Pick a side on gay issue!

[trustmc]

From “The Homosexual Movement,” First Things, March 1994, by the Ramsey Colloquium:

Fundamental to human life in society is the creation of humankind as male and female, which is typically and paradigmatically expressed in the marriage of a man and a woman who form a union of persons in which two become one flesh-a union which, in the biblical tradition, is the foundation of all human community. In faithful marriage, three important elements of human life are made manifest and given support… the continuation of human life, the place of difference within community, the redirection of our tendency to place our own desires first. These necessities cannot be supported by rational calculations of self-interest alone; they require commitments that go well beyond the demands of personal satisfaction.

Having and rearing children is among the most difficult of human projects. Men and women need all the support they can get to maintain stable marriages in which the next generation can flourish. **Even marriages that do not give rise to children exist in accord with, rather than in opposition to, this heterosexual norm. **To depict marriage as simply one of several alternative “lifestyles” is seriously to undermine the normative vision required for social well-being.

 

[trustmc]

From “The Homosexual Movement,” First Things, March 1994, by the Ramsey Colloquium:

Many gays argue that they have no choice, that they could not be otherwise than they are. Such an assertion can take a variety of forms- for example, that “being gay is natural for me” or even that “God made me this way.”

We cannot settle the dispute about the roots-genetic or environmental-of homosexual orientation. When some scientific evidence suggests a genetic predisposition for homosexual orientation, the case is not significantly different from evidence of predispositions toward other traits-for example, alcoholism or violence. In each instance we must still ask whether such a predisposition should be acted upon or whether it should be resisted…

The Kinsey data, which suggested that 10 percent of males are homosexual, have now been convincingly discredited. Current research suggests that the percentage of males whose sexual desires and behavior are exclusively homosexual is as low as 1 percent or 2 percent in developed societies. In any case, the statistical frequency of an act or desire does not determine its moral status…

In a fallen creation, many quite common attitudes and behaviors must be straightforwardly designated as sin. Although we are equal before God, we are not born equal in terms of our strengths and weaknesses, our tendencies and dispositions, our nature and nurture. We cannot utterly change the hand we have been dealt by inheritance and family circumstances, but we are responsible for how we play that hand.

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

No, what I’m saying is that rules should be based on an informed and well-developed conscience. If you think that a conscience is nothing more than a methodical con job, then no wonder you’re so confused about right and wrong.Mike

No, my original post was supposed to be funny. Your lapse of humour belongs to you, not me. Conscience is not made up of the word ‘con’ (confidence trick) and ‘science’. It was humour.

But as you took it as real…well, wonders will never cease. I even included a smiley to make sure even the hard of thinking would notice humour.

Do i need OHML (Obvious Humour Mark Up language?)

 

[trustmc]

trustmc:

If you think that a conscience is nothing more than a methodical con job, then no wonder you’re so confused about right and wrong.

Digger71:

No, my original post was supposed to be funny. Your lapse of humour belongs to you, not me. Conscience is not made up of the word ‘con’ (confidence trick) and ‘science’. It was humour.

But as you took it as real…well, wonders will never cease. I even included a smiley to make sure even the hard of thinking would notice humour.

Then allow me to restate: Since you don’t take your conscience seriously, then no wonder you’re so confused about right and wrong.

Mike

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

Then allow me to restate: Since you don’t take your conscience seriously, then no wonder you’re so confused about right and wrong.

Mike

Ah, funny. But I do take my con-science seriously, which is why I am not confused about right and wrong,

But I never reject humour…that is God given too.

 

[Digger71]

While the rest of the quotes are pointless, this was inteststing…

trustmc:

Religious communities and leaderships have been… deeply complicit in the demeaning of social norms essential to human flourishing.

hmmmmm, gay communities are a focus of cultural development. If you think human flourishing is just breeding then you will live in fear…but if you include knowledge and science, art and it’s functions…then you have purpose. And very difficult questions.

 

[trustmc]

Digger71:

While the rest of the quotes are pointless, this was interesting…

It may help if you read the quotes in context to glean a better understanding of their respective points. You can find the article in its entirety at the link I provided. Please don’t attribute the quotes to me. They are not mine; I only agree with them.

Here is the quote you cited in its context:

While the gay and lesbian movement is indeed a new thing, its way was prepared by, and it is in large part a logical extension of, what has been called the “sexual revolution.” The understanding of marriage and family once considered normative is very commonly dishonored in our society and, too frequently, in our communities of faith. Religious communities and leaderships have been, and in too many cases remain, deeply complicit in the demeaning of social norms essential to human flourishing.

Thus moral criticism of the homosexual world and movement is unbalanced, unfair, and implausible if it is not, at the same time, criticism of attitudes and behaviors that have debased heterosexual relations. The gay and lesbian insurgency has raised a sharp moral challenge to the hypocrisy and decadence of our culture. In the light of widespread changes in sexual mores, some homosexuals understandably protest that the sexual license extended to “straights” cannot be denied to them.

more

Mike

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

It may help if you read the quotes in context to glean a better understanding of their respective points. You can find the article in its entirety at the link I provided. Please don’t attribute the quotes to me. They are not mine; I only agree with them.

I am reading the whole article That is why my answer is not more extensive. But you selected quotes, so it seems reasonable focus on them.

 

[trustmc]

Good point. Since we seem to be pounding our keyboards at the same time, allow me to bow-out for now and give you some time for reading. It’s a hefty read, so I’ll likely not return to this thread until the weekend.

Mike

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

Good point. Since we seem to be pounding our keyboards at the same time, allow me to bow-out for now and give you some time for reading. It’s a hefty read, so I’ll likely not return to this thread until the weekend.

Mike

I am actually impressed and feel honoured by your generosity. That is not sarcasm.

 

[pira114]

MikeinSD:

What’s a strawman? IMO, I’m being asked to give up my partner, the way I live my life because someone waving a bible tells me too. I’m not a Catholic nor a Christian. How would you react to someone waving a Quran demanding that you divorce your wife, leave yr faith, and become a Muslim?

Also, what part of the US Consititution does not apply to gay men or lesbians? See, the 1st Amendment protects people who prefer not to attend a Catholic Mass or a Baptist service. Does the 1st Amendment also apply to gay or lesbian citizens too? I think it does.It is called equal protection under the law. Therefore the Consititution applys to us gay guys as well.

See you are on the secular side of the street in the gay rights thread. You’re not debating what rights gays have in yr church. The Catholic church has every right to establish and enforce rules for its members. In the US however, people do not have to belong to a particular faith to be citizens. Yr faith has every right to call us gay folks sinners. But you have to no right to strip us or anyone else of our rights as citizens.

I have a silly question. Why does a gay man who is not a Christian, come to a Catholic website and question our beliefs about homosexuality? What are your true objectives? Are you trying to bait us into saying something you can attack us with? It’s like asking a muslim what they think of Catholics. Of course you’ll get the answer you expect. And when you try to use it against us, it’ll backfire. Just like when we try to use your values against you, it’ll backfire on us. It’s stupid. Why don’t you go to a homo website?

 

[pira114]

I meant to spell out the whole word in that last sentence. I don’t know how that slipped by my proof read. I tried to edit it, but I can’t figure out how. Sorry if it looks derogatory. I don’t hate anyone based on their choices.

 

[Digger71]

pira114:

I have a silly question. Why does a gay man who is not a Christian, come to a Catholic website and question our beliefs about homosexuality? What are your true objectives? Are you trying to bait us into saying something you can attack us with? It’s like asking a muslim what they think of Catholics. Of course you’ll get the answer you expect. And when you try to use it against us, it’ll backfire. Just like when we try to use your values against you, it’ll backfire on us. It’s stupid. Why don’t you go to a homo website?

If we Catholics and other religious types would keep ourselves to ourselves, we might be justified in asking question of this sort. But we go out there and seek to impose our beliefs on others. Many religious people attack gays and lesbians. So it seem perfectly justifiable that these people engage us if only to better understand us.

As for using the term ‘homo’, I think you’ve just revealed non-religion based homophobia, giving credence to arguments that religion is the excuse many homophobes use, not the reason.

That is, of course, just one take on your post, other takes are possible.

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

From “The Homosexual Movement,” First Things, March 1994, by the Ramsey Colloquium:

Thus moral criticism of the homosexual world and movement is unbalanced, unfair, and implausible if it is not, at the same time, criticism of attitudes and behaviors that have debased heterosexual relations.

Two points jump out, while the roots of the ‘gay and lesbian insurgency’ may lie in the sexual revolution, there is a problem in identifying beginings with what evolved afterwards. The sexual revolution led to empirical research in to sexuality and the revelation that for many homosexuality was not something they did, but was something they are.

The other point is that it is not clear that male-female relationships are more debased than previously, but simply differently debased. It is not a coincidence that traditional societies treat women as chattels, with a higher incidence of male-on-female violence than in modern/post modern socieities. Simply, is wife beating more or less debased than divorce? Is law-enforced eqaulity really a debasement?

Of course the author focusses on sexual morality, but that is simply being selective. There is a wider social context that the author is simply ignoring.

Since there are good reasons to support the heterosexual norm, since it has been developed with great difficulty, and since it can be maintained only if it is cared for and supported, we cannot be indifferent to attacks upon it.

This is interesting. Because to me the advantages of marriage are so obvious and vast for society and the individuals that allowing gays to marry sends out a very strong normative message. Specifically that a monogamous publicly recognised, legally binding relationship is the ideal for everyone.

The author does make efforts do identify that some gays and lesbians are revolutionists, and that others are simply normative-seeking. But he does not understand that this distinction actually means that the latter group seek to ape hetereosxual norms, that is, they add their weight to the norms, they do not attack them.

The changes the normative homosexual groups require support marriage. The message it send to young people is. Married is good, even when it is to a member of your own gender.

Public anxiety about homosexuality is preeminently a concern about the vulnerabilities of the young. This, we are persuaded, is a legitimate and urgent public concern.

The author does slip in to stereotypes quite often, and though previously he paid lip-service to empirical research, he here return to the long discredited notion that people are seduced in to the homosexual lifestyle. The evidence is that every generation rediscovers homosexuality because there is a normal species wide rate of about 2%.

Thus, he may be ‘pursuaded’, but he is actually misinformed.

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

From “The Homosexual Movement,” First Things, March 1994, by the Ramsey Colloquium:

We must also question the authors understanding of what makes up a community, and who brings up the child. At best he is simplistic.

(1) Human society extends over time; it has a history. It does so because, through the mysterious participation of our procreative powers in God’s own creative work, we transmit life to those who will succeed us. We become a people with a shared history over time and with a common stake in that history. Only the heterosexual norm gives full expression to the commitment to time and history evident in having and caring for children.

Our societies are not exclusively made up of breeding couples, and never has been. Nor has the raising of children fallen exclusively on the parents. At it’s simplest form the extended family supports the activities. I myself was looked after by my aunt often. I mention this because my aunt never married and has lived with another woman for 45 years.

Thus direct experience tells me that unmarried, non-breeding members of the community have a direct role in child care.

Widening the argument to look at insitutions we see that the moral education of children is not exclusively held in the parents hand. We send our kids to Catholic schools and entrust their education to nuns, priests and teachers, as well as in-family education. Being educated by nuns and unmarried teachers, it again becomes clear by direct personal experience that the author of the article is providing too simple a model to be taken seriously.

I noted in the previous post that the author resorted to the stereotype of the homosexual seducer. The significance of these two points is that by misrepresenting child education, and by using discredited stereotypes he produces a false dichotomy.

He is forcing you in to the choice between recognising same-sex relationships and destroying marriage and having you children seduced in to homosexuality…or in to resisting same-sex recognition and ‘protecting’ marriage and you children.

If his argument is to have any validity (and I do not think it does) he should use accurate descriptions, he should focus on more than the sexual revolution that happened 30 years ago, he should avoid discredited stereotypes, he should accurately describe the child rearing process, he should demonstrate by means of strict inevitability that his term ‘debasement’ is true and accurate…

and so on.

 

[Digger71]

trustmc:

consider reading this article which I found to be one of the best defenses of traditional marriage and the right ordering of homosexual desires. When I have more time, I’ll pull out some excerpts that I hope will ground this debate in mutual civility.

Mike

OK. I read the whole article. And I was struck that it only works as a defense of traditional marriage if you already believe it. I found a lot of the underlying assumptions to be unproven.

I might actually enjoy a paragraph by pragraph dissection of it with another poster. It would probably take weeks, but such a discussion with someone who agrees with the article would be highly educatonal.

 

[pnewton]

Digger71:

Married is good, even when it is to a member of your own gender.

Public anxiety about homosexuality is preeminently a concern about the vulnerabilities of the young. This, we are persuaded, is a legitimate and urgent public concern.

The author does slip in to stereotypes quite often, and though previously he paid lip-service to empirical research, he here return to the long discredited notion that people are seduced in to the homosexual lifestyle. The evidence is that every generation rediscovers homosexuality because there is a normal species wide rate of about 2%.

Thus, he may be ‘pursuaded’, but he is actually misinformed.

I have to agree with the author here. Those of you who support gay rights have no business telling me or this author what are concern is or is not. My children are a primary concern to me. This is not because of stereotypes, but rather the corruption of our society over the years. I am not concerned they will be seduce into this depravity, but that they may, over the decades, be conditioned by today’s media into believing such non-Christian statements like, “Married is good, even when it is to a member of your own gender.”

 

[Digger71]

pnewton:

I have to agree with the author here. Those of you who support gay rights have no business telling me or this author what are concern is or is not.

I certainly can say whether a particular expression of a concern is valid or reasonable if my knowledge is sufficient.

pnewton:

My children are a primary concern to me. This is not because of stereotypes, but rather the corruption of our society over the years.

But your argument is different to the one laid out by the articles author You may share the same conclusion but I have not addressed you argument becuase you didnt write the article.

pnewton:

but that they may, over the decades, be conditioned by today’s media into believing such non-Christian statements like, “Married is good, even when it is to a member of your own gender.”

Blame the media? Dear me!

 

[pnewton]

Digger71:

Blame the media? Dear me!

Yes. From the third paragraph.

Although some date “the movement” from the “Stonewall Riot” of June 1969, we have more recently witnessed a concerted and intense campaign, in the media and in leading cultural institutions, to advance the gay and lesbian cause.

While you and anyone else may have an opinion about whether the concerns of parents like myself are valid, you are completely ignorant as to whether they exist, or are an expression of homophobia. Unless you have an insight into the soul as great as God, you are doing nothing more than practicing ignorant judgementalism, also know as prejudice.

Do you truly not see that the homosexual lifetstyle has been increadingly portrayed as acceptable on television and in movies?

 

[Digger71]

pnewton:

Yes. From the third paragraph. While you and anyone else may have an opinion about whether the concerns of parents like myself are valid, you are completely ignorant as to whether they exist, or are an expression of homophobia. Unless you have an insight into the soul as great as God, you are doing nothing more than practicing ignorant judgementalism, also know as prejudice.

Do you truly not see that the homosexual lifetstyle has been increadingly portrayed as acceptable on television and in movies?

Well, as I consider the author to have been selective and inaccurate I give his blaming the media the same credence as the rest of his article.

Once again, I do not doubt that ‘concerns’ exist, but I am perfectly able to comment on their validity in a wider societal context. I need no particular soul-scanning powers to recognise listen to a concern and then research it.

Finally, if you go to the media you will homosexuals are constantly represented as killers, phychos, and nutters (examples, Manhunter, Diamonds are forever). Negative protrayals are common, as is the theme that same-sex relationships are doomed (Brokeback mountain). In the UK a quiz show (Weakest Link) regularly use sexual orientation as a means of mocking contestants.

I do not deny the media does try to represent gays more accurately, but that reflects changes in society, it does not cause them. The relationship is more complicated than ‘they say, we believe’. It’s a feedback loop.