Why "Marriage Equality" really means "DEATH TO MARRIAGE"

[90Domer]

I, me, myself, I don’t want or need SSM. I don’t want it because it isn’t a sacrament and I don’t want to marry a man because I am a Catholic. (I’d be happy to marry a Catholic woman though, just for the avoidance of doubt!)

In my actions and what I believe I remain Catholic.

However… there are plenty of other people in the world who are not Catholic. About 80% of them approximately. We have no right to tell them to live by our rules any more than they can tell us to live by their rules.

We may want them to live by our rules, but they have to come to us. We can’t make them. We’re not in the business of forced conversions any more.

If I read this correctly, then you would not feel the need to, say, stop a person who was seriously thinking of attempting murder or suicide. I’m sorry you feel that SSM does not hold the same moral imperative as murder or suicide. However, in the Church’s eyes, it does, and your apathy or even advocacy is simply wrong.

We are called to bear witness to our faith. That means we live our lives in accordance with Church teaching. Your lack of care for the fate of non-Catholics with regards to SSM is not in accordance with the Church.

 

[90Domer]

There’s sharing the truth, and there’s actively trying to prevent others from exercising their free will to live their lives as they wish.

This reply sounds strangely familiar to many people’s thought on abortion: I can’t tell another woman what to do with her body. I ask, why not, especially given the fact she is about to commit a mortal sin. How is this different from SSM? It is dissent, plain and simple.

 

[90Domer]

It isn’t a matter of people being weak willed. Whether people are or are not is irrelevant. Giving scandal is one of the cardinal sins as regarded by the Catholic Church. Scandal is acting immorally before others or otherwise promoting or exhibiting immorality because it COULD corrupt another into sin. Jesus Himself said that one who scandalizes one of His little ones would be better off tying a millstone around his neck and casting himself into the sea.

When a society or an individual endorses homosexual “marriage” and calls it that, and encourages the flaunting of what is a profoundly sinful life, it’s giving scandal. From a Catholic standpoint, there’s no other way to see it.

Yes, yes, I know “You can’t impose your morality on others”. Well, we do it in every law on the books. Those who don’t know that don’t understand much about the law, and certainly not about its origins in our system. But even if it was all of secular origin, it wouldn’t matter from a Catholic standpoint because we are obliged to oppose serious evil even in the public sphere. If we refrain from doing it, we, ourselves, share in responsibility for the evil because we enable the scandal and aid in its promotion.

And if some child or some impressionable person sins grievously because of our action or inaction, we share in that sin to a greater degree perhaps than the one who commits it.

So, as Catholics, we need to understand that to the extent we promote, or even fail to oppose, something like the scandal caused by the exhibition of homosexuality, we really are falling into a moral evil ourselves. Given Jesus’ admonition about the millstone, one of the most serious condemnatory things He uttered, we really should not be accepting the public flaunting of sinful lifestyles, let alone favoring it. And we particularly should not be fitting our necks for the millstone rope for something so frivolous and morally empty as “because they want it”.

Very well stated!

 

[Publisher]

Publisher,

What we don’t know we can doubt now as you look past to anything you have ever doubted looking to the future without certainty who could say what anyone person will or will not do based on what has not happened. We have the perogative of intropsection and judging what is believed to be right or wrong when the consequences of whatever that may be as it regards us and our progeny and we decide now as if because we do not know and rather than bear the cross of pretended knowledge we make decisions that are in our own best interest and the best interest of our children because that is what we do.

Then get married and show your children what a marriage is supposed to be so they too will one day want to get married…but your gay neighbor who gets married does not prevent anyone from getting married…if marriage dies out of fashion it won’t be becuase Richard and Mark down the street got married…it will be because straight people decided they didn’t want to get married…gay people getting married has nothing to do with straight people marrying…choosing not to marry is a choice…choosing to marry is a choce…who your neighbor marrys has nothing whastsoever to do with your choice or your children’s choice to do so.

 

[Publisher]

If I read this correctly, then you would not feel the need to, say, stop a person who was seriously thinking of attempting murder or suicide. I’m sorry you feel that SSM does not hold the same moral imperative as murder or suicide. However, in the Church’s eyes, it does, and your apathy or even advocacy is simply wrong.

We are called to bear witness to our faith. That means we live our lives in accordance with Church teaching. Your lack of care for the fate of non-Catholics with regards to SSM is not in accordance with the Church.

I wonder if friend DexUK realized how intimately you know his inner thoughts and motives…I bet it comes as a huge surprise to him…

 

[CopticChristian]

Then get married and show your children what a marriage is supposed to be so they too will one day want to get married…but your gay neighbor who gets married does not prevent anyone from getting married…if marriage dies out of fashion it won’t be becuase Richard and Mark down the street got married…it will be because straight people decided they didn’t want to get married…gay people getting married has nothing to do with straight people marrying…choosing not to marry is a choice…choosing to marry is a choce…who your neighbor marrys has nothing whastsoever to do with your choice or your children’s choice to do so.

Canada…

lifesitenews.com/news/lesbian-with-kids-in-catholic-school-demands-removal-of-catechism-quote-on

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, March 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A self-proclaimed ‘lesbian’ whose two children attend a Catholic school near Peterborough is demanding that the Peterborough Catholic school board remove a Catechism quote dealing with homosexuality from a school pamphlet. Ann Michelle Tesluk has started an online petition to pressure the board to action and describes her activities as gearing to make the Catholic Church into an “openly gay friendly church.”

lifesitenews.com/news/exclusive-homeschooling-families-cant-teach-homosexuality-a-sin-in-class-sa

EDMONTON, Alberta, February 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
“Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences,” Donna McColl, Lukaszuk’s assistant director of communications, told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday evening.

freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2991285/posts

VANCOUVER, February 25, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) - The British Columbia Parents and Teachers for Life (BCPTL) organization is warning parents that the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) plans to use the “Day of Pink” on February 27 to indoctrinate school children with “a pro-homosexuality message.”
The BCPTL points out that under the heading Day of Pink on its website, the BC Teachers’ Federation “pays lip service to preventing the bullying of all students,” then goes on to give suggestions for school activities which “make crystal-clear what they think the objectives of the day ought to be.”

and what is happening now…educating children to accept Homosexuality…

massresistance.org/media/video/brainwashing.html

Homosexuals brainwashing our children in elementary schools
Extremely slick propaganda directed at the youngest of children! The videos below are from It’s Elementary, a 78-minute feature film produced by homosexual activists. These are actual scenes from elementary schools in Massachusetts and New York. It’s Elementary is meant to be a training video for homosexual activist teachers across the country. In addition, the film itself has been shown to schoolchildren in public schools in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

 

[jonathan_hili]

There’s sharing the truth, and there’s actively trying to prevent others from exercising their free will to live their lives as they wish.

sigh

I honestly don’t get it, Dex. We are not talking about preventing others from exercising their free will to live their lives as they wish (even though we do that already with polygamous relationships, etc., and I wonder if you have a problem with that?) but rather not instituting a particular lifestyle and institution in law. Yes, homosexual people will continue to be with homosexual people, who is stopping them? But we are talking about something far more radical here, and you don’t seem to get it.

Here are a couple of counter-examples:

• Some people like to smoke marijuana or other recreational drugs in the privacy of their own homes. On the whole, the government is doing nothing to stop these people, and neither is society. So, do you think, we should therefore legalise marijuana use?
• Some people like to engage in an open marriage, and have several sex partners. Again, neither society nor the government is doing anything to stop this. So, should be legalise it, and make marriage an open affair?

 

[atheistgirl]

Then get married and show your children what a marriage is supposed to be so they too will one day want to get married…but your gay neighbor who gets married does not prevent anyone from getting married…if marriage dies out of fashion it won’t be becuase Richard and Mark down the street got married

I agree.

The legal and sacramental institution of marriage has already been very badly damaged, not by homosexual couples wanting to get married, but by heterosexual couples themselves.

Kids growing up today in loveless homes, single parent homes, seeing the amount and kinds of spousal abuse that happens behind closed doors, seeing parents divorce and move a new partner in, having siblings with different fathers … the list goes on.

What message does that send to kids?

Does it really sound like something they would want for themselves?

I think the energies of those opposing SSM would be better spent trying to fix what’s already wrong with marriage.

Sarah x

 

[CopticChristian]

I agree.

The legal and sacramental institution of marriage has already been very badly damaged, not by homosexual couples wanting to get married, but by heterosexual couples themselves.

Kids growing up today in loveless homes, single parent homes, seeing the amount and kinds of spousal abuse that happens behind closed doors, seeing parents divorce and move a new partner in, having siblings with different fathers … the list goes on.

What message does that send to kids?

Does it really sound like something they would want for themselves?

I think the energies of those opposing SSM would be better spent trying to fix what’s already wrong with marriage.

Sarah x

I cannot agree

 

[jonathan_hili]

I agree that efforts should be spent on trying to fix marriage, but allowing the legalisation of same-sex married is going to set these efforts backwards. Why? Because it ultimately changes what marriage is.

How are we to argue now for stricter divorce laws? If the understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman, this cause has some ground because we can point to children and show how much divorce hurts them. But in legalising same-sex marriage, you are saying that marriage in itself has nothing to do with children. So, indeed, why even bother with even lax divorce laws? Why can’t two adults just separate if they want, whenever they want?

 

[CJECulver]

And if people suggest that I as a Catholic should not support same-sex marriage, then they’d be right: as a Catholic I don’t want to be same-sex ‘married’

You’re equivocating here, Dex, and you know it. You know full well that when the Catholic Church says a Catholic should not support a sin it means far more than simply “desire it for oneself.”

By arguing in favor of SSM under any circumstances, you are supporting it, as the Church has made clear. To argue in favor of SSM is your right, of course. But you cannot do it and pretend to be in concert with the teachings of the Church.

It is analogous to white people opposing the right of ethnic minority people marrying

It is nothing of the kind and, once again, I suspect you realize this, but, being either too busy or too lazy to come up with a better argument, you reached for a trite cliche instead. Put down the LGBQT pamphlets and find a more original argument.

To me it appears to many that by our opposition we give the impression that we think that people who are homosexual are also less than human.

Dear, dear Dex. I have a question. If two heterosexuals decided for whatever reasons (let’s call them “tax breaks”) to get married, do you think the Church would support or oppose it?

It follows the example of our Holy Father in reaching out and embracing ALL people, not just those of our own faith.

More equivocation. “Embracing all people” does not by any stretch mean “Embracing all their sins”. You wax poetic and then try to hide in the gray areas.

If we want to be agreed with, we won’t do it by hurting or insulting people.

Instead, apparently, we do it by trading in right and wrong for relativistic touchy-feelyism while holding hands and singing Kum-bah-yah around the campfire and reciting “I’m OK, You’re OK”. After all, being nice is so much better than being right. All warm 'n fuzzy, doncha know?

 

[fix]

Absolutely. And I see in my own family how this push for SSM has affected me and my husband. Rather than having my in-laws respect my and my husband’s belief in the RCC, they tried to change our mind. And they threw every argument at us that they were taught by the agenda. And the MIL continued to normalized the relationship of my BIL and his partner by calling him his spouse. And then she wanted to have our son call his partner uncle and be subjected to seeing two men sleep together in the same bed. And when we put a stop to it, we were the bad guys.

Anyone who says that SS apologists don’t try to influence thinking is living in a fantasy world. If we weren’t so diligent, I could definitely see my young son being indoctrinated by my SS apologist in-laws.

This is where we are headed. You experience this on a small scale so far. As the laws change the indoctrination will grow more fierce. It is an evil ideology.

 

[fix]

There’s sharing the truth, and there’s actively trying to prevent others from exercising their free will to live their lives as they wish.

If there will is set on evil then it should be stopped. Children have rights.

 

[markeverett49]

Although I think same-sex “marriage” should be argued against on other grounds, the result of such unions in European countries so far shows a decline in the marriage rate among heterosexuals and only a trickle of such “marriages” among same-sex couples.

 

[CJECulver]

We live by rules that are internal to the community within which we live.

Complete and utter BS. So the moral law laid down by God is just a couple of internal rules, and the Catholic Church is just a weekend philosopher’s club. Add ecclesiology to the list of Catholic teachings you just don’t get.

Those not of our community are not expected to live by our rules

They are not “our” rules, Dex. They are God’s rules. They are entrusted to the Church but they were not made up by the Church.

I really don’t know why anyone would argue the opposite, unless they held a belief that what the Catholic Church says should be applied to absolutely everyone, regardless of whether that person is a Catholic or not.

It’s not what the Catholic Church says, it’s what God says. And yes, what God says applies to absolutely everyone.

But the Church itself teaches that people are free to choose their own beliefs.

Got a cite on that one, Dex? Either Scripture or the Catechism will do. I’ll take a Council or an Encyclical, too.

Actually, I challenge you to print out this thread, take it to your nearest Catholic bishop, then get back to us on what he thought of your arguments. If you’re rightly dividing Catholic teaching, you should have no problem getting an imprimatur on your posts.

 

[CopticChristian]

You’re equivocating here, Dex, and you know it. You know full well that when the Catholic Church says a Catholic should not support a sin it means far more than simply “desire it for oneself.”

By arguing in favor of SSM under any circumstances, you are supporting it, as the Church has made clear. To argue in favor of SSM is your right, of course. But you cannot do it and pretend to be in concert with the teachings of the Church.

It is nothing of the kind and, once again, I suspect you realize this, but, being either too busy or too lazy to come up with a better argument, you reached for a trite cliche instead. Put down the LGBQT pamphlets and find a more original argument.

Dear, dear Dex. I have a question. If two heterosexuals decided for whatever reasons (let’s call them “tax breaks”) to get married, do you think the Church would support or oppose it?

More equivocation. “Embracing all people” does not by any stretch mean “Embracing all their sins”. You wax poetic and then try to hide in the gray areas.

Instead, apparently, we do it by trading in right and wrong for relativistic touchy-feelyism while holding hands and singing Kum-bah-yah around the campfire and reciting “I’m OK, You’re OK”. After all, being nice is so much better than being right. All warm 'n fuzzy, doncha know?

:thankyou::extrahappy::clapping:

 

[90Domer]

You’re equivocating here, Dex, and you know it. You know full well that when the Catholic Church says a Catholic should not support a sin it means far more than simply “desire it for oneself.”

By arguing in favor of SSM under any circumstances, you are supporting it, as the Church has made clear. To argue in favor of SSM is your right, of course. But you cannot do it and pretend to be in concert with the teachings of the Church.

It is nothing of the kind and, once again, I suspect you realize this, but, being either too busy or too lazy to come up with a better argument, you reached for a trite cliche instead. Put down the LGBQT pamphlets and find a more original argument.

Dear, dear Dex. I have a question. If two heterosexuals decided for whatever reasons (let’s call them “tax breaks”) to get married, do you think the Church would support or oppose it?

More equivocation. “Embracing all people” does not by any stretch mean “Embracing all their sins”. You wax poetic and then try to hide in the gray areas.

Instead, apparently, we do it by trading in right and wrong for relativistic touchy-feelyism while holding hands and singing Kum-bah-yah around the campfire and reciting “I’m OK, You’re OK”. After all, being nice is so much better than being right. All warm 'n fuzzy, doncha know?

Speaking up in favor of SSM, even if you would not personally do it, is dissent, plain and simple. And it causes scandal. I so agree with this post.

 

[90Domer]

This is where we are headed. You experience this on a small scale so far. As the laws change the indoctrination will grow more fierce. It is an evil ideology.

Fix, I totally agree, and it is becoming so much harder to raise children in this environment. So far, my son seems very well grounded in the faith. However, we are still not exposing him to the homosexual members of my in-laws (there is more than one set) until we know he is firmly grounded in the Catholic faith. And if the means keeping him away from in-law gatherings, then so be it.

 

[DexUK]

sigh

I honestly don’t get it, Dex. We are not talking about preventing others from exercising their free will to live their lives as they wish (even though we do that already with polygamous relationships, etc., and I wonder if you have a problem with that?) but rather not instituting a particular lifestyle and institution in law. Yes, homosexual people will continue to be with homosexual people, who is stopping them? But we are talking about something far more radical here, and you don’t seem to get it.

Here are a couple of counter-examples:

• Some people like to smoke marijuana or other recreational drugs in the privacy of their own homes. On the whole, the government is doing nothing to stop these people, and neither is society. So, do you think, we should therefore legalise marijuana use?
• Some people like to engage in an open marriage, and have several sex partners. Again, neither society nor the government is doing anything to stop this. So, should be legalise it, and make marriage an open affair?

As it happens I don’t have a view on marijuana. There is evidence that it is less toxic than tobacco, but people seem to be ok with others spoking cigarettes (as is the Church, which says it’s down to personal choice). I really don’t care if it’s legalised or not. If marijuana were legalised (and it has been in certain places) then it’s personal choice whether to use it it is with tobacco.

As for ‘open marriage’ and multiple partners, that’s not illegal anyway. I’m not saying it’s right, but those engaged in such activities clearly don’t agree. We can’t force them to change their beliefs.

This reply sounds strangely familiar to many people’s thought on abortion: I can’t tell another woman what to do with her body. I ask, why not, especially given the fact she is about to commit a mortal sin. How is this different from SSM? It is dissent, plain and simple.

Same sex marriage cannot possibly be compared to abortion. Nobody dies when two people of the same gender shack up together. To equate the two is repellant.

If there will is set on evil then it should be stopped. Children have rights.

Homosexuals are unable to have children. Children aren’t possible between two people of the same gender. Children are not applicable to the argument about whether two people of the same gender should be recognised by a framework of laws as a legal unit as two people of opposite gender are.

Overall, I have to wonder whether some people here even know their faith. They certainly aren’t living by it. We are called to charity and to love. Charity does not call for us to make people who are not of our faith miserable or to obstruct their happiness. I have to wonder what Church I belong to if some of the people I’ve read replies from are representative of it.

Do people realise the effect they have on others? Your pride in your own sense of righteousness is the worst possible advert for the love that is meant to be at the heart of Christianity. Love does not hurt people. Love is patient and kind and compassionate. You do not demonstrate compassion by causing people pain and fear. What kind of twisted understanding is that of what it means to be a follower of Christ?

If the examples I’ve read here were representative of the religion I belong to then I would be finding another religion fast. The attitudes I’ve seen here would drive me away from the Church this instant if I thought they were actually true. Thankfully I know my religion better than that, and I am able to read the subtleties of it better. I can hear and see and understand what the Holy Father teaches. I know what my faith means to me… however it’s very clear to me that my religion isn’t necessarily the same as is held by others here.

No doubt that will cause some to feel indignant. How dare I tell them they’re wrong? Who is it that is suffering from pride over compassion though? Who is it that is hard hearted and pharisaical over caring and tolerant? Who wants to impose rules over being a light that attracts people freely?

Who’s Church am I in? Who’s church are these people in?

 

[CopticChristian]

As it happens I don’t have a view on marijuana. There is evidence that it is less toxic than tobacco, but people seem to be ok with others spoking cigarettes (as is the Church, which says it’s down to personal choice). I really don’t care if it’s legalised or not. If marijuana were legalised (and it has been in certain places) then it’s personal choice whether to use it it is with tobacco.

As for ‘open marriage’ and multiple partners, that’s not illegal anyway. I’m not saying it’s right, but those engaged in such activities clearly don’t agree. We can’t force them to change their beliefs.

Same sex marriage cannot possibly be compared to abortion. Nobody dies when two people of the same gender shack up together. To equate the two is repellant.

Homosexuals are unable to have children. Children aren’t possible between two people of the same gender. Children are not applicable to the argument about whether two people of the same gender should be recognised by a framework of laws as a legal unit as two people of opposite gender are.

Overall, I have to wonder whether some people here even know their faith. They certainly aren’t living by it. We are called to charity and to love. Charity does not call for us to make people who are not of our faith miserable or to obstruct their happiness. I have to wonder what Church I belong to if some of the people I’ve read replies from are representative of it.

Do people realise the effect they have on others? Your pride in your own sense of righteousness is the worst possible advert for the love that is meant to be at the heart of Christianity. Love does not hurt people. Love is patient and kind and compassionate. You do not demonstrate compassion by causing people pain and fear. What kind of twisted understanding is that of what it means to be a follower of Christ?

If the examples I’ve read here were representative of the religion I belong to then I would be finding another religion fast. The attitudes I’ve seen here would drive me away from the Church this instant if I thought they were actually true. Thankfully I know my religion better than that, and I am able to read the subtleties of it better. I can hear and see and understand what the Holy Father teaches. I know what my faith means to me… however it’s very clear to me that my religion isn’t necessarily the same as is held by others here.

No doubt that will cause some to feel indignant. How dare I tell them they’re wrong? Who is it that is suffering from pride over compassion though? Who is it that is hard hearted and pharisaical over caring and tolerant? Who wants to impose rules over being a light that attracts people freely?

Who’s Church am I in? Who’s church are these people in?

Appeals to authority
Appeals to reason
Questions that can be answered without being asked

does not equate to understanding what others have pointed out and pleas that continue to have Catholics that know their Faith to change their minds will and should fail. Persistence in support of this position should fall on deaf ears.