Should Catholics support civil unions?

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The institution of marriage is already being destroyed even without civil unions or gay marriages.

With no fault divorce so rampant and people choosing to cohabitate instead of marry, the institution of marriage is a shadow of its former self. You don’t need gay people wanting to marry to destroy marriage. It is already being destroyed by the people who take their marriage vows too lightly.
 
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I think the government shouldn’t even be involved in marriage and should only issue civil unions across the board.

Religious marriages can be used in place of government unions (kind of like how a driver’s license or state issued ID card is needed to prove identity when a company hires you.
 
No.
If allowed, would simply further blur the fact that a marriage is between one man and one woman, which SCOTUS has already managed to screw up in law.
 
Yes there are multiple reasons why marriage is being destroyed but no doubt homosexual “marriage” is one of the factors.
 
I think that civil unions for homosexual couples is to protect their rights as human beings under secular law - and to which they have every right. Civil unions are not an endorsement of homosexuality in any way. Certain NOT endorsement of homosexual marriage, which is a bit of an oxymoron.
Homosexual = relates to same sex partnerships
Marriage = relates to male and female partnerships
 
I remembered that under communism there were only civil marriages.
Some got married by the priests blessing in secret, but civil marriages are the same responsibility to the Creator. Be faithful to each other, raise and educate children.
In countries where religion is persecuted, people are still responsible to the Creator, even if the union is secured by civil marriage.
The problem is that people compromise the law of the Creator and tolerate divorce, polygyny in some countries, and same-sex marriages in other countries.
But I think that civil marriage between a man and a woman is an authorization of marriage.
 
Most people don’t realize that there are a number of different types of partnerships which fall under the aegis of “Civil Unions”. In my travels, I have encountered various types of these partnerships which in no way infer homosexual activity. The most prominent of these are ‘domestic partnerships’. I have encountered both biological siblings (two elderly sisters) and a pair of elderly priests who were best friends. They could not afford to live on their own and pooled their savings and lived in the same house. They were able to reduce their financial burdens and attain certain legal protections by entering into this type of civil union.

Civil Unions has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the civil law. From Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum onward, the Church has taught that the civil authorities have a duty to legislate for the common good. As such, there are certain circumstances where civil unions are valid in preserving the common good.

The specific context in which Pope Francis was speaking in the interview which became so explosive was that of the physical and legal protections of the homosexual population of Argentina. Culturally, homosexuals were completely disowned from families. On their own, they often became the target of mob violence and rape. Pope Francis endorsed a form of civil unions within this context to allow for the other member in a civil union to file police reports on their behalf if they were unconscious in the hospital and to make medical decisions for the wounded partner.

It was in no way meant to endorse homosexual marriage or sexual activity. He explicitly spoke out against these issues. In Argentina, unlike in much of the Western World, Catholicism has a very real impact and presence in culture. As such, there is a larger population of devout celibate homosexuals. It was within this context, seeking protection for his flock and trusting them to remain celibate, that Pope Francis gave his support to civil unions.
 
I believe you are confusing the natural purpose of marriage with civil legal protections. Yes, the state has a duty to protect the sanctity of marriage but the Church in no way has said that the State should only allow these legal protections for child-bearing marriages. It is the duty of the state to decide the extent of protections and to whom to promote the common good as a whole.

If the legal protections of marriage were only valid for the raising of children, what would happen to those couples who are infertile through no fault of their own or are past child-bearing age. Children are but one aspect of marriage.
 
MasterHaster said:
I thought sin was an absolute. Either something is a sin or not. How do you “border” on sin?
Click to expand...
It is called an actual sin or material sin because “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience” (Catechism 1849). A distinguishing factor is that there may not be culpability for it.
Sin is a human act that presumes three elements:
  • objective malice in the action performed, or at least the person considers it wrong;
  • actual advertence of mind by which the sinner is at least confusedly aware of the malice of his conduct;
  • and consent of the will, which formally constitutes actual sin and without which the sin is said to be only material.
(Modern Catholic Dictionary, actual sin.)
Click to expand...
 
Well that is sort of the point. You believe it isn’t moral, while others believe it is. Our secular laws provide protection without discrimination.
 
Correct. Marriage is a sacrament. Civil unions are a legal requisite.
 
But that has nothing to do with protecting the children of these relationships.
 
But they ARE in those relationships. It isn’t their fault. Shouldn’t they be provided with the protections every other kid receives? The genie is out of the bottle on this.
 
Reminds me of pro-lifers who say “Why kill the baby? It isn’t the baby’s fault!”

Putting a kid in a will doesn’t cover all the legal protections provided by parents’ marriages ior civil unions.

Most provisions can be provided through other legal documents or adoption. I don’t really have an argument with that, but for someone to say civil unions should not be available to homosexual couples because they aren’t procreating is a strawman.
 
But that’s punishing those kids for the sins of their ‘parents’.

I think if we reformed the system a bit such kids wouldn’t need benefits from their ‘parents’. But the right is hostile to that as well.
 
Yes. I know that. Then you claim that civil unions aren’t necessary to protect the children of those relationships. One issue has nothing to do with the other .
 
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You are correct, the government cannot infringe upon the individual rights and dignity of children. This is, however, one of the reason why Catholics do believe that it is detrimental to allow homosexual couples to adopt. The Church believes that every child has the right to be raised in a psychologically healthy environment. A child requires the same sex-parent (son to father and daughter to mother) to help develop a healthy self-identity as a man or a woman and the opposite-sex parent to come to an understanding of healthy interaction between the sexes.

Catholics cannot discriminate or demean children who have been placed in this situation through no fault of their own. This is, however, different from the Church publicly accepting their parent’s relationship.

For example, a school in my diocese rejected a student whose parents were in a homosexual marriage. The rejection was not because of the status of the child having two same-sex parents, nor was it even because the two parents were in a homosexual relationship. The rejection came due to an immediate breach of the school’s conduct contract. The contract required parents to commit to a public reputation in line with Church teachings. Their private homosexual act fell outside of this purview. The child would have been allowed even if his or her parents were in a civil union, but the legal recognition of marriage was inherently a public act and the pastor could not allow the parents to sign a contract that they were in immediate breach of.

In this case, the supposed ‘discrimination’ was levied towards neither the parents or the child. The parents simply couldn’t adhere to the school’s policies for enrollment.
 
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