Why not gay marriage?

[Samuel_Monosov]

lol we are never going to reach an accord then because Catholic beliefs are based on a belief in the philosophy of natural law and you apparently don’t give much credence to the idea of human nature. I encourage you to take a look into natural law from more authoritative teaching sources. It may help you understand the Catholic position on things a lot better even if you don’t understand it. Natural law in and of itself though is lacking without a belief in a higher authority that has put natural law in place.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn’t even heard of natural law, pretty-much, until I saw this forums. The sorts of words attached to natural law I remember from University were things like “outdated scholastic medieval arbitrary notions about morality based on a theory of human nature invented by Aristotle and mythologized in the Bible; invented before philosophy really got started.” Thanks to this forum I don’t think that’s true anymore. But I still don’t understand very much about it. It’s definitely something I’ll read more about over the next few months.

 

[Nate13]

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn’t even heard of natural law, pretty-much, until I saw this forums. The sorts of words attached to natural law I remember from University were things like “outdated scholastic medieval arbitrary notions about morality based on a theory of human nature invented by Aristotle and mythologized in the Bible; invented before philosophy really got started.” Thanks to this forum I don’t think that’s true anymore. But I still don’t understand very much about it. It’s definitely something I’ll read more about over the next few months.

A lot of the time you can find free talks online from Catholic sources that talk about it as well.

Of course they thought natural law was:

“outdated scholastic medieval arbitrary notions about morality based on a theory of human nature invented by Aristotle and mythologized in the Bible; invented before philosophy really got started.”

because they would also describe the Catholic Church the same way

 

[exnihilo]

Your questions, while very interesting, are mostly philosophy questions. (The basic method: Ask “what does X mean?” “It means X1, X2, X3” “What does X1 X2 X3 mean?” "They mean “X11, X12, X13, X21, etc…” "What do “X11, X12… etc. mean?” and so forth.

Yes they are philosophy questions. And yes once you answer one it can lead to still more. But this is important to clear thinking. Clear thinking is a good thing and a very necessary thing if we are talking about major issues of culture.

I think you and I and most people can say what a healthy relationship and healthy environment for children looks like, and while there may be some small differences, the basic picture will be the same.

I disagree. I have a pretty high standard for healthy. In observing pop culture and what other people find acceptable I think the differences are pretty serious.

The reason homosexuality was declared as a psychological illness was that it was perceived to carry with it many trappings that would exclude someone in such a lifestyle from a healthy relationship or from making for a healthy environment.

I dont know much about the history of psychology but I accept your understanding in part. I think there was also the idea that the behavior was by its nature unhealthy. Many other sexual behaviors were considered unhealthy. As more and more people did them and it became more acceptable opinions changed. All this shows is that a degraded society is degraded.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

I disagree. I have a pretty high standard for healthy. In observing pop culture and what other people find acceptable I think the differences are pretty serious.

At the risk of derailing the conversation for a short time, because this is very interesting to me…

What are your standards for, say, the εὐδαιμονία, or the genuine happiness that comes from the virtuous life?

I want to see if these are so different from what I hold and what I suspect most people hold (and admittedly; many pop-stars sell themselves as the ‘bad-boys’ and bad-girls’, meaning that they acknowledge that their lifestyles are far from the ideal; I would not let Lady Gaga babysit my children).

 

[vsedriver]

Maybe this is reckless, but I think it’s the best way to find out for sure if something is going to work or not. If there’s a good reason for not doing something, I’ll be against it. But if there’s no apparent good reason for or against doing something, I err on the side of trying it.

Maybe we’ll learn something.

What if my apparent good reason isn’t an apparent good reason to you? I err on the side of caution, especially when you are playing with people’s lives. Age will do that to you.

 

[vsedriver]

I think you and I and most people can say what a healthy relationship and healthy environment for children looks like, and while there may be some small differences, the basic picture will be the same.

 

[exnihilo]

What are your standards for, say, the εὐδαιμονία, or the genuine happiness that comes from the virtuous life?

Doing that which is truly good for you leads to happiness. That which is good for you would generally be traditional morality - doing virtuous things and abstaining from bad things. But the highest good would be to know God and to do His will out of love for God. From this disposition comes knowledge, desire, and the capacity to find happiness.

 

[Gidras05]

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn’t even heard of natural law, pretty-much, until I saw this forums. The sorts of words attached to natural law I remember from University were things like “outdated scholastic medieval arbitrary notions about morality based on a theory of human nature invented by Aristotle and mythologized in the Bible; invented before philosophy really got started.” Thanks to this forum I don’t think that’s true anymore. But I still don’t understand very much about it. It’s definitely something I’ll read more about over the next few months.

You know, there are a GREAT deal of books from much more credible scientists and philosophers and theologians on this topic. I’m sure there is great insight to find in this forum as well, but it is always a good idea to do more reading to ascertain a greater understanding in a broader spectrum.

I think a very good starting point for Natural Law in how it extends to a belief in God is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. From there you essentially dive off into a large amount other books that tackle this subject in much much greater depth.

 

[Jeremiah1278]

Alright, the contraception question I asked you answered. That made some sense, so I can imagine why you don’t like gay activity or why you don’t do gay marriage.

But what about people who aren’t Catholic? They get divorced and do all kinds of other things that you don’t agree with. Why can’t two men get together and the state can call it marriage or whatever else they like? They do this sort of thing anyway about divorce, with a lot less arguments and protests from you guys.

Why should you care if other religions want to recognize gay marriage?

What about gay adoption? Why not allow it for limited cases, to see what effect it has, and if its a good idea overall, or not?

I like this discussion you’ve created, Samuel. In the U.S., I see two separate arguments to be had about gay marriage. (1) The legal argument about whether or not it violatates the Constitution to limit marriage to men and women. (2) And the moral argument about whether states should expand civil marriage recognition to same-sex couples. I think I know the answer to (1), and it’s sort of out of the hands of everyone except our supreme court. (2) is where the rubber meets the road for an American citizen, I think. More state legislatures will introduce laws expanding civil marriage rights.

I see this and I don’t conclude that same sex marriage rights are going to destroy the moral fabric of society. I see this and conclude, society already has reached the tipping point where it no longer values the procreative union between man and woman the way it used to. The decay has already happened when you don’t see the difference between same-sex couples and traditional marriage. Straight people. Good, loving, straight Catholic people don’t see any difference between their relationship and a same-sex relationship. To think that the relationships are equal, they had to jump through some sort of intellectual hoops to conclude there’s nothing special about two members of the species selecting each other for reproduction, sharing each other’s genetics and raising the offspring. I think this is an enormous mistake. But society is changing. So the states are free to have their laws mirror this change in values. Again, I think it’s a mistake. But it’s at least more honest than trying to find current marriage laws unconstitutional.

Maybe I’m over stating things. Maybe people still, deep-down, know that the man-woman-child raising family unit is special. But maybe they’ve just hit a point where they feel so bad for the discrimination against gay couples, they don’t want our civil laws to draw a distinction between the two anymore. Again, I think this is mistaken, but I’m just trying to figure out where people stand. Perhaps they believe that recognizing same-sex couples in this way will over time eliminate much of the discrimination the GLBT community deals with. And eliminating some of that pain for others is more important to them than continuing to use the civil law to set aside marriage (real marriage) as something important to the community.

Shoot, I don’t know.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

You know, there are a GREAT deal of books from much more credible scientists and philosophers and theologians on this topic. I’m sure there is great insight to find in this forum as well, but it is always a good idea to do more reading to ascertain a greater understanding in a broader spectrum.

I agree completely. So that’s why I’m reading… I read slowly.

 

[Samuel_Monosov]

What if my apparent good reason isn’t an apparent good reason to you?

Then come November, we might vote differently.

Except that I’m a selfish, selfish person. And I’m a scientist. And Republicans fund science better.

 

[Angel7]

Cool. Makes sense.

I think that’s what parenting is. Experimentation with serious risks.

Choosing any set of criteria for adopting children, or changing it in any way, involves serious risk.

If the results show no measurable difference between gay and straight parents, by what basis would you argue that a secular government should disallow gay adoption?

If the results show that gay couples are worse parents than straight couples, then we should admit that it was a mistake to open up the option, and discontinue adopting to gays.

Children thrive emotionally not off of the relationship between the parents and the child but between the parents themselves. Boys learn to become men and how to treat women respectably from their fathers, etc… but also. The relationship between the parents is important because the child can see safety within that relationship.

Compare a loving relationship b/w a husband and wife vs one marriage on the brink of divorce. Single-parenting effects children too. A Stable Hetero-sexual marriage is the gold-standard for an environment to raise kids in. 1 wierd example of why we need parents is this. Girls whose fathers were not active in their lives, begin puberty earlier. (This has effects on their likelyhood of cancer). So it really is ingrained into human nature to have a mom and a dad. A same sex marriage isn’t natural, we can assume there will be consequences to doing things the way they weren’t meant to be.

Some of the information I got came from the “Chastity” tab at the top of this page. Go to the FAQ area in Chastity and look up responses against homosexuality.