The origin of love that homosexuals feel for one another

[LongingSoul]

Mark, is the type of relationship you describe one that you simply postulate for purposes of the discussion or one that you observe as commonplace?

If you observe it, do you observe it in both homosexual and heterosexual couples?

Would your argument change if the relationship involved the (homosexual) participants desiring, but for sake of argument, not acting on, mutual sexual release

I also need to know the basis for this type of argument. I will add another question so that I may understand where you are coming from better before I address your last posts.

Does this type of relationship if it belongs to both male/female and same sex couplings… also involve the fidelity in the way of a dating or married couple… ie. are the partners in this celibate friendship but fundamentally prohibited from entertaining a natural coupling in anticipation of marriage alongside that. Like in a normal disinterested friendship which happily co-exists with another relationship of ‘interested’ love. Or is this relationship a complete dedication of the sexuality to the cause of celibate friendship alone?

 

[clem456]

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?

Excuse if this has been said three times already, I can’t read the whole thread.

Love is not a feeling. I have feelings for Beyoncé Knowles, but I love my wife.
Feelings come and go and can be applied to lots of things that are not love.

A good definition of love is “to will the good of another”. Love is a participation in the will of God… seeing, treating, acting towards another person as God does, to the best of our human ability. Desiring the same things for another person that God does. Treating them as God would treat them. Seeing their true possibilities (hope), believing God will raise them to it (faith), and willing that for them (love).

Love is never sterile. Love always creates. Love cannot -not- create, or it’s not love. God is love, God creates. The fact that we live and breathe, and participate in the passing along of that existence with God through heterosexual union, witnesses to the reality that love is creative. Everything God does is life-giving, it is never turned in on himself, it is always outflowing. Such with marriage, which is a participation in the interior life of God. (unbelievably awesome when you think about it).

This is why homosexuality is said to be dis-ordered. It does not participate in the will, or loving creation, of God. That’s not to be used as a broad-brush to say that two men can’t have an enduring and loving relationship. It means that a homosexual relationship does not participate in that, by it’s very nature, because it is sterile, does not create.

Whatever you want to call a homosexual relationship, it’s not the same thing, and it’s hard to have an honest and respectful discussion if this simple fact cannot be admitted.

 

[frobert]

Mark, is the type of relationship you describe one that you simply postulate for purposes of the discussion or one that you observe as commonplace?

If you observe it, do you observe it in both homosexual and heterosexual couples?

Would your argument change if the relationship involved the (homosexual) participants desiring, but for sake of argument, not acting on, mutual sexual release

I have observed this in one gay couple where the desire was in least one of the partners who I knew personally. If it happened in one it is likely that it happens in others though I don’t think anyone would say it is commonplace.

I have also observed the unitive nature of homosexuality in several gay couples that due to age or infirmary no longer have genital sex. By unitive I mean the love that keeps them together in a supportive loving relationship. This term is used by religious ethicists.

I am sure that though some sophisticated reasoning some in the CC will say that unitive love is not love. Who am I to argue with them?

 

[LongingSoul]

I have observed this in one gay couple where the desire was in least one of the partners who I knew personally. If it happened in one it is likely that it happens in others though I don’t think anyone would say it is commonplace.

I have also observed the unitive nature of homosexuality in several gay couples that due to age or infirmary no longer have genital sex. By unitive I mean the love that keeps them together in a supportive loving relationship. This term is used by religious ethicists.

I am sure that though some sophisticated reasoning some in the CC will say that unitive love is not love. Who am I to argue with them?

It doesn’t really require ‘sophisticated reasoning’ to see that there is no special merit in same sex unions that mimic the union between man and woman. With honest observation of life and nature, it is clear. I use the term ‘special’ here in its pure sense from its Latin roots species. When something has special merit… it denotes its role in species survival or the good of the species as a whole. The sexual intercourse between men and women has as its end procreative merit and in service of that, unitive merit.

The social intercourse of friendship between people is a special relationship that facilitates the blossoming of charity. It ‘represents a great good for all’ the species.

**CCC 2347 **The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends (Cf. Jn 15:15), who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.

Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

From the ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’, St Francis de Sales famed treatise (highly regarded by both Catholics and Protestants), friendship is specially treated of for its place in growing towards godliness. Here he distinguishes between the cloistered religious person, who has no special need for individual friendship, and the ordinary person for whom good friendship is necessary.

Just as men traversing a plain have no need to hold one another up, as they have who are amid slippery mountain paths, so religious do not need the stay of individual
friendships; but those who are living in the world require such for strength and comfort amid the difficulties which beset them. In the world all have not one aim, one mind, and therefore we must take to us congenial friends, nor is there any undue partiality in such attachments, which are but as the separation of good from evil, the sheep from the goats, the bee from the drone—a necessary separation.

What need to affirm so unquestionable a fact! S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard, and all the most notable servants of God, have had special friendships, which in nowise hindered their perfection. S. Paul, in describing evil men, says that they were “without natural affection,” Rom. i. 31. i.e. without friendship. And S. Thomas, in common with other philosophers, acknowledges that friendship is a virtue, and he certainly means individual friendships, because he says that we cannot bestow perfect friendship on many persons. So we see that the highest grace does not lie in being without friendships, but in having none which are not good, holy and true.

For friendship to be true, it does not form its attachment with undue partiality to what does not belong to it. The coupling of a ‘sheep and goat’ or ‘the bee and drone’ negate friendship. They can’t have any unitive merit. It’s like trying to join both good and evil to make something out of it. It’s impossible. Not unitive.

The relationship trying to be established here, amounts to the joining of a good with evil. Even when you say you know of gay couples who don’t have sex due to age or infirmity, the requirement for sexual fidelity betrays its nature as imitation marital, just as certain married couples remain married when sex is absent due to age or infirmity.

 

[frobert]

It doesn’t really require ‘sophisticated reasoning’ to see that there is no special merit in same sex unions that mimic the union between man and woman. With honest observation of life and nature, it is clear. I use the term ‘special’ here in its pure sense from its Latin roots species. When something has special merit… it denotes its role in species survival or the good of the species as a whole. The sexual intercourse between men and women has as its end procreative merit and in service of that, unitive merit.

The social intercourse of friendship between people is a special relationship that facilitates the blossoming of charity. It ‘represents a great good for all’ the species.

**CCC 2347 **The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends (Cf. Jn 15:15), who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.

Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one’s neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

From the ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’, St Francis de Sales famed treatise (highly regarded by both Catholics and Protestants), friendship is specially treated of for its place in growing towards godliness. Here he distinguishes between the cloistered religious person, who has no special need for individual friendship, and the ordinary person for whom good friendship is necessary.

Just as men traversing a plain have no need to hold one another up, as they have who are amid slippery mountain paths, so religious do not need the stay of individual
friendships; but those who are living in the world require such for strength and comfort amid the difficulties which beset them. In the world all have not one aim, one mind, and therefore we must take to us congenial friends, nor is there any undue partiality in such attachments, which are but as the separation of good from evil, the sheep from the goats, the bee from the drone—a necessary separation.

What need to affirm so unquestionable a fact! S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Gregory, S. Bernard, and all the most notable servants of God, have had special friendships, which in nowise hindered their perfection. S. Paul, in describing evil men, says that they were “without natural affection,” Rom. i. 31. i.e. without friendship. And S. Thomas, in common with other philosophers, acknowledges that friendship is a virtue, and he certainly means individual friendships, because he says that we cannot bestow perfect friendship on many persons. So we see that the highest grace does not lie in being without friendships, but in having none which are not good, holy and true.

For friendship to be true, it does not form its attachment with undue partiality to what does not belong to it. The coupling of a ‘sheep and goat’ or ‘the bee and drone’ negate friendship. They can’t have any unitive merit. It’s like trying to join both good and evil to make something out of it. It’s impossible. Not unitive.

The relationship trying to be established here, amounts to the joining of a good with evil. Even when you say you know of gay couples who don’t have sex due to age or infirmity, the requirement for sexual fidelity betrays its nature as imitation marital, just as certain married couples remain married when sex is absent due to age or infirmity.

Don’t argue with me argue with the religious ethicists. There is plenty written on the subject so you goggle can be your friend. If you are unable to see love where others do not much more can be said.

 

[DrTaffy]

It means that a homosexual relationship does not participate in that, by it’s very nature, because it is sterile, does not create.

It does not create one specific thing - children. It can create many other things, including a loving environment to raise children. Why would conceiving children be seen as the only good? Is a chaste monastic life therefore evil because it fails to produce kids?

 

[LongingSoul]

It does not create one specific thing - children. It can create many other things, including a loving environment to raise children. Why would conceiving children be seen as the only good? Is a chaste monastic life therefore evil because it fails to produce kids?

Think of it this way in order to understand the teaching of the Church.

The blueprint of the home in which the child thrives wholesomely starts with basic interlocking and complimentary materials that create the structure of the building. These are fastened and bound together with nails and glue, these unitive aspects ensuring the integrity of the structure especially against the outside elements. What evolves is the form of the home, which is the invisible structure which comes only with the integrity of the material structure.

If you don’t start with the purpose made materials, no matter what unitive aspects you use, the form won’t be conducive to wholesome family life. You can’t make windows from sheets of wood or roofs from curtain material. Things are made with specific purposes that play their role in creating this structure. The sexual organs and operations of the male and female bodies, even with some faults and flaws, have natural interlocking and complimentary aspects that ensure the structural soundness before anything else. They ensure the form conducive to species wellbeing through the conjugal communion.

Priests and nuns who as spouses of Christ and the Church and single celibate people as friends of the Lord, devote their sexuality to celibacy for love of the Lord rejecting physical and sexual intimacy and marriage for love of Him. They support the family in a different way, as Mothers and Fathers, sisters and brothers in the family of humanity. The structures of that home are also rigidly goverened by complimentarity and interlocking aspects also. Hence a woman will never be a Priest.

All of these laws are fundamental to the natural and divine order that we are beholden to as children of God gifted with life.

 

[Cricket2]

I think this question is simply about love. What is the origin of love in general. Love is from God. Now, being homosexual does not mean such a person can’t feel love or fall in love. I don’t think it serves any purpose to squabble about the legitimacy of anyone’s love for another person simply because they are homosexual or cross gendered.

Again, I do believe such individuals are called to celibacy just like a single heterosexual. As far as the origin of their love for another person, any person, that is a totally separate issue. How does anyone fall in love with another person, a child, their pet, a distant relative even. Love does not immediately indicate a sexual relationship exists or has to exist.

 

[ready]

If we love someone romantically of the opposite sex, or someone married to another person, or a dog, or a minor, or a parent, or a sibling, etc., then we are not loving that person or creature in lawful way in God’s Eye. Thus we are guilty of the sin of lust. God bless you.

What I meant to say is that if we love someone *romantically *of the same sex, etc… Sorry!

 

[clem456]

It does not create one specific thing - children. It can create many other things, including a loving environment to raise children. Why would conceiving children be seen as the only good? Is a chaste monastic life therefore evil because it fails to produce kids?

So then you agree that a homosexual act cannot participate in creating life and a heterosexual act does?
This is an important difference. Without the union of man and woman we do not exist.
It seems we agree on that?
Of course having children are not the only good that comes from relationships.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I am sure that though some sophisticated reasoning some in the CC will say that unitive love is not love. Who am I to argue with them?

The problem with love is that it’s used too lightly and frankly it is something the devil has mastered corrupting.

The RCC would probably say that homosexual relationships cannot culminate in the creation of a child. It just isn’t biologically possible.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Of course having children are not the only good that comes from relationships.

No, but it’s the only reason why states are involved in marriage.

 

[Rau]

No, but it’s the only reason why states are involved in marriage.

Historically, I believe that is true. Marriage is that unique institution through which the society builds itself. Such an institution must be intrinsically heterosexual in nature.

For this reason, I see no logic in calling any institution that involves a same sex couple “marriage”.

 

[DrTaffy]

No, but it’s the only reason why states are involved in marriage.

The states, and a large majority of the people in many western countries, seem to disagree with you.

So why shouldn’t same sex couples be given a quick and easy legal recognition of their couple? They do, after all, own property, grow old, have pensions, get sick, die, have citizenship and so on, all of which are effected by marriage.

 

[frobert]

A challenge for biblical scholarship.

I would appreciate if someone could 1.list the important verses in the bible that God. Specifically says that homosexuals are incapable of loving each other o r at least indicating such without an overly sophisticated abstraction.

1. State the natural law or other church doctrine that reasons homosexuals can do not or can not have a loving relationship.

At the least this exercise will sharpen your skill in biblical and church teaching.

 

[LongingSoul]

The biblical scholars who passed their unit on logic, will recognise the fallacy argumentum ad ignorantiam… ie. assuming that something is true because it has not or cannot be proven false. ie. that the bible specifically mentions that homosexual behaviour is loving.

The bible talks about men and women and their behaviours. It doesn’t refer to a third gender of homosexuality at all because sodomy which is regarded as the sexual relations between people of the same sex, is fundamentally ‘abominable’

*Leviticus 20 13: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

**Lev. 18:22 **You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

**1 Cor 6:9 ** Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, *

Those are just 3 of the numerous references to homosexual behaviour. None qualify the behaviour as love because it is wrong.

 

[frobert]

The biblical scholars who passed their unit on logic, will recognise the fallacy argumentum ad ignorantiam… ie. assuming that something is true because it has not or cannot be proven false. ie. that the bible specifically mentions that homosexual behaviour is loving.

The bible talks about men and women and their behaviours. It doesn’t refer to a third gender of homosexuality at all because sodomy which is regarded as the sexual relations between people of the same sex, is fundamentally ‘abominable’

Leviticus 20 13: If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

**Lev. 18:22 **You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

**1 Cor 6:9 ** Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites,

Those are just 3 of the numerous references to homosexual behaviour. None qualify the behaviour as love because it is wrong.

thank you for your response.

anyone want to take try at the natural law arguments that homosexuals can not love?

 

[Elizabeth502]

anyone want to take try at the natural law arguments that homosexuals can not love?

Natural law as it relates to homosexuality has been covered in several years of long threads about this topic on CAF, which could be ascertained by using the forum’s search feature. It includes biblical discussion, but Catholic doctrine is not sola scriptura, so the search for “answers” in strictly Biblical scholarship is a futile one.

Friendship, authentic friendship, is possible between any two people psychologically capable of genuine charity. That would exclude many mentally ill people. Genuine love does not have to be erotic to be noble and ennobling.

Friendship neither depends on sex nor, if between two of the same sex, is elevated by being sexualized. Quite the opposite, if the latter. When we sexualize what is forbidden in natural law, we debase ourselves and the other because we violate divine law and the order of the universe.

 

[Rau]

The states, and a large majority of the people in many western countries, seem to disagree with you.

So why shouldn’t same sex couples be given a quick and easy legal recognition of their couple? They do, after all, own property, grow old, have pensions, get sick, die, have citizenship and so on, all of which are effected by marriage.

But what has such “legal recognition” got to do with Marriage - which is that unique institution, intrinsically sexual, through which the society builds itself, and which to be effective, must be heterosexual.

I see no logic in calling any institution that involves a same sex couple “marriage”.

 

[DrTaffy]

But what has such “legal recognition” got to do with Marriage - which is that unique institution, intrinsically sexual, through which the society builds itself, and which to be effective, must be heterosexual.

You are back to asserting that ‘marriage’ means only what you want it to mean, nad that your definition must be forced on everyone else.