Please explain to me why gay marriage is wrong

[cena]

I am sorry, but I don’t understand the point you are making above.

Not being married is better than being married. That doesn’t mean marriage is bad, it is good but not being married is better.

Saint Paul talked about this, but you said it was only relevant to his time. Could you elaborate on that?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Wow!
I always thought “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage”

I actually alluded to it earlier when I said people don’t marry with procreation as the primary purpose. Also, that view would be perceive as madness three centuries ago.

Perhaps you are saying Love is an insufficient reason to marry? I should think that to proceed absent Love might also be unwise.

A marriage built upon respect, duty and a solid financial plan is far more stable where the love is made brick by brick is far sturdier than one built in a whirlwind of passion.

It would seem Joi’s version of perfect love is same sex celibate “love” with homosexual undertones as heterosexual love in a marriage is apparently “inferior”.

I think you should stop libelous speculation.

That depend upon which definition of love you are using.

Real love is unconditional concern for the welfare of others as other. That kind of love would be a good reason to marry.

If love means some kind of emotional state which can come and go, then that would be a terrible idea.

I’m talking about infatuation and a debauched form of eros which is inherently unstable.
“Why are you marrying him?”
“I love him so much, he is my soulmate.”

This one is a good source for all councils and encyclicals.

papalencyclicals.net/all.htm

To be clear, the quote you used from Trent was not a bad translation, per se, it just wasn’t as clear as it could have been. The use of “not” with the comparison term “better” gives an impression that Church teaching is that celibate life is better than married life, which isn’t what the Church teaches. Both have their place depending upon the individual and their vocation. The EWTN version just made that clearer.

The site you linked to is questionable, however.

The EWTN version can be read the same way. Paul places celibacy over marriage as the passage I provided earlier shows. Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for a friend.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not being married is better than being married. That doesn’t mean marriage is bad, it is good but not being married is better.

Saint Paul talked about this, but you said it was only relevant to his time. Could you elaborate on that?

Marriage is a sacramental vocation for those who are called to it. There is no sense in which it is “better” or “worse” than being unmarried. The human race depends upon married heterosexual couples fulfilling their vocations in order to have healthy, sane, spiritually complete human beings, without marriages and families the human race will come to a screeching end.

In Paul’s day, Christianity was being formed and its main mission was to build a solid, faithful, strong core of evangelistic believers who would proclaim the Gospel message “to the ends of the Earth.”

Paul was martyred in about 67 AD. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed in 70 AD. Jesus warned his disciples about certain portents or signs that would be a sign for them when to leave Jerusalem before it was laid waste. Christians heeded those signs and fled into the hills before the Romans destroyed the city.

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”
…
So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle. And alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath. (Matt 24:2-3, 15-20)

This happened just three years after Paul was martyred.

Paul was very aware of the level of persecution faced by the Christians all over the empire, but likely acutely aware of what would soon happen in Jerusalem.

The following was part of Paul’s words concerning marriage:

Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the impending distress it is well for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away. (1 Cor 7:25-30)

 

[Peter_Plato]

The EWTN version can be read the same way.

Only if you are reading into it what your want it to say.

Can. 10 If anyone says that the married state excels the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is better and happier to be united in matrimony than to remain in virginity or celibacy, let him be anathema.
ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT24.HTM

The anathema is on those who say the married state is better for human beings than virginity or celibacy because they would be better off or happier if they married than if they did not. That doesn’t logically imply that celibacy is better, only that married life isn’t better than celibacy.

Paul places celibacy over marriage as the passage I provided earlier shows. Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for a friend.

Paul was speaking to a particular audience at a particular time.

Read the Catechism or the Compendium on Social Doctrine to get a more balanced sense of what is the normative view of the Church.

Again, it has to do with vocation. Celibacy may be “better” for those who are called to it. But marriage is “better” for those called to it. Neither is “better” in principle.

Read the EWTN version again.

 

[cena]

Only if you are reading into it what your want it to say.

Can. 10 If anyone says that the married state excels the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is better and happier to be united in matrimony than to remain in virginity or celibacy, let him be anathema.
ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT24.HTM

The anathema is on those who say the married state is better for human beings than virginity or celibacy because they would be better off or happier if they married than if they did not. That doesn’t logically imply that celibacy is better, only that married life isn’t better than celibacy.

Paul was speaking to a particular audience at a particular time.

Read the Catechism or the Compendium on Social Doctrine to get a more balanced sense of what is the normative view of the Church.

Again, it has to do with vocation. Celibacy may be “better” for those who are called to it. But marriage is “better” for those called to it. Neither is “better” in principle.

Read the EWTN version again.

Celibacy is a higher vocation. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t married people that are holier than religious people.

newadvent.org/cathen/03481a.htm

 

[Peter_Plato]

Celibacy is a higher vocation. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t married people that are holier than religious people.

newadvent.org/cathen/03481a.htm

The article doesn’t say “celibacy is a higher vocation.” If you want to directly post the part that clearly insists that, I’d be happy to read it.

As it is, you are free to believe what you want.

There is no point in belabouring the issue.

 

[Rau]

A marriage built upon respect, duty and a solid financial plan is far more stable where the love is made brick by brick is far sturdier than one built in a whirlwind of passion.

Maybe so, but you refer to extremes rather than prudent norms.

We are not discussing business partnership, though no doubt some of the valued indredients in that context will contribute greatly to a successful marriage. But so does love. That it could reasonably be absent at the beginning of a freely chosen marriage would IMHO be decidedly odd and worrisome, though I agree it need not be “fatal”.

(2) No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.

Source: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Only if you are reading into it what your want it to say.

Can. 10 If anyone says that the married state excels the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is better and happier to be united in matrimony than to remain in virginity or celibacy, let him be anathema.
ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT24.HTM

The anathema is on those who say the married state is better for human beings than virginity or celibacy because they would be better off or happier if they married than if they did not. That doesn’t logically imply that celibacy is better, only that married life isn’t better than celibacy.

Paul was speaking to a particular audience at a particular time.

Read the Catechism or the Compendium on Social Doctrine to get a more balanced sense of what is the normative view of the Church.

Again, it has to do with vocation. Celibacy may be “better” for those who are called to it. But marriage is “better” for those called to it. Neither is “better” in principle.

Read the EWTN version again.

Sacra Virginitas:

1. It is first and foremost for the foregoing reasons that, according to the teaching of the Church, holy virginity surpasses marriage in excellence. Our Divine Redeemer had already given it to His disciples as a counsel for a more perfect life.[44] St. Paul, after having said that the father who gives his daughter in marriage “does well,” adds immediately “and he that gives her not, does better.”[45] Several times in the course of his comparison between marriage and virginity the Apostle reveals his mind, and especially in these words: “for I would that all men were even as myself. . . But I say to the unmarried and to widows: it is good for them if they so continue, even as I.”[46] Virginity is preferable to marriage then, as We have said, above all else because it has a higher aim:[47] that is to say, it is a very efficacious means for devoting oneself wholly to the service of God, while the heart of married persons will remain more or less “divided.”[48]

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_25031954_sacra-virginitas.html

 

[Peter_Plato]

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_25031954_sacra-virginitas.html

Okay, I’ll grant you that “holy virginity” is a more perfect way of life than married life because it has as its sole aim or end God. That would, indeed, make it more perfect if it’s pure and unmitigated end is the perfect end of the beatific vision.

However, that is not to say that virginity, per se, is more perfect because there are many reasons to be a virgin. The qualifier is “holy” virginity. If your reason to be a virgin is because of social circumstance or avoidance of evil, then it is not sufficient for holy virginity since the end or reason for - shall we say - “less than holy” virginity is not God but avoidance of sin, or one’s own spiritual skin, so to speak, which is not the same as loving God for his own sake.

Which brings me back to a point raised by cena concerning vows. If it is to be anything like a holy state or even a commitment it must involve a “free choice” in fact a continual free choice. Just as holy virginity depends upon free choice. From the Encyclical you quoted:

1. Hence, perfect chastity demands, first, a free choice by Christians before they consecrate themselves to God and then, from God, supernatural help and grace.

In order to be a vow or “permanent agreement,” marriage cannot depend upon some factor that undermines the free choice.

For gay marriage advocates to claim that homosexuality is not a choice means, by that very admission, that they undermine the very requirements for a gay union to be a marriage since, in its contractual aspect marriage must be a free choice entered into without compulsion.

Yet, homosexuality is, by the admission of homosexuals themselves, not a free choice. Ergo, homosexuality or compulsive attraction cannot be the grounds for constituting a marriage which by its very nature requires a continual free act of the will; a determination of the will that homosexuals concede they are not capable of since their “attraction” to the person they “want” to marry is not a choice.

 

[BrassAnkles]

Mischievous **misrepresentation **and nonsense Brass.

Ironic that you would say that.

Given Joie de Vivre constant claim that marriage isn’t about love, support of homosexual marriage and insinuation that same sex celibate love with homosexual undertones was once normal and accepted in Jewish tradition and I think my hypothesis is correct.

Here are some comments from this thread that I used to support my statement:

"The interesting thing is that historically it was believed that same sex sexual behavior wasn’t some sin that could only happen to a few people, it was viewed as a sin that could befall anyone as heterosexuality hadn’t been invented yet. "

“Men being physically (nonsexually) and emotionally intimate was perceived as perfectly normal.”

“I love how if a gay couple exhibits a butch/femme split then that is a problem and if they are both butch or both femme that is a problem too; damned it you do, damned if you don’t.”

Regarding Thorfl’s statement: As Cardinal Erdo wrote about same-sex unions in the midterm report from the Synod on the Family, “it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.”

Joie de Vivre stated:

“It was not explicitly rejected therefore it could not have been categorically rejected. PS is right that not including it in the final draft of the interim report does not necessarily mean it was rejected.”

It is clear Joie de Vivre supports gay marriage, believes same sex relationships are superior to heterosexual relationships and that homosexual sexual relationships could be positive role models for the Church.

 

[cena]

Ironic that you would say that.

Given Joie de Vivre constant claim that marriage isn’t about love, support of homosexual marriage and insinuation that same sex celibate love with homosexual undertones was once normal and accepted in Jewish tradition and I think my hypothesis is correct.

Here are some comments from this thread that I used to support my statement:

"The interesting thing is that historically it was believed that same sex sexual behavior wasn’t some sin that could only happen to a few people, it was viewed as a sin that could befall anyone as heterosexuality hadn’t been invented yet. "

“Men being physically (nonsexually) and emotionally intimate was perceived as perfectly normal.”

“I love how if a gay couple exhibits a butch/femme split then that is a problem and if they are both butch or both femme that is a problem too; damned it you do, damned if you don’t.”

Regarding Thorfl’s statement: As Cardinal Erdo wrote about same-sex unions in the midterm report from the Synod on the Family, “it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.”

Joie de Vivre stated:

“It was not explicitly rejected therefore it could not have been categorically rejected. PS is right that not including it in the final draft of the interim report does not necessarily mean it was rejected.”

It is clear Joie de Vivre supports gay marriage, believes same sex relationships are superior to heterosexual relationships and that homosexual sexual relationships could be positive role models for the Church.

Wasn’t the midterm a rough draft that got leaked to the public?

I think he was talking about same sex friendships for some of them.

There is no evidence for his claim about the homosexual undertones. He cited Jonathan and David and the one talking called the other one brother, and unless they practiced incest in those times they didn’t mean love in a sexual/romantic sense. Like nowadays you would not call your love my brother or my sister when talking to them. You would say that to your best friend.

 

[Ositokc]

Massive Congratulations to Sir Elton John and David Furnish who just got married. Can you feel the love tonight? I can

It is amazing that some religious people are so afraid that others might have something they don’t…a loving, caring relationship. Seems the world could use more of that, especially today’s world.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Wasn’t the midterm a rough draft that got leaked to the public?

I think he was talking about same sex friendships for some of them.

There is no evidence for his claim about the homosexual undertones. He cited Jonathan and David and the one talking called the other one brother, and unless they practiced incest in those times they didn’t mean love in a sexual/romantic sense. Like nowadays you would not call your love my brother or my sister when talking to them. You would say that to your best friend.

Joie, I believe, is female and there has been a continued and implicit (sometimes explicit) appeal to accepting homosexual attractions as legitimate in her posts.

I think BrassAnkles has understood what she is getting at.

It is a commonly used strategy. If X is okay, then why not Y? It is a strategy that relies on probing to find the intellectual and moral weaknesses of anyone promoting the opposing view and then eroding the relative few defenses they present in that area in order to find “a way in.” This might be viewed as the Achilles’ Heel approach to promoting a point of view.

The strength of it is that anyone using it can feign being personally affronted by any accusation of intellectual dishonesty since their actual points are inchoate and depend entirely upon the sympathies of their opponents. They will simply deny actually making the points, but will insist you allowed the points as acceptable which is why they brought them up to begin with. Artful dodging would be another telling label.

It may be that she isn’t doing this intentionally since rationalization and self-deception could initiate the psycho-logical strategy - a defense mechanism of sorts - but I would suggest that forensic analysis of her posts would reveal the kind of probing and ducking, questioning and reply behaviour, that would be the give away.

I could, of course, be proven entirely wrong on this opinion, and I freely admit it is an opinion, but my opinion stands until the pudding has been “proofed,” so to speak.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Massive Congratulations to Sir Elton John and David Furnish who just got married. Can you feel the love tonight? I can

Pardon me, but I have to talk to Ralph on the big white phone.

 

[BrassAnkles]

Wasn’t the midterm a rough draft that got leaked to the public?

I think he was talking about same sex friendships for some of them.

There is no evidence for his claim about the homosexual undertones. He cited Jonathan and David and the one talking called the other one brother, and unless they practiced incest in those times they didn’t mean love in a sexual/romantic sense. Like nowadays you would not call your love my brother or my sister when talking to them. You would say that to your best friend.

You are omitting all his other comments about supporting homosexual marriage, that homosexuality was once actually more normal and that homosexual sexual relationships can be a positive role model for the Church. Please take the time to read his comments as I have quoted them from this thread.

 

[Ositokc]

It’s enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

 

[cena]

Massive Congratulations to Sir Elton John and David Furnish who just got married. Can you feel the love tonight? I can

It is amazing that some religious people are so afraid that others might have something they don’t…a loving, caring relationship. Seems the world could use more of that, especially today’s world.

I can feel the lust.
Anybody can naturally come to the conclusion that homosexuality is wrong. It’s not just the monotheistics claiming homosexuality is wrong.
I had a friend who was a Taoist who felt uncomfortable around lesbians and bisexual girls and she wasn’t even religious (at least not for Catholicism). She found it disturbing.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Massive Congratulations to Sir Elton John and David Furnish who just got married. Can you feel the love tonight? I can

Why would we “feel” any more love tonight than we did in February, 1984?

I don’t gauge my metric of the amount of “love” in the world by Elton John’s behaviour, despite that some skewed perspectives might regard Elton John’s “love” as being earth shakingly important to the human race and to the foundations of the cosmos itself.

Personally, I don’t see it since Elton’s “love” has a proven track record for being demonstrably fickle. When he “loved” and married Renate Blauel, that “marriage” lasted, what, 4 years? Not exactly a glowing testament to the magnanimous or enduring quality of his love.

 

[cena]

You are omitting all his other comments about supporting homosexual marriage, that homosexuality was once actually more normal and that homosexual sexual relationships can be a positive role model for the Church. Please take the time to read his comments as I have quoted them from this thread.

Sorry there are too many people that I just lost track.

She’s delusional if she thinks homosexual sexual relationships are normal, good, the Church can benefit from it, or that they are better than heterosexual marriage/relationships.

The only societies with homosexuality had other serious problems as well (the Native Americans had human sacrifice, the Greeks worshipped gods who practiced incest and they themselves had legal prostitution)

 

[Peter_Plato]

It is amazing that some religious people are so afraid that others might have something they don’t…a loving, caring relationship. Seems the world could use more of that, especially today’s world.

It also seems amazing that you would make such unfounded assumptions about what religious people have or don’t have, or what motivates religious people to draw reasonable conclusions about what the world needs more of.

It may, in fact, be that “today’s world” is in the state it IS in because a considerable portion of the people living in it believe their own pressing sexual “needs” are paramount and take precedence over what is actually involved in making the world a decidedly “better place.”

Of course, if your definition of “better place” simply means a place where every sexual desire, no matter how arcane or peculiar, will be gratified, then you might have a point.

Unfortunately, for you, there is no hard data that shows the fate of the world depends upon every deviant or unfettered sexual desire being satisfied.