Recently in Brazil same-sex unions have been legalised despite condemnation from the Catholic Church -
bbc.co.uk/news/world-13304442
This thread is not a news thread, it is only using the above story as an example.
While reading the comments, I notice one person had posted this below the story -
“Why is the Catholic Church trying to interfere with secular unions? Do they think non-Catholics have a similar right to interfere with Catholic sacraments?”
What is everyone’s opinion on this? If we believe we have a right to campaign against secular laws including civil partnerships, does that mean it is okay for non-Catholics to start telling us how to apply our religious rules e.g. the Catechism?
Let’s say that there was a group of Catholics campaigning for same-sex marriage to be outlawed. Would it then be fair for a group of non-Catholics to campaign for Catholics to be forced to allow same-sex marriages?
Or -
Let’s say Catholics successfully managed to campaign for same-sex marriage to be made illegal, would it then be fair if non-Catholics successfully managed to campaign for Catholic Churches to be forced to marry any heterosexual couple, whether they are Catholic or not? If not, why not?
After all, we are interfering in the “secular” world by campaigning against a law, so why can’t secular people interfere in our religious world by campaigning against our “rules”?
Essentially, this thread is about the concept of religious freedom versus freedom of living how you choose, and telling other people/attempting to force people to live how you want them to.