Why are there "Gay Pride Parades" ?

[PRmerger]

You can preface any comment with the words: ‘In my opinion…’ It might be better if everyone did.

“In my opinion we landed on the moon.”

“In my opinion polio is virtually eradicated.”

“In my opinion Hilary Clinton is married to Bill Clinton.”

See how ridiculous that sounds?

 

[Bradski]

Then it is only an opinion that rape is wrong?

No, for heaven’s sake. Whether something is right or wrong needs to be based on the facts of the matter (I can’t actually believe that had to be written down).

Let’s say that you state that X is wrong (literally using the term ‘x’) and ask me if I agree. I am, obviously, going to need to know what the facts of X are before I can make a decision. You say that X describes an act by a man whereby he forces himself sexually onto a woman, against her will, causing her mental anguish and physical pain. I will then say that, yes, if those are the facts of the matter (it sounds like she’s talking about rape), then would I agree that is it wrong.

You could have said rape instead of X and we would have both implicitly agreed as to what that meant and we would both agree that the facts as defined by that term are something we can describe as wrong. The facts dictate our decision.

 

[PRmerger]

No, for heaven’s sake. Whether something is right or wrong needs to be based on the facts of the matter (I can’t actually believe that had to be written down).

Correct.

Let’s say that you state that X is wrong (literally using the term ‘x’) and ask me if I agree. I am, obviously, going to need to know what the facts of X are before I can make a decision. You say that X describes an act by a man whereby he forces himself sexually onto a woman, against her will, causing her mental anguish and physical pain. I will then say that, yes, if those are the facts of the matter (it sounds like she’s talking about rape), then would I agree that is it wrong.

Therefore, it is a fact that X is wrong. Once you know the definition of X, you make a conclusion: X is wrong.

It is NOT an opinion.

It is a FACT.

If it were an opinion, it would be open to discussion. It would not be indisputable.

So are you willing to say "X, where X = an act by a man whereby he forces himself sexually onto a woman, against her will, causing her mental anguish and physical pain, is wrong, but that is only my opinion?

You want to say: “Rape is wrong, but that is my opinion. You might have some arguments to offer that convince me that rape is not wrong.”

Really?

You could have said rape instead of X and we would have both implicitly agreed as to what that meant and we would both agree that the facts as defined by that term are something we can describe as wrong. The facts dictate our decision.

Certainly.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I think you’re winding us up, Jay Dee Vee. Nobody could possibly type that and keep a straight face.

You underestimate my skills at deadpan humor.

This forum ha witnessed all sorts of bizarro comparisons of sodomy with other stuff such as rape, murder, child molestation, probably ethnic cleansing and Hitler too on the grounds that both objects are disordered. Said people also usually fail to realize the fornication is intrinsically disordered too and is a much more apt comparison. IMO LGB people would be far less bothered by gay sex being compared to fornication than the profoundly disturbing stuff the religious right compares it to.

 

[Bradski]

You want to say: “Rape is wrong, but that is my opinion. You might have some arguments to offer that convince me that rape is not wrong.”

Let me try this…

You describe a scenario in which a man and woman go out together. They have a great time, go back to her place and end up in bed. You ask me if, in my opinion, I find anything wrong with it. You are asking my opinion on the matter, based on the facts which are indisputable, because you personally think it’s wrong but you want to know my opinion (I would be astonished if you said that you couldn’t perceive of anyone thinking it could be anything other than wrong, because you know that most people wouldn’t have a problem with it).

Now the next scenario, in which she initially rejects his advances, but then welcomes him to her bed with open arms. You still think it’s wrong but you still want to know my opinion.

The story changes each time, very gradually, but eventually I will say that in my opinion the guy has gone a little too far. He is perhaps taking advantage of the situation and acting in a way with which I would raise some objection. In my opinion he should have stopped what he was doing.

Then we get to a point where I say - whoa, that’s not taking advantage, he is actually forcing himself on her. I think that at this point, in my opinion, I would class this as rape. He must stop. And all this time, right up to the point where we both agree it’s rape, I am giving my opinion on the facts of the matter. I cannot do anything else.

Yet even though we both agree, I’m certain that we could find someone who had a different opinion. But eventually the story reaches a point where any reasonable person would, in their opinion, consider it most definitely a rape.

It is, in everyones opinion, rape. I’ll repeat that: It is, in everyone’s opinion…rape. Not a fact sans facts. but our collective opinion.

 

[inocente]

Does this include the discernment by the Church that the Gospel of Matthew is theopneustos but the Didache is not?

If you’re not sure that the Church got this correct, then on what do you base your belief that what is written in the Gospel of Matthew is revelation?

Unfortunately the OP is about gay pride, not church pride.

Although as you’ve shown a long-term interest in theopwassit, or at least it seems you ask me every chance you get, you might like to ask American Catholics what they think is and isn’t theopthingamabob, as many successive opinion polls indicate large numbers approve of gay marriage.

Although I fully understand if that’s inconvenient for you.

 

[inocente]

Well, I guess that if I’m not allowed to let Jesus compare the rejection of him to something so evil as Sodom and Gomorrah (and you never even comment on Paul’s condemnation of sodomy) there’s no other way to get to you. I used to think Protestants follow the Bible. I guess not all of them do.

Just not your day, is it?

Try mining a bible verse that condones sodomy.

It may surprise you to hear that the Gospel of Matthew was not written in English by a Texan circa 30 years ago. It is generally accepted to have been written in Greek around 80 AD by an anonymous author who never says he was an eye witness.

The original Jewish audience would have known that the two towns had a reputation for being inhospitable. So the disciples, having first been told not to waste any time on know-nothing Gentiles such as you and me, are told to leave unsociable Jews alone as well. Jesus is giving instructions for the mission ahead, not blurting out irrelevances.

As for Romans 1, try reading the entire epistle instead of mining verses, and you’ll see that Paul is making a long argument on a much more relevant matter which has nothing to do with the predilections of some 21st century Americans.

And yet again you forgot to list the education and resources you, as a Catholic, have for reading scripture .

 

[ThinkingSapien]

This forum ha witnessed all sorts of bizarro comparisons of sodomy with other stuff such as rape, murder, child molestation, probably ethnic cleansing and Hitler too on the grounds that both objects are disordered

Yeah, and there are messages in these forums too that have equated male masturbation and sex that doesn’t end with ejaculation in a vagina to mass murder because of all the millions of potential lives lost in the action. For such arguments no matter how much I understand are are able to apply them they are just lost with me (and I am sure many others).

I don’t hear much on female masturbation, or female homosexuality.

 

[inocente]

Homosexuality is wrong because it (sex) is not ordered to its natural purpose.

Just like it’s wrong to store batteries in your stomach. Even if you can do this…it’s just…wrong. Disordered.

Lips were not designed for whistling, so it’s just wrong … disordered … to whistle. Also kissing and blowing up balloons. Ears and nose were not designed for wearing Ray-Bans, so that’s a grievous sin too. Feet were not designed for socks or pressing the brake pedal. All gravely immoral.

Except that all these and more are miraculously excluded, and the argument is only applied to certain naughty bits.

Even if we want to reduce human beings to machine components, I thought people had given up on this argument as it’s so obviously desperately contrived, even if we accept the wild premise that naughty bits alone have a purposeful design and didn’t just evolve.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Lips were not designed for whistling, so it’s just wrong … disordered … to whistle. Also kissing and blowing up balloons. Ears and nose were not designed for wearing Ray-Bans, so that’s a grievous sin too. Feet were not designed for socks or pressing the brake pedal. All gravely immoral.

Something about that has the same feel as archaic arguments I’ve heard again men flying because of not being born with wings.

 

[PRmerger]

Let me try this…

You describe a scenario in which a man and woman go out together. They have a great time, go back to her place and end up in bed. You ask me if, in my opinion, I find anything wrong with it. You are asking my opinion on the matter, based on the facts which are indisputable, because you personally think it’s wrong but you want to know my opinion (I would be astonished if you said that you couldn’t perceive of anyone thinking it could be anything other than wrong, because you know that most people wouldn’t have a problem with it).

Now the next scenario, in which she initially rejects his advances, but then welcomes him to her bed with open arms. You still think it’s wrong but you still want to know my opinion.

The story changes each time, very gradually, but eventually I will say that in my opinion the guy has gone a little too far. He is perhaps taking advantage of the situation and acting in a way with which I would raise some objection. In my opinion he should have stopped what he was doing.

Then we get to a point where I say - whoa, that’s not taking advantage, he is actually forcing himself on her. I think that at this point, in my opinion, I would class this as rape. He must stop. And all this time, right up to the point where we both agree it’s rape, I am giving my opinion on the facts of the matter. I cannot do anything else.

Yet even though we both agree, I’m certain that we could find someone who had a different opinion. But eventually the story reaches a point where any reasonable person would, in their opinion, consider it most definitely a rape.

It is, in everyones opinion, rape. I’ll repeat that: It is, in everyone’s opinion…rape. Not a fact sans facts. but our collective opinion.

And if someone disagrees with this collective opinion, what do you tell this person?

Let’s say someone says: I don’t think it’s wrong. In my opinion, stronger people ought to be given what they want.

How do you respond?

In the Catholic world, where we see some moral ideas as FACTS, we say: you are wrong.

How do you challenge the, er, “opinion”, that this guy offers that stronger people can rape weaker people?

 

[PRmerger]

Unfortunately the OP is about gay pride, not church pride.

No matter.

It’s an incontrovertible fact that if you believe that the Gospel of Matthew is theopneustos, you can thank the Catholic Church for that.

And the logic follows that you believe the CC got it right.

How do you know?

Because you trust in the authority of the CC.

You submit to her authority each and every time you quote from the NT.

'nuff said.

 

[PRmerger]

Lips were not designed for whistling,

Sure they were.

Better examples would be:

Lips were not designed for walking.

Lips were not designed for smelling that fabulous turkey. (Let’s not re-define what “smelling” is, ok?)

Lips were not designed for viewing Hugh Jackman (Let’s not re-define what “viewing” is).

Lips were not designed for hearing Michael Buble. (Let’s not re-define what “hearing” is).

Lips were not designed for cutting toenails.

Lips were not designed for secreting insulin.

Lips were not designed for filtering the blood for waste.

(this is fun! so many ideas!)

Lips were not designed for storing battery acid.

Lips were not designed for…

 

[PRmerger]

Yeah, and there are messages in these forums too that have equated male masturbation and sex that doesn’t end with ejaculation in a vagina to mass murder because of all the millions of potential lives lost in the action.

Can you cite some (emphasis on the loss of “millions of potential lives” part)?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Yeah, and there are messages in these forums too that have equated male masturbation and sex that doesn’t end with ejaculation in a vagina to mass murder because of all the millions of potential lives lost in the action. For such arguments no matter how much I understand are are able to apply them they are just lost with me (and I am sure many others).

Those arguments are stupid which is why they are lost on you.

I don’t hear much on female masturbation, or female homosexuality.

So much of the conservative position on gay sex is it is bad for you because anal sex has health risks that they can’t address female homosexuality because lesbian sex is safer than hetero sex for women. That is why it is foolish to base arguments against homosexuality health risks. Those arguments also tend to be unpersuasive especially against lesbians and gay men who don’t engage in anal sex. Many conservatives fail to grasp that the immorality of an action is immoral doesn’t necessarily mean there are temporal consequences for it.

Preaching God’s love and that gay sex is not spiritually good for them or their beloved is more persuasive than arguments on “gay bowel syndrome”. Treating the relationships of LGBT people as only about lust is neither charitable nor theologically correct. In many cases they love each other much as a heterosexual and because of genuine love the relationship can produce fruits of the spirit even though parts of the relationship (namely sex) are certainly disordered.

 

[Sarcelle]

People vacillate between calling me an anarchist, a statist, a communist, a fascist, a monarchist, liberal, conservative, reactionary, vanguard.

Am I for burning heretics? No, I merely believe the state has moral recourse to execution when all else fails though I’m perfectly happy if the state bans the death penalty period.

Am I against the nuclear family? The proper family (and the one that reigned supreme prior to the 20th century) is the extended family that is not just the parents, their one boy and one girl, but rather the parents, their children, grandparents are living with their family instead of sent to the concentration camps called retirement homes. Friendships become deep again (modern friendships in Western men tend to be very shallow with the exception of the bonds forged by war). Yes, I am against the degrade form of family life called the “nuclear family”

Do I think marriage is overvalued? Yes, I think the belief that everyone should marry is absolutely absurd, it degrades the celibate life which according to the Bible, Church Fathers and Church teaching (including council pronouncements) is at least as good as marriage, if not higher for the married person keeps their thoughts on their family whereas the celibate person can more fully devote themself to God. This overvaluing of marriage has contributed to the priest shortage and in some ways has damaged marriage as once people are married they gradually become dissatisfied for they find the fantastic life they imaged is fantasy not reality.

Yes.

Hear, hear

Great post. I agree.

 

[Winterwolf00]

What if we just substituted “wrong” for “sin”.

Do you think right and wrong are relevant to morality and ethics?

Determining right and wrong is what ethics is about.
The concept of ‘Sin’ is just a very bad way of doing it.

If you want to say that something is ‘wrong’ because it is a ‘sin’ then really you can declare that about anything.
There are actually people who declare that using the internet is sin because it is the ‘devil’s playground’ there are people who say using condoms is a sin, there are people who say getting an abortion is a sin.

Yet not one of these things is mentioned anywhere in the bible.

So it sounds to me like ‘sin’ is just whatever some individual is squeamish about.

If you have to then switch to an Appeal to Naturalism then it’s obviously not wrong just because it’s declared to be a ‘sin’ now is it?
So why is it wrong?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The original Jewish audience would have known that the two towns had a reputation for being inhospitable. So the disciples, having first been told not to waste any time on know-nothing Gentiles such as you and me, are told to leave unsociable Jews alone as well. Jesus is giving instructions for the mission ahead, not blurting out irrelevances.(.

Actually, the two towns had a reputation for being sodomites. And anyone who can read would know that.

Moreover, when Jesus was looking for something terrible to compare rejecting his words with, the most terrible thing he could think of was the sin that brought destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Everybody except you seems to know what that sin was.

So what is your authority for determining that the sin of Sodom was inhospitality rather than sodomy? Actually, it was both. The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with Lot’s visitors. There is hardly anything more inhospitable than that.

Now go and mine some verses of your own that show sodomy was acceptable by the Jews and Christians in the New Testament, and was not grounds for losing one’s soul, as Paul repeatedly warned.

I Corinthians 6:9-10 “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 boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But it seems that no amount of verses cited will persuade you that sodomy is condemned, not just as an act of inhospitality, but as an unnatural sexual perversion. So we have yet another proof in your posts that some Protestants only cite the Bible to serve their own purposes, and ignore those parts they don’t like … or vilify them when cited as “verse mining.”

Just not your day, is it?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Moral relativists do not regard any perverse act as perverse. The perverse act is just different, and is acceptable so long as the partners in crime agree to their perversion. This is the libertarian doctrine. This perverse doctrine should be condemned by all right thinking people. Mutual consent does not confer rightness upon any act. A man who consents to be murdered, and his murderer who consents to murder him (as in the case of dueling), are not committing a righteous act just because they consent to murder. Murder is a perverse act because we are not created for the purpose of murdering each other. Likewise, a slave who consents to being the slave of another, and his master who consents to owning him and offering him for sale, just because they both consent are not thereby conferring rightness upon their perverse relationship. The people who live under a tyranny, and the tyrant who rules over them, are not conferring rightness upon their tyranny just because they mutually consent to tyranny. Men were created to be free, not subject to tyranny. Just because two men consent to use their bodied for sexual satisfaction with each other does not confer rightness upon their act. The penis was not created for the anus. But of course some people stubbornly resist common sense. There is not any way you can reason with them. They are lost souls who require prayers along with condemnation.

 

[SuperLuigi]

To show that they aren’t afraid of who they are and refusing to be shamed for it like they have been there whole lives.
Every persecuted minority has had pride parades.

When did Native Americans or disabled people have a pride parade?

I think they do it because their relationships are both unstable and insecure and they crave the attention.