The origin of love that homosexuals feel for one another

[SMGS127]

Of course homosexuals can love.But their is no love involved in a homosexual relationship

This is absolutely false.

All good things, including love, are not mutually exclusive with sin. One can sin out of good intentions, for example. Does this lessen the temporal consequences of sin? Of course not. Does this lessen the severity of a sin? Of course not. But that does not mean one cannot have good traits within the sin; they are simply outweighed. Two people in a same-sex relationship utilize the same goods (love, attraction, caring, support) that any heterosexual couple does; they just do so in a disordered fashion. Heck, like Cricket said earlier, many girls are extremely close to each other without crossing that “line” into sinful physical intimacy, but they utilize the exact same goods that someone who has crossed that line does.

For example, back when I was actively lesbian, a lot of my friends thought I was dating my [straight, taken] best friend because we literally did everything together and by ourselves. In fact, a lot of the compassion and love that we share[d] is very similar to that shared between me and my ex-girlfriends, just minus any physicality or relationship. So yes, I’d say that the origin of love that gays and lesbians feel for their partners is the same, good love that heterosexuals feel for each other. It is merely a love misdirected by a faulty biological physical attraction mechanism inside us. If we realize that, it is much easier to understand why the Church teaches against homosexual behavior and why we should remain abstinate from all same-sex relationships.

My 2 cents, anyway .

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

This is absolutely false.

All good things, including love, are not mutually exclusive with sin. One can sin out of good intentions, for example. Does this lessen the temporal consequences of sin? Of course not. Does this lessen the severity of a sin? Of course not. But that does not mean one cannot have good traits within the sin; they are simply outweighed. Two people in a same-sex relationship utilize the same goods (love, attraction, caring, support) that any heterosexual couple does; they just do so in a disordered fashion. Heck, like Cricket said earlier, many girls are extremely close to each other without crossing that “line” into sinful physical intimacy, but they utilize the exact same goods that someone who has crossed that line does.

For example, back when I was actively lesbian, a lot of my friends thought I was dating my [straight, taken] best friend because we literally did everything together and by ourselves. In fact, a lot of the compassion and love that we share[d] is very similar to that shared between me and my ex-girlfriends, just minus any physicality or relationship. So yes, I’d say that the origin of love that gays and lesbians feel for their partners is the same, good love that heterosexuals feel for each other. It is merely a love misdirected by a faulty biological physical attraction mechanism inside us. If we realize that, it is much easier to understand why the Church teaches against homosexual behavior and why we should remain abstinate from all same-sex relationships.

My 2 cents, anyway .

I love your answer, SO MUCH, you’re so cool!

 

[LongingSoul]

This is absolutely false.

All good things, including love, are not mutually exclusive with sin. One can sin out of good intentions, for example. Does this lessen the temporal consequences of sin? Of course not. Does this lessen the severity of a sin? Of course not. But that does not mean one cannot have good traits within the sin; they are simply outweighed. Two people in a same-sex relationship utilize the same goods (love, attraction, caring, support) that any heterosexual couple does; they just do so in a disordered fashion. Heck, like Cricket said earlier, many girls are extremely close to each other without crossing that “line” into sinful physical intimacy, but they utilize the exact same goods that someone who has crossed that line does.

For example, back when I was actively lesbian, a lot of my friends thought I was dating my [straight, taken] best friend because we literally did everything together and by ourselves. In fact, a lot of the compassion and love that we share[d] is very similar to that shared between me and my ex-girlfriends, just minus any physicality or relationship. So yes, I’d say that the origin of love that gays and lesbians feel for their partners is the same, good love that heterosexuals feel for each other. It is merely a love misdirected by a faulty biological physical attraction mechanism inside us. If we realize that, it is much easier to understand why the Church teaches against homosexual behavior and why we should remain abstinate from all same-sex relationships.

My 2 cents, anyway .

But the relationships you’re describing with your straight friends are not ‘homosexual’ relationships. They are friendship. Without sexual activity a relationship is friendship and the love is shared is genuine and natural.

If people use each other unnaturally for sexual gratification, that can’t be love. In that case, true love would manifest in denying that urge. It proves real by sacrifice. Take an example of a case in England a few years back where a brother and sister unaware of their blood relationship, fell in love, got married and had children. When it came to light that they were related in that way, they had to separate and abstain permanently from intercourse or else they would be jailed. That shows a case where love manifests in a sexual relationship prior to full knowledge of its unnatural nature and manifests in abstinence after the nature of it became known.

Like incest or any unnatural or immoral relationship between consenting adults, homosexual relationships require abstinence from sexual activity to be truly loving.

 

[pnewton]

But the relationships you’re describing with your straight friends are not ‘homosexual’ relationships. They are friendship. Without sexual activity a relationship is friendship and the love is shared is genuine and natural.

That is changing the question. A person who is homosexual, according to the commons usage (meaning attracted to the same sex) does not have to have a sexual relationship any more than a heterosexual must have a sexual relationship.

Consider this question. Can two heterosexuals who are unmarried love one another? This question does not imply or mandate any physical intimacy. Let us consider the couple who is engaged to be married, going through all the proper protocols for Holy Matrimony, living a chaste life, then they get careless, fall into temptation and have sex.

Does this mean they do not or never did love each other?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Love never expresses itself through sin.

Augustine taught the opposite, that love is the source of all sin – misdirected love. “In all that I desired, I was desiring You.”

 

[frobert]

Of course homosexuals can love.But their is no love involved in a homosexual relationship

I can understand you saying that sex acts that preclude the possibility of life are sinful but to say there is no love if there is sex involved. Love is an emotion an emotion with many variations of love, it is what people feel for each other and sex is one expression of that love. Are you saying that there is same sex love but once there is sex the love ceases?

Here is a hypothetical. I am gay but my family arranges a marriage for me and being a good son I follow through and marry a girl that I have no love for and perhaps don’t even like as a person. She is not too demanding sexually, we have sex once a month and she seems satisfied but every time we have sex I feel sick to my stomach. It so happens that I have a good friend who I love and who loves me, before getting married we engaged in sex on a regular basis but now our relationship is homosocial (no-sex)

Am I committing a sin when I have sex with my wife because I don’t love her to the point were I am disgusted with her but we want children?

I feel my love for my friend is still as strong as ever. Do I love him now because we don’t have sex but I did not love him when we had sex.

Did I commit a grave sin by marrying a woman I had no feelings for.

Am I sinning when I have sex with her even though I have a physiological reaction?

I am asking these questions because I really want to understand how someone can say there is homosexual love but no love involved in a homosexual relationship.

 

[LongingSoul]

That is changing the question. A person who is homosexual, according to the commons usage (meaning attracted to the same sex) does not have to have a sexual relationship any more than a heterosexual must have a sexual relationship.

Consider this question. Can two heterosexuals who are unmarried love one another? This question does not imply or mandate any physical intimacy. Let us consider the couple who is engaged to be married, going through all the proper protocols for Holy Matrimony, living a chaste life, then they get careless, fall into temptation and have sex.

Does this mean they do not or never did love each other?

If you are talking about romantic affection between same sex couples you have to distinguish between the disordered urge and your choices and actions regarding it which determine ‘love’. The definition of love is that it wills the good of another. It is not the part that desires self gratification of an urge. If that were the case then you would have to say that adulterers feelings are justified by love or pedophiles feelings are justified by love. A man and a woman who entertain a romantic affection for each other in anticipation of marriage are loving each other but entertaining romantic affection for someone outside the bounds of nature and God, is beholding them selfishly. It is not ‘willing their good’. We aren’t permitted to entertain romantic affection for anyone in that way apart from a potential spouse.

 

[pnewton]

If you are talking about romantic affection between same sex couples you have to distinguish between the disordered urge and your choices and actions regarding it which determine ‘love’. The definition of love is that it wills the good of another. It is not the part that desires self gratification of an urge. If that were the case then you would have to say that adulterers feelings are justified by love or pedophiles feelings are justified by love. A man and a woman who entertain a romantic affection for each other in anticipation of marriage are loving each other but entertaining romantic affection for someone outside the bounds of nature and God, is beholding them selfishly. It is not ‘willing their good’. We aren’t permitted to entertain romantic affection for anyone in that way apart from a potential spouse.

This assumes a knowledge of what the good is that usually does not exist. Surely it is a valid point for a knowledgeable Catholic and is a good argument for a young couple in love. However, if one has a poorly formed conscience, then they may genuinely will the good for another even though that damages the soul in a way that they have know knowledge of.

I guess I can accept that even someone with a disordered urge can still be selfless in many ways for love of another. I believe this because I believe that we all have disordered urges as a result of our fallen nature, yet we still manage to rise above our sin to the calling of love. Is it perfect or pure? No, we have not reached Heaven.

 

[LongingSoul]

This assumes a knowledge of what the good is that usually does not exist. Surely it is a valid point for a knowledgeable Catholic and is a good argument for a young couple in love. However, if one has a poorly formed conscience, then they may genuinely will the good for another even though that damages the soul in a way that they have know knowledge of.

I guess I can accept that even someone with a disordered urge can still be selfless in many ways for love of another. I believe this because I believe that we all have disordered urges as a result of our fallen nature, yet we still manage to rise above our sin to the calling of love. Is it perfect or pure? No, we have not reached Heaven.

Sin is sin and it isn’t transformed by other acts of virtue though. God in His all knowing place, will no doubt find our flaws to be mitigated by certain circumstances, but we as human beings, haven’t got the capacity to turn sin into virtue that way. If someone living in a long loveless marriage falls prey to the urge towards romance and sexual fulfilment to another person, we don’t alter the nature of the adultery because of that. The sin is the sin and no matter how painful the marriage is, we cannot choose to dissolve it and celebrate the adulterous love. If a seriel killer gives regularly to charity, it doesn’t lessen the sins of murder he is driven to do. As Catholics, we are obliged to be loving but honest about sin. We know that God doesn’t give anyone a burden they are not capable of carrying, so we know that it is open to people with disorders, to reject the disorder and to live wholesomely. Millions of people with disordered desires do this humbly and obediently every day of their lives, picking up their crosses and walking the way of Christ. If we are feeding non believers or weak believers a watered down version of the Good News by tacitly accepting sin as ok for some and tolerable through ignorance, we do them a massive disservice.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Sin is sin and it isn’t transformed by other acts of virtue though. God in His all knowing place, will no doubt find our flaws to be mitigated by certain circumstances, but we as human beings, haven’t got the capacity to turn sin into virtue that way. If someone living in a long loveless marriage falls prey to the urge towards romance and sexual fulfilment to another person, we don’t alter the nature of the adultery because of that. The sin is the sin and no matter how painful the marriage is, we cannot choose to dissolve it and celebrate the adulterous love. If a seriel killer gives regularly to charity, it doesn’t lessen the sins of murder he is driven to do. As Catholics, we are obliged to be loving but honest about sin. We know that God doesn’t give anyone a burden they are not capable of carrying, so we know that it is open to people with disorders, to reject the disorder and to live wholesomely. Millions of people with disordered desires do this humbly and obediently every day of their lives, picking up their crosses and walking the way of Christ. If we are feeding non believers or weak believers a watered down version of the Good News by tacitly accepting sin as ok for some and tolerable through ignorance, we do them a massive disservice.

pnewton was not tacitly accepting sin. If you disagree, please cite a sentence pnewton said that tacitly accepts sin.

(The same accusation is levied at Pope Francis, by the way. It’s amazing how many holy people tacitly accept sin these days).

 

[pnewton]

pnewton was not tacitly accepting sin. If you disagree, please cite a sentence pnewton said that tacitly accepts sin.

(The same accusation is levied at Pope Francis, by the way. It’s amazing how many holy people tacitly accept sin these days).

Thank you, and no, that is not my intent. I was really just sticking to the question. Beyond that, I think the argument that homosexuals do not really know love is not only flawed, I think it is a very bad approach to take. As I mentioned earlier, I do not think you will find on practicing homosexual that will agree that they cannot know love. If you base an argument on something they know to be wrong (it is dicey to argue that someone does not feel or think the way they know they feel and think), then it is almost certain that everything else will be taken with equal incredulity.

No, I think it is better to leave love out of it, or even better to acknowledge the legitimacy of another’s emotions. Then present truth as the Church does.

We are Catholics here. The Church has presented the morality of homosexual acts many times. Never has the Church used this argument in presenting homosexual teaching.

 

[frobert]

Don’t be deceived, as Eve was by the serpent in the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t be tricked into thinking homosexuality is “love”. Love doesn’t go against God’s will.

Well, recall the Book of Genesis where God created us male and female, in the Divine image and likeness. The Divine image and likeness is a very special blessing we humans have, and we are also told we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Man was to leave his father and mother and cling to his **WIFE…NOT **husband!
Further, the couple was to be fruitful and multiply.

There are a number of biblical references to homosexuality, and **NONE **of them talk about it in a positive light. You have the references to Sodom and Gomorrah where those two cities were destroyed, at least in part, due to the rampant homosexuality.

ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/zmorhombibl.HTM

All the biblical quotes on homosexuality use words like “abomination”,

1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites … will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Leviticus 18:22: “**You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination.” **

1 Timothy 1:10: “… law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly … the unchaste,** practicing homosexuals**, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching.”

Romans 1:26-27: “Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.”

Again, by defending homosexuality, one is not helping anyone, because it is very clearly going against God and nature.

Where in any of your biblical quotes does it say gays can experience love? It might say that this is not love because it is not marital love. I would agree that three are some differences but disagree that it can not be as strong or stronger than marital love even though it may be a sin in the same way pre marital sex is sin. Even if the pre marital sinners get married it does not erase the sin.

The bible is full of stories of planned marriages are we to assume that all the men and women were in love? There is even one OT biblical law that commands a woman who is raped to marry the rapist.

I don’t find the bible a particularly good love manual.

 

[Sky_River]

I have heard that God is love, and that all love is from God. God is indeed the source and originator of goodness and all that is love.

Now, what is it that homosexuals feel for each other?

Could we just put it down to eros or lust? I mean, you hear these remarkable stories of men who stay together well into their 80s, in what seems to be a truly loving relationship.

Now, if homosexuals did feel true love for one another, and God disapproves of homosexual relationships… then where is this love from? If all love is of God, and I know it’s a big ‘if’, but if homosexuals do truly love each other… where is it from? Could it still be of God, simply expressed in some distorted fashion?

Homosexuality is lust, not love. While emotional closeness between two people who happen to be of the same gender, is not sinful, what is sinful about gay marriage and homosexuality is the fact that God never intended for two people of the same gender to act towards each other in a sexual way.

 

[Rau]

Don’t be deceived, as Eve was by the serpent in the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t be tricked into thinking homosexuality is “love”. Love doesn’t go against God’s will.

…

Again, by defending homosexuality, one is not helping anyone, because it is very clearly going against God and nature.

I saw no “defence of homosexuality” in the posts preceding yours (though such may be under development!), and I don’t offer one either. However, can I ask you, do you believe it possible that 2 men (or 2 women) in a permanent, monogamous relationship may in fact love each other, and that that love may remain with them till death?

 

[Rau]

Love never expresses itself through sin.

That’s a bit trite. One may act - motivated by genuine love - in a misguided way. I can imagine euthanasia arising in this way. One spouse wants so to help the other, and the other asks for help, that a great error is made. But the love need not be in doubt.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

Don’t be deceived, as Eve was by the serpent in the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t be tricked into thinking homosexuality is “love”. Love doesn’t go against God’s will.

God does indeed forbid the homosexual acts, but I think you are taking something out of
that which was never there. Homosexuality isn’t love, you are right, it is a sexuality, as is
heterosexuality, but people of both do both feel love. One group, however, is misdirected.

Homosexuals are to be celibate/chaste, but that feeling in their hearts
is love, present by God’s design, though we sadly live in a fallen world,
nature is off the fritz, that being the reason for the celibate/chaste part.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

I saw no “defence of homosexuality” in the posts preceding yours (though such may be under development!), and I don’t offer one either. However, can I ask you, do you believe it possible that 2 men (or 2 women) in a permanent, monogamous relationship may in fact love each other, and that that love may remain with them till death?

Ahh … what do you mean by “permanent, monogamous relationship”? I don’t
deny that homosexuals experience love in ways like heterosexuals have, but
I hope you and I are on the same page that homosexuals aren’t to have, sad-
ly, any monogamous relationship as in romance, right?

 

[Rau]

But there isn’t [love in a homosexual relationship].

The coloured bit is added by me for context…

If not, what is it that maintains a deep, caring, monogamous, life-long relationship that the participants in all genuine-ness say is ‘love’.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Where in any of your biblical quotes does it say gays can experience love? It might say that this is not love because it is not marital love. I would agree that three are some differences but disagree that it can not be as strong or stronger than marital love even though it may be a sin in the same way pre marital sex is sin. Even if the pre marital sinners get married it does not erase the sin.

The bible is full of stories of planned marriages are we to assume that all the men and women were in love? There is even one OT biblical law that commands a woman who is raped to marry the rapist.

I don’t find the bible a particularly good love manual.

The bible is a faith record. It is certainly not a love manual, that is, a how-to-book that teaches us how to achieve the sensual kind of love that humans yearn for, although there is a book in the Old Testament, the Canticles or the Song of Songs, which celebrates human sexual love. The poetic verses therein speak of relations between lovers, clearly between a man and a woman. As you know, the bible contains verses in the Old and New Testament condemning sexual intimacy between two men and two women. Such is ungodly, or not from or of God.

In the questions posed by the OP pertaining to love, love is framed in its limited sense. True love is ennobling and noble. The highest form of manifestation is when Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, to redeem us. Even then, to be redeemed, each one of us has to first accept the wrongness of our sinful choices and repent so we may enter the kingdom of God.

Catholics are called to extend compassion for the struggles of our homosexual brothers and sisters. Compassion that enables, facilitates or affirms sin would be false.

Homosexual persons, on the other hand, are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. - CCC # 2359.

What is disinterested friendship? It does not mean uncaring friendship; it means just the opposite, that which is essentially altruistic and not self seeking, to help the other’s soul to reach heaven. That is genuine love.
,

 

[The_Reginator]

**TIME
**

Let’s be clear on the definition we are all using for love in this discussion.

I have heard that God is love, and that all love is from God. God is indeed the source and originator of goodness and all that is love.

Now, what is it that homosexuals feel for each other?

One could call this “romantic love” perhaps?
To me, when it comes to marriage (or at least a long-term relationship like marriage between same-sex couples), LOVE is not an ‘emotion’, it is more of a commitment: “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, …”

Does the above fit in at all with what we are discussing? What really is the nature of the “love” in a homosexual relationship? Is it different than in a ‘normal’ relationship? (I used the word “normal” on purpose – I am very much concerned in the way that homosexual acts have become normalized in the past few decades.)
What would the rest of you agree to be a good definition we can use here?

Thanks, Reg.