Same Sex Marriage - Why Not?

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tcaseyrochester

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I was in a heated debate with a very close friend the other day regarding same-sex marriage (I am against, she sees no problem with it).

I was surprised to find its a pretty tough issue to articulate a well-stated position on. I struggled to the point that I think I lost the debate. I tried to argue that our sexuality is a gift from God and that the purpose of that gift is two-fold:

1.) To foster a divinely inspired closeness between a man and a woman that models God’s love for us, and…
2.) To encourage procreation (which again gives us a model of how God loves us as His children.)

The only response I got was “why do you care, they are not hurting anybody.” BTW I consider the source of this argument to be an otherwise good Catholic in many ways. Note that she was arguing for religious marriage, blessed by a priest in a Catholic church (as if that will ever happen).

How can I reinforce my argument on this?
 
I think a good place to start is the natural law argument. Same sex marriage is obviously not natural. When you go against nature, you can generally expect some bad consequences.

Since she’s Catholic, you can also point out that God is the One who invented marriage, and He decided it should be between a man and a woman. Man and woman complement each other, physically and mentally, which is why the woman is a suitable help-mate for the man. She is just enough like him to be a help-mate and companion, but different enough that she is not a man.

If she has children, I might also ask her how she would feel if one of her children got “married” to someone of the same sex. She may not feel so casually about that.

Also, if same sex marriage is allowed, it will cause a further decline in the sanctity of marriage. And it will open the door to equally bizarre “marriages”, e.g. polygamy, marriage to your dog, etc. Because all that matters is that the parties involved love each other and are committed to each other, right? :nope:
 
Seems to be you made to excellent points. Pray for your friend that God may help her to understand.

God’s plan for creation and for sustaining creation through the years obviously included the sexual union between male and female. Not just for humans but for most of the animal kingdom. One does not even need to be a believer to see that.

It is hard to see the (pro)creative nature of the homosexual act because it does not exist. It certainly falls outside the sacrament of matrimony so it is never going to be accepted in the Church.

Remember, it’s not having the predisposition to homosexuality that is a sin. Temptation is not sinful. It is the choice to give into temptation, whatever that may be, that can cause us to sin.
 
Societies have generally for the last 3-4000 years, provided some sort of protection for the institution of marriage. In western civilization, laws have protected marriage and given it special status because it was considered to be good for society. In particular, because it led to the establishment of stable families and the raising of the next generation of children, without which the society would soon die out.

Even if I don’t have children, it’s good for me that you provide a loving family for the next generation. These are the ones who will provide for all of us seniors as we grow old. (Although, with 1/3 of the last generation lost to abortion, it’s going to be hard to maintain that.)

Same sex unions don’t provide for the stability of society. First, the don’t have children. If they do, how do they get them?–not through procreation. Perhaps through adoption, or previous marriage. Second, it is detrimental to allow them to adopt, since children deserve both a father and a mother.

Same sex couples–especially males–tend to be less faithful–again not a lifestyle that is appropriate for raising children or improving society.

Third, we have just gone through a pedophilia crisis in the church. If same sex marriage is legal, there are those (e.g.–NAMBLA–) who will lobby to allow homosexuals to marry their young lovers, arguing for a lowering of the age of consent if need be.

It will have unforseen effects on the tax code; on business expenses; on non-discrimination laws, on ‘hate-crime’ legislation. None of this has been thought through. But because it makes someone feel good and we don’t want to interfere, are we willing to throw over several millenia of natural law?

JimG
 
I’m not so sure, but I don’t think the other posters addressed the ‘but it doesn’t hurt anyone argument’ … so I’ll try.

It DOES hurt. Any sin hurts the body of the church, when one sins, it’s not just the person who gets hurt, but the whole church, that’s one of the reasons we go for confessions.

If we actually allowed gay marriages, we’ll not only hurt the church, we’ll practically DESTROY the entire Roman Catholic Church. Think about it … it has been infallibly taught, since forever, that it is a sin to marry the same sex. If we were to flip now … the whole authority/infallible/shepard/apostolic succession system comes crumbling to the ground.

One gay marriage … pooooof no more Catholic Church!:eek:
 
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tcaseyrochester:
The only response I got was “why do you care, they are not hurting anybody.”
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The thing is that gay marriages DO hurt people. In fact, allowing them would hurt society as a whole. Just look at what artificial contraception has done. The divorce rate rose steadily with the increasing availability of the pill, the morality of America steadily declined along with that, women are treated as sexual objects, and fertility is now seen as a disease. And then there’s Planned Parenthood. Just look at the destruction that has caused with school aged kids. The effects weren’t direct or immediate, but they did happen.

I’m sure that gay marriage would have just as severe consequences on society. Instead of seeing regular porn on daytime soaps and MTV, we’d see gay porn…and eventually beastiality and other immoral acts as well. Parents will have to get rid of the family pet for fear of what ideas these shows will put into their childrens’ minds. Once something is accepted into law, public schools have to teach it as acceptable. Gay marriage will be taught as simply another family choice…just as good and acceptable as any other kind of family. We’ll have so many sexually confused teens that they may never recover.
 
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tcaseyrochester:
I was in a heated debate with a very close friend the other day regarding same-sex marriage (I am against, she sees no problem with it).

I was surprised to find its a pretty tough issue to articulate a well-stated position on. I struggled to the point that I think I lost the debate. I tried to argue that our sexuality is a gift from God and that the purpose of that gift is two-fold:

1.) To foster a divinely inspired closeness between a man and a woman that models God’s love for us, and…
2.) To encourage procreation (which again gives us a model of how God loves us as His children.)

The only response I got was “why do you care, they are not hurting anybody.” BTW I consider the source of this argument to be an otherwise good Catholic in many ways. Note that she was arguing for religious marriage, blessed by a priest in a Catholic church (as if that will ever happen).

How can I reinforce my argument on this?
Click to expand...
God mad Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve it’s a mortal sin like it or not.:tsktsk:
 
Because there is no such thing as marraige between the same sex…It would redefine the meaning of the word marriage…
 
In his haste to defend against gay marriages, funky came up with this rather hilarious doozy!
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funkyhorn:
Parents will have to get rid of the family pet for fear of what ideas these shows will put into their childrens’ minds.
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Hahahahaha:rotfl: thanks funky!
 
Just another curious point, there is no law preventing a gay person from getting married in the US. Any gay man is free to marry anyone, as long as his partner is a woman. So the prohibition on marriage is a futile arguement. You are allowed to marry, as long as it is within the excepted context. What the gay movement is trying to do is REDEFINE the context of marriage to suit their own agenda.

Here is a problem with same gender marriage that most people never think of. Let’s say that I own a business and my best friend, Joe, owns a business and we want to merge our business interests because they would be more valuable if they were combined. As it stands we would have to get lawyers involved and it would cost quite a bit of money to merge our corporations. Enter same sex marriage. Joe and I just get married, even if we don’t “love” eachother or intend conjugal unions, because there is no law that says we have to love eachother or intend to have sex in order to get married. Now our companies are considered joint property, because we did not effect a prenuptual agreement. They legally belong to both of us because we are married. We then sell the merged corporation for twice what it could have been sold for separately. We split the profits and arrange our “divorce”. Using the aberrant laws to make profit. If you don’t think that will happen once the floodgates open, you don’t understand the pernicious greed that runs though our society.

Additionally, what is next after same gender marriage? Polygamy? You bet, and there are already polygamy proponents sitting in the wings to see if ANYONE makes a big brew-ha-ha about same gender marriage, and they will use the same arguements. Then what, marriage to minors, you bet. Then what? Interspecial marriage. A man can marry his goat. I am not trying to sound offensive or grotesque, but that is the long term effect of dissolving the sanctity or the institution of marriage. So the question is ultimately about love, who do you love more, yourself or God? If you love God more, you will respect His boundaries. But it is clear from the actions of the same gender marriage proponents whom they place on a higher pedestal. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a form of idolatry. You have made the emotion of love into your god, and turned from the author of love, God Almighty.
 
I believe that the answer can be quite simple. Marriage IS the union of a man and a woman. That is the definition. A same sex pair can form some sort of union, but it is not marriage. Just as a man can dress like a woman, try and act like a woman, a man cannot be a woman. He is what he is, and that cannot be redfined. There are absolutes in this world. Any society is in trouble when it begins to redefine absolutes; to ignore them. It is Orwellian in nature, and can only lead to the destruction of the society. We live in dangerous times, but are joyful in the Lord.
 
Sounds like she isn’t accepting Church teaching as being sufficient argument against same-sex marriage, so I am linking to some good arguments from the secular world.

I don’t have time to re-write all these arguments, and the orginal authors did a better job anyway. The bottom line for me is enabling same-sex marriage is not simply a "private issue. It has profound and harmful impact on heterosexual marriage. If we can agree that children’s needs are best met by being raised in a family with their own father and mother, then same-sex marriage profoundly damages children. And if someone does not agree that children need both a mother and a father, then they are ignorant and blind to an overwhelming number of social science studies that prove it.

Read these links to educate yourself in the arguments, and you will be better equipped to defend marriage.

The “conservative case” for same-sex marriage collapses.**The End of Marriage in Scandinavia,
**

Gay Marriage has sent the Netherlands the way of Scandinavia.
Dutch marriage is in trouble. Once noted for their low out-of-wedlock birthrates, and touted by scholars as an alternative to the Scandinavian family model, the Dutch are now experiencing a striking rupture in the relationship between marriage and childbearing, practicing Scandinavian-style parental cohabitation in increasing numbers. The bulk of the change has come in the past seven years — just as Holland adopted registered partnerships, and then full and formal same-sex marriage.

Coincidence? Advocates of same-sex marriage would like us to believe so. But a serious look at the evidence suggests otherwise. In “Going Dutch,” I point out how the decade-long campaign for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands helped break apart the relationship between marriage and parenthood. Advocacy of same-sex marriage encouraged erstwhile Dutch traditionalists to reconsider the idea that marriage has anything intrinsic to do with raising children. Not surprisingly, this “family diversity” ideal took hold. Dutch parents have begun to cohabit in ever-increasing numbers, leading to a dramatic rise in out-of-wedlock births. Since cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents, we can expect a significant increase in children living with solo mothers in fatherless homes.
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For Better or for Worse?

**The Marriage Buffet **

Beyond Gay Marriage, The road to polyamory

Stanley Kurtz Testimony before Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee

Slipping down the slopeMarriage Radicals

Selma to San Francisco? Same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue

**Will same-sex marriage lead to incest and polygamy? Let’s hope so! ** (satire)

Incest, homosexuality, and adulteryThe Libertarian Question
 
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LaSalle:
… it has been infallibly taught, since forever, that it is a sin to marry the same sex.
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Just a clarification. The church doesn’t teach that gay marriage is a sin. It teaches that it is not possible. Marriage cannot be contracted between same sex couples.
The church does teach that sodomy or unnatural sexual relations is a sin.

Another thing just occurred to me. The tax code as well as employer benefits generally favor married couples. If same-sex marriage becomes legal, single people will soon realize that it is economically foolish to be in the last non-favored group. So there will be many marriages of convenience, same-sex, opposite sex, any sort of marriage, just to obtain the economic benefits. None of this will be beneficial to society.

I would rather see society give NO special benefits to ANY marital state, than to be required to give equal marital benefits to EVERY marital status.

JimG
 
Homosexuality is an abomination, and if their ways arn’t changed, the kingdom of Satans flames will be awaiting for them upon entering the next life.
The rejection of homosexual behavior that is found in the Old Testament is well known. In Genesis 19, two angels in disguise visit the city of Sodom and are offered hospitality and shelter by Lot. During the night, the men of Sodom demand that Lot hand over his guests for homosexual intercourse. Lot refuses, and the angels blind the men of Sodom. Lot and his household escape, and the town is destroyed by fire “because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord”. (Gen.19:13)
Other references can be found in: Ezek. 16:50; Lev. 18:22, 20:13 and Rom. 1:26-28, 32.
Marriage is a Sacrament of the Church , and is defined by man and woman only. If one wishes to leave the Church, that is of their own free will; not any will of God. One must always keep in mind: for every action, there is a concenquence…
 
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