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Lokadottir
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scientific being any sort of indication upon the mating habits of early homo sapiens.
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Thorns
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Christians are not exempt from mistakes, hence why some of their marriages fail. However, these are exceptions rather than rules. In ideal situations, Christian marriages / heterosexual marriages are the ideal and highest standard.
We know polygamy and homosexual unions arent true love from the fruits they bear. There is no commitment there and its prettu plain to see. Also, be sure not to conflate pleasure for love, which is no doubt what you’re doing.
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Thorns
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I think we know what the mating habits of the first humans were, otherwise you and I and theworld would not be here.
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Lokadottir
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I think you should define your definition of “commitment”.
Yes clearly.
That’s why I would do anything for them, including having a chaste relationship if thats what one (or both) of them wanted. That’s why we try to help each other in all our endeavors. That’s why we care about each other. It’s not pleasure. It’s love.
You presume far too much.
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Lokadottir
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we know the mating habits of SOME of them. A species doesn’t need all individuals to mate to continue.
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ThinkingSapien
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If that is a reference to Adam and Eve I thought the Catholic Church had not taken a stance on whether Adam and Eve were literal people or a metaphor.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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Polyamory may be healthy but it is ripe for the “old two against one” syndrome. Knowing human nature, I for one, would avoid that type of relationship like the plague.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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Actually, according to the last census, we have a vast Christian majority. Therefore it can be rightly said that this is a CHRISTIAN Country.
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Lokadottir
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It’s certainly not for everyone. My boys had some trouble at first but we sorted ourselves out. Its a person by person thing.
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Lokadottir
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No. There is a separation of church and state and that makes it secular.
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Robert_in_SD
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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There is (sort of) a separation of Church and state as far as Government is concerned and that is a very good thing. But a country tends to swing to the side of its majority. In the U.S. that would be Christianity.
Remember, Americans are guaranteed freedom OF Religion, not freedom FROM Religion.
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Robert_in_SD
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Perhaps not in those express words. But your argument was very clearly directed to that conclusion.
You’re making my point. Marriages were *expected *to produce children. One does not rationally expect a same-sex union to result in the generation of new life? Without diverting the issue to what is morally acceptable behavior, and just looking at the two pairings side-by-side, one has to acknowledge that even on a biological level there are fundamental differences between the two kinds of unions. That is the Church’s primary point. There is something unique and special about a marriage of man and woman because they cooperate in the creation and raising of new life. Even the best of intentions among same-sex couples cannot achieve this result.
You’re missing the obvious. Whether individuals of yore recognized the Church’s teaching on the sacredness and dignity of human life is not the point. The point is that marriage has always been tied to the natural capacity to procreate. By your own example, families allied by marrying off their progeny, so their lines would continue into the next generation. Families united with other strong families by marriage precisely because marriage was understood to mean children would be the product as heirs and family members. I also think your example proves too much. IF marriage in earlier times was simply to unite families or obtain and extend wealth, it was in no way related to what marriage is said to be today in secular society.
I thought I addressed that previously. The union of man and woman is naturally oriented towards the creation of new life, assuming that there are no barriers, such as through injury or disease. No one asserts that true marriage guaranties children. Rather, a true marriage carries the natural potential for children, whereas a same-sex union can never carry that potential.
I’m not following you here, because my argument is not premised upon Catholic moral teaching regarding homosexual sex acts. I’m not relying on a “moral code.” I’ve attempted to explain to you why a marriage between a man and a woman differs fundamentally and on a natural level from a same-sex union.
Because to redefine marriage without reference to children uncouples children from their natural parents. Every child has the right to be raised by their natural mother and father (absent issues such as neglect or abuse)? Marriage is the only institution on Earth that acknowledges that right by ensuring that the relation between Mom, Dad, and Child is recognized. If marriage is simply between Person 1 and Person 2, the rights of the child are ignored, or worse relegated to meet the needs of the couple.
Marriage is what it is. To use your analogy, marriage is the wrong tool for a same-sex union. Don’t break the tool. Find another tool and use it instead.
But if marriage was as you suggest, there would be at least some history outside of Catholicism supporting the notion of same-sex couples seeking legal recognition of their union by way of a “marriage.” If non-Catholic marriage is not about children at all, as you suggest, where is the historical evidence supporting your assertion? Is there some protestant form of gay marriage that has deep roots in the Reformation? Does hinduism? buddism? taosim? shintoism? islam? Is there any other world religion that you know of that has a history of acknowledging a union of two persons of the same sex as a “marriage?” I honestly don’t know of any religion or culture acknowledging the concept of “gay marriage” at any time before the current period of about the last 10 years or so. I think the reason is that marriage has always been about joining two people in a union that is understood to be life-generating. Again, I’m saying this without in any way denigrating people in same-sex relationships. I’m just acknowledging the truth regarding the distinction.
Peace,
Robert
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Robert_in_SD
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Hello bostoncommoner:
It is inaccurate to suggest that the argument in favor of the traditional definition of marriage is about denying any two people from committing to each other. Let’s get that clear. Catholics did not attack they gay communities to take away a right to associate. And we do believe in tolerance and love.
The objection is to the redefinition of marriage so that it fits every act of commitment. It is not a denial of the love or relationship between two people of the same sex to say that they cannot marry. Think of it this way: I love my children very much, and I am committed to seeing that they are raised to be loving and compassionate christian adults. I do not need to have the word “marriage” applied to that relationship to have it validated. To the contrary, It would be inappropriate to do so. I feel the same way about same-sex unions.
I know friends and family in committed same-sex unions and I count them all as friends. But their unions are simply not “marriages” as that term has long been understood, and it is as inappropriate to say they are marriages as it is inappropriate to change marriage into something less than it is for the sake of someone’s personal happiness.
Peace,
Robert
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Thorns
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Being in a chaste relationship with them (Im guessing you mean no sex) is not being committed to them. You arent participating in any unifying act where the two become one flesh. Btw, you presume far too much that Im only speaking of sexual pleasure. Pleasure takes many formsI think you should define your definition of “commitment”.
Yes clearly.
That’s why I would do anything for them, including having a chaste relationship if thats what one (or both) of them wanted. That’s why we try to help each other in all our endeavors. That’s why we care about each other. It’s not pleasure. It’s love.
You presume far too much.
Being committed is one man, one woman who give themselves to each other WHOLELY for life, open to life, and are unified by their openness to it.
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Thorns
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The Church requires that Catholics believe there being two first human beings, but not so much that their names were literally Adam and Eve.
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Oreoracle
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Sure, but my point is that Catholics shouldn’t act as if the history of marriage is on their side. People have usually agreed in the past that marriage is tied to children, but the justifications for this were very different than today.
If two groups of people do the same thing but for different reasons, then there is no actual agreement between them. It’s dishonest to argue otherwise.
I’m not sure in which sense this is “proving too much”. This illustrates what I was talking about: The definition of marriage has, in fact, changed over time. It used to be for the sake of individual families, now it’s for the sake of society.
But what happens when there are barriers such as diseases or conditions that cause impotence/infertility? To ignore these possibilities is terribly arbitrary. I could do the same thing for gay marriage: If we disregard the biological barriers of two people of the same sex, they could produce new life. You could argue for the “potential” of anything as long as you’re willing to ignore limitations arbitrarily.
And it isn’t just disease one needs to worry about. If a woman gets married in her 40s, for example, she is much less likely to procreate than a younger woman. Unlike future medical conditions, this is a factor that is entirely predictable. It would be a simple matter for the Church to forbid marriage to sufficiently old women on the grounds that they will likely not procreate.
I don’t follow. The rights of children are not contingent on one’s definition of “marriage”; the worst-case scenario is that you would have to tweak the phrasing of existing rights. Marriage as an institution could be eliminated tomorrow and there would still be no legal or moral ground for neglecting children’s rights.
Being a child isn’t like being, say, a student, where your status depends on the existence of a social institution (in the case of students, public schools). You’re still either a child or not independently of the marriage of your parents.
The rebuttal to the remainder of your post is easy, because this is simply not what I stated, neither for past nor current marriages.
You seem fixated on the idea that if a couple can’t reproduce, or doesn’t want to reproduce, they must not wish to care for children. That is emphatically not the case. Many straight couples don’t wish to endure a pregnancy and yet wish to adopt children. Just because you don’t want to procreate doesn’t mean your paternal or maternal instinct withers away.
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Robert_in_SD
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But that’s just the point I’m making. The history of marriage IS the traditional definition of marriage, whether you look at Catholic history, Muslim history, Hindi history, etc., etc., etc. There is no history of “gay marriage.”
So, then you agree that if two same sex people get “married” there’s no actual agreement with a traditional marriage between a man and a woman?
It has always been about the sake of society. It acknowledges and legitimizes the union between man and woman for the sake of strengthening families and safeguarding the continuation of society. Only the present move to change the definition to exclude children as one of the goals of marriage has attempted to disconnect the union from society and make it instead about two individuals.
I’m not following you. My point was that these conditions do not negate the possibility of marriage. They are not barriers to marriage. They are barriers to two person’s ability to procreate within an otherwise legitimate marriage.
You’re missing the point. The line that separates two same sex persons from entering into a marriage is not that they have physical limitations. The barrier is that their union is not naturally oriented to procreation.
You’re missing the point. The Church isn’t “forbidding” marriage to anyone. It’s making a stand on the teaching of what marriage is. There is nothing contrary to the definition of marriage that happens when a 40 year old woman marries a 40 year old man. There will always be something contrary to the definition of marriage that happens when two men of any age attempt a marriage, because their union is not oriented toward procreation.
Parents have rights and responsibilities with respect to the raising of their offspring. When a lesbian couple or two gay men who are “married” raise a child, that child is raised without a mother or a father, possibly without either natural parent. There are hundreds of ‘family laws’ that define the legal relationship between parent and child. “Gay marriage” causes huge problems in this regard, for the sake of the personal happiness of the two adults, without a thought for the rights of children that are impacted. I think that’s really sad. Shocking, also that you simply do not see it.
I’m not suggesting that children lose their status as children if marriage is redefined. I’m saying that same sex marriage breaks down the bond between a child and his or her natural parents.
I made no such argument. Perhaps you are reading a different post? My point has only been that marriage has always been about connecting children to their natural parents. I’m not in any way suggesting that adoption is a bad thing, or that a married couples who cannot conceive children don’t care about being parents? How did I leave you with such an impression, just be stating that marriage AS AN INSTITUTION is about joining man and woman to each other and to any children that they produce.
And you seem to be conceding the point that there is no historical argument in favor of “gay marriage.” It is an entirely new conception of marriage that ignores the intended product of marriage - i.e. children.
Peace,
Robert
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Midwest88
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At least you showed your cards, Mandy.
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Midwest88
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