What if the Church did this in response to the same-sex "marriage" debate?

[down_under]

Exactly, and they never will be able to either.

Because religion is a private matter, and you simply can not force a priest to perform a sacramental marriage against his will, or the will of the Church.

I have no doubt that some groups will try, and they’ll lose in each and every single case.

And I would support the Church directly in opposing being forced to do such a thing, even though I am in favor of same sex marriage.

Sarah x

I pre-empted you apparently we posted at the same time look at 100

 

[atheistgirl]

here is one out of British Colombia where the Knight of Columbus were forced to pay damages to a lesbian couple for refusing to allow the use of there premises for a “wedding” celebration. Unless you are claiming that the Knights of Columbus has no religious affiliation.
bchrt.bc.ca/decisions/2005/pdf/Smith_and_Chymyshyn_v_Knights_of_Columbus_and_others_2005_BCHRT_544.pdf

This is a great example to highlight.

Having read the whole document, it’s clear justice is at work here. Benefit was given where due, by both parties but the Knights conduct and case simply did not hold up to scrutiny.

And it was the hiring of a hall.

Not forcing a Catholic Priest to perform the same sex marriage.

I maintain this will never happen.

I maintain no priest will ever be forced by secular law to perform a sacramental marriage to two people of the same sex.

I’m prepared to come back here and profoundly apologize and admit I was wrong, if it does. But that will be after I’ve left the picket line resisting those who are trying to force a Church to perform a ceremony against their will.

Sarah x

 

[mitex]

The jews have a saying

if a man writes a book and tells you he is going to kill you believe him.

I recommend a similar saying here

if a group writes large bodies of digital text telling you how they are going to change society to allow the first same sex marriage, then others group write for YEARS how they are going to use that movement to get even more strange unions legal believe them. No one who has responded has even come close to meeting my argument on its merits. You want to act like these things don’t exist. Or they are simply absurd because the hurt your feelings. right now in Canada and the UK religious freedom is going out the window because someone changed the definition of marriage. Right now in Washington state using this exact logic (as ssm) a man is calling himself a women and lounging in a women’s bathroom where young girls have to go. yes weather you want to admit it or not. These things are all part and parcel. No one wants to argue the Legal consequences that fall once you take marriage away from its natural definition. You just want to pretend that everything will be alright. Have you even been to a Gay parade. Have you even seen one in passing. You are talking about that becoming the norm. Public sex acts in front of children are common. they do things that heterosexual people would be and have been arrested for. You want to talk like its no big deal. sorry I don’t follow you logic.

oh that’s right you haven’t made a logical argument. One made an emotional argument the other simply denies everything without any substantial comment as to how this logically follows. in short your wrong so there. well debate the merits of the argument please. there is a bunch of facts directly tied to the LGBT movement that you cannot deny. the very reason the lump them all together in the acronym is because they are all of a kind.

Down under you really hurt my feelings. I’d like an apology because I said I was celibate (and that homosexual acts were a sin) and you were mean and uncharitable. I’d like an apology please.
I’m not the people you were describing.

 

[down_under]

Down under you really hurt my feelings. I’d like an apology because I said I was celibate (and that homosexual acts were a sin) and you were mean and uncharitable. I’d like an apology please.
I’m not the people you were describing.

I was not even talking to you. You have not been in the conversation for quite some time. I recognize that you have never been to a gay pride event and don’t Revel in the lifestyle. You did and are now making an emotional argument. I am not foaming at the mouth here. I am not angry I am just stating the plain fact that no one wants to argue the actual facts of the case. Religious people are being fined because they don’t want to have there facilities used for bizarre ceremonies that are religiously objectionable to THEM. No conscientious abjection for them. do some really suppose it will be a big leap. I have showed that the UK is very close to going back to formal persecution over the LGBT agenda becoming codified in law. Our bishops here have officially acknowledged (via professional legal council) that the catholic church and the Government of the United States are now legally at odds. This will have legal ramifications. It is not a big jump from clergy having to, by law, support abortion and contraception (I was taught at a major university in anatomy and physiology class that every hormonal contraceptive is an abortifacient according to Muller and O’rally and the research in every embryology text book in the world.) out of there own pocket, to having to perform same sex “marriage” both of these things are completely against catholic teaching (to a variety of degrees in the protestant world.) How do you see this as unthinkable. Is there really a large difference between telling a catholic group that they don’t get to decide who rents there hall and for what prupose, and telling catholic clergy that they will be fined or put in jail if they don’t perform whatever ceremonies the state requires. After all the state sponsored JP’s have to do it. and every catholic priest must register with the state as a celebrant. I am sorry but I do not see a big divide here.

 

[Biblepoe]

Down under, all of the links you gave in this post seem to say something different from what you think they say:

the only people who claimed this man was biased were people pushing the LGBT agenda in the media and politically therefore they were the biased people and there critique was taken apart by the university who reviewed his findings and found them all valid and publically said they were valid.
utexas.edu/news/2012/08/29regnerus_scientific_misconduct_inquiry_completed

It didn’t clear him of bias, it said “no formal investigation is warranted into the allegations of scientific misconduct.” There’s a big difference between bias and scientific misconduct.

Bias can manifest in the form of misinterpreting data (which the page you linked to specifically said was not scientific misconduct), while an example of scientific misconduct is flat out fabricating data.

Down under, all of the links you gave in this post say something different from what you think they say:

here is one that found Gay adoption harmful to children
lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2005/may/05053106

This link is to an article which says that a few institutions made a report in Spanish supposedly demonstrating that adoption by same-sex parents is harmful to children. This is meaningless, since organizations with agenda publish reports all the time supposedly presenting evidence for whatever it is they want to prove. What is important is the data (including data from studies) referenced and the interpretation of such data.

Here is a study by Kansas state university that shows that if the parents sexual orientation differs from the norm the children are very likely to be similarly adversely affected.
journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7907017&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0021932010000325

It doesn’t show that such children are adversely affected. It rather comes to the contested conclusion that such children are more likely to not report being heterosexual. His conclusion is contested, but even if it is true it may just mean that same-sex couples are more willing to adopt the children other parents aren’t (for example, same-sex couples may be more willing to adopt “sissy” boys or “butch” girls). Even if adoption by same-sex couples caused the children to be more likely to be homosexual or bisexual, I would consider that to be a bad reason to ban same-sex couples from adopting children.

I recommend that you carefully read a webpage before you link to it, considering it evidence.

 

[down_under]

I recommend that you carefully read a webpage before you link to it, considering it evidence.

And you say I don’t consider. I just watched you 3 times find small loopholes to allow you to continue to believe whatever you want.

the research is valid. No one has scientifically demonstrated that it is not. They did not even attach him on his findings or stats. They attached him for misconduct because his findings have been verified several times over 20 years.

Never mind fella believe it says whatever you want. its like throwing logic at a brick wall. Although I will say that you are the first person to actually attempt to find a loop hole or follow a logical argument.

 

[Biblepoe]

I just watched you 3 times find small loopholes to allow you to continue to believe whatever you want.

The 3 “small loopholes” as you put it were pointing out that the links you gave said something completely different from what you said they did.

I actually took the time to read the pages you linked to, because I’m the sort of person who first looks at the evidence, then come to conclusions, contrary to your insinuation.

the research is valid. No one has scientifically demonstrated that it is not.

I’m assuming you’re talking about the Regnerus study here.

Contrary to what you say, many scholars have spoken out about why the conclusion of the study (why you cited it) does not follow from the data it gathered. Here is a letter signed by over 200 researchers to the editors of the journal that published the study basically explaining why the study is fatally flawed to the point of being meaningless. In part, it says:

We have substantial concerns about the merits of this paper and question whether it actually uses methods and instruments that answer the research questions posed in the paper. The author claims that the purpose of the analysis is to begin to address the question, “Do the children of gay and lesbian parents look comparable to those of their heterosexual counterparts?” (p. 755). He creates several categories of “family type”, including “lesbian mother” and “gay father” as well as “divorced late,” “stepfamily,” and “single-parent.” But, as the author notes, for those respondents who indicated that a parent had a “same-sex relationship,” these categories were collapsed to boost sample size:

That is, a small minority of respondents might fit more than one group. I have, however, forced their mutual exclusivity here for analytic purposes. For example, a respondent whose mother had a same-sex relationship might also qualify in Group 5 or Group 7, but in this case my analytical interest is in maximizing the sample size of Groups 2 and 3 so the respondent would be placed in Group 2 (LMs). Since Group 3 (GFs) is the smallest and most difficult to locate randomly in the population, its composition trumped that of others, even LMs. (There were 12 cases of respondents who reported both a mother and a father having a same-sex relationship; all are analyzed here as GFs, after ancillary analyses revealed comparable exposure to both their mother and father).

By doing this, the author is unable to distinguish between the impact of having a parent who has had a continuous same-sex relationship from the impact of having same-sex parents who broke-up from the impact of living in a same-sex stepfamily from the impact of living with a single parent who may have dated a same-sex partner; each of these groups are included in a single “lesbian mother” or “gay father” group depending on the gender of the parent who had a same-sex relationship. Specifically, this paper fails to distinguish family structure and family instability. Thus, it fails to distinguish, for children whose parents ever had a same-sex relationship experience, the associations due to family structure from the associations due to family stability. However, he does attempt to distinguish family structure from family instability for the children of different-sex parents by identifying children who lived in an intact biological family. To make a group equivalent to the group he labels as having “lesbian” or “gay” parents, the author should have grouped all other respondents together and included those who lived in an intact biological family with those who ever experienced divorce, or whose parents ever had a different-sex romantic relationship. That seems absurd to family structure researchers, yet that type of grouping is exactly what he did with his “lesbian mother” and “gay father” groups.

The critiques extend beyond that. I encourage you to to read the full letter.

 

[down_under]

The 3 “small loopholes” as you put it were pointing out that the links you gave said something completely different from what you said they did.

I actually took the time to read the pages you linked to, because I’m the sort of person who first looks at the evidence, then come to conclusions, contrary to your insinuation.

I’m assuming you’re talking about the Regnerus study here.

Contrary to what you say, many scholars have spoken out about why the conclusion of the study (why you cited it) does not follow from the data it gathered. Here is a letter signed by over 200 researchers to the editors of the journal that published the study basically explaining why the study is fatally flawed to the point of being meaningless. In part, it says:

The critiques extend beyond that. I encourage you to to read the full letter.

well I must say this is a bit more interesting. you had me with this letter business I never heard that so I looked it up. I am not a number cruncher at heart so I wanted to see what the people in the field thought about it and how it went over in the scientific community

The high quality of the New Family Structures Study’s research design, data collection, and findings, and the firmness of Regnerus’s conclusion that the “consensus” in sociology was exploded, only seem to have encouraged interested parties, in the academy and outside it, to attempt to debunk the NFSS. UCLA demographer Gary Gates assembled about 200 scholars to denounce Regnerus’s article, but to little substantive effect

why little substantial effect, here is what I find.

Meanwhile SSR editor James Wright was under fire for publishing Regnerus’s article; for appearing to rush it to publication; and for placing Marks’s article alongside it. Opting for transparency at some risk to his own reputation, Wright asked a member of SSR’s editorial board to “audit” the process that led to the publication of Regnerus’s article.

The risk was that he chose Darren E. Sherkat, a sociologist at Southern Illinois University whom Regnerus would later describe (without fear of contradiction) as someone “who has long harbored negative sentiment about me.” Sherkat, speaking out of school, confidently told a writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education in July that Regnerus’s study was “bull****” when his audit was still in draft form and neither Regnerus nor Wright had written a response to it.

Sherkat’s audit and several other items of interest have now been published in the November 2012 issue of SSR, in a special 40-page section introduced by Wright. To his credit, when he sticks to the charge he was given, Sherkat finds that the journal’s editor did nothing wrong in publishing either Regnerus’s article or Marks’s.

Wright referred both papers to knowledgeable scholars of the subjects involved, who held varying views on the politics of same-sex unions, and who unanimously recommended their publication. No violations of normal procedure occurred; Sherkat says he “may well have made the same decisions” Wright did, given the reviews; and he dismisses as “ludicrous” any suggestion that the editor was up to anything political.

To his discredit, Sherkat, a sociologist of religion who does not appear to have done any research on family and sexuality issues (but for a single article studying how religion and political affiliation affect views of same-sex marriage), nonetheless appoints himself a final referee of the merits of Regnerus’s research—not a function he was asked to perform—and opines that it should not have been published.

James Wright, correctly, takes Sherkat’s conclusions as an auditor as vindication of his editorial performance, and rightly discounts his colleague’s attempt to set himself up as a post hoc referee with a veto over publishing Regnerus’s scholarship. If he sent the work to knowledgeable reviewers who unanimously said to publish it (and Wright notes that such unanimity is unusual), that seems to be the end of the affair.

you see the letter to the editor was not the last word the Regnerus work was found sound science. Of better quality than any other work done on the topic in recent times.
your assertion though accurate is not the end of the story. but thank you for making a logical argument.

here is another article about it which states largely that it changes everything even if some would like it not to, but I will let you read it in there words. I say again Regnerus’s research was sound if unliked by the loud minority.

thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/06/5634/

 

[DrTaffy]

marriage is a fundamentally religious institution this is demonstrably true historically, in current law there are parallel institutions, but that does not change the fact that it is fundamentally a religious institution created by God for “it is not good that man should be alone.”

The institution of mariage in Western culture comes to us from the Roman legal tradition, where historians largely agree that marriage was a civil affair governed by imperial law. It was only with the growth in power of Christianity that the Church was able to assert control of the institution - see for example this page:

The marriage laws and customs of ancient Rome are not easily summarized, because they were rather varied and underwent significant changes in the course of time. Still, without simplifying the issue too much, one may say that marriage and divorce were always personal, civil agreements between the participants and did not need the stamp of governmental or religious approval.

then

In the first Christian centuries marriage had been a strictly private arrangement. As late as the 10th century, the essential part of the wedding itself took place outside the church door. It was not until the 12th century that a priest became part of the wedding ceremony, and not until the 13th century that he actually took charge of the proceedings

why pick the Quakers.

Why not? They are a clearly defined religious group who have been very explicit and vocal about their desire to celebrate legal same sex weddings, for religious reasons. Why should your faith trump theirs in their own religion?

Why did you not pick Muslim or Jews which are representative of huge populations.

Fine - the liberal Jews also wish to celebrate legal gay marriages.

I mean Quakers have every right to do as they please as much as a bigger denomination.

Then why are you complaining about me picking the Quakers? :banghead:

I only mention it here to point out the logical fallacy of you picking you cases.

That’s not a logical fallacy. :ehh:

The vast majority of religious people in America have as doctrines of there faith that these ACTS are fundamentally disordered according to nature and biology and therefore against Gods plan.

Fine - then they needn’t commit those acts. If they want to prevent others from doing them, they need better arguments than just an assertion that it is against their religion.

Although I would note that opinion polls rather contradict any assertion that the vast majority of Americans oppose gay marriage. Even if you restrict that to the ‘religious’ americans - which would rather imply that non-religious americans have no say in the matter(?)

As to your ignorance of current happenings I will give you a bi.

How very sweet of you.

lifesitenews.com/news/lawsuits-against-churches-inevitable-with-gay-marriage-law-uk-independence

I recommend the entire read but as it may or may not work here is a highlight

“[T]here is a very strong likelihood that the Court at Strasbourg will agree that it is an unlawful discrimination on those grounds and order the United Kingdom to introduce laws which will force Churches to marry gay people according to their rites, rituals and customs.”

The party said it is sure that the current government would “swiftly bend the knee to such a ruling and introduce such legislation” forcing churches to conduct gay “marriages.”

Relevance? That is an assertion by a right wing political party, what is it supposed to prove?

lets have a look at Denmark

Oh goody, do let us do that.

here we have a parliament voting “overwhelmingly” to destroy freedom of religion in favour of same sex marriage. Never mind that the Evangelical Lutheran church has dogma against it. they must now perform these “marriage” services regardless of there personal feelings.

No, we do not have a government destroying freedom of religion. We have a Church choosing to allow gay couples the right to get married, and, as it is the State Church, enshrining that right in law. The Bishops supported gay marriage by an even bigger majority than that in the Parliament.

The infringement of religious freedom would have been if you had somehow stopped them from doing so.

here is one out of British Colombia where the Knight of Columbus were forced to pay damages to a lesbian couple for refusing to allow the use of there premises for a “wedding” celebration. Unless you are claiming that the Knights of Columbus has no religious affiliation.
bchrt.bc.ca/decisions/2005/pdf/Smith_and_Chymyshyn_v_Knights_of_Columbus_and_others_2005_BCHRT_544.pdf

Yes? Again a civil matter - they were engaged in the business of renting out a hall for events, and wished to discriminate against homosexuals in doing so.

The democratically decided law is that this is not acceptable. Just being a ‘religious’ group does not, and should not, mean that you can ignore the law. The law should strike a reasonable balance betweeen your rights and those of others, which most people feel it does.

If it had been an actual place of worship you would have a better case - as long as noone undermines that case by trying consecrate spaces as ‘places of worship’ just to enable discrimination.

 

[DrTaffy]

you see the letter to the editor was not the last word the Regnerus work was found sound science.

Hang about - all that stuff you cited merely proved that the editor was found to have followed the correct procedure.

It says nothing about the quality of the science. The reaction of other scientists does - and that reaction seems to be very negative.

Again the endorsement of a right wing political think tank largely devoted to opposing gay marriage also does not really carry much weight (at least as far as scientific validity goes.)

 

[fix]

And using the criteria homosexual couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married, because they’re not open to life, as claimed by the poster I was originally responding to, is equally absurd, when you consider the Church has no problem marrying sterile couples. A woman who has had a radical hysterectomy knows she’s sterile, but she can still get married in the Church.

That was my point.

There’s a ton of arguments one could use against homosexual marriage, but claiming they can’t naturally have children is about the weakest.

Sarah x

Sorry, but there is no comparison as I pointed out. Sterile heterosexual couples are not the same as same sex couples. There are vastly different physically, morally, and logically.

 

[JackyB]

As far as I am aware no country proposes laws that would force unwilling churches to perform gay marriages.

Not yet, not yet, but it will come, living in Britain these past 5 years has shown me that anything is probable.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The institution of mariage in Western culture comes to us from the Roman legal tradition, where historians largely agree that marriage was a civil affair governed by imperial law. It was only with the growth in power of Christianity that the Church was able to assert control of the institution…

Speaking of bias…

This is a rather arbitrary approach to historical derivation considering that marriage was practiced in many other cultures prior to any “Roman legal tradition.” Christianity derived its sacraments largely from traditional Judaic religious practices which preceded Roman traditions and legal institutions by thousands of years. Why stop at Rome, except to scaffold your own position on the issue?

Your case is flawed because you are unnecessarily searching for the “legal” origins of marriage when it is clear that the social and religious underpinnings of marriage as an institution predated its codification into the laws of any state. This is an attempt, on your part, to found marriage on juridical moorings to bolster your case that the state has some authoritative “right” to redefine the terms surrounding what a marriage actually is.

Certainly, if one starts with the premise that marriage is a legal institution then the logical corollary follows that the state has a “right” to amend it. Clearly, marriage as the procreative union between a man and a woman that is the foundational building block of any society, culture or state, predated any of these by thousands of years. The fact that the marital union was conscripted or usurped by these “larger” social units does not empower these to redefine what is, essentially, a basic human reality: the loving union between one man and one woman who are naturally endowed with the power and responsibility to create and sustain new human life.

Marriage is a unique and natural “institution” that underpins all other contrived and contracted collections of human beings. No political state that does not understand, respect and guarantee that fact will long survive. That, too, is a historical fact.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Again the endorsement of a right wing political think tank largely devoted to opposing gay marriage also does not really carry much weight (at least as far as scientific validity goes.)

Which is to say that the left wing political think tank currently in power and devoted to gay rights does, indeed, carry great political weight as far as scientific “validity” goes. So much for scientific neutrality.

 

[DrTaffy]

This is a rather arbitrary approach to historical derivation considering that marriage was practiced in many other cultures prior to any “Roman legal tradition.” Christianity derived its sacraments largely from traditional Judaic religious practices which preceded Roman traditions and legal institutions by thousands of years. Why stop at Rome, except to scaffold your own position on the issue?

Because Rome is the culture that gave us ‘marriage’ as opposed to ‘nissuin’ or whatever. As well as much of our legal traditions.

Why do you cite how Christianity derives its sacraments unless you are trying to slip in the assumption that the marriage under discussion is the Christian sacrament, not the legal institution?

Certainly, if one starts with the premise that marriage is a legal institution then the logical corollary follows that the state has a “right” to amend it.

But marriage clearly is a legal institution, if not exclusively so. There are also associated religious and purely social ‘marriages’ but
a) the word comes to us from the Roman legal institution, so if it refers to only one of the three it would be the legal one
b) it is the legal institution that is under discussion, the one that the Government is trying to change back to allowing gay couples

Clearly, marriage as the procreative union between a man and a woman

No, that is called sex. See, sex without marriage leads to procreation, marriage without sex does not.

The fact that the marital union was conscripted or usurped by these “larger” social units does not empower these to redefine

‘Marital’ from the latin ‘maritare’, referring to the civil institution that, if anything, was “conscripted or usurped” by the church to blend with its own religious institution derived from Judaism.

 

[DrTaffy]

Which is to say that the left wing political think tank currently in power

You seem a little confused as to what a ‘Think tank’ normally refers to.

and devoted to gay rights does, indeed, carry great political weight as far as scientific “validity” goes.

Political weight as far as scientific validity goes??

Not only does nothing I have said suggest this, it is at best confused nonsense.

I would happily listen to political arguments from a thinktank, or even scientific ones, but the idea that a political thinktank is any kind of arbiter of scientific validity is ridiculous.

 

[JimG]

For an overview not only of the institution of marriage but of family structure, Carle Zimmerman’s “Family and Civilization” gives an overview that goes back several thousands of years. He notes that in those relatively rare instances in which family structure crumbles, so do civilizations.

 

[down_under]

well I was going to defend myself but someone else has already done an admirable job. The scientific work was of better quality than anything done by the left wing in 20 or so years. The guy who would have liked to burn it was given the ability to trash the editor for allowing “garbage” in his journal and he could not do that because he had no grounds.

Marriage is older than the roman empire and goes back to its Jewish roots, but you knew all that because my good friends already told you. The Torah is proven through the science of textual analysis to be far older than the roman empire, and as I said historically marriage is a fundamentally religious proposition. It has counterparts in civil law but at its core it is a religious tradition.

looks like my work here was done for me and thank you for your support.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

well I was going to defend myself but someone else has already done an admirable job. The scientific work was of better quality than anything done by the left wing in 20 or so years. The guy who would have liked to burn it was given the ability to trash the editor for allowing “garbage” in his journal and he could not do that because he had no grounds.

Marriage is older than the roman empire and goes back to its Jewish roots, but you knew all that because my good friends already told you. The Torah is proven through the science of textual analysis to be far older than the roman empire, and as I said historically marriage is a fundamentally religious proposition. It has counterparts in civil law but at its core it is a religious tradition.

looks like my work here was done for me and thank you for your support.

Well, marriage is most likely far older than both the Torah and Judaism, so under your logic (as you appear to be arguing that as marriage was originally a religious institute and so still always is) Christians have no right to say what marriage is or isn’t since marriage was never originally a Christian concept. By your logic, we should be bound by the Neanderthal concept of marriage. After all, at its core, it is not a Christian institute but something much older.

It is also important to note that our society, and our laws, are not dictated by the Bible. Marriage is not a physical entity, but a man-made concept. It can be whatever we want it to be.

 

[down_under]

Well, marriage is most likely far older than both the Torah and Judaism, so under your logic (as you appear to be arguing that as marriage was originally a religious institute and so still always is) Christians have no right to say what marriage is or isn’t since marriage was never originally a Christian concept. By your logic, we should be bound by the Neanderthal concept of marriage. After all, at its core, it is not a Christian institute but something much older.

It is also important to note that our society, and our laws, are not dictated by the Bible. Marriage is not a physical entity, but a man-made concept. It can be whatever we want it to be.

“most likely” I love the ambiguity here. You demand absolute science and then give me your supposing. God gave marriage to the first man by my logic (and the logic of the Jewish scholars 3000 years before there were Catholic scholars and the Catholic scholars of every century since for they are the Jews of the new covenant). That is the root of marriage because according to God “it is not good that man should be alone.” As such, marriage is very much a God instituted Sacrament from the beginning. It is trying to be changed to something fundamentally different now, but those are its roots. marriage now is a fundamentally Religious idea. That is why the push is coming to change the definition.