Prop 8 found to be unconstitutional...struck down!

[blacktiger057]

From an evolutionary standpoint, same-sex unions are obviously abnormal.

Please state your evidence. If you mean more uncommon than heterosexual relationships, sure. But if you mean they aren’t occuring often/aren’t normal, please open a biology textbook.

 

[rlg94086]

In resposne to your second paragraph, I am soooooooooo TIRED of this slippery slope argument. I have heard it literally hundreds of times. There are LOGICAL reasons why incest and pedophile marriages are not allowed to occur (such as birth defects, children can be easily taken advantage of, rape is bad, etc.) If there is a LOGICAL reason to prohibit gay marriage, please tell me. I fail to see one. No where did I say I supported pedophiles. You know it. I know it. So let’s stop it with this slippery slope bs and give me one logical reason why gay marriages would be very harmful to society.

It wasn’t a “sliperry slope argument.” I was pointing out the fallacy of supporting something because someone in your family is experiencing it. That isn’t logic - it’s emotion. If your brother was a pedophile, and you were arguing for pedophile rights due to your love for your brother, your opinions would be, rightly, ignored. Ditto on your emotional argument for gay rights.

Gay “marriages” have no value to society. If two people of the same sex wish to have a “marriage” ceremony, they can do so today. There is nothing stopping them. However, there is absolutely no reason for society to put it on the same level with a heterosexual union. The procreative nature of marriage is what brings the most value to society - the bearing and raising of children. It makes logical sense for our government to endorse and encourage what is best for society. It makes no sense to endorse something of no value.

 

[irishpatrick]

So I do get considerably angry when my Catholic school puts how being gay is evil into its curriculum every year, because I know this perpetuates the discriminatory attitudes that hurt a lot of people I care about. That’s not ok with me. Religious leaders should be teaching acceptance, not hate. People shouldn’t have to choose between living honestly and living in their faith. It’s hard for me to hear my friends and family being called evil in the name of God.

You get angry with a Catholic school for teaching truths that homosexual acts are disordered and sinful? How could that be a surprise?

Why should any religious leader preach acceptance for things they know are wrong?

Living honestly could mean anything. What if a person honestly like to steal, should they live honestly and steal every day? Should the religious leaders accept them anyway?

Actions are evil, not people (though it is possible that some people are just flat evil). If a person commits a grave sin, that does not make them evil, it makes them a grave sinner.

 

[Dale_M]

Two words: judicial review. Marshall made is possible for state law, even law that does not contradict or otherwise interfere with federal law, to be subject to review by the USSC. Combine that with the 14th amendment, and we now have was another said “constitution > everything else”.

And given the US Constitution’s silence on marriage, why is it even a federal issue? The 10th amendment reserves that issue to the states. But with judicial review and the 14th amendment, it is suddenly a federal issue.

I agree that this is a matter best left up to the individual states. However, there are federal issues involved, such as taxes or immigration.

 

[Suudy]

Please state your evidence. If you mean more uncommon than heterosexual relationships, sure. But if you mean they aren’t occuring often/aren’t normal, please open a biology textbook.

Please open a philosophy textbook. What we mean by abnormal is that it isn’t ordered towards its natural end. For what purpose does sex exist? For procreation. And sex that is not ordered toward that end is disordered.

Just because something happens in nature, doesn’t mean it is natural. Read up on what we as Catholics mean by the Natural Law. We don’t mean occurring in nature.

 

[rlg94086]

Please state your evidence. If you mean more uncommon than heterosexual relationships, sure. But if you mean they aren’t occuring often/aren’t normal, please open a biology textbook.

Seriously? You don’t see how homosexual sex is contrary to evolution? Do you understand what is involved in the propagation of species? Have you taken a health class?

 

[rapunzel77]

Love is better than hate. If you have ever actually researched biology, you will find that there are thousands of animals that participate in homosexual activities with their species. Common sense says that science supports arguments for gay rights.

So what? Show me actual evidence for this. Even if this was the case, again, so what?

And it has everything to do with religion. I am a huge activist for gay rights. Recently, this battle became even more personal and important to me when I found out that one of my family members is gay. So naturally, I want to bring down all the obstacles I see that keep homosexuals from gaining their rights. And the biggest obstacle I see is, without a doubt, religion.

You have just stated what is our biggest fear. To you, it doesn’t matter if you trample on the rights of religious people as long as your gay relatives, etc are happy, right? News flash: the world does not revolve around gays. Honestly, these activists act like spoiled brats who whine and scream because they can’t get their way so they run off to their black-robed nannies, pull on their robes until they get their way. This is exactly what is being done.

I want to give a solid argument for my idea that if religion did not discriminate against gays, then same-sex marriage would have been legalized years ago.

Basically you want us to go away and shut up. You are proving all of our points that it won’t just stop at getting “gay marriage” legalized. You will go after us and sue churches that don’t perform “gay marriages.” In addition, you will sue photographers, caterers, bridal shops, invitation companies, florists, etc, etc who also refuse to do “gay” weddings. When will it end? Exactly what will give you satisfaction? Is shutting down every church going to give you the satisfaction that you want because the Church said something that made you feel bad???

First, it is important to understand why religions such as Christianity are not ok if you are gay. In Catholicism, sex is moral only if it includes all three of these traits: the couple is married, the emotional connection between the couple is being enhanced, and the couple is open to the possibility of creating children.

We are upholding simple natural law. Are you in fact saying that being gay completely consumes a person’s identity that they can not have a relationship with God and live chastely and holy??? If you believe this then you must know that this is bs since there are many gays who can be Catholic and are living chaste lives.

Churches protesting funerals of gay soldiers. How those soldiers are constantly harassed in their own military groups, and how that is considered lawful. And this is advocated by CHURCHES!

Now you are being disingenuous. You know very well that only very few groups do this. Ok, one in particular…the Westbroro Baptist Church. You know too well that most Churches do not do that.

So I do get considerably angry when my Catholic school puts how being gay is evil into its curriculum every year, because I know this perpetuates the discriminatory attitudes that hurt a lot of people I care about.

We can’t change the moral law. God created it. The moral law states that homosexual ACTS (ie. sticking male parts in places where it shouldn’t and female parts…) are intrinsically evil. Having the tendency to be sexually attracted to people of the same sex isn’t intrinsically evil but they are disordered. Get your facts right. Read the Catechism on this.

That’s not ok with me.

So what? The world doesn’t revolve around you.

Religious leaders should be teaching acceptance, not hate. People shouldn’t have to choose between living honestly and living in their faith.

WE do not teach hate. We teach love and truth.

 

[exoflare]

Okay, then. So Catholics think that when a man or a woman believes that he or she is in a committed sexual relationship with another man or woman, that that’s always bad.

Yes, but they still had the right to do so. And yet we still get complaints like this…

If you want to restrict the rights of a class because of religion, you can do that – but you’ll need an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

 

[blacktiger057]

It wasn’t a “sliperry slope argument.” I was pointing out the fallacy of supporting something because someone in your family is experiencing it. That isn’t logic - it’s emotion. If your brother was a pedophile, and you were arguing for pedophile rights due to your love for your brother, your opinions would be, rightly, ignored. Ditto on your emotional argument for gay rights.

Gay “marriages” have no value to society. If two people of the same sex wish to have a “marriage” ceremony, they can do so today. There is nothing stopping them. However, there is absolutely no reason for society to put it on the same level with a heterosexual union. The procreative nature of marriage is what brings the most value to society - the bearing and raising of children. It makes logical sense for our government to endorse and encourage what is best for society. It makes no sense to endorse something of no value.

I have always supported gay marriage, but now I’ve just become more outspoken about it. I agree, logic must be present in all reasons. If my brother was a pedophile, then I would try my hardest to stop his behavior or call the police. Stop bringing up pedophiles. This is about gays, not pedophiles.

My argument for gay rights contains strong passion, but my reasons are LOGICAL. Two people really love each other. These people are both consenting adults, and they aren’t related, so their union will not hurt anyone. So that rules out incest and pedophilia and polygamy. Therefore, I support it this union.

Gay marriages have no value to society? I’m pretty sure they would benefit gays A LOT. That’s like saying black rights have no value to society, conveniently that the society you speak of does in fact contain blacks. Completely illogical.

Your second point, that marriage is for procreation. It logically follows that infertile people should not be allowed to get married, since they apparently have no value to society in your eyes, as they cannot provide children. So that is illogical as well. Marriage is about love, sometimes about children. Unless you actually would agree that infertile heterosexual couples cannot get married, in which case I’d end this discussion with you now.

And hey…marriages fuel the economy. And some gays will get a divorce,which will also fuel the economy. And ofcourse, marriage has great legal benefits to gay couples. So actually it has a TON of value.

Again, please give me a LOGICAL reason on how gay marriages harm society.

 

[Corki]

Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and I was quite young at the time. However, there have been no “facts” presented to say that removal of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder wasn’t warranted.

Well, I was there. “There” being enrolled in a psychology program in the university at the time.

It was a vote, not the results of any scientific study. In fact, it was a vote taken by members of a relatively small committe of the APA’s membership. The APA being an organization you pay to join, a club. Most of the members of the APA were and still are psycholgists in patient practice who have never been involved in any research. The real scientists in the field were not pleased. If you are really interested, check out:

“Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality” and/or “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth”

 

[Suudy]

There are LOGICAL reasons why incest and pedophile marriages are not allowed to occur (such as birth defects, children can be easily taken advantage of, rape is bad, etc.)

Really? And these arguments are different than the arguments against homosexuality?

If there is a LOGICAL reason to prohibit gay marriage, please tell me. I fail to see one.

I already posted one. You didn’t respond, but in such a busy thread, I can see how that could happen. So here it is again.

Marriage has two aspects, the unitive and the genitive. Both heterosexual and homosexual marriage have the unitive aspect. I acknowledge, and I think most Catholics will, that there is a real, meaningful desire to unite with another in the desire for homosexual “marriage”. However, homosexual marriage lacks the genitive aspect. Homosexual marriages are not ordered toward procreation. It is not in its nature to produce and raise children. Now, certainly there are heterosexual couples that are unable to procreate, such as through infertility or impotence. But this particular defect does not change the nature of the relationship. In the absence of defect, it would produce children. It is in the nature of the heterosexual marriage to produce children. For example, were a man to be impotent, but a cure for impotency was found, he would be able to procreate. But this is a biological and metaphysical impossibility with homosexual unions.

Note that there is not a single reference to religion in this argument. This is a purely philosophical argument that appeals to natural ends. Read some Aristotle and Aquinas and you will see that things have natural ends, goals if you will, towards which they are ordered. Only men and women together are ordered towards procreation. This is never the case with homosexual relationships.

No where did I say I supported pedophiles. You know it. I know it. So let’s stop it with this slippery slope bs and give me one logical reason why gay marriages would be very harmful to society.

Because it is disordered. And disordered acts are harmful to society.

 

[Dale_M]

And here from someone who was there:

narth.com/docs/normalization.html

To quote:

The A.P.A. at that time had adopted a new set of criteria for defining psychological disorder. To be disordered, a condition must:

1. regularly cause distress, or
2. interfere with social effectiveness.

This seems pretty sensible.

Obviously, if a culture assets that homosexuals are unacceptable, the individual might disagree. If a person is functioning in society without problems, why would this be considered a disorder?

 

[scipio337]

Nothing. The Church is not above the law.

Fortunately it’s not the law (at least yet).

Are you proposing you would favor stripping churches of tax exempt status who would not perform gay marriages, or who teach that homosexual acts are sinful??

 

[Suudy]

I agree that this is a matter best left up to the individual states. However, there are federal issues involved, such as taxes or immigration.

Then the challenge should be to the federal recognition of marriage, not the how the state recognizes it. And I fail to see how immigration is an issue. Being married in California has no effect on immigration to another state that fails to recognize your marriage.

 

[Good_News_1]

And given the US Constitution’s silence on marriage, why is it even a federal issue? The 10th amendment reserves that issue to the states. But with judicial review and the 14th amendment, it is suddenly a federal issue.

In my opinion, this is an unfortunate legacy of racism in the United States. Marriage has always be a matter for the states. But, sadly, interracial marriage was prohibited. The federal courts, noting the horrible injustice in treatment of blacks in every aspect of life, stepped in, and stated that marriage was, at least as to equal protection, a federal matter. And, as these things go, once the federal aspect gets a toehold, it tends to expand.

Rand Paul had this problem when he was talking about the Civil Rights Act. It really doesn’t make sense that virtually every private business should be considered to be in interstate commerce. But it is hard to imagine how racial discrimination in private businesses could have been resolved at the state level. So the federal courts and Congress stepped in, and from the perspective of justice, it is hard to quibble with their actions or oppose them, because ultimately that puts you on the wrong side of racial equality, as it played out in history.

But these decisions are wedges to force through other agendas, which are far less compelling than our history of racial oppression.

Loving and the expansion of the interstate commerce clause were not, in my view, meant to be anti-Constitutional or bad intentioned in any way, but should not have application much beyond race, and it is tragic that these injustices could not have been realistically addressed by other means. Our country’s great original sin of racism has led to well-intentioned acts that have brought tremendous benefits, but also paved the way for undermining the entire system of Constituional governance.

 

[blacktiger057]

Please open a philosophy textbook. What we mean by abnormal is that it isn’t ordered towards its natural end. For what purpose does sex exist? For procreation. And sex that is not ordered toward that end is disordered.

Just because something happens in nature, doesn’t mean it is natural. Read up on what we as Catholics mean by the Natural Law. We don’t mean occurring in nature.

To your second paragraph, I already agreed with that in a previous post.

Thank you for clarifying. Sex is used for procreation. But another one of it’s purposes is for pleasure.

But marriage should not be based solely on sex, and neither should your argument on gay marriage. Give me a logical reason on how gay marriage harms society.

 

[blacktiger057]

Fortunately it’s not the law (at least yet).

Are you proposing you would favor stripping churches of tax exempt status who would not perform gay marriages, or who teach that homosexual acts are sinful??

Yes I would. As strongly as I would favor it if the Church were doing that same thing with blacks.

 

[Dale_M]

Actually, to apply it to same-sex unions is “reading something into the decision.” There is no evidence that the justices defined marriage as “the union of two people regardless of gender.” In fact, it is correct to assume that the justices were referring to marriage as currently defined by society - the union of a man and woman.

erm… maybe. But it really is an interpretation on your part. And certainly not part of the law or judicial decision.

 

[rapunzel77]

Yes I would. As strongly as I would favor it if the Church were doing that same thing with blacks.

Then you have no problem with trampling on the rights of millions of people just to make a minority happy, right? You want everything “equal” but not really. You don’t want us to practice our religion the way we want nor to believe what we want to believe. I think that that is sad and it speaks to the real agenda of these activists.

 

[crazzeto]

I have always supported gay marriage, but now I’ve just become more outspoken about it. I agree, logic must be present in all reasons. If my brother was a pedophile, then I would try my hardest to stop his behavior or call the police. Stop bringing up pedophiles. This is about gays, not pedophiles.

My argument for gay rights contains strong passion, but my reasons are LOGICAL. Two people really love each other. These people are both consenting adults, and they aren’t related, so their union will not hurt anyone. So that rules out incest and pedophilia and polygamy. Therefore, I support it this union.

Gay marriages have no value to society? I’m pretty sure they would benefit gays A LOT. That’s like saying black rights have no value to society, conveniently that the society you speak of does in fact contain blacks. Completely illogical.

Your second point, that marriage is for procreation. It logically follows that infertile people should not be allowed to get married, since they apparently have no value to society in your eyes, as they cannot provide children. So that is illogical as well. Marriage is about love, sometimes about children. Unless you actually would agree that infertile heterosexual couples cannot get married, in which case I’d end this discussion with you now.

And hey…marriages fuel the economy. And some gays will get a divorce,which will also fuel the economy. And ofcourse, marriage has great legal benefits to gay couples. So actually it has a TON of value.

Again, please give me a LOGICAL reason on how gay marriages harm society.

Funny you should point out LOGICAL so frequently, my reasons are LOGICAL as well =)