreeding its supporters by a ratio of like 5:1? Or 10:1? A few generations, maybe?

The Romans had on their side the fact that their leaders had steel in their guts and were willing to try to genocide the Christians out of existence. I have no doubt you guys will try (you have before, after all), but you’re not worthy opponents of us. There isn’t a Marcus Aurelius among you. I doubt there’s even a Stalin; whatever else is true of liberalism, it’s not good at producing alpha males. So you’ll bring out the knives and bear your fangs and we will go singing to our martyrdoms with joyous hearts by the hundreds and we will still outlast you. We’ve done it before, against greater odds and far more dangerous people than you misfits. And if you don’t, your end will just come that much quicker. And when it does human nature will reassert itself and your little experiments in gnosticism will end, and future generations (none of which will be descended from you, natch) will detest you for your pride and indecency. And gay “marriage” and every other non sequitur you invent in the meantime will slide down the rat hole like the moral and historical anomaly it is. Because evil is always its own undoing.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Mark,

Grace and Peace to you, too. Now, let’s get serious…

There isn’t a single recorded reference about someone who was with John the Baptist at the Jordan River, feeling sadness because the Voice Crying in the Wilderness was one that cut the Pharisees and other Temple leaders to the heart. John spared no words - and he seems to have begun this when the Pharisees just showed up! This ‘…brood of vipers…’ apparently did not have time to say anything before John tore into them! As I read your post, I would think you would also be saddened by John’s behavior.

At some point we stand up for what is right based on the Word of God, we announce to others what we believe to be right based on the Gospels and we try to initially admonish the sinner privately - but, failing many repeated efforts - we reject sinful BEHAVIOR as incompatable with God’s Word (Matt 18). Our responsibility is now to be clear as to the teachings of the Catholic Church and to pray that sinners repent and return to God’s Love.

The Catholic Church has been quite clear that homosexual acts represent profoundly disordered behavior. Everyone - from our good Catholic Vice-President Joe Biden on have been put on notice as to what the Church teaches - and these individuals have given every appearance of rejecting the teaching of the Church. Ultimately, there comes a time where you have to realize that you will be either counted with the Sheep or the Goats.

Make up your mind - either the Law of God is worth standing up for, or it isn’t. Being ‘nice’ has nothing to do with it.

God bless

Grace & Peace!

It saddens me to see such rhetoric, particularly from people, like the second poster quoted above, whom I know to be thoughtful Christians.

We do ourselves no great service when we commit ourselves to devisive rhetoric, the root of which is always this question: who has power over whom? The question of who has power over whom belongs to the sphere of sin, of violence and death, because power in this context is* always* related to violence as the rhetoric above eloqently demonstrates.

In the light of the Resurrection–revealing to us the union of Heaven and Earth, showing us definitively that the nature of God is a Love that has no part in death and violence, but is lovingly willing to become a victim of that death and violence in order to empty it of meaning and power–in such a light, using the language of violence and death, of us v. them, is un-Christian, to say the least.

Drawing these lines in the sand gives us an incredible sense of self-identity, granted. But this identity is always forged at the expense of and over against the other whom we see as our enemy and who will ultimately be seen as worthy of execution or obliteration. This is no way to form a healthy self-understanding, particularly when God has freely given us his own self-understanding to be our own self-understanding: Jesus Christ.

In these sorts of heated debates where religion and politics appear to overlap, it often seems that being “right” or “correct” (regardless of one’s leaning on the political spectrum) begins to be seen as a substitute for being the Deathless Love of Christ in the world. This is lamentable, particularly because it shows a tendency in us to trust in the apparatus of the modern liberal state to engineer a more moral citizenry or validate a holy or religious end. But using the apparatus of the modern liberal state to accomplish or validate what is believed to be a holy or religious end does not make us or the modern liberal state more holy or religious, but merely recasts the holy, the moral, or the religious in the terms of the modern liberal state. We might do well to remember the Psalmist’s words: “Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses : but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.”

With regard to the NC vote, the people of NC have spoken and will get what they wanted. That’s fine. Whether or not we or they will ultimately like what they’ve gotten is beside the point. “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well,” as Our Lord told his servant, Dame Julian of Norwich.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[mgoforth]

What do you think about Paul’s quote?

Personally, I think that as a Catholic, you should defer to the Catholic Church’s interpretation of scripture…rather than going Sola Scriptura. The Church’s position on this issue is, has, and always will be crystal clear, Ronald. End of debate, really.

 

[TimothyH]

How many wives did Solomon have? How many concubines. Shall we repeal all the various redefinitions of marriage since Solomon?

rossum

Rossum, Christians believe that Christ did repeal those definitions.

Christians believe that Christ returned the definition of marriage to what God originally designed and what was lived by Adam and Eve, one woman and one man, naked and without shame, in the Garden of Eden.

I’m not trying to convince you, but rather am just pointing out our belief for the sake of clarity. This is what we believe, exactly as you propose, that Christ, who was God, did repeal those definitions. Marriage was just one of the things he came to restore. That is what we believe.

-Tim-