Your opinion on homosexual relationships

[PRmerger]

I don’t suppose that it is possible to dispute with a person, who even after having been told this:

Keeps stating that:

Clearly, such a person doesn’t even bother to read the opponents’ messages and just regurgitates stock phrases at them, like an AI bot.

Clearly, I wasn’t talking about you, Tagetes.

If you are a person who suffers from disordered attractions, and you are struggling to follow Christ’s teachings on this, then you are to be commended.

It’s the folks who say, “I am attracted to people of my own gender sexually, and it’s the way I am, and I am entitled to have sex with whomever I want to!” that we are addressing.

 

[PRmerger]

What does the avatar mean, Jharek?

 

[Tagetes]

Clearly, I wasn’t talking about you, Tagetes.

You were talking about me.
Click on the links of my posts I am quoting and check your reaction to them. After I told that I, personally, hasn’t felt lust towards women, you neverthelss told me that when I fall in love, it is “a sin of flesh”, even if no carnal component is present, and that my “desire” is disordered, even if “desire” is absent is such.
I was the person you were referring to. You just don’t care what other people tell you about their experiences. You know better. If for you same-sex attraction is only lust and desire to have sex, that’s your problem. You have no right to project that on those of us, who fall in love, even though our love is impossible, nor are you allowed to label our love “disordered desire of flesh”. It should suffice that we’ve given up on this love. It’s not your place to police our language when we talk about it. We know how we feel. You don’t.

P.S. To everyone: clearly I’m not saying that those my brothers and sisters in Christ, who experience desire to have sex with people of their own gender, are “disordered”! It’s just ironic that a stranger tries to tell me what I feel.

 

[PRmerger]

You were talking about me.

Nope.

If you don’t meet the criteria, which you state you don’t, then, LOGICALLY, I can’t be talking about you.

 

[PRmerger]

You just don’t care what other people tell you about their experiences.

Careful, Tagetes. It is good for you to be here and in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics.

But I would be more judicious about how you frame your posts.

It’s not permissible to assign to a person sentiments which are not being endorsed.

 

[Tagetes]

Nope.

If you don’t meet the criteria, which you state you don’t, then, LOGICALLY, I can’t be talking about you.

Click on the post, liar. You quoted MY message and said “It IS a sin of flesh”. Numerous times throughout this thread you addressed me directly with the words “YOUR desire is disordered”.

 

[PRmerger]

To everyone: clearly I’m not saying that those my brothers and sisters in Christ, who experience desire to have sex with people of their own gender, are “disordered”! It’s just ironic that a stranger tries to tell me what I feel.

Their desire is, indeed, disordered.

That’s an incontrovertible teaching of Christ.

 

[PRmerger]

Click on the post, liar. You quoted MY message and said “It IS a sin of flesh”. Numerous times throughout this thread you addressed me directly with the words “YOUR desire is disordered”.

You have been reported.

 

[PRmerger]

Ah. Thank you for the explanation.

 

[PRmerger]

Click on the post, liar. You quoted MY message and said “It IS a sin of flesh”. Numerous times throughout this thread you addressed me directly with the words “YOUR desire is disordered”.

And just so we’re clear: IF you are engaging in sexual relations with someone of your own gender, THEN you are indeed, guilty of a “sin of the flesh”.

And, objectively, any sexual love between two people of the same sex is, indeed, disordered.

Sexual love is ordered towards 2 people of the opposite gender.

That is biology. That is science. That is natural law. That is Christ’s teaching. That is the Catholic Church’s teaching.

 

[at9009]

Incidentally, I could see a little bit of uncharity in the remark "Whether you want to admit it or not’…it’s a kind of jab, isn’t it, as it insinuates that I may indeed wish to lie about whether people with SSA have been treated atrociously by Christians?

But I’m not going to dwell on that statement.

I’m going to read it, take it in, and move forward.

Far enough, I will try and be more careful with my wording. It was not my intention to imply anything and I apologize for the poor word choice. It should have written it as whether you are aware of it or not. Thank you for the fraternal correction and I will work on my clarity in the future

 

[PRmerger]

Far enough, I will try and be more careful with my wording. It was not my intention to imply anything and I apologize for the poor word choice. It should have written it as whether you are aware of it or not. Thank you for the fraternal correction and I will work on my clarity in the future

 

[at9009]

One of the big complications is that our society has bought into this notion that for one to be ‘happy’ and live a fulfilling life they must be in some kind of romantic sexual relationship especially in a society that oversexualizes our culture and devalues friendship. With this kind of perspective, single life (whether for a season or life) seems nothing more than dark and lonely which often leads to rationalization of sinful behaviors.

Additionally, society by and large has equated love as only romantic love (I think it’s called eros) while basically ignoring other kinds of love like that within friendships (I think it’s called phila?). So the connotation is a single person will live a life without love. It’s a false statement because while a single person may not have a eros, there are other forms of love. I mean Christ, our example of how to live, lived a celibate life as did many of the apostles and our saints.

I think also, we have been on this trajectory of sexual ethics for a while now and it is kind of hard to just pin it on homosexual sexual relationships. It started with basically dismissing divorce and remarriage as a-okay so much so that divorce is very common in society, heterosexual sexual relations prior to marriage are basically viewed as the norm (watch any sitcom), things like masturbation/pornography are basically viewed as commonplace, virtually no one seems to have any issues with contraception, and there is essentially no presentation of anyone in a celibate vocation (besides maybe a sparse mention of a nun or priest).

When society at large doesn’t really have the same moral values as the Catholic church, it is often hard to focus on teaching separately regarding same sex attracted individuals because it will end up feeling kinda hypocritical. It’s not until one actually delves deep into Church teaching that teaching on chastity and sexual ethics is hard for everyone regardless of orientation.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s not until one actually delves deep into Church teaching that teaching on chastity and sexual ethics is hard for everyone regardless of orientation.

Egg-zactly.

So the adulterer is called to the same sexual ethics as the homosexual.
As is the happily married heterosexual couple.

All are called to submit to the Church’s teaching on chastity.

And in doing so, will find their happiness and sexual fulfillment.

 

[goout]

Everyone is called to chastity. It’s not easy for anyone. Well, it might be easy for a few.
For me chastity is very difficult.

The integrity of the person

2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.125

2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.126 "Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."127

2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God’s commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."128

2341 The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.

2342 **Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.**129 The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.

2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."130

2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; **it also involves a cultural effort, for there is “an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society.”**131 Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information and an education that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.

2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.132

 

[Peter_J]

LGBT who are trying to be faithful to traditional teaching are basically attacked from both sides with very little support.

Sad. Most especially, to my mind, the attacks that come from supposedly faithful Catholics.

 

[PRmerger]

Sad. Most especially, to my mind, the attacks that come from supposedly faithful Catholics.

Yes, that is definitely the worst.

 

[Peter_J]

It’s hard because I am not exactly sure how to entirely frame the issue to ensure people like yourself wont take it the wrong way, what do we call ‘they’ and ‘them’ other than ‘LGBT Activist?’ and that too can be taken the wrong way and twisted by ‘them’, what word would you prefer we use regarding those who are activists regarding the sexual acts of homosexuality, same sex marriage etc and not just same sex attracted people?

This wasn’t addressed to me, but IMO your use of “LGBT activist” seems entirely reasonable.

 

[Peter_J]

I am also rather frustrated lack of discussion is out there. I sadly still often here that I’m a worse Christian because I have this cross, that if I had actual faith I wouldn’t have these particular temptations,that I must have been abused or had a bad father experience, apparently experimented as a child or was bad a sports,

Fwiw, I personally regard that whole ex-gay/conversion therapy business as a throwback to the 1950s. (Not surprising that it’s supported by tons of traditionalist Catholics – who, sadly, are often a lot better at getting their message out there than other Catholics are.)

 

[Peter_J]

The major issue here is if you want to have a perspective that a person is disordered because they have disordered desires than one has to be consistent but there is no consistency.

I agree. If I, or anyone else, say “Gay persons are disordered” then we should say that same about everyone.

“Gay persons are disordered” reminds me of what the Pharisees said to the blind man that Jesus healed: “You were born completely in sin, and you presume to speak to us?” (If he was born completely in sin, then weren’t they also?)