Why is the US Catholic church so obsessed with the gay issue?

[kozlosap]

People aren’t born straight or homosexual. They are born man or woman. please let us not confuse sexual behavior with sexual attraction. We may not have much control over the latter but we most certainly have control over the former

That is your personal opinion, not the opinion of the vast majority of medical experts. There had to be an point when it just makes sense to not politicize some issues. Has the research clinicians found the exact Gene or brain chemical that makes some humans gay? No, not yet, but as with Global Climate Change, sometimes you need to listen to those who are experts in the field being discussed. Education must be the answer.

 

[faustinamary]

People aren’t born straight or homosexual. They are born man or woman. please let us not confuse sexual behavior with sexual attraction. We may not have much control over the latter but we most certainly have control over the former

Well, psychologically healthy people are born straight. You’re right - we definitely have control over sexual behavior. With sexual attraction, there have been advances in reparative therapy and science (like that rats study previously mentioned), and we should strongly support further advance.

 

[estesbob]

That is your personal opinion, not the opinion of the vast majority of medical experts. There had to be an point when it just makes sense to not politicize some issues. Has the research clinicians found the exact Gene or brain chemical that makes some humans gay? No, not yet, but as with Global Climate Change, sometimes you need to listen to those who are experts in the field being discussed. Education must be the answer.

It is medical opinion that we are not born male and female ? It is not the place of medical “experts” to determine we must be defined by our sexual attractions. As our Church wisely points out how we arrive at these attractions is irrelevant. It’s how we choose to act on them that matters

 

[Thorolfr]

Well, psychologically healthy people are born straight.

Not all of them are. Some psychologically healthy people are born gay.

 

[1990Domer]

Not all of them are. Some psychologically healthy people are born gay.

Some, but certainly not all. There are a lot of co-morbid conditions that come with SSA.

 

[Thorolfr]

Well, psychologically healthy people are born straight. You’re right - we definitely have control over sexual behavior. With sexual attraction, there have been advances in reparative therapy and science (like that rats study previously mentioned), and we should strongly support further advance.

Not all of them are born straight. Some psychologically healthy people are born gay.

And with all the advances in reparataive therapy you’ve mentioned, maybe some straight people can be helped to turn gay.

 

[Rau]

That is your personal opinion, not the opinion of the vast majority of medical experts. There had to be an point when it just makes sense to not politicize some issues. Has the research clinicians found the exact Gene or brain chemical that makes some humans gay? No, not yet, but as with Global Climate Change, sometimes you need to listen to those who are experts in the field being discussed. Education must be the answer.

Does it matter much, to the rightness or wrongness of the behaviour, which precise cause - which chemicals, which genetic pre-dispositions, which life experiences - tend to promote one kind of an attraction over another? Isn’t the question - how would God want us - as men and women - to behave, to use our sexuality? What is the best we can do in the circumstances in which we each find ourselves?

 

[1990Domer]

Humans are straight because they were born that way, not because they find the thought of gay sex disgusting.

Don’t rule out environmental or child-raising issues when kids are infants. Their brains are developing, but they do not have the mental recall of their day-to-day influences.

 

[Thorolfr]

Isn’t the question - how would God want us - as men and women - to behave, to use our sexuality?

You and the Catholic Church obviously believe that you know what God wants and what is right and wrong in this kind of situation, but not everyone else, including many other Christians, agree.

 

[faustinamary]

Isn’t the question - how would God want us - as men and women - to behave, to use our sexuality? What is the best we can do in the circumstances in which we each find ourselves?

Christopher West has a good answer: **Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing **

"Think about it – a man’s body makes no sense by itself; and a woman’s body makes no sense by itself. Seen in light of each other, the picture becomes complete: we go together! Is this merely a biological reality that resulted from a random evolution? Or might a loving God be trying to tell us something fundamental about who he is and who we are by creating us this way? Consider the possibility that human sexuality–our maleness and femaleness and the call to “completion” inherent there–is itself a message from God. Consider the idea that our bodies tell a story that reveals, as we learn how to read it, the very meaning of existence and the path to the ultimate satisfaction of our deepest desires. From the Christian point of view, our creation as male and female is a “sacramental” reality: a physical sign of something transcendent, spiritual, and even divine. In the biblical understanding, there exists a profound unity between that which is physical and that which is spiritual.

 

[Rau]

You and the Catholic Church obviously believe that you know what God wants and what is right and wrong in this kind of situation, but not everyone else, including many other Christians, agree.

My post did not state what is right or wrong, (though you know what the Church teaches as well as I do).

Do you disagree with anything I actually wrote Thor?

 

[1990Domer]

You and the Catholic Church obviously believe that you know what God wants and what is right and wrong in this kind of situation, but not everyone else, including many other Christians, agree.

Can you respect that Catholics are using over 2000 years of revealed wisdom to get their best shot at eternal life?

 

[estesbob]

You and the Catholic Church obviously believe that you know what God wants and what is right and wrong in this kind of situation, but not everyone else, including many other Christians, agree.

They all did until quite recently.Then they created a new god who accepted their behavior.We are supposed to bend our will to the willl of God .Too many denominations decided god should bend his will to theres

 

[1990Domer]

They all did until quite recently.Then they created a new god who accepted their behavior.We are supposed to bend our will to the willl of God .Too many denominations decided god should bend his will to theres

I think Elizabeth Scalia would agree with you 100%!

 

[signit]

Straight people can be made gay and should work to create situations where no one is forced into that, . . .

Some people are cured through reparative therapy, and many of these people were NOT born gay. That article that shows that scientists can now change rats sexual orientation mentions hormones also in humans, i.e. oxytocin and dopamine. . . .

But:

I have no idea what it is like to struggle with all sorts of unwelcome attractions. That does not mean that I have to accept giving in to those attractions is not a sin.

I personally suffer from alcoholism. I don’t pretend to understand the physiology of alcoholism as much as those Doctors and Scientists who have studied it do-I just know I can’t drink ,much as I would like to. It is very hard for anyone who is not an alcoholic to understand why I still, after 30 years, desire to do something that is totally destructive to me. But that doesn’t mean I can get drunk and not have it be a sin.

When it comes to alcoholism, we try to be understanding.

I’m not an alcoholic, although like most of us I have “unwelcome attractions” of my own.

I had an uncle who was an alcoholic; a wonderful man, a prominent citizen, well respected in the community, and wonderful to his nieces and nephews.

I never said “he must have chosen to be an alcoholic.” I didn’t say “he must have become an alcoholic because somebody encouraged him to drink whiskey at an early age.” I didn’t know his situation, so I didn’t claim to know what caused it.

Same thing with SSA. I don’t have it; I have opposite-sex attraction and I never consciously chose it. So I don’t claim to know why someone else has SSA or try to tell them it’s their own fault. Since I don’t know, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[estesbob]

But:

When it comes to alcoholism, we try to be understanding.

I’m not an alcoholic, although like most of us I have “unwelcome attractions” of my own.

I had an uncle who was an alcoholic; a wonderful man, a prominent citizen, well respected in the community, and wonderful to his nieces and nephews.

I never said “he must have chosen to be an alcoholic.” I didn’t say “he must have become an alcoholic because somebody encouraged him to drink whiskey at an early age.” I didn’t know his situation, so I didn’t claim to know what caused it.

Same thing with SSA. I don’t have it; I have opposite-sex attraction and I never consciously chose it. So I don’t claim to know why someone else has SSA or try to tell them it’s their own fault. Since I don’t know, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

As a Church points it doesn’t matter what the cause of these attractions are. It is when we act on them that is the problem.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

The Deacons argument was much more compelling. In both of her articles it was the usual " we mustn’t criticize homosexuality lest homosexuals get bullied and/or commit suicide " argument that we see ad nauseam in our culture .

Please quote the sections where she does that.

Perhaps as she is LBTQ she better understands how to write to LGBTQ people in a way that draws people to the Church instead of away.

The problem with this is that you are attempting both a strawman argument, and an ‘equivalency’ argument, neither of which is correct.

First, you’re attempting to argue that people ‘condemn’ gay sex based on visceral emotions only --as though if they only ‘reasoned’ they would not condemn them. Then you’re attempting to argue that it’s all because somebody straight just has the ‘ick factor’ about gays, but GAYS have the same ‘ick factor’ regarding straight sex. . .again, as though it’s all just about emotions and perceptions and if only they were educated like you and just ‘reasoned’, nobody would have an ick about anything because hey, if straights want to be straight they can, so then gays should be allowed to be gay because straights can be straight, etc. etc.

Then you’re using totally inflammatory language with the assumption that anyone who finds gay sexual actions morally wrong is labelled all people with the inclination (because many are chaste and continent) as 'IMMORAL FREAKS" (your own ‘all caps’ here) when nobody but yourself has made this assertion or equivalence (i.e., it’s a strawman).

I have sympathy who all of us who struggle with crosses, all different but each difficult enough.

But the answer to the problem is not to try to polarize people by working on ‘feelings’, or to emotionalize everything so that one can pound pound pound that the ONLY solution is to ‘de-criminalize the action’ so that it isn’t a sin at all. It’s for all of us to look each other in the eye and say, “You’re struggling with your cross? So am I. I will pray for you --please pray for me. God loves us and He will give us the strength not to abandon our crosses as too HARD, but to carry them through to the end so that we may be crucified with Him, die with Him, and rise with Him”. Because that’s what it’s all about.

No, he said “If your reasons are based solely on your visceral reaction to the very thought of gay sex then…” which means he is not generalizing it.

I have no idea what it is like to struggle with all sorts of unwelcome attractions. That does not mean that I have to accept giving in to those attractions is not a sin.

I personally suffer from alcoholism. I don’t pretend to understand the physiology of alcoholism as much as those Doctors and Scientists who have studied it do-I just know I can’t drink ,much as I would like to. It is very hard for anyone who is not an alcoholic to understand why I still, after 30 years, desire to do something that is totally destructive to me. But that doesn’t mean I can get drunk and not have it be a sin.

I had a drinking problem which some would describe as high functioning alcoholism. I identified the cause of the drinking problem as me attempting to cope with severe stresses, once I resolved those stresses I no longer felt the need to drink and have been able to drink socially again.

Respectfully submitted, children with visible and invisible disabilities are prone to the same issues and thoughts of suicide. There needs to be more compassion on ALL fronts!

In school bullying of children of gay kids seems to be more severe and the punishments for the bullies not as harsh as some people won’t condemn the bullies lest they be thought to be condoning gay sex.

People aren’t born straight or homosexual. They are born man or woman. please let us not confuse sexual behavior with sexual attraction. We may not have much control over the latter but we most certainly have control over the former

Here is the problem, neither the current standard definition nor the coining definition of the word homosexual has it about gay sex.

Some people are cured through reparative therapy, and many of these people were NOT born gay. That article that shows that scientists can now change rats sexual orientation mentions hormones also in humans, i.e. oxytocin and dopamine. All research shows that child sexual abuse leads to greater incidence of adult homosexuality. Dopamine is one of the major neurotransmitters that is affected by child sexual abuse, and there is no reason not to believe that the findings on the neurotransmitters in animals don’t also hold true in humans.

As for finding the thought of gay sex disgusting - if heterosexual attraction grows strong enough and same-sex attraction becomes replaced by disgust, a person becomes “straight”.

We used to use aversion therapy, it didn’t make people straight, it just made people asexual.

 

[1990Domer]

Please quote the sections where she does that.

Perhaps as she is LBTQ she better understands how to write to LGBTQ people in a way that draws people to the Church instead of away.

No, he said “If your reasons are based solely on your visceral reaction to the very thought of gay sex then…” which means he is not generalizing it.

I had a drinking problem which some would describe as high functioning alcoholism. I identified the cause of the drinking problem as me attempting to cope with severe stresses, once I resolved those stresses I no longer felt the need to drink and have been able to drink socially again.

In school bullying of children of gay kids seems to be more severe and the punishments for the bullies not as harsh as some people won’t condemn the bullies lest they be thought to be condoning gay sex.

Here is the problem, neither the current standard definition nor the coining definition of the word homosexual has it about gay sex.

We used to use aversion therapy, it didn’t make people straight, it just made people asexual.

I respectfully disagree, as that has not been my experience nor the experience of other parents of special needs children. As well, there are LGBTQ “safe zones” popping up at a fast rate in public schools in our area. The same can not be said for those kids with invisible disabilities like autism. LQBTQ has done a great job advocating. As I said before, I wish the autism community had the same success and support/resources. I meant no ill will…this is just an observation.

I am giving a talk about bullying kids with invisible disabilities just because the problem is so rampant in our schools.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I respectfully disagree, as that has not been my experience nor the experience of other parents of special needs children. As well, there are LGBTQ “safe zones” popping up at a fast rate in public schools in our area. The same can not be said for those kids with invisible disabilities like autism. LQBTQ has done a great job advocating. As I said before, I wish the autism community had the same success and support/resources. I meant no ill will…this is just an observation.

I am giving a talk about bullying kids with invisible disabilities just because the problem is so rampant in our schools.

I agree that by now in many place the bullying of people with invisible disabilities is more severe than the bullying of LGB, that said the bullying of transgender children is severe across the US.

 

[estesbob]

Please quote the sections where she does that.

When I have to repeatedly talk people off of the ledge because* of things that you are saying, I think it’s understandable that I react emotionally. The fact that you don’t doesn’t make you come off as rational and decorous– it makes you come off as dangerously callous.*

I had a drinking problem which some would describe as high functioning alcoholism. I identified the cause of the drinking problem as me attempting to cope with severe stresses, once I resolved those stresses I no longer felt the need to drink and have been able to drink socially again.

I’m glad it worked out for you. I can tell you as one who has worked with alcoholics for 30 years that the idea that an alcoholic can return to social drinking is an absolute recipe for disaster

Here is the problem, neither the current standard definition nor the coining definition of the word homosexual has it about gay sex.

I am not interested in getting into a semantics argument about the proper terminology to use. I’m referring specifically to the sinfulness of homosexual behavior. A person who has unhealthy attractions is not a sinner because of them and it is a problem that afflicts all of us , not just homosexuals