Why is homosexuality wrong?

[nydas]

Leviticus 20:13 — “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.”

Because the bible says it, right? Well what about…

Exodus 31:15 — “For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.”

Timothy 2:11-12 — “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.”

Leviticus 24:16 — “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him.”

Leviticus 25:44 — “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life.”

If the government has the right to define marriage, we must then ask what parameters limit those decisions. Does it stop at gender? What happens if Bush and other right-wing nutjobs decide that only Christians can get married? Can a government decide that mixed marriages are illegal? Seriously, where does it stop?

The only solution is to get government out of the marriage business. It has no business getting involved in the first place. Marriage is typically a religious ceremony, and the civil aspects of marriage is nothing more than civil contracts that the government can later enforce, which it should do. But that’s it. The government should not be involved in deciding who can get married.

The only question that should come up when someone wants to get married is this: Are they legally able to enter into contract? If the answer is yes, then they can get married. End of story.

 

[FightingFat]

Homosexuality is not wrong according to Catholic teaching. Homosexual acts are…But only because the Church, simply, expects the same levels of chastity from everyone. We are all called to be chaste.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Because the bible says it, right?

No, not exactly, A better question is why does the Bible say it’s wrong? Answer: because it uses the reproductive organs and act in ways that are not open to life. Catholic Church is very consistent on this. Married or single, heterosexual or homosexual, ALL have the moral obligation to keep sexuality linked to pro-creation.

If the government has the right to define marriage, we must then ask what parameters limit those decisions. Does it stop at gender? What happens if Bush and other right-wing nutjobs decide that only Christians can get married? Can a government decide that mixed marriages are illegal? Seriously, where does it stop?

The only solution is to get government out of the marriage business. It has no business getting involved in the first place. Marriage is typically a religious ceremony, and the civil aspects of marriage is nothing more than civil contracts that the government can later enforce, which it should do. But that’s it. The government should not be involved in deciding who can get married.

The only question that should come up when someone wants to get married is this: Are they legally able to enter into contract? If the answer is yes, then they can get married. End of story.

The government does not have the right to define marriage; it has the obligation to uphold it. Why? Because marriage forms society–literally as children created in the marriage act (aka sexual act) become members of society.

I believe that we as a society lost a major battle on the definition of marriage when contraceptives separated sex from it’s reproductive function. Divorce and re-marriage also redifined marriage, but the Catholic Church does not accept this either. Society has a vested interest that it’s future citizen be raised in stable homes. Governments should protect society therefore government let us down when they allowed contraceptives and divorce. Should they continue to let us down by continuing to redefine marriage? No.

 

[Exalt]

Because the bible says it, right? Well what about…

I have another quote to add:

16
The seventh time around, the priests blew the horns and Joshua said to the people, “Now shout, for the LORD has given you the city
17
and everything in it. It is under the LORD’S ban. Only the harlot Rahab and all who are in the house with her are to be spared, because she hid the messengers we sent.
18
But be careful not to take, in your greed, anything that is under the ban; else you will bring upon the camp of Israel this ban and the misery of it.
19
All silver and gold, and the articles of bronze or iron, are sacred to the LORD. They shall be put in the treasury of the LORD.”
20
As the horns blew, the people began to shout. When they heard the signal horn, they raised a tremendous shout. The wall collapsed, and the people stormed the city in a frontal attack and took it.
21
They observed the ban by putting to the sword all living creatures in the city: men and women, young and old, as well as oxen, sheep and asses.
22
Joshua directed the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the harlot’s house and bring out the woman with all her kin, as you swore to her you would do.”
23
The spies entered and brought out Rahab, with her father, mother, brothers, and all her kin. Her entire family they led forth and placed them outside the camp of Israel.
24
The city itself they burned with all that was in it, except the silver, gold, and articles of bronze and iron, which were placed in the treasury of the house of the LORD.

It is primarily the study of this passage in my Hebrew Bible Class that caused me to realize the incoherancy of the traditional Christian view of Scripture. The Bible said that God ordered human beings to kill innocent people - including children. Which is insane. God wouldn’t do that. It’s completely immoral. It’s totally unjust.

The Bible is supposed to be our guide for morality? Yeah, right.

No, not exactly, A better question is why does the Bible say it’s wrong? Answer: because it uses the reproductive organs and act in ways that are not open to life. Catholic Church is very consistent on this. Married or single, heterosexual or homosexual, ALL have the moral obligation to keep sexuality linked to pro-creation.

Why is using “reproductive organs in ways that are not open to life” wrong?

 

[gardenswithkids]

Why is using “reproductive organs in ways that are not open to life” wrong?

Well, let’s look at the words “reproductive organs”; notice the word “reproduction”. That is their purpose; that is what they are designed to do.

Our lungs are designed for breathing; our heart and blood vessels are designed for circulating blood; our gastro-intestinal tract is designed to obtaining nourishment; and our reproductive organs are designed for reproducing.

Eating food certainly give us pleasure, but the ultimate purpose of eating isn’t simply for pleasure, but for nourishment. Likewise, sexuality certainly provides pleasure, but that’s not it’s sole purpose. If we use our reproductive organs merely for pleasure and attempt to separate sexuality from reproduction, we abuse our reproductive powers. We don’t simply hurt ourselves; we hurt others and society around us.

 

[Exalt]

Well, let’s look at the words “reproductive organs”; notice the word “reproduction”. That is their purpose; that is what they are designed to do.

Our lungs are designed for breathing; our heart and blood vessels are designed for circulating blood; our gastro-intestinal tract is designed to obtaining nourishment; and our reproductive organs are designed for reproducing.

Eating food certainly give us pleasure, but the ultimate purpose of eating isn’t simply for pleasure, but for nourishment. Likewise, sexuality certainly provides pleasure, but that’s not it’s sole purpose. If we use our reproductive organs merely for pleasure and attempt to separate sexuality from reproduction, we abuse our reproductive powers. We don’t simply hurt ourselves; we hurt others and society around us.

So, I assume, then, from your post that doing things beyond our “natural design” is immoral? I don’t see the jump there. You go from “sexuality isn’t all about pleasure” to “if we use our reproductive organs merely for pleasure and attempt to seperate sexuality from reproduction, we abuse our reproductive powers.”

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy chewing gum. It doesn’t have any nutritional value. I don’t swallow it. I chew it simply because I enjoy it. Am I seperating the proper use of the mouth (chewing food) from it’s end (swallowing that food)? Shouldn’t that be immoral, according to Catholic teaching?

The Catholic notion is that doing things beyond a human being’s “natural design” is immoral. Why?

 

[gardenswithkids]

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy chewing gum. It doesn’t have any nutritional value. I don’t swallow it. I chew it simply because I enjoy it. Am I seperating the proper use of the mouth (chewing food) from it’s end (swallowing that food)? Shouldn’t that be immoral, according to Catholic teaching?

The mouth is designed for chewing; gum chewing uses your mouth to chew. Nothing contrary there. But if you only chew gum for pleasure and never consume any other form of nutrition, you’ll starve. Self imposed starvation, (i.e annorexia nervosa) is an eating disorder.

So, I assume, then, from your post that doing things beyond our “natural design” is immoral?..The Catholic notion is that doing things beyond a human being’s “natural design” is immoral. Why?

I think it’s not simply “beyond” natural design–it’s contrary to it.

I don’t want to take this too far off the original topic. The original poster asked why homosexuality was wrong and supposed the Catholic Church taught it was wrong solely based on the Bible. I propose that the Bible says it’s wrong because it separates sex acts from pro-creation and is contrary to how God designed our reproductive organs. Whether you agree with the Catholic Church or not, her teachings on all aspects of sexuality and marriage are extraordinarily consistent.

 

[gardenswithkids]

You go from “sexuality isn’t all about pleasure” to “if we use our reproductive organs merely for pleasure and attempt to seperate sexuality from reproduction, we abuse our reproductive powers.”

By the way, you misquoted me. What I wrote was:

Likewise, sexuality certainly provides pleasure, but that’s not it’s sole purpose. If we use our reproductive organs merely for pleasure and attempt to separate sexuality from reproduction, we abuse our reproductive powers.

I certainly think that pleasure is an important motivator to encourage the use of reproductive powers. Don’t underestimate the role of pleasure. I don’t. There’s a reason my husband and I have seven kids.

 

[Crumpy]

If the government has the right to define marriage, we must then ask what parameters limit those decisions. Does it stop at gender? What happens if Bush and other right-wing nutjobs decide that only Christians can get married? Can a government decide that mixed marriages are illegal? Seriously, where does it stop?

The only solution is to get government out of the marriage business. It has no business getting involved in the first place. Marriage is typically a religious ceremony, and the civil aspects of marriage is nothing more than civil contracts that the government can later enforce, which it should do. But that’s it. The government should not be involved in deciding who can get married.

The only question that should come up when someone wants to get married is this: Are they legally able to enter into contract? If the answer is yes, then they can get married. End of story.

Maybe it’s the end of the story from your perspective, but if God is a part of your life, you don’t tell God what to do. And, you don’t just do whatever you want. You can’t even do that in just civil matters. You cannot just go and seize private property and take it for your own. They have nice, strong jail cells for people who try things like that. Society tries and tries to teach people right and wrong.

Dear Nydas, where do you draw the line at society having the right to define any rules (laws)? Certainly you must draw such a line someplace. What is your basis for that? just your own intuition? Do you shoot people just because you don’t like them or you don’t like the way they look at you or don’t like how they talk to you?

How would you protect children from predators? Or, don’t you recognize predators as a problem?

The Bible gives us the story of who we are and who God is and how much He loves us. I hope you are convinced of this some day. Peace.

 

[nydas]

Dear Nydas, where do you draw the line at society having the right to define any rules (laws)? Certainly you must draw such a line someplace. What is your basis for that? just your own intuition? Do you shoot people just because you don’t like them or you don’t like the way they look at you or don’t like how they talk to you?

How would you protect children from predators? Or, don’t you recognize predators as a problem?

As long as it dosent infringe on other peoples basic rights, then i could care less what people do.

 

[CARose]

As long as it dosent infringe on other peoples basic rights, then i could care less what people do.

Sorry, but I had to laugh at this! I so used to believe this when I was younger.

What I didn’t realize was just how connected we really are.

This is why the Catholic Church teaches that there is no such thing as a private sin.

For example, as I type this there is a “get out the vote” commercial on TV. Whether or not you vote is a private matter, right? Actually wrong. If we don’t take voting seriously, we undermine the basis of our form of government. If we don’t take democracy seriously, we’ll lose the privilege.

Sexuality and our use of it, private, right? Again, wrong. Sex, even contraceptive sex, leads to pregnancy. Yes, it does. Birth control is not effective, look at the statistics. Did you know that abortion rates go UP when contraception is introduced. Huh? seem counter-intuitive?

Actually, what happens is pre-marital sex goes up, where neither (or at least one) party has any intention of having a child. Then, when surprise, there is the natural out-come of a sexual act, a pregancy, the “solution” is an abortion, or a child is born and typically without a father.

OK, but what about in a marriage? Then it would be OK, right?

No, wrong again.

Marriage is meant to be two people giving themselves totally to one another. The marital act without the potential of new life is just that, lifeless and lifeless is loveless.

Take it from a wife who wanted more children, the marital act without the potential of children is NOT an act of love.

I could go on and on, but I strongly suspect I’d be wasting my breath (or typing). If you’re not ready to hear the truth, there’s little that can be done at this point. You need to be willing to hear it and willing to try to understand or you’ll just shut it out.

God Bless in the meantime,

CARose

 

[Exalt]

The mouth is designed for chewing; gum chewing uses your mouth to chew. Nothing contrary there.

What’s the purpose of chewing? Swallowing. What’s the purpose of swallowing? Nutritional value. Chewing gum closes the act of eating to it’s ends - nutritional value.

But if you only chew gum for pleasure and never consume any other form of nutrition, you’ll starve.

If everyone had only exclusive homosexual relationships, of course we’d have a problem. But not everyone is homosexual - the rates are debatable, but we can safely say that they are at least under 10%, and most likely less. If the everyone in our society (including the Church) accepted that homosexuality is perfectly okay to express in a romantic way, under a few conditions (perhaps similiar to heterosexual conditions), we wouldn’t suddenly die out of human beings not procreating enough. Why? There are more than enough heterosexual couples continuing the species for us.

Self imposed starvation, (i.e annorexia nervosa) is an eating disorder. I think it’s not simply “beyond” natural design–it’s contrary to it.

Good points! But look what you’re doing here: you’re looking at the ends caused. Chewing gum is not immoral because you certainly won’t die from chewing a bit of gum now and then. But if it was all you ate, you’d die. Dying is an undesirable event in one’s life. Therefore, chewing gum - and eating nothing else - is a bad thing. The “means” (Chewing gum is unnatural) is irrelevant, or at least unimportant compared to the ends caused.**

To continue this discussion, you’ll have to clearly define what exactly “contrary” means in this context.

 

[gardenswithkids]

What’s the purpose of chewing? Swallowing. What’s the purpose of swallowing? Nutritional value. Chewing gum closes the act of eating to it’s ends - nutritional value.

I dislike taking our analogy too much further as the original poster isn’t participating in our exchange. But, the purpose of chewing isn’t swallowing–that’s the purpose of swallowing. Chewing mixes saliva into food, moistening the food and begining its breakdown, both by the chomping action and by the mixing in of amylase, (an enzyme found in saliva which breaks down starch. Try letting a small piece of soda cracker set in your mouth and gradually it will taste sweeter as the starch breaks down to glucose. Oh, the fascinating things we learn here on Catholic Answers Forums. )

Comparing the morality of gum chewing to reproductive acts, gum chewing gets the “juices flowing”; passionate kissing might be a comparison in our analogy. Kissing is certainly is a prelude, but not every kiss must lead to the bedroom and result in a baby nine months later.

If everyone had only exclusive homosexual relationships, of course we’d have a problem. But not everyone is homosexual - …we wouldn’t suddenly die out of human beings not procreating enough. Why? There are more than enough heterosexual couples continuing the species for us.

You took a jump from individual good to societal good. Simply because some suffer annorexia nervosa doesn’t mean the whole society faces starvation, but those who suffer from eating disorders still hurt themselves.

Dispite the euphamism of “gay”, a great many homosexuals suffer depression. They have a shorter lifespan than heterosexuals. There are a number of other health issues that our culture doesn’t discuss, and in the meantime individuals suffer because they don’t hear the truth that down deep we all really know but may not want to hear.

To continue this discussion, you’ll have to clearly define what exactly “contrary” means in this context.

By contrary, I mean not consistent with the way in which healthy reproductive organs should work. I don’t mean that it may not be found in nature; heart disease is commonly found in nature, but we don’t go around celebrating malfunctioning cardiac systems. Some humans are naturally infertile, but if the couple desires a baby, doctors regard their infertility as a defect and may attempt medical correction. That’s because infertility *is *a physical defect.

Homosexual acts are naturally infertile; those acts use the reproductive organs in ways inconsistent with human reproduction. Some homosexual acts physically damage other body systems because they use other body parts inconsistent with their design also.

 

[Alterum]

Marriage is a fundamentally social activity; it affects all of us.

In the United States, marriage is a privilege, not a right. Nowhere in the Constitution is there an acknowledged “right” to contract whatever we wish.

Moreover, the secular marriage contract allows certain legal prviliges (of which I am not entirely aware) which are predicated on the assumption that the married couple will have children.

I have no problem with two homosexuals signing a contract giving them hospital visitation rights, or something like that. I have no problem with a gay person leaving his estate to whomever he wishes.

Laws are designed to promote the common good. Our marriage laws in this country tend to promote the common good and promote a lifestyle which is necessary, quite literally, for the perpetuation of the species. A couple which contributes – or enters a marriage in which, by definition, they are likely to contribute – to society by rearing children, is rewarded for that contribution. This is not unusual; we have plenty of laws which reward contribution to the government or to society as a whole.

It is in our best interests in this country to legally define marriage, at the very least, as a union of one man and one woman. There is nothing inherently wrong with a married couple deriving governmental privileges therefrom; in fact, these privileges are beneficial and somewhat necessary to the smooth operation of the family within American society, I think. There is something seriously wrong with a homosexual couple seeking the privileges granted to a married couple, because those privileges are granted for a specific reason.

Of course, you seem to want to pull government out of marriage completely – which is an equally poor idea. Promoting and privileging the family – which necessarily keeps our country intact – is rather important if we wish the country to remain intact.

 

[estesbob]

heterosexual couples continuing the species for us.

To continue this discussion, you’ll have to clearly define what exactly “contrary” means in this context.

Anytime your privates end up covered with feces I would say something is contray someplace.

 

[McKevin]

'cause God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

 

[MikeinSD]

Anytime your privates end up covered with feces I would say something is contray someplace.

And menstrual blood is better?

I have a husband. Want me talking about yr wife like that?

Suggest we get past the various libels. Unless you want to find out, in detail, what white Christians believed about African Americans’ sexuality. They also believed, in the name of Jesus, that folks with darker skin pigmentation were less than human. Shame when bigots call on Christianity to justify their pettiness. Makes them and their faith look silly and small.

 

[Wammy101]

Because the bible says it, right? Well what about…

If the government has the right to define marriage, we must then ask what parameters limit those decisions. Does it stop at gender? What happens if Bush and other right-wing nutjobs decide that only Christians can get married? Can a government decide that mixed marriages are illegal? Seriously, where does it stop?

The only solution is to get government out of the marriage business. It has no business getting involved in the first place. Marriage is typically a religious ceremony, and the civil aspects of marriage is nothing more than civil contracts that the government can later enforce, which it should do. But that’s it. The government should not be involved in deciding who can get married.

The only question that should come up when someone wants to get married is this: Are they legally able to enter into contract? If the answer is yes, then they can get married. End of story.

I think that you present an excellent arguement, and that you are right. picking and choosing parts of the bible isn’t right, so, either take it or leave it. there’s a word for that, ummmmm, thats right cafeteria catholics! Homosexuals have rights,and those should be equal to that of heterosexual people. Nydas is right.

 

[FightingFat]

They should be, and in Catholic teaching, they are.

 

[Valke2]

Because the bible says it, right? Well what about…

The only question that should come up when someone wants to get married is this: Are they legally able to enter into contract? If the answer is yes, then they can get married. End of story.

But that’s the $64 question.