Why not gay marriage?

[Journey322]

Monogamous gay relationship? What data and sources can you cite that indicate a majority of gay couples have remained monogamous for their entire life?

I agree. Your post was totally relevant. Monogamy isn’t as commonplace as it should be regardless of sexual orientation. Not to mention the committment level of people in general to their partners (marital or not). People change relationships more often than some change underwear. It’s sad, but true. It is well known by most that HIV is much more common among those in same sex relationships than those in opposite sex relationships. That’s just the truth of it.

 

[Lilsheep88]

cuz God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve. Meaning to say that it is unnatural. How can two men procreate? Thats the whole purpose behind marriage.

 

[Nate13]

Many gays believe that a creator exists.

Do you think Catholic beliefs should be legislated? If so, how do we determine which should and should not be legislated?

I do not believe Catholic beliefs should be legislated. I believe natural law should be legislated as the founders themselves did when they based the country on inalienable rights given by our Creator. Natural law is human reason. These should not be implemented haphazardly either but only according to Aquinas’ rules for when laws should be made.

Since there are committed secularists in the government, and many members who make decisions without considering the creator, I believe we will find out whether such a system of government will be able to succeed over the long term.

One side will win out. You can’t have two America’s with two different philosophies at the same time. As you said we have a fight between the two right now and their are plenty of legislators in office on either side.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

Actually you could argue it matters if you could show that homosexuals do not bond in the same way heterosexual couples do.

I am unconvinced it would matter. It would be interesting to show empirically that gays bond differently from straight people, and that these differences would affect gay parenting negatively. Then it would probably be irresponsible to adopt out to gay couples.

Do you think civil unions should be based on how people bond biologically? If it were discovered that some straight couples bond differently, will this invalidate their civil union?

 

[Nate13]

I am unconvinced it would matter. It would be interesting to show empirically that gays bond differently from straight people, and that these differences would affect gay parenting negatively. Then it would probably be irresponsible to adopt out to gay couples.

Do you think civil unions should be based on how people bond biologically? If it were discovered that some straight couples bond differently, will this invalidate their civil union?

I’m saying that it doesn’t make a bit of sense biologically. The only reason our biology makes the sexual act bonding is because the sexual act is also inherently procreative. There is no reason to make two people cling to each other like that biologically unless its so they stick together to raise the children that also come from that act. Gay sex is inherently not procreative thus its essentially pointless for it to be bonding to any degree. Part of the whole bonding nature of sex is the fact that a child displaying the qualities of both parents could potentially be the outcome of the act. There is nothing more bonding than two people creating a child and raising that child together, would you not agree?

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

I do not believe Catholic beliefs should be legislated. I believe natural law should be legislated as the founders themselves did when they based the country on inalienable rights given by our Creator. Natural law is human reason. These should not be implemented haphazardly either but only according to Aquinas’ rules for when laws should be made.

What is the main reason gay marriage should not be allowed by a secular government? Why can gay couples not adopt?

Contraception is also a violation of natural law, and was illegal at one time. Should a contracepting straight couple not be allowed to adopt?

One side will win out. You can’t have two America’s with two different philosophies at the same time. As you said we have a fight between the two right now and their are plenty of legislators in office on either side.

It will be more interesting if they find a way to work together in spite of their differences.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

There is nothing more bonding than two people creating a child and raising that child together

Does this mean that G.K Chesterton and his wife were not bonded, or were not as bonded as biological parents of children?

Are the marriages of infertile people generally inferior to marriages of fertile people?

Would you not agree?

I think that there is nothing more bonding to me than raising a child with the person I love most: my wife.

Gays could accomplish this through adoption.

 

[Nate13]

What is the main reason gay marriage should not be allowed by a secular government? Why can gay couples not adopt?

Contraception is also a violation of natural law, and was illegal at one time. Should a contracepting straight couple not be allowed to adopt?

Laws should only be made if they will be followed and agreed upon by most of the populace, can actually be upheld, and conform with the common good of men.

It will be more interesting if they find a way to work together in spite of their differences.

Yes, but both sides are on either side of issues like abortion. Do you truly think there is a middle ground on that issue that both sides will agree to? There are lots of other issues like this where both sides clash. Euthanasia may be one we see more of here eventually.

I do believe both sides help keep a balance on economic issues though.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

Laws should only be made if they will be followed and agreed upon by most of the populace, can actually be upheld, and conform with the common good of men.

It seems as though the majority opinion about gay marriage is shifting. How do you think gay marriage upsets the common good?

Yes, but both sides are on either side of issues like abortion. Do you truly think there is a middle ground on that issue that both sides will agree to?

I am hopeful there will eventually be a middle ground on abortion. I suspect this middle ground will be very close to, but not identical with, the current pro-life position. I am optimistic.

 

[Nate13]

Does this mean that G.K Chesterton and his wife were not bonded, or were not as bonded as biological parents of children?

No, because the act they were committing as well as just the fact that they are male and female was a bonding act whether children ever came of it or not. The act was designed to bring children into the World though, which is why it was also designed to be bonding. Gay sex acts are not.

Are the marriages of infertile people generally inferior to marriages of fertile people?

Uh no. Your missing the point here. The point was to look back at how we were created to understand the purpose of why heterosexual sex is bonding in the first place. The why is for the good of the spouses, which in turn occurs for the purpose of the good of the children they are raising. Then we snap back into today and realize that sex is bonding because its also procreative. You do not have to have children for heterosexual sex to be bonding, but the reason its bonding is because its potentially child creating as well.

I think that there is nothing more bonding to me than raising a child with the person I love most: my wife.

I agree, although no marriage diminishes in value just because their objectively correctly ordered act did not beget children of no fault of their own. They would however miss out on the added bonding experience you are talking about in raising a child.

Gays could accomplish this through adoption.

Yes, but we don’t put children into homes for the good of the couple. Adoptions are child-centered i.e what is best for the child. We are not going to start allowing homosexual couples to adopt to promote gay monogamy… If its apparent they are not inherently monogamous relationships that already is enough of a reason to not allow them to adopt considering that kind of instability is bad for children.

Now you may argue that heterosexual marriages have a 50% divorce rate and that is instability too, but that instability is brought upon by the failings of the people in them, not because their relationships are inherently not as stable by virtue of their biology.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

No, because the act they were committing as well as just the fact that they are male and female was a bonding act whether children ever came of it or not.

How can we know that sex with two men cannot have this same bonding? Is there a way to measure this bonding, or is this a purely religious position?

The act was designed to bring children into the World though, which is why it was also designed to be bonding.

This does not seem to be true in their case. Otherwise, the designer designed poorly.

Yes, but we don’t put children into homes for the good of the couple. Adoptions are child-centered i.e what is best for the child.

I agree. However, gay adoption does occur. Based on the results of these adoptions, we can determine whether adoption by gay couples is healthy or unhealthy for the child. If it is determined to be as healthy as adoption by straight couples, will you change your mind about gay adoption?

 

[Nate13]

It seems as though the majority opinion about gay marriage is shifting. How do you think gay marriage upsets the common good?

Haha you were asking when I thought laws based in natural law and human reason should be passed and I answered that. Gay marriage is not in accord with human reason as I have expressed, therefore no law should be made in support of it. The only question remaining would be should a law be made to stop gay couples from marrying/living together at all. Obviously this would be an incredibly stupid law and very unenforceable. I’m content with no law being made either way and gay couples being given easier access to visitation rights in hospitals and such. They can achieve this already by way of legal documents and a lawyer, but I would be fine with giving these couples and any one else who wanted it easier ways to get these privileges.

I am hopeful there will eventually be a middle ground on abortion. I suspect this middle ground will be very close to, but not identical with, the current pro-life position. I am optimistic.

There are some people out and legislators that believe abortions, whether its killing a life or not, are a woman’s right at any stage before birth and even some that would allow it after birth. These people will either have to get out of the way or be pushed out of the way for a resolution in line with the pro-life position to be passed.

 

[vsedriver]

Why should the government not allow gay civil unions, given that the government is not Catholic?

there is no advantage to the government to allow civil unions.

The government is involved in marriage because it gains something by encouraging marriage. Is it not better for the government to have children born to replace those citizens lost? Is it not better for the government if those children are raised and supported by two parents rather than by one parent and the government? Statistics show that children raised in single parent households make up most of the poor.

 

[Nate13]

How can we know that sex with two men cannot have this same bonding? Is there a way to measure this bonding, or is this a purely religious position?

Hormones are different, a woman’s body actually absorbing sperm causes added pleasure and bonding, and no complementary biology. There are a million ways in which the acts between a man and a woman work together that are inherently not there in a homosexual act. The more obvious answer is to just observe the reality of homosexual relationships and how monogamous they are.

This does not seem to be true in their case. Otherwise, the designer designed poorly.

So, we live in a broken world. We take in all sorts of things that could have an effect on our fertility. The lack of perfection in the World that a perfect God has designed is another discussion entirely. The fact is though we can observe the obvious purpose of these body parts regardless of whether there are a few outliers. Infertility means something has gone wrong. We can only say something has gone wrong because it is not in accord with the circumstance we attribute to be right. We can only know what is right, if we know the purpose of that part to begin with.

If I showed up to a hospital with a broken arm and they didn’t know how a human arm was supposed to work to begin with, they would have a hard time knowing if anything was wrong or how to fix it.

I agree. However, gay adoption does occur. Based on the results of these adoptions, we can determine whether adoption by gay couples is healthy or unhealthy for the child. If it is determined to be as healthy as adoption by straight couples, will you change your mind about gay adoption?

No probably not, because any homosexual couple that is out there is daily ignoring the obvious purposes of their bodies and is ignoring human reason. I’m not a big fan of anyone missing something that obvious and living life in contradiction to human reason, raising children. That to me would never be a good choice of a home for a child, if there is a choice as to where the child ends up. A parent teaches philosophy to their children and impacts dramatically how they see the World, and the decisions they make. A gay couple by definition inherently does not get this. Some heterosexual couples may not get it as well, but at least it is not something that is inherent to just being a heterosexual couple.

 

[vsedriver]

Gays could accomplish this through adoption.

A child has a natural right to a mother and a father. First choice for any adoption would be to place the child in a heterosexual home. But if gay unions are equal to straight marriages then you can’t discriminate in the adoption of children. This is a grave injustice to children.

 

[DexUK]

there is no advantage to the government to allow civil unions.

The government is involved in marriage because it gains something by encouraging marriage. Is it not better for the government to have children born to replace those citizens lost? Is it not better for the government if those children are raised and supported by two parents rather than by one parent and the government? Statistics show that children raised in single parent households make up most of the poor.

Your argument here implies that the government needs to provide incentives for marriage in order that people may be helped to make the decision to become married. If the unitive act of heterosexual bonding were so strong, it wouldn’t be necessary for the government to provide those incentives in the first place. What these various benefits become, therefore, is a political reward system proposed by and argued over by opposing political camps in order to attract votes from people who self-identify as being members of one of a group that gets some sort of material benefit from the proposals.

The fact that many people seem quite content (albeit we don’t approve) of raising children in a non-married environment and others get married, have kids, and subsequently divorce (often more than once) rather puts the lie to the claims that government inspired family benefits are working as an incentive towards marriage. I don’t think they’re viewed any any such terms by most people, but rather in a sense of ‘here’s another government handout’.

Yes, there need to be state-recognised protections for the rights of partners in marriages - as has been mentioned: inheritance, tenancy protection, visitation rights, etc. Those rights could legitimately be given to other non-marriage partnerships as well without any loss of sanctity of marriage since they’re purely technical arrangements.

Where ‘gay marriage’ is different though, is the rights that apply upon its dissolution. Whether or not you agree with divorce between married opposite-gender couples, the law provides for a measure of post-divorce responsibility between partners, especially if children are involved. With a (childless) gay union, post separation arrangements would - and should - be unlikely to include alimony for example, since it would not be necessary for either party to have to give up a career in favour of child-care. This definitely points towards in inequality in weight between marriage and gay-unions (I’m leaning towards calling it ‘gayiage’ - anyone with me on this?!) because the two unions are qualitatively different.

That doesn’t meant that the two types of union can’t co-exist, but that “gay rights” campaigners are arguing for something that they can never logically achieve. They would be far better to accept the simple technical benefits and forget about calling it a ‘marriage’. That would do away with a lot of the hurt feelings in the argument and perhaps the two camps (gays one side and Church the other) could live at relative peace with one another.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

Thank you for your answers.

You have helped me understand why Catholics think gay marriage is wrong.

I still do not understand why Catholics would legally oppose gay marriage for non-Catholics, because Catholics do not legally oppose use of contraception for non-Catholics, or divorce for non-Catholics.

I will continue to read this thread, to see if any new insights emerge that will help clarify this issue for me.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

Statistics show that children raised in single parent households make up most of the poor.

Do these statistics adjust for wealth? Are the children of wealthy single parents more likely to be poor than the children of wealthy straight couples?

Currently, there are no complete statistics about the impact of being raised by gay couples. In the next decade or so there will be such statistics. If the results show that the children adopted to gay couples are worse off than the children of straight couples, then gay couples should not be able to adopt.

If, however, the results show that the effects of adoption by gay couples and straight couples are roughly the same, then the adoption should continue.

If adoption is really about the child, and if the child is equally well off being adopted by gay couples as straight couples, and better off than if the child were not adopted at all, what good reason would there be for refusing adoption to gay couples?

 

[St_Francis]

Thank you for your answers.

You have helped me understand why Catholics think gay marriage is wrong.

I still do not understand why Catholics would legally oppose gay marriage for non-Catholics, because Catholics do not legally oppose use of contraception for non-Catholics, or divorce for non-Catholics.

Because we want what is good for society, and homosexual “marriage” is not good for society.

 

[Corpus_Cristi]

Because we want what is good for society, and homosexual “marriage” is not good for society.

This is the exact same thing that Samuel was getting at. We know from retrospective evidence that artificial contraception and divorce wreak havoc on society. We don’t know, however that SSUs will affect society the same way. Every change implemented by society onto society is experimental in nature, even some supposedly good ones that Christians come up with: we don’t know how they’ll work, even if we expect that they will do good.

I think Samuel makes a good point when he mentions how we can actually look back at how artificial contraception and no-fault divorce have impacted our society and yet many Catholics are still anywhere from apathetic to “I think it’s wrong but it’s not my business; y’know, charity and all…” on the aforementioned issues, yet they’re eerily gung-ho about “protecting marriage” (which, if you don’t really care about the divorce epidemic in this country, you’re not really doing at all).

It’s one thing to believe that two people of the same sex being sacramentally united in a “marriage” is philosophically/theologically unsound. As a Catholic, I believe this. It’s another thing completely to say that this is the straw that will break the camel’s back in terms of preservation of our society. To someone who is not Catholic and doesn’t believe what we do about marriage, what you said quoted above sounds rather circular, and I would have to agree. That type of reasoning doesn’t really hold.

God bless,

Rob