"What Is Wrong With Homosexual Marriage?" A Catholic article

[Thorolfr]

In regards to this issue, the union of a gay couple is equated to that of a man and woman, when they are not the same thing.

I don’t think that the union of a gay couple is equated to that of a man and a woman. I’m a gay man with a partner, but I don’t pretend that our relationship is identical to that of a man and a woman. But I do think that the secular institution of marriage, the one regulated by the state which affords certain legal protections to the married couple, should be one which allows for participation by couples who are in more than one kind of union.

 

[GospelOfMatthew]

Just because something is legal doesn’t make something moral

 

[goout]

Thanks for adding more to your original post.
You originally just said “wrong topic”.

If you agree your basketball example was a poor analogy of the opposing views presented here then that was all I attempted to say.

I was referring to your analogy.
You proposed a set of attributes that merited a certain recognition equal to others with the same attributes. Remember? you proposed a player with skills who was underappreciated.
That analogy doesn’t work.

The marriage of a man and woman is unique.
The union of a gay couple, whatever goods might be there, is not the same thing.
(@thorolfr this exchange illustrates the point. You might not assert the equation of the two types of union, but the overwhelming attempt is to assert “sameness”)

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

It’s that we CAN find moral answers without referring to religion. At least I hope you can.

Do tell me how those answers don’t lead to moral relativism

Would you prefer a vote? or a reasoned discussion? Because there are an infinite number of moral problems that are nor covered by anything associated with your specific religion.

Such as?

Of course it leads to moral relativism. Why should I try to deny the obvious?

All moral acts are situationally dependent and hence relative to those conditions. Can you cause pain to a child? Well, that would depend. How much pain could you be allowed to cause? Again, it is entirely dependenton the situation.

And there already has been a moral question where you won’t find the answer in scripture: re putting down a sick dog. Kill it early so there’s no hassle later on? Leave it agony until the very last minute? Point to anything in the catechism or the bible that will give us some guidlines on this.

If you had a dog in the situation as was described then you would have to personally make a moral decision. And any other given person would make a different decision. Give us all a number as was asked for so we can see where the discussion goes.

And just bear in mind that if you have universal agreement on a moral act, it does not make it objective. The answer should be obvious.

 

[Bradskii]

All one has to do is be capable of sane observation.
And to deny the fact that human beings are uniquely a product of the union of a man and a woman is, put bluntly, insanity.

Did someone deny that? He must be mad…

 

[edwest]

Pope Benedict

The Holy Father says:

If we cannot have common values, common truths, sufficient communication on the essentials of human life–how to live how to respond to the great challenges of human life–then true society becomes impossible.

Commentary from the Practical Catholic.

"How true this is. Where there is no communication, no culture, no shared experience, there is no society; because there is no people. There remains only a vast and foreboding, unforgiving sea of individuals ready to crash upon each other and the world with the slightest wind. Without a common basis, we have not the vaulted pluralism we’re taught to embrace, but Babel, in all the confusion and madness of a society with no binding forces. Already we are seeing the tensions of this fragmentation breaking out across cultures.

“Without common values and truths, such as in the socieites we find ourselves in, we find the fabric of society torn like Joseph’s cloak, by a great many tribes which would like to lay claim to the title of favored. Leftists, conservatives, anarchists, nihilists, secularists, objectivists, the shallow, the entertainers, the entertained, all vying for control against each other. Tribalism can indeed spawn differentiation, but without some common ground, and in the face of increasing jargon not only in the academies but in the cultures; we shall be left with madness. In the end this tribalism can only result in the decline of all their claims, and the alienation of one from the other. Babel is the happenstance when society tries to become God.”

 

[Thorolfr]

goout:

All one has to do is be capable of sane observation.
And to deny the fact that human beings are uniquely a product of the union of a man and a woman is, put bluntly, insanity.

Did someone deny that? He must be mad…

But it’s probably only a matter of time before humans will be able to be produced without a union of a man and a woman.

One Day, an Embryo with Two Biological Dads May Be Possible

Gay couples could fulfill their dreams of having children related to them both.

time.com

 

[prayerrider]

Satan no doubt just loves these exciting new mockeries of God’s creation.

 

[Dakota111]

I was referring to your analogy.

Basketball was your analogy remenber?
You are simply asserting that a professional is somehow not primarily determined by skill…and that those without skill should not lobby to be considered professional.

Nobody disagrees with this strawman…its simply not the point.

The point is why should nobody skillful parents not even be assessed simply because they are, in your view, in abnormal family situations…eg single, remarried, divorced, same sex etc etc.
Normal parent families can have dysfunctional parenting skills, why should assessment of them be nominal and positive.

Your basketball analogy doesnt work.

 

[theCardinalbird]

I believe that there are acts such as rape and first degree murder that are objectively wrong. Now if I’m a relativist I can’t say that. All I could say is that I personally believe it is wrong, but someone could say it’s good and be justified because morality is relative.

 

[Beyond_Reason]

Satan no doubt just loves these exciting new mockeries of God’s creation.

Maybe I"m misunderstanding this but do you also have this opinion of people born through in vitro fertilization? No humans are mockeries of God’s creation.

 

[Beyond_Reason]

I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Maleness is a persistent thing in many, many species for a billion years. Why would it fade out within a hundred thousand years in humans?

 

[Bradskii]

I believe that there are acts such as rape and first degree murder that are objectively wrong. Now if I’m a relativist I can’t say that. All I could say is that I personally believe it is wrong, but someone could say it’s good and be justified because morality is relative.

There are a couple of points to be made here.

Do you see how you described murder? For it to be morally wrong, you had to use the term ‘first degree’. Which defines a specific set of circumstances that must be relevant to the act of killing to be able to class it as morally wrong. It has to be unlawful, it has to be intentional, it has to be premeditated and it has to be done with malice aforethought. Those are the conditions under which you can describe it as being first degree murder and, as you believe, to be described as morally wrong. That is, the act is conditional to those cicumstances. It is relative to those conditions.

Now you’d be hard pressed to find anyone except psycopaths or sadists who, given those conditions, would argue that there was nothing wrong in taking a life in that specific manner. But the act you are describing is one that is relative to the conditions (willfull, premediated etc). So saying that it is wrong is, by definition, a relative call and not objective.

The situation with rape is the same. It describes an act causing harm to another person in a specific way. Just like we have a catch all term in ‘first degree murder’ to describe the taking of a life that is morally wrong, we have a term in ‘rape’ that describes harm to a person which we desribe as being morally wrong. But both terms describe the conditions either explicity or implicitly.

Once so described, then all reasonable people would agree they are wrong. But, and this is important, even if every single person agreed it was wrong it would not make the act morally wrong in an objective way. All acts are contingent on circumstances and are therefore relative. One just needs to unpack what is being described to realise that.

Having said that, the argument seems to deny moral relativism in any way. And that by admitting to relativism, it would be impossible to claim any objective truths. That makes no sense to me and appears to be a bullwark against what might be seen as a slippery slope to accepting all things as being relative. Hence the bizarre refusal of some posters to answer simple hypotheticals which cannot be answered in any way without proving that the answer is a personal opinion relative to the conditions.

If this were a discussion in a bar, the hypothetical euthanising of the pet dog would need to be answered. It couldn’t be ignored. One couldn’t blanly stare at the wall until a different question was asked. I’d keep asking it until we had an answer. But the forum eqivalent is: ‘I’ll ignore that until the conversation moves on because any answer I gives concedes part of the argument’.

 

[theCardinalbird]

Now you’d be hard pressed to find anyone except psycopaths or sadists who, given those conditions, would argue that there was nothing wrong in taking a life in that specific manner.

Not really. Historically wise first degree murder or even genocide was considered justifiable by people. Look at the Rwanda Genocide where the Tutsis were being massacred by the Hutu’s who controlled the government. Do you really think that murder such as this is limited to psychopaths and sadists? Not really…also what would a relativist say in this case?

And that by admitting to relativism, it would be impossible to claim any objective truths. That makes no sense to me and appears to be a bullwark against what might be seen as a slippery slope to accepting all things as being relative.

So do you believe in objective truths? I agree with you on this part.

Also I agree that circumstances change the conclusion as to whether something is right or wrong (i.e. self defence is moral, killing for fun is not).

However do you believe that truth can contradict truth? For example: someone could say that genocide is a good thing because it lowers the population, while someone says that genocide is wrong, would you say that both are correct?

 

[theCardinalbird]

without proving that the answer is a personal opinion relative to the conditions.

Or perhaps the action is moral based on its conditions (and based off of an absolute moral standard of goodness, which is only possible with God), not merely personal opinion. Personal opinion can change, and so can how you view the conditions of something being moral. Now, you could believe in God and believe that universally self defence is justified. You could also say that universally, first degree murder is wrong. But what I could not say that first degree murder can be right or wrong (which is relativistic).

 

[goout]

Bradskii:

goout:

All one has to do is be capable of sane observation.
And to deny the fact that human beings are uniquely a product of the union of a man and a woman is, put bluntly, insanity.

Did someone deny that? He must be mad…

But it’s probably only a matter of time before humans will be able to be produced without a union of a man and a woman.

http://time.com/3748019/same-sex-couples-biological-children/

Yes, the Nazis would love it. Prune out the dead wood.

Do you think it’s a good idea?

 

[Bradskii]

Not really. Historically wise first degree murder or even genocide was considered justifiable by people. Look at the Rwanda Genocide where the Tutsis were being massacred by the Hutu’s who controlled the government. Do you really think that murder such as this is limited to psychopaths and sadists? Not really…also what would a relativist say in this case?

There’s a giganic Straw Man always waiting in the wings in these discussions. And he’s rolled out in the form of the Hutus or the Nazis or the Kymer Rouge on a depressing number of ocassions. Because all acts are morally relative does NOT mean that all decisions regarding said acts are therefore justified. So it is utterly pointless in suggesting that: ‘If morality is relative then what’s to stop the Nazis commiting genocide!’

Do you think a few million deaths could have been prevented if someone in the hierarchy had suddenly realised that morality is objective?

Whether morality is objective or relative, anyone will be free to formulate his own truths whatever the situation. That he or she would then describe them as objective is an unfortunate position for the rest of us as their position then brooks no argument. Whereas if it is relative, it is at least open to reasonable discussion (not least, in most situations ‘would you countenance the same being done to you and your family’).

Also I agree that circumstances change the conclusion as to whether something is right or wrong (i.e. self defence is moral, killing for fun is not).

Your mission is now to find an act that stands alone and is not relative to any conditions which you could describe as morally right or wrong in an objective sense.

However do you believe that truth can contradict truth? For example: someone could say that genocide is a good thing because it lowers the population, while someone says that genocide is wrong, would you say that both are correct?

As I said above, just because morality is relative doesn’t make every act justified. Matthew 7:12 is just one text of very many over the years (some predating Matthews by thousands of years) that would help solve the dichotomy. So you can use the bible, ancient Egyptian papyrus, Greek, Indian or even Persian texts as an aid.

 

[goout]

goout:

I was referring to your analogy.

Basketball was your analogy remenber?
You are simply asserting that a professional is somehow not primarily determined by skill…and that those without skill should not lobby to be considered professional.

Nobody disagrees with this strawman…its simply not the point.

The point is why should nobody skillful parents not even be assessed simply because they are, in your view, in abnormal family situations…eg single, remarried, divorced, same sex etc etc.
Normal parent families can have dysfunctional parenting skills, why should assessment of them be nominal and positive.

Your basketball analogy doesnt work.

You either don’t understand what was said or (more likely as it’s hard to believe you can’t comprehend such a simple thing…)
you know your position is dead in the water and are squirming.
Here’s the exchange:

DAKOTA111
Thats not quite a fair summary of the issue, at least not mine.

Let me rephrase:
I am a gifted and experienced basketball player but havent risen through the usual clubs, schools or institutions and so am a nobody.
Why should I not even be investigated and judged when I apply, like all the other bluebloods, just because I have no apparent bona fides?
That I suggest is the issue.

GOOUT:
Analogy doesn’t work.
In your example, you are what you claim to be. , but you are discriminated against.

To go further, a Jewish person in Nazi Germany is objectively a human being, but is subject to the ““personal determinations”” of a select few that he is not a human being.
That is a heinous deception that denies common sense and self evident human nature.

In regards to this issue, the union of a gay couple is equated to that of a man and woman, when they are not the same thing.

These are such plainly obvious observations and concepts that it has to be pointed out:
the real issue we are facing in this culture is not the various sexual moral principles, it’s the loss of the ability to think coherently and reason from point A to B.

 

[edwest]

It was the slow erosion of sexual morality (Hey, this is good or OK or we do it, why don’t you? etc.). That is why there is an STD epidemic going on right now. All that sex education talked about the mechanics but left out relationships. If anything, human beings need to realize they CAN control themselves. According to the CDC, the most heavily affected group is “men who have sex with men.” That’s their wording, not mine.

 

[Dakota111]

So have another go explaining your basketball example if you really believe it well represents the position of those who disagree with you.

Was there a reason you couldnt respond to my actual point:

The point is why should nobody skillful parents not even be assessed simply because they are, in your view, in abnormal family situations…eg single, remarried, divorced, same sex etc etc.