Solution to "same-sex marriage"?

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EviPolevhia said:
False comparison. First off, Marriage is not Adoption. Second, Catholic Marriage is not the same as the governmental process of Marriage. Third, Adoption is a governmental process that the Church participates in. It’s not the sole property of the Church, rather the Church is allowed to assist in what is a civil, -not- religious, matter. When the Church’s views contradict the Governments in what is a civil matter, the Church is excused from the business.

Edit: Question, should the Church of Scientology have equal say as the Catholic Church in adoption? Why or why not?
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I think they should. They are just as entitled to open an adoption agency because adoption is not faith specific, as you said.

The point of the post was not so much adoption as it was a case where the government decided that gay unions are marriages and then forced a religous organization to surrender their definition of marriage to that of the government. And if the federal government was to make the definition of marriage include homosexual unions, I give it about 5 seconds before they try to do the same to churches that refuse to wed gay couples. With the way that they have been in a full blown assault on religious liberty, even to the point of saying that individuals and businesses don’t have it, they will certainly try.

We both want to protect the sanctity of marriage. One theme I have noticed is that people seem to think that I am somehow anti-marriage or pro-gay (not directing this at you or anyone else specifically). This is untrue. I just don’t want the government to have the option of squashing it because I don’t trust them to resist the temptation. 🙂
 
Bill_Martin said:
I think they should. They are just as entitled to open an adoption agency because adoption is not faith specific, as you said.
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If the Church of Scientology said that people who were not a part of their belief system lacked fundamental understandings and were not to be trusted with the development of Children, and thus Scientologists stopped adopting out children to Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc, would that be ok because it was their belief and their business, despite the fact it’s at it’s core a government funded operation?
Bill_Martin said:
And if the federal government was to make the definition of marriage include homosexual unions, I give it about 5 seconds before they try to do the same to churches that refuse to wed gay couples.
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If what you say is true then this situation would’ve been resolved by the State forcing the Church to marry the two, but they didn’t. And I do not think it’s the State’s place to say “You must marry this couple.” Because Church marriages are Church ceremonies that have zero legal impact. It takes an actual legal document and process to have a legally binding marriage. And Churches have no interaction with whether or not people can get legally married.
 
TracerBullet said:
You despise anti-discrimination?
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Yes, but for private entities only. A private business on private property should be allowed to refuse service or employment to anyone they want for whatever reason they want.

If they are still able to remain in business despite all the negative publicity that actually having racist, sexist or any other “ist” policies would bring them, then so be it. If they are able to stay in business despite excluding a portion of potential customers, especially when a competitor can simply not discriminate and therefore take business away from them, then fine. I doubt they could though and the fears of going back to the Jim Crow days are unfounded. We are a much different nation now.

I don’t want the government to be able to use these laws to infringe upon religious liberty. They have a propensity to use them as a way of protecting groups they want to pander to. With regards to gay marriage, they have tried to use these laws to force the adoption agencies I posted about earlier to send kids to homes they felt it would be morally wrong to.
 
bzkoss236 said:
I’ve had this concept in my head for quite a while now, and I’m curious as to the thoughts of others. I know there is the concept of “civil union” for same-sex couples, but they claim it isn’t entirely legally the same as marriage, which got me to thinking the following:
  1. If people keep advocating for the separation of church (religion) and state (government)
  2. If it is primarily people of religious background that are against said “marriages”
  3. If same-sex couples want legal equality under a union for dedicated individuals
Then why not give everyone what they want. I believe we already have the systems in play to make this happen smoothly, because it essentially already is this way, with a few exceptions, and mostly a game of semantics and words.

Would a good solution to the issue to separate church and state and make marriage purely a religious matter so that each religion can define what it constitutes marriage, and then give the state the power over civil unions (legal “marriage”, but the term marriage will be kept to be used by religious). Then, anyone could get a civil union by the state to get the legal benefits of a dedicated relationship. This would mean, though, for those that are religious who are married by their church would also have to register for a civil union (which is essentially already done).

The idea is not completely thought out, but would this work? Why or why not? I’d like different perspectives, from Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-religious people.
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Sounds like a liberal idea
 
EviPolevhia said:
If the Church of Scientology said that people who were not a part of their belief system lacked fundamental understandings and were not to be trusted with the development of Children, and thus Scientologists stopped adopting out children to Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc, would that be ok because it was their belief and their business, despite the fact it’s at it’s core a government funded operation?

If what you say is true then this situation would’ve been resolved by the State forcing the Church to marry the two, but they didn’t. And I do not think it’s the State’s place to say “You must marry this couple.” Because Church marriages are Church ceremonies that have zero legal impact. It takes an actual legal document and process to have a legally binding marriage. And Churches have no interaction with whether or not people can get legally married.
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Regarding adoptions, I wouldn’t want them to be prohibited from doing it. I really don’t care if the government pulls their funding. In fact, pulling the funding from the Catholic agencies doesn’t irritate me nearly as much as the reasoning behind it. Again, I used the example more for how it displayed the thought process behind the government and society today that anything that opposes homosexuality needs to be quelled as discriminatory and just as bad as racism.

Regarding the Mississippi case, I don’t think it would have been much of a stretch for the state to have done that. Let me put it this way. If the two of us were around 100 years ago, we both would have thought it would be absurd to even be having this conversation about the definition of marriage possibly changing to nclude homosexuals. Pretty much everyone else would have too. I don’t we should make the same mistake now and fail to address issues that could lead to government overreaching in the future. I think that giving them the power to define marriage at all is opening the door too far.
 
Bill_Martin said:
I don’t care if somebody considers their homosexual union to be a marriage. What people think of their relationships is their business, however wrong they might be.
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That is the exact argument that basically everybody gives for homosexual marriages, and I believe it to be false. It’s harmful to society if the idea of “homosexual marriage” comes to be accepted as equal to real marriage. Real marriage as an instituion deserves a special status because of the critical role it plays in society; homosexual marriage does not play that sort of role; in fact, it undermines it.

Making the idea that homosexual “marriages” are basically equal to real marriages is harmful to society, no matter how you do it. This is the point on which we disagree.
 
You’re absolutely right. It’s a business arrangement where I sell my daughter, right? This sacred institution must be preserved and unchanged.
 
EviPolevhia said:
You’re absolutely right. It’s a business arrangement where I sell my daughter, right? This sacred institution must be preserved and unchanged.
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I never suggested anything of the sort. There’s a reason I said “between consenting adults” many times.
 
EviPolevhia said:
You’re absolutely right. It’s a business arrangement where I sell my daughter, right? This sacred institution must be preserved and unchanged.
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If you wish to talk about what we as Catholics believe about marriage, it would help if you would read the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out since you are way off base.
 
EviPolevhia said:
You’re absolutely right. It’s a business arrangement where I sell my daughter, right? This sacred institution must be preserved and unchanged.
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The debate about gay marriage is in several other threads, and please feel free to post in them. This thread is for people who already agree that same-sex marriage is wrong and are looking for a policy that allows them to keep their morals and uphold their principles in modern society.

If you want to argue that opposing same-sex marriage is wrong, feel free to do so, but not in this thread.
 
Bill_Martin said:
I don’t care if somebody considers their homosexual union to be a marriage. What people think of their relationships is their business, however wrong they might be.
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Bill,

As a Catholic I would suggest you consider caring.
 
bzkoss236 said:
I’ve had this concept in my head for quite a while now, and I’m curious as to the thoughts of others. I know there is the concept of “civil union” for same-sex couples, but they claim it isn’t entirely legally the same as marriage, which got me to thinking the following:
  1. If people keep advocating for the separation of church (religion) and state (government)
  2. If it is primarily people of religious background that are against said “marriages”
  3. If same-sex couples want legal equality under a union for dedicated individuals
Then why not give everyone what they want. I believe we already have the systems in play to make this happen smoothly, because it essentially already is this way, with a few exceptions, and mostly a game of semantics and words.

Would a good solution to the issue to separate church and state and make marriage purely a religious matter so that each religion can define what it constitutes marriage, and then give the state the power over civil unions (legal “marriage”, but the term marriage will be kept to be used by religious). Then, anyone could get a civil union by the state to get the legal benefits of a dedicated relationship. This would mean, though, for those that are religious who are married by their church would also have to register for a civil union (which is essentially already done).

The idea is not completely thought out, but would this work? Why or why not? I’d like different perspectives, from Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-religious people.
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Koss,

You worry me.😊
 
Zosimus41 said:
Sounds like a liberal idea
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Yeah, I guess it kind of is, but I was trying to think objectively, but Elizabeth502’s first post right after mine was a great reply and I appreciated the explanations from everyone. I guess this topic was more meant to see if it would fit in with Church teaching, (which I figured not, but wanted to know exactly why) but Elizabeth502’s post showed me that it is more than just against Church teaching, it is essentially against societal teaching.

Thank you all for your replies and discussion. It is much appreciated!
 
Bill_Martin said:
No, you misunderstand me. Nothing that I propose tries to change what marriage is. It only prevents the government from trying to redefine it to be whatever they want. Same sex couples who would call themselves married are still wrong; marriage does not change just because they apply its name to something it isn’t. However, people should be legally allowed to be wrong.
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Sorry, but this libertine idea is bad. The law is a teacher.
If it teaches that marriage is whatever you think it is then
as a society we are in deeper trouble.

The answer to bad government decisions is not
to eliminate marriage protection.
 
CopticChristian said:
Bill,

As a Catholic I would suggest you consider caring.
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I don’t think it is right for them to do so. I don’t think it is a marriage. I still don’t want them to be prohibited by law from referring to their relationship that way.
 
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