Here are some thoughts on how to approach the “gay marriage” debate from my Christianity and Mass Media class. That debate can often look like us shouting “No!” and them shouting “Yes!” The Church has a better way.
Since Sunday was Feb 14, which is not only Valentine’s Day but also the feasts of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, my class last week read Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Apostles to the Slavs.”
The lessons in that document can help us approach the “Slavs” of our day — those strangers with strange words and strange ways — who we want to reach with the message of the Gospel.
1.Leave your comfort zone.
When our heroes, Cyril and Methodius, were told to go and Christianize the Slavs, they had to leave their monastery on Mount Olympus.“For them, this task meant giving up not only a position of honor but also the contemplative life,” says Pope John Paul II. Catholics can be very comfortable on our own mountaintops.
We don’t want to deal with “those people” who are same-sex attracted. We find the subject icky, we find the sexual behavior repulsive and, truth be told, we often feel that they are a class of people we can simply write off.
Of course, to write off a class of people is to reject love and invite your own failure. Christ didn’t turn up his nose in disgust at us; nor should we at others.
Homosexual activists left their comfort zone in Massachusetts, put their stories out in the media and drummed up support.
The very fact that you see so many homosexual activists in the com-boxes of the National Catholic Register is a sign of the robustness of their cause. They are not afraid to get in among us, listen to our arguments and telling us what they think.
Are we reading them and telling them what we think?
They have an evangelical fervor. Do we?
2. Speak to them in their own language.
The Slavs complained that many preachers had come to them and insisted on speaking Greek. They didn’t know Greek. Cyril and Methodius came and not only learned their language, they learned it better than the Slavs, creating an alphabet for it.
In class, we compared an image of a Brokeback Mountain movie poster on the one hand to, on the other, a sign board outside a Catholic Church that proclaimed that “procreation is the meaning of marriage” and that “homosexuality is an abomination.”
Yes, that’s a bit unfair, but it made the point. In the first case you have something like Christ’s approach (with alarmingly different content, of course): A parable which is visually beautiful and arresting (the Wyoming mountains, I mean!). In the second case you have … words that the culture has forgotten the meanings of.
We Catholics have a high moral language that teaches important truths with clarity and depth. But the culture doesn’t speak that language. Is their language inferior? Yes. So was Slavonic to Greek.
So we need to find ways to teach those truths in a language they can actually understand. That, of course, would be their language — a language that after all does value beauty, truth and goodness, in the right doses and with the right explanation.
I suggested one way to speak the culture’s language was to find the stories (as people like Dawn Stefanowicz are already doing) of people who have overcome the dark side of the “gay scene,” who saw the superficiality and emptiness of “about half” of gay marriages (according to a San Francisco State study reported in the New York Times), and tell their stories of hope.
3. Embrace others’ lives totally.
“For this purpose they desired to become similar in every aspect to those to whom they were bringing the Gospel;” says the Pope about Cyril and Methodius. “They wished to become part of those peoples and to share their lot in everything.”
So Cyril and Methodius lived among and loved the Slavs.
How willing are we to live among and love those with same-sex attraction?
This point brought the most lively discussion from my students. They seemed to know right away that what I suggested was true: In our day, groups of people who are pro-homosexual “marriage” tend to be much more likely to be warm, welcoming and accepting of others than groups of Christian or Catholic believers. (Yes, I know there are significant exceptions; but the fact remains that in one group people feel accepted and in the other they feel judged.)
The Catholic group Courage is doing this already. Same-sex attracted people appreciate that the group isn’t like many Christian groups that stress the “ex-gay” aspects of their outreach. Courage accepts them for who they are, and helps them grow closer to Christ through chastity and other virtues without demanding they change their attitudes.
We need to learn to accept same-sex attracted people unconditionally, not disdain them until they become someone worthy of our caring.
Mother Teresa is an excellent example of this. Her approach was to live among the people she wanted to reach. She did that with her “Gift of Love” AIDS home in San Francisco. She didn’t judge the people there, she just served them, and that brought them to the faith.
4. Understand in order to be understood.
“In order to translate the truths of the Gospel into a new language,” said John Paul of Cyril and Methodius, “they had to make an effort to gain a good grasp of the interior world of those to whom they intended to proclaim the word of God in images and concepts that would sound familiar to them.”
While we’re speaking their language, we also need to understand their arguments.
The more we get where they’re coming from, the more they’ll be willing to get where we’re coming from.
The most successful evangelizing efforts always understand the other first. G.K. Chesterton made the point that St. Thomas Aquinas repeated others’ arguments better than they could formulate them. And Chesterton himself was very fair and understanding in debate.
The pro-choice movement forgot about this: They haven’t touched pro-lifers’ real arguments for years, preferring to caricature us as “anti-choice fanatics.” The pro-life movement exemplified this: We’ve been talking about real women’s real problems for a long time. That’s why we’re winning.
Now it’s time to understand the homosexual “marriage” proponents and talk to them instead of past them.
5. Meticulous fidelity to the Church.
Cyril and Methodius “did not hesitate to answer with docility the invitations to come to Rome …”
Catholics have no guarantee of our rightness or wrongness on anything. The Church, however, does. So we need to go to the sources of Catholic doctrine and follow them to a T.
Many of us have done a great job of assenting to the part of Church doctrine about the “grave depravity” of homosexual acts and the “under no circumstances can they be approved” admonition.
But if we are faithful to that alone, we are not being faithful to the Church. The Catechism goes on:
“The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
We can learn from Pope John Paul II himself who visited AIDS patients in San Francisco in 1987. While outside, demonstrators shouted “pope go home” and “shame, shame, shame,” inside, the Holy Father said, “God loves you all, without distinction, without limit.”
Do we agree with the Pope? If so, what’s holding us back from acting like that’s true?
6. Create new methods for your task.
“They realized that an essential condition of the success of their missionary activity was to transpose correctly Biblical notions and Greek theological concepts into a very different context of thought and historical experience,” said Pope John Paul II of our heroes. “It was a question of a new method of catechesis.”
A new method of catechesis. Again, the pro-homosexual marriage crowd is way ahead of us on this front. They have made sure characters in major movies are pro-homosexual marriage. They have preached their message with humor in sit-coms.
But we can’t do that, you say, because Hollywood is too powerful and the industry is on the other guys’ side?
Here is a question from my class’s Quick Quiz on the Cyril and Methodius reading last week:
“True or false: The saints we read about felt that they were the helpless victims of powerful opponents.”
I explained that the day’s lesson was addressing the following goal stated in our syllabus: “Know what the ‘victim mentality’ is vs. the ‘missionary’ mentality in an environment that could be hostile to one’s goals.”
The missionary mentality has been a lot more successful, historically, than the victim mentality. And we Catholics own it.
ADDENDUM: An e-mailer sent this excellent video that makes the point well:
http://exodusfreedom.org/
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These are great suggestions. Approaching the subject with love and patient understanding is so much better than approaching it with hostility and judgment. We ought to strive to love others as God has loved us!
Good luck!
6 Ways to Say No to your Catholic Friends
1) Enunciate clearly
Sometimes, Catholics not only can’t listen to reason, they can’t listen at all. Why? Because they are often older, and can’t hear well. Make sure both the “N” and the “O” are clearly distinguishable.
2) Speak to them in their own language
Often, Catholics will not understand phrases we take for granted, like “14th Amendment” and “The Establishment Clause”. Make sure to walk them through the constitution, step by step, and actually explain what these passages mean, and why the constitution clearly states that their religious viewpoint can not be binding on people who are not Catholic without passing another constitutional amendment establishing Catholicism as a state religion, and how much as the 14th Amendment protects people against discrimination for making the choice to follow catholicism, even if being gay were a choice (which it isn’t), it would still be protected by that same amendment, making that a moot point in the first place.
3) Embrace that they are not crazy
Not all Catholics are crazy just for believing what they believe. Many of them have never been exposed to other viewpoints and cultures, and simply believe what they do for lack of knowledge about other possibilities. You see, in many places, they won’t even teach basic facts like evolution or biology because it contradicts church teaching. You can’t blame someone for not knowing what they’ve never been exposed to. Be kind, and walk them through the actual reality we live in with baby steps.
4) Remember that they have been lied to
Catholics are lied to about Gays constantly. They are told that we are child molesters (forgetting that that’s not us, that’s Priests). Or they are told we are all polygamous, even though historically that is more of a biblical trait (and the numbers really don’t add up). Or they are told that we are out to take away their religion (when really, we just don’t want their religion forced on us). They are also told being gay is a choice, even though all scientific evidence speaks to the contrary. Remember, Catholics weren’t even allowed to believe in evolution until the last 20 years, so it can take a few centuries before basic, common knowledge filters into the consciousness of the closeted priests in their ivory towers in Rome.
5) Be generous with your praise
Often times, they will take baby steps, like “Well, I still don’t think you should get married, but I do think that you deserve to live free of horrible torture at the hands of quacks who pretend to be psychologists”. One step at a time. Don’t expect full acceptance at once - but bit by bit, your message will get through, as natural human nature overtakes the unnatural Catholic urge to hate everyone who isn’t like them.
6) Don’t forget the dark side
Remember - in the past, Catholics have been responsible for reprehensible actions, like burning us at the stake, beheading us, torturing us both phsyically and psychologically, genital mutilation and castration, and any number of less egregious acts like name-calling and comparisons to people who sleep with sheep, kids, or dead people. If you give in to their argument, you too could be vulnerable to such horrible treatment. Be firm, be gentle, but be clear - you are not going back there, and there is no way in the hell they’ve conjured up that you’re going to let them take you there.
Steve, great start ... work on your follow-through.
1. Hilarious. Gave me high hopes for the rest.
2. Good. It’s a highly debatable point, but you get points for that.
3. Yikes. You know you’re in trouble when you have to make stuff up. Since when is biology and evolution against Catholic teaching?
CAREFUL: You’re getting mad, and the humor is disappearing!
4. Don’t be mad at us about the New York Times research exposing homosexual marriages! And a good point that you could make that homosexuality is NOT pedophilia is lost in a cheap shot about priests. I DARE you to look up the percentage of actual pedophilia in priests and compare it to the homosexual community.
5. Again, this starts out promising then succumbs to anger.
6. The comedy is gone and we have dark references to torture and mutilation.
This is a case in point: You aren’t likely to win converts with inchoate rage.
And it brings up another point one could make: Be funny! It helps in any argument. But in comedy, stay funny!
Aww, come on Tom. It’s only not funny because you disagree with me :-) But on a serious note, some of the history here isn’t funny. At all. I think one thing I’m really trying to point out here is that Catholics really don’t have a good history of treating gay people (or really, most non-believers) with any sort of human dignity. You can only whitewash so much.
Oh, and, as for the stats on child abuse - I’m sure they’re about dead even. Fact is, it’s a problem that cuts across the whole society and whole culture, and can’t be blamed on any one group in particular. But that doesn’t stop you from distorting facts any more than I just did. We get called child molesters by Catholics all the time (I’ve heard it in the pew, back when I was a Catholic, before your Cardinal excommunicated me for believing I should be able to get married the other day) and those who live in glass houses really shouldn’t throw stones.
Yes, there’s anger. But we have cause to be angry. And before you toss out another barb about how we’re uncivil, think about just how uncivil (downright lethal) Catholics have been to gay people over the past 2 millenia - and even the last century. You can’t kill people for such a long time and expect them to accept you with open arms just like that, especially when you’re still trying to push us back into the closet (or onto the pyre).
Oh, and where was the inchoate rage? Are you denying our shared past here? I think I stated it with as much deadpan calm as possible. You guys did commit all those acts against us. Read your own history. All the things I listed in item 6 did happen, and happened with frequency. You can’t deny that without denying the truth. Are you doing it anymore? Well, we’ll see what happens in Uganda. Sure, you’ve gotten better. That doesn’t change what has happened though, and it doesn’t mean you get away without having to account for your actions. You’ve apologized for Galileo - how about us?
Steve ... you say that Catholics don’t believe in biology or evolution, and that these things aren’t taught “many places” ... you don’t believe the New York Times research about marriages ... you have not inspired in me any confidence that you are looking at anything approaching objective historical information.
Quote from Tom: “you don’t believe the New York Times research about marriages…”
I read it. It wasn’t New York Times research. It was 556 couples in the Bay area contacted by some unknown person at San Francisco State University. The Castro neighborhood was mentioned by name. The Castro would be typical of nothing.
For example, I could go to the state of Nevada and count the Catholic men going into legalized brothels, and then interview them. What would that prove? That all Catholic men cheat?
I don’t think following Maggie Gallagher’s NOM talking point is working for you, Tom. Steve comes out ahead of you on this one.
Actually, I said that Catholics only recently were allowed to believe in evolution. When I was in CCD 20 years ago, we were definitely taught that evolution was wrong and that the creation story was the only truth. This is a fair point. As for biology, you ignore all the biological studies showing that gay men are hard wired the way they are in the womb. You ignore all the studies that show that condoms are effective at preventing the spread of HIV. You ignore all the evidence that homosexuality occurs all throughout the animal kingdom and is most certainly not unnatural but very natural. You selectively choose what you like from a science based on your religious beliefs - at most, you’re cafeteria biologists.
As for the NYT figures, they compare (almost entirely) unmarried gay couples in a small area in San Francisco to married heterosexual couples nationwide. Exactly what are we supposed to take away from this? That single guys in the city get around more than married couples around the country as a whole? No kidding. By omitting these details (which the NYT didn’t, by the way), you commit the sin of omission. For the record, my boyfriend of 6 years (and counting!) and I have been monogamous since day one. And we’re staying that way. Not that heterosexuals are all entirely monogamous anyway, but I’m sure you are. So yeah, I think you should take those figures with a grain of salt, and not rub my face in them as if they meant more than they do. And by the way, if you think we need more monogamy, then why can’t you just let us get married? That might help! You find a way to deal with divorced people getting married without your religious beliefs being trampled upon - I’m sure you could live with the fact that we get married too.
As for the historical record of oppression by the Catholic church, look no further than the Spanish Inquisition (which targeted gays). Or even your own priests - including an Irish bishop executed in 1640. Thou shalt not kill, eh? I will admit that the worst crimes come from Victorian England, but they learned to do it somewhere. The term “f*ggot” actually originates because gay men were commonly burned, as if they were bundles of sticks, by mobs of catholics across medieval Europe. France punished homosexual behavior with loss of the testicles for the first offense, loss of the penis for the second offense, and death by burning at the stake for a third offense.
In more recent history, in response to a measure in Guam to allow domestic partnerships for gays and lesbians (already quite a compromise to the religious community - one that should be constitutionally unnecessary if we actually followed the constitution), the Church wrote:
“Islamic fundamentalists clearly understand the damage that homosexual behavior inflicts on a culture. This is why they repress such behavior by death…It may be brutal at times, but any culture that is able to produce wave after wave of suicide bombers…is a culture that at least knows how to value self sacrifice.”
Or, here’s another gem just 2 years ago:
“This week the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, said the Holy See would oppose a resolution that would protect gays from being killed, just because they are gay because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.”
So please, tell me, we deserve all of this, because of 5 total verses in the Bible? Please tell me you never eat lobster or wear cotton blends. Otherwise, I question why no cardinal is standing up and saying you’re no longer a Catholic.
I think Steve is spot-on with his comments. Tom’s observations are interesting, though – as equality makes greater strides, the anti-gay crowd may want to rethink the Bad Cop approach and try the Good Cop approach. Either way, it’s condemnation. Nuts to that – I’ve got a happy life to lead.
Tom: “I DARE you to look up the percentage of actual pedophilia in priests and compare it to the homosexual community.”
Actually, how about you look it up and tell us yourself. You may not like what you find. The vast majority of men who abuse boys are either:
1. Men who are not straight or gay—not attracted to adults at all—but are attracted only to children.
2. Men who are in a heterosexual relationship with a relative of the abused boy.
Know the truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV5PbrTySxY
You’re right James. I’ll leave out the kitchen sink next time and go for the sweet talk ;-) The article was just so condescending, I wanted to mirror that and show them how they seemed to the other side with patronizing crap like that.
May I please have my boyfriend’s hand in marriage now? We’ve been together a while, all our friends are married, and he’s very sweet. I’d let you marry your fiancee - heck, I don’t even have a choice in the matter. This is America, after all. If you knew us you couldn’t say no, I guarantee it.
PEDOPHILIA, HOMOSEXUALITY AND ABUSE OF MINORS
Yes, you are right: Pedophilia is not homosexuality; it’s a different animal.
So far, only the Catholic Church has had the integrity to do a full self-study of the problem; numbers don’t exist to compare the pedophilia rate (4% of priests were accused not of pedophilia but of abusing minors – about 1 in 5 of those 4% were accused of pedophilia) among different groups.
But you know as well as I that the “gay scene” has a fondness for under-aged minors. In fact, this was the reason for the priest abuse crisis.
Harvard educated Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital hailed the John Jay report on abuse in the Catholic Church’s “bombshell” discovery that the abuse crisis wasn’t pedophilia but “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”
“I’m astonished that people throughout America are not talking about it, thinking about it, and wondering about what the mechanisms were that set this alight.”
Homosexuals, from the Village People song YMCA to Queer as Folk celebrate sex with underage guys. For years, the most popular Internet pornography term was “twink” — gay slang for an under-aged teenage guy.
This needs to give us all pause on the road to “gay marriage” land … we need to be allowed to first ask: Is it really a healthy and normal lifestyle?
ON EVOLUTION AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
In the immortal words of Wikipedia:
Pope Pius XII’s encyclical of 1950, Humani Generis, was “the first encyclical to specifically refer to evolution, and took up a neutral position, again concentrating on human evolution”:
“The Church does not forbid that…research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter.”
So, from the beginning, the Church has protected two doctrines: The will of God in Creation and the special creation of the first couple.
That’s where the matter has always stood, and where it stands today. What means God used to get them there is not part of religion’s ken.
That’s what I learned at CCD 30 years ago. Sounds like you had a bad CCD teacher.
ON CONDOMS AND AIDS
The argument of the Church, of course, isn’t that individual condoms are ineffective against AIDS (though anal sex is a condom’s toughest challenge).
It’s that condom *promotions* are ineffective.
This is self-evidently true: If you believe otherwise, then I beg you to start changing our approach to electrical lines. “Kids, have fun on electrical lines, but remember: ALWAYS wear rubber gloves! Paid for by the SAFE PLAY foundation.” You’d kill kids if you did that; once you remove the stigma to playing on electrical lines, you put lives in the hands of people not known for fussing too much about safety, especially when they’re playing. AND YOU KILL YOUNG GAY PEOPLE by ignoring the nature of what you’re dealing with and inviting them to play with poison.
If common sense isn’t enough for you, look at the data:
Edward Green is director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies reported that, between 1989 and 2001, the average number of condoms per male ages 15 to 49 in African countries skyrocketed. So did the number of those infected with HIV. South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the world’s highest levels of condom availability per man. They also had the world’s highest HIV rates.
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, asked Norman Hearst is a family physician and epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, to do a scientific review to see if condom promotions had reversed HIV/AIDS epidemics. His review found the contrary was true. Countries with the most condoms per man tended to have the highest HIV rates. UNAIDS refused to publish Hearst’s findings.
“Condom promotion in Africa has been a disaster,” Hearst said.
Again, thanks for bringing this up. The deadly nature of homosexual sex makes us want to pause before we okay “gay marriage”—which in San Francisco (the place where homosexuality is the most normalized) are open sexual arrangmenets “about half” the time.
ON THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN KINGDOMS
Many homosexuals, as Steve has, make the bizarre claim that homosexuality should be fine in humans since it’s been observed in the animal kingdom. Yikes. Are you for eating our young, too? Are you for abandoning the weak of our flock? Just how far do you want to take this imitation of the animal kingdom?
Steve also keep talking about anti-gay persecution. I don’t know the history here, I confess; but I do know that past civilizations have overreacted to lots of different people for lots of different reasons.
Often, homosexual history cites the Romans as a gay-friendly culture. Steve demands an apology for anti-gay persecution. He may be owed one; I don’t know. But should Christians demand an apology from homosexuals because their gay friendly culture threw Christians to the lions? Fair is fair, right?
By the way, Steve, the lions ate the Christians. I sincerely hope you aren’t for humans imitating that “natural” behavior, too!
BELOW, FIND A FIGHT
I’ve addressed several arguments from “Steve” about homosexuality below.
One thing that is exhausting but helpful about blogs is that it provides an open forum to air out differences. It has often been happening on the Register’s site ever since we added comments: atheists come out in droves to promote their arguments with evangelical fervor.
Now, I’m learning that homosexual arguers are just as insistent and persistent.
For the record: I find this argument invigorating. How I wish more Christians had the courage of our convictions the way these guys do! They are out, loud and proud. We’re too often headed into the closet with our beliefs. This trajectory will end with us on the losing side if we don’t engage.
Thank you, Steve … and thanks for all those who argued on the other post (http://www.ncregister.com/blog/ny_times_exposes_the_gay_marriage_myth/) about this stuff. It isn’t the most pleasant subject in the world, but it is one of the most urgent subjects in our world right now.
You’re welcome Tom. You’re quite adept with research and logic to fend off the barbarian and/or civilized invaders.
I’ll check in from time to time to see if I can help. As you know, this is time consuming, and as the dialogue escalates, with repeated info., lack of logic and forethought from the other side, it is DIFFICULT to keep the conversation on a higher level.
I admire your use of humor.
I have frequented other sites “looking for a fight,” so I’ll check your blog out now that the NCR has comments.
Methinks the fights are forthcoming…. Thank God for the Church Militant!
I am a Gay Catholic and therefore a bit of a fence sitter here. Yes an liberal Catholic, we do exist.
Tom: Steven is correct that the study you are so fond of is fatally flawed in its methodology for the reasons he stated.
He is also correct per studies at the Denver Children’s Hospital by U. of Colorado that child molesters are well over 90% the victim’s mother’s heterosexual male partner. (a note also to those who equate the phenomena with priests)
Steve: Spittle spewing mouth frothing vitriol serves no cause.
I attended parochial school 40 years ago, and I simply don’t believe your CCD experience. We were taught evolution in Science Class and nothing to contradict it in Religion.
Your accusations about the treatment of gays by the church is wildly exaggerated; may I suggest reading John Bowell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980). Yes Boswell was gay by the way.
As to the derivation of the word faggot from the wikipedia:
The word meaning “bundle of sticks” is ultimately derived, via Old French and Italian, from Latin fascis (also the origin of the word fascism).[7] The origins of the word as an offensive epithet for homosexuals are, however, rather obscure, although the word has been used in English since the late 16th century to mean “old or unpleasant woman,” and the modern use may derive from this.[8] Female terms, it should be noted, are often used with reference to homosexual or effeminate men (cf. nancy, sissy, queen). The application of the term to old women is possibly a shortening of the term “faggot-gatherer”, applied in the 19th century to people, especially older widows, who made a meagre living by gathering and selling firewood.[9] It may also derive from the sense of “something awkward to be carried” (compare the use of the word “baggage” as a pejorative term for old people in general).[7]
It is sometimes claimed that the modern slang meaning developed from the standard meaning of “faggot” as “bundle of sticks for burning,” presumably with reference to burning at the stake.[7] This is, however, unlikely to be the case,[7] and there is no tradition of burning at the stake being used as a punishment for homosexuality in Britain,[10] although supposed witches and heretics were burnt to death in many parts of Europe, and were often accused of homosexual behaviour.[11]
The Yiddish word faygele, lit. “little bird”, is also claimed by some as an explanation for the modern use of “faggot.” The similarity between the two words makes it a reasonable possibility that it might at least have had a reinforcing effect.[10]. Also supporting this thesis, “faygele” is Yiddish slang meaning “gay man” or “fairy.”
If you want to get married, this isn’t the way to get the law or culture changed. There is in the current online edition of commonweal an excellent article called Coming Home A Gay Christian Speaks to Fundamentalists by Jonathan Odell , it demonstrates how you changes minds, and cultures and laws.
Sorry for the long post by it was mainly the etymology bit, and I do love word origins. Peace to you both.
Hello Tom B,
I like your approach to blogging. No point in burning bridges, effigies, or anything/one else if you plan on dialoguing, right?
You describe yourself as a gay, liberal, bit of a fence-sitting Catholic.
Do you accept the Church as the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15) in matters of faith and morals?
I think that one can be homosexual, “liberal,” and still be a faithful Catholic. What do you think about that?
Hope you don’t mind me asking about these things.
God bless you, Mary Ann
Tom B, great to have you. Thanks, very helpful.
I must say, though , that I’m not convinced that the New York Times-reported data shouldn’t count because it’s from San Francisco.
John McKellar, who lives in Toronto, is president of Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism (HOPE). I interviewed him once about marriage and he said:
“Our lifestyle is very much about party, pageant, parade, and promiscuity. We want to have our cake and eat it, too. There was an article in the gay press last year titled, ‘How to Stay Married and Still Be a Slut.’”
What does a homosexual like McKellar (“I’ve had short-term and long-term relationships, and at present, I’m unattached”) think of “gay marriage”? “Sure, we all have baby envy, and lots of us would like to raise kids,” he says. “But we can’t have everything we want in life, and it’s selfish and rude to redefine society’s traditions and conventions simply for our self-indulgence.”
At any rate, I know there are committed monogamous homosexual couples whose relationships have much that is extremely noble and positive about them.
But I also know that it would be silly to blind ourselves to the reality in the homosexual community that’s admitted by McKellar and others, and so often paraded before us.
And, yes, I think the research counts, even if it’s from San Francisco … maybe even ESPECIALLY since it’s from San Francisco, where more than just a subculture exists.
I just added a great link to the piece. Check out the video:
http://www.exodusfreedom.org/
Calling something unnatural is different from calling something wrong. You say we are unnatural - I am countering that claim. That was all. Anything about “right” or “wrong” has little to do with “natural”, so you’re overextending yourselves a bit. No, it doesn’t necessarily mean being gay is right for humans - it just means that being gay is certainly possible in nature, and is not unnatural. Right or wrong is another discussion.
And… nope, not a child molester. Don’t know any either. Sorry, you miss the mark on that one. Twinks are just guys with little body hair. Missed that one too. Really guys, stop with that line. Considering your history with the subject, you really don’t want to be pointing fingers, and face it - we’re just not all child molesters. Not even close. It makes your argument seem childish. There are far more heterosexual child molesters. And honestly, I wouldn’t like a gay child molester either, so we’re in agreement on that one. Why not just make a law saying child molesters can’t get married? Wouldn’t that be… more direct?
I was hardly spitting vitriol. It was very calmly stated. Had I used all caps or less eloquent speech with curse words, perhaps, but I didn’t. Don’t insult your enemy by calling them or their speech things that they aren’t. Why don’t you try debating me on the issues I laid out like others have? Personally, I find a lot of the things you say so “innocently” quite offensive. Much more offensive than anything I said. Have you considered that you too may seem to be a crackpot spouting unsubstantiated BS? Like the NYT numbers that have as many holes as swiss cheese? Oh and an article from some guy in Toronto - yeah he clearly speaks for me, living nowhere near me. And I’m sure straight married girls never talk about how much they want to cheat in magazines. No that never, ever happens (Vogue, Cosmopolitan…) It works both ways, guys. You can’t just lump us all together and say we’re all some bad thing - we’re not. I’m neither promiscuous, nor a child molester, I’m an upstanding citizen who pays taxes, donates, and goes to church. Again, would you please stop preventing me from getting married now?
In the spirit of the original article, why don’t you start from the standpoint that your opponent has a reasonable argument for his beliefs, and work from there, instead of acting like you’re just better than everyone and everyone should just believe whatever you say because you’re you. I was more than happy to back my stuff up. Are you?
And YES, I read Boswell! Did you read all the parts where he showed that gay marriage was historically *supported* by the Catholic church? It’s fascinating.
I disagree with your logic, Steve.
If male homosexual sex were natural, it wouldn’t bring with it the physical (natural) problems it causes to the anatomy.
Carrying on with something that brings harm to the body isn’t right…. Therefore, it’s got to be wrong.
When we break nature’s rules, they do come back to break us.
Oh, but I’ll concede the etymology. Cute stories. I like the Yiddish one. It makes me feel better about the term, even if it still feels akin to the N-word to me. Here’s a thing for you - if you follow linguistics, what do you think about this statement from the author:
“We Catholics have a high moral language that teaches important truths with clarity and depth. But the culture doesn’t speak that language. Is their language inferior? Yes. So was Slavonic to Greek.”
Ha! There is no such thing as superior and inferior languages. Just intellects.
Tom: Good article with one exception. I think you will find that your characterization of supporters of pro-homosexual “marriage” as being “much more likely to be warm, welcoming and accepting of others than groups of Christian or Catholic believers” to be not entirely accurate. Ask anyone who has been in the trenches of the same-sex “marriage” battle and they will tell you about the vitriol coming from supporters of same-sex “marriage”. How one frames the argument is irrelevant - anyone who opposes same-sex “marriage” is automatically demonized as being hateful and bigoted. I know many Catholics who silence is more a product of fear of retribution than it is an unwillingness to deal with “those people.” Keep writing on this issue (and I hope you do) and you will find opposition responses like Steve’s to be more the rule and not the exception.
Steve, the two languages I had in mind were the philosophical and theological language of Catholics, which refers to “ends” and “means” and which understands the necessity of the “procreative” and “unitive” aspects of sex, and is able to distinguish between homosexual acts and homosexual persons.
But the culture today no longer knows that language, and if we just rattle on in it, we’ll lose our audience.
The culture today speaks a language of relativistic pragmatism, good-natured individualism, and amorality that Catholics often don’t understand.
Take the good old Aristotelian concept of “pursuit of happiness” which, to Jefferson, meant an Epicurean pursuit of the virtuous life, which would have been closely connected also to civic spiritedness. The modern culture translates it into “follow your passion” or “whatever gets you through the night.” So if you want to talk about the pursuit of happiness you need to use additional, or other, words nowadays to match what that one phrase used to capture.
Or take the word marriage—we see “procreative” and “unitive” and “for society, not just for individuals” in it. The attempt to divest it of those meanings will change it to mean something much less clear and much less deep.
“Inferior” and “superior” are nowadays looked at as personally judgmental words, but I think it’s true that the more clear and dep, the better, with language.
Steve said, “Ha! There is no such thing as superior and inferior languages. Just intellects.”
Not so, not so. Try writing something akin to “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in pidgen English. You won’t have the variance of vocabulary to begin with to allow the subtle nuances of meaning.
Oh man, you try to write a response on this board, and it refreshes and wipes out everything you say! I’ve lost quite a few great gems of thought to the friggin’ auto-refresh!!
If you are comparing languages on a literary basis, perhaps you may have some point. But as spoken languages, there are no inferiors. Pidgin English does not qualify, it does not have any native speakers and is not considered by most mainstream linguists to be classified as a language per se, but a different form of communication between groups who don’t speak a common language which can later become a language through a process known as creolization. Pidgin English very well may be undergoing that process right now, but as it does, you will find that its vocabulary will expand dramatically. As far as Slavonic goes - it certainly was not inferior to Greek as a spoken language. Expressiveness can also be quantified in tone and context. And A Midsummer Nights Dream would be difficult to translate into many languages, none of which are really inferior - poetry in general is a different ball game, and translations into other languages are extremely challenging, even between two major languages like French and English. That being said, kudos to the translators who do make it happen.
“Or take the word marriage—we see “procreative” and “unitive” and “for society, not just for individuals” in it. The attempt to divest it of those meanings will change it to mean something much less clear and much less deep.” Marriage eventually, at the end of the chain, evolves from a word meaning male or masculine. In that regard, the idea that two men would want to get married makes perfect sense. What other meanings you might “see” in the word are just your opinion - nothing more. The reality is it’s a legal contract, that existed well before the Catholic church did, which was appropriated into the Church when it merged with the state (the Roman Empire). The state before that was always responsible for marriages, not the church. Forcing the state not to offer gay people a marriage license echos that very same merger of church and state from years ago, and it does little to reflect any sort of “original” or “traditional” meaning of marriage. Remember, before there were Catholics, gay men regularly were married in the Roman Empire (see, there’s that Boswell you guys liked so much again). Sounds pretty traditional to me.
The fact that so many of you continue to miss the point of my original comment continues to amuse me.
My line of argument is really not as demeaning as you make it out to be. I think you just don’t like that I can defend my positions and point out the flaws in yours. I admit, the list of grievances was not pretty, but it wasn’t inaccurate either. I’m sorry you don’t like what Catholics have done in the past, or said recently, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’m asking you to account for that, just as you ask me to account for every tiny bad thing any gay person has ever done, just to be able to get married, as if I have done these things.
Mary Ann Wenske, read all the comments before you reply, you must have missed the earlier ones, because I already refuted your point. Plus, the way I have sex does not cause me bodily harm. I’m in perfect health. Ask my doctor. He is Catholic by the way.
I would ask you not to speak about my CCD teacher in quite so harsh terms - she was a lovely old lady who is not with us anymore. May her soul rest in peace. I’m sure in her heart she really believed evolution was wrong, and no one was going to have her teach otherwise. I’m sure many people like that are still around today. There are Catholics everywhere of all sorts, and they are not all as erudite and progressive as you might like to think you are.
You may not think we’re warm and welcoming, but you’re not so nice yourselves. I’ve been beaten up, and told I might as well be dead, by many “good Christians” while even school and even once more recently. I’ve heard all sorts of slander against me sitting in the pews, and reading this article. I had to sit there when I was 16 and let the priest tell me that I was actively seeking to molest children (being a child, that was a little strange) and was no better than the farmer who used sheep in the fields - you know, as if a consenting adult or peer as it was the case is no different from a dumb animal. You know, being called a child molester and, yes, a slut is not very nice or at all accurate, but you guys do it all the time. You’ve also told me I’m linguistically inferior to you, which isn’t very nice, especially as I was brought up in a loving Catholic family and am more than conversant in all this terminology. I’ve been called gravely depraved, immoral, and disordered, none of which are true. Again, I go to church (one where they don’t constantly tell me how evil I am but generally focus on good works for the community instead), and am monogamous and quite orderly. It’s prejudicial and unfair to make assumptions like that about someone without even knowing who they are. I think, that’s the definition of prejudice actually. Yeah, there’s a whole lot of ugly going on on your side too, and frankly, you are far more violent than we are. How canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.
I was brought up in a Catholic home, served as an altar boy for years (and didn’t have one of those bad priests), and really was quite fervent in my belief. Nothing made me gay, there was no abuse or trauma as you often claim happens, I just was gay. That’s all. I still hold most of the beliefs I held then - I just don’t believe I’m evil for being who I am. God made me who I am. This is his plan. You may not understand it, but it is not for you to understand the ways of the Lord. That it his and his alone to know. And it’s my right to disagree with you, and believe something different. What my boyfriend and I have together is a beautiful manifestation of God’s love. Personally, I believe it would serve God best if my future husband and I would actually get married and form a more stable family. You wouldn’t like it if I stood in the way of practicing your religious beliefs - why must you stand in the way of me practicing mine? Is it really for you to judge the worthiness of my religion? Of the UCCs? Of the Unitarians? Again, you manage to deal with people who are divorced getting married without halting foster care, and without claiming everyone who accepts that divorced people get remarried are not Catholics. There is hypocrisy there - you hold gays to a different standard than other members of society who disagree with you. You aren’t actively trying to destroy their marriages, you aren’t actively trying to take their children away from them, you aren’t firing them from their jobs and kicking them out of their homes. You pick a fight against us because it’s easy - you are far more numerous than we are, and always will be, since the biological mechanism of hormone and genetic interactions that causes homosexuality very consistently only expresses in about 4% of the population - not because it’s the right thing to do. If you want to save marriage, end no-fault divorce - fight the right battle, even if you don’t think you can win - not the easy one. If you really believe it’s right, then God should be on your side, right?
It’s been a great chat guys, some of you have been good sports and far more intelligent than most of the people who are actively trying to deprive me of my rights. But I think I’m done for now, it’s time for me and my future husband to spend some quality time not in front of the computer. Really, ask yourselves, does God really want me to spend my time on earth interfering in the lives of gay people, or does he want you to spend your time here loving and serving the Lord, and maybe, I don’t know, taking care of the sick, poor, and elderly? No one’s asking to get married in your church. No one’s asking for you to do anything other than respect the laws as set forth in the Constitution, guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. If you can live your lives with your Catholicism intact in a world where divorcees marry, and Catholics aren’t the only people you ever see on TV, and Catholics don’t get to write every law to suit their purposes, as you do already, surely you can get through your lives in a world where I can live my life according to my own beliefs as well. All we ask is that you stop preventing us from exercising our rights and practicing our religions. We’re not trying to pass laws banning communion wafers (even though they taste ... well, less than delightful) or wine (even though everyone drinking from one cup spreads disease very quickly), and we most certainly do not try to act as if all Catholics should be celibate or unmarried (although, presumably your offspring would continue to practice your prejudice and call people horrible names). All we ask is for the same respect. And maybe, just maybe, ditch the “scare quotes” already. It really doesn’t score anyone any points.
Oh man, I forgot and will have to retype!!!
Oh well, everthing happens for a reason…..
“gay men regularly were married in the Roman Empire”
I would just like to point out that the Roman Empire doesn’t make a good model for anyone to hold up due to its corruption and eventual collapse.
“You pick a fight against us because it’s easy - you are far more numerous than we are, and always will be, since the biological mechanism of hormone and genetic interactions that causes homosexuality very consistently only expresses in about 4% of the population”
Don’t those statistics tell you something about the unnaturalness of homosexuality? One could easily argue that homosexuals pick a fight with Catholics (and not, for example, Baptists or Muslims, as far as I’m aware) because anti-Catholicism is the last politically acceptable bigotry.
“God made me who I am. This is his plan.”
You are correct. Homosexuality is a special burden to overcome—not to embrace. God would not have made you homosexual if you were incapable of overcoming it.
“Really, ask yourselves, does God really want me to spend my time on earth interfering in the lives of gay people, or does he want you to spend your time here loving and serving the Lord, and maybe, I don’t know, taking care of the sick, poor, and elderly?”
We are called as a Church to do all of those, not just to pick the one we like the best.
Steve, All I can think about while reading your posts is how God used the Levites to kill off 3000 of His own people while they were at the foot of Mt. Sinai because they were unfaithful to Him, or His even choosing the Israelites over every other group of people to be His first born son. Does this sound fair? Your entire statement is based on what you call fairness or a lack there of. Fairness is the Devil’s language. I would like to point something out to you. God is not fair, He is just. And throwing mistreatment stories back and forth does not exonerate anyone from their sin, including you. You have a very engrained sexual sin and depravity, and if you really cared about what God thinks, you’d be struggling to overcome it right now. Instead just like Pharaoh who was so adamant and stubborn, who for which God used as an example to His people, you try to supplant your will on the people and not allow them to worship their God. If your agenda goes through and our laws are changed so that you can “marry” your male partner, it will trump our religious freedoms and we will not be permitted to worship God freely and publicly as He wishes us to do. And you know it, so stop being disingenuous about this. Also, as you remember it didn’t turn out so great for Pharaoh in the end, God will chastise you as well. I tell you these things not because I fear anything for my sake, but because I know He will do it, and you’re on the wrong side of His will. God will continue to give us as many hardships as necessary to perfect us His children and bring us toward Him, and He will use people like you to do it. What you’re practicing is spirituality, not faithfulness to God. The Egyptians were a very spiritual group of people. Problem is they made gods of everything except God, many to do with sexuality, and the last straw for God was when they would not allow His people to worship Him as He wanted them to. You need to stop focusing on the sins of God’s people (which by the way are a sinful group who did nothing to merit God’s choosing anyway), and work on getting yourself inline with Him and His will. Stop perverting God’s word to use it against His people and keep them from doing His will. Your battle is with God, not any of us. I suggest you surrender to Him, as; He always wins in the end
Steve-
You claim, “God made me who I am. This is his plan. You may not understand it, but it is not for you to understand the ways of the Lord. That it his and his alone to know. And it’s my right to disagree with you, and believe something different. What my boyfriend and I have together is a beautiful manifestation of God’s love. Personally, I believe it would serve God best if my future husband and I would actually get married and form a more stable family.”
You seem to have forgotten that God called you to chastity, NOT marriage. How you think what you and your partner do is a “manifestation of God’s love” when HIS love calls you to chastity befuddles me. You serve God best when YOU are CHASTE. You have free will – you can disagree with God – but, you can’t change His teaching. Sorry.
By the way, this MIDDLE-AGE, well-of-hearing Catholic has been well- (even ‘over-‘) exposed to a multitude of ‘crazy’ viewpoints and cultures (provided by a Big-Ten university) in the past, but has discovered in the Catholic Church that which the culture of relativism doesn’t even begin to understand – the Truth. Point out all the darkness you can in Catholicism’s past – but, it does no good, as YOU KNOW that the darkness is in direct opposition to what Catholicism teaches. (By the way, do you know why there are no scandals concerning relativists? They simply redefine what is acceptable – no principle, no scandal.)
Jennifer brings up an important point with her: “If your agenda goes through and our laws are changed so that you can “marry” your male partner, it will trump our religious freedoms and we will not be permitted to worship God freely and publicly as He wishes us to do.”
You see, the entire reason religious freedom cannot exist WITH gay ‘marriage’ laws is that gay ‘marriage’ simply does NOT spring from Natural Law. Because gay ‘marriage’ does not come from Natural Law, you will see that gay ‘marriage’ will impact EVERY right that DOES come from Natural Law, from religious freedom to freedom of speech to freedom of assembly.
Those who thump FOR gay ‘rights’ claim them based on something called EQUALITY. However, equality springs from Natural Law – we have this right from “Nature and Nature’s God.” The problem – gays deny “Nature and Nature’s God” in that they deny that “Nature and Nature’s God” has made them male OR female. The ‘gay rights’ argument tanks on that logic – you can’t claim rights based on something you deny exists!!!
Hello Steve,
Au contraire. pidgin English would “qualify” as a language, as hundreds of thousands speak it world wide.
It’s even one of three official national languages of Papua New Guinea. Why, it has several dictionaries, according to where it’s spoken. Here are a few links to the references ...... http://thslone.tripod.com/MPEB.html
http://www.june29.com/HLP/lang/pidgin.html
It even has its own Bible! Do you need a link to that??? :-}
“Sweep on you fat and greasy citizens!” As You Like It, Act II
“You go so much backward when you fight.” All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I
“I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.” Henry IV Part I
I’d say that linguistically and in a literal sense, pidgin English cannot be considered on the same level as English.
Next, Steve, I did read your earlier post. Male homosexual sex DOES make a difference in the individual’s shortened life span, increased depression and anxiety disorders, increased suicide rate, etc. There are so many studies out there, it’s amazing.
Tom has quoted a few of them.
Here’s some info from the American Journal of Public Health:
“Regarding physical health, there is increasing evidence that mortality and morbidity rates are substantially higher for those who engage in homosexual practices. For example, the risk of anal cancer soars by as much as 4,000% for men who engage in anal intercourse with other men. The host of medical consequences of those who practice anal intercourse is large, from the tearing of the rectal lining with all of its accompanying problems to the diseases associated with subsequent contact with fecal matter.
http://www.narth.com/docs/risks.html
Finally, I do not want to deprive you of any rights. You have the same rights I have- to marry someone of the opposite sex. Pushing the agenda for unnatural homosexual “marriage” would take away the rights of children to have both a mother and a father. Also, it would change the schools systems, and the way private business owners and churches operate.
We see pastors in Canada being arrested because of “hate speech” when preaching that homosexual acts are wrong. Nothing like quoting the Bible to send you to jail in some societies (Canada, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.)
In the end, you will do what you want, perhaps to your own destruction. I, along with others here, will pray that you leave that path.
Because I can’t type correctly the first time, the computer thought I was “spam.”
Anyway, I thought to login to avoid spam confusion, rediscovered my original user name, so I want to make it clear that LISEUX is Mary Ann Wenske.
I will be posting under LISEUX in the future to avoid confusion.
p.s. Yes, my screen monicker is spelled in an odd way.
I have taken a bit of spelling license with the place name we associate with St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
Let’s see, what do we have today..
I’d get off the Pidgin English thing. Yes, it has speakers. They don’t speak it natively. It’s a very different scenario.
Poor Mary Ann! I feel you.
The Roman Empire collapsed only after the Catholic Church took it over, I think about 100 years after. As for the corruption and scandal there, it was pretty equal across both heterosexuals and homosexuals, and really had nothing to do with us in particular. Gays have had large portions of their history erased or never even recorded for fear of discovery (because of all the nasty bits I already listed) for the last 2 millenia. So we have to reach back pretty far in the historical record to find anything approaching a reasonable record.
“Don’t those statistics tell you something about the unnaturalness of homosexuality?” No, in fact, they prove exactly the opposite. The number doesn’t go down, it doesn’t go up. Are you going to argue that left-handed people are unnatural because they do make up a small percentage of the population? If you see it all throughout the animal kingdom, and it also evidences itself in people at a very consistent rate, despite *massive* fluctuations in the social acceptance of it, that all points very strongly to a natural, biological phenomenon.
Homosexuality is not a burden in and of itself. You make it a burden. God never said it should be one. It is truly a gift from God that I cherish, as I cherish my heterosexual brothers and sisters and their love. God did not create us who we are so we can deny his creation. He made heterosexuals to be heterosexual, he made homosexuals to be homosexual. Denying God’s creation and denying who he made me would be the real sin. Living a lie would be a sin.
Neither God nor Jesus ever said anything about going out and trying to convert homosexuals. He did talk about loving and serving the Lord, and helping the meek and the poor. If anyone said anything about converting homosexuals, that was a man, not God.
“If your agenda goes through and our laws are changed so that you can “marry” your male partner, it will trump our religious freedoms and we will not be permitted to worship God freely and publicly as He wishes us to do. And you know it, so stop being disingenuous about this.” Again with these childish scare quotes. No, I don’t. I really don’t know where you’re getting it from. You say there’s a point A, and a point B, but you draw no line in between them - because you can’t. There isn’t one. You will be able to worship publically just fine, just as you are able to worship publically now, despite the masses of remarried divorcees all over the country. Any injury to Catholics that may result is entirely a figment of your imagination.
As to the American Journal of Public Health study, it is a study of the health risks of homosexual sex. It doesn’t mean there aren’t significant health risks along the same lines to heterosexual sex - everyone knows that sex of any kind brings with it health risks. Women are at a far greater risk for cervical cancer if they have sex, especially through the transfer of HPV. We minimize the risks by staying monogamous, using condoms, and getting regular checkups, much like most heterosexuals should minimize their risks by doing the same. The rest of the information contained at the link you gave was provided by ideologues who were interpreting that study, not the study itself, although they were kind enough to hide the truth revealed by that study in there… oh wait, here it is:
“He blames homophobia, which “inhibits prevention at all levels, not least the broader culture, which delivers anti-gay messages, institutionalizes homophobia through structural mechanisms, such as laws that regulate intimate sexual behavior, and lags in support of sensitive and honest prevention for gay and bisexual youth, young adults and older men.”
Nail, on the head.
“You seem to have forgotten that God called you to chastity, NOT marriage. ” Nope, haven’t forgotten. “Chastity is sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the ethical norms and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion” and what do you know, it is acceptable to my culture, civilization, and religion. Now, it would be better if we were married, but we are prohibited from marriage by man. I think God accepts in this instance that marriage is being denied to us, and were we able to get married, we would do so in a heartbeat. We’ve struggled with this, but the truth is, we are already married in our hearts, and no matter what barriers man puts between us and our God, God does not hold against us the actions of others.
As for the Canadian pastor, that ruling was overturned, and it should have been, I agree with you. “The judge said that while Boissoin’s remarks were “jarring, offensive, bewildering, puerile, nonsensical and insulting,” they were not hateful or extreme and that there was nothing in the letter to suggest it was exhorting Albertans to discriminate against homosexuals in areas which fall under provincial jurisdiction.” That’s how the system works - one judge made a bad call, it was appealed, and justice won out. In the end, the priest is in no less of a position today than he was before. I know there are certain lawyers out there who want to make their case, but that is not me - I just want to get married, and my faith demands it. It only has something to do with you because you choose to intervene in my life.
“You see, the entire reason religious freedom cannot exist WITH gay ‘marriage’ laws is that gay ‘marriage’ simply does NOT spring from Natural Law. ” We’ve been over this. Point A, Point B, but no line in between. There’s no dots to connect there. You won’t find them - clearly, if you could, you would have done it by now, and we’d all know the precise reason why what you said was accurate. But you can find no causal connection, no matter how much you try to say there is one. Just saying that it is so does not make it so. You have to be able to back up accusations like this with facts.
As for going after Catholics alone, that is merely your impression. I also post on Baptist boards (a lot more frequently, actually - you don’t take nearly as much convincing, you’re a far more progressive faith), Mormon boards, Muslim boards, whoever will listen. It is not bigotry to confront you with the problems in your circular logic. Until other Americans stop violating the constitution by withholding my rights, it’s what I must do to both educate you on your own histories which you have forgotten (and great that one of you noticed that being anti-gay was against the Church’s teaching, and that all those acts of violence were not God’s plan - I’m glad you’re coming around to that - it’s almost an apology…), and help show people of all faiths how they are actually harming God’s creation and plan by doing what they’re doing. I’m an equal opportunity evangelist. Although I would admit, I enjoy my time with the Catholics so much more, because I used to be one. It’s hard to be convincing with a Baptist, we really don’t have the same background. It’s a strategy that’s worked with the Episcopalians, and it’s a strategy we need to continue with other faiths, in order to protect ourselves and our good names. We can’t just pretend you’re not there - we need to engage people who follow these anti-gay faiths to help show them how their words and actions cause other good people great injury and harm, and do not serve the Lord. And need I repeat, none of this would be necessary if you would just butt out of my life and let me get married and move on.
And I keep forgetting to mention this - San Francisco is not, by any stretch, the place where homosexuality in America is most normalized. In fact, it is where it is perhaps most sensationalized. It is merely the place you are most familiar with - but gays are everywhere, in all states in countries, even down in Kansas. If you want to find the place in America where gays are most normalized and mainstream, go to Iowa.
Steve, hello Steve. I’m glad you dropped the pidgin English “thing” because you were .....wrong.
Also, any strategy that worked with Episcopalians will not work with the Catholic Church. You’re not going to see the Catholics ever ordaining women, nor will you see them ordaining men in homosexual relationships.
I would also say that the strategy has worked will with the Episcopalians, because a number are joining the Catholic Church, including one of their bishops last week. Bringing unnatural sex into their mainstream has made their sect irrelevant.
Let’s look at reality on the male homosexual sex “thing.” We can quote all the studies we like. But the reality is because of the dangers of male homosexual sex, our government does not accept the blood of an avowed male homosexual into the national blood supply. It’s been that way for quite some time now. At least the gov. gets somethings right.
If you what you say is true about the healthiness of male homosexual sex, than you could donate blood.
I will not butt out of your misguided attempts to marry. You have the same rights as I do- to marry an adult of the opposite sex who is not your brother or sister. Please
Oops, cutting and pasting never was my thing.
Please quit pushing for special rights that would upset the natural balance of the family.
Children deserve to have both a mom and a dad. Not two dads.
In the meantime, do as you wish, just don’t expect the rest of society to look upon your grouping as “marriage.”
FYI
Blood Donations from Men Who Have Sex with Other Men Questions and Answers
What is FDA’s policy on blood donations from men who have sex with other men (MSM)?
Men who have had sex with other men, at any time since 1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States) are currently deferred as blood donors. This is because MSM are, as a group, at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and certain other infections that can be transmitted by transfusion.
The policy is not unique to the United States. Many European countries have recently reexamined both the science and ethics of the lifetime MSM deferral, and have retained it (See the transcript of the “FDA Workshop on Behavior-Based Donor Deferrals in the NAT Era” for further information.). This decision is also consistent with the prevailing interpretation of the European Union Directive 2004/33/EC article 2.1 on donor deferrals.
Why doesn’t FDA allow men who have had sex with men to donate blood?
A history of male-to-male sex is associated with an increased risk for the presence of and transmission of certain infectious diseases, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. FDA’s policy is intended to protect all people who receive blood transfusions from an increased risk of exposure to potentially infected blood and blood products.
The deferral for men who have had sex with men is based on the following considerations regarding risk of HIV:
Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence (the total number of cases of a disease that are present in a population at a specific point in time) 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first time blood donors and 8000 times higher than repeat blood donors (American Red Cross). Even taking into account that 75% of HIV infected men who have sex with men already know they are HIV positive and would be unlikely to donate blood, the HIV prevalence in potential donors with history of male sex with males is 200 times higher than first time blood donors and 2000 times higher than repeat blood donors.
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/ucm108186.htm
No, I wasn’t wrong about Pidgin English. But it’s really off-topic.
The Episcopalians are not irrelevant. You want to say they are, but that doesn’t make them so. They are quite relevant. Relatively few Episcopalians are joining the Catholic faith.
That we can’t donate blood is really no point at all. It is a misguided policy. My blood is not tainted, I have the paperwork to prove it. And I find it interesting that your religion fails to provide you answers, so you turn to the government’s policies, which are more politically driven than anything else. It proves nothing except that conservatives in office make bad policy decisions that negatively impact the blood supply. Plenty of HIV still enters the blood supply despite this policy, because there are scores of heterosexuals with HIV, and that the disease is marked as having anything to do with us is merely an accident of history. Had a heterosexual person been the first known infection, which is every bit as likely to have happened, the entire story line would be different. You take a coincidence and blow it out of proportion, and in the meantime, millions of people died because of the unwillingness of our government to take any action in the 80’s. And didn’t you know, that priests are dying of AIDS at a rate about double that of the general U.S. population? Why aren’t they prohibited from donating blood? It’s politically driven, not based in science. The Red Cross has already stated quite unequivocably that the FDA’s policy is “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”
“You have the same rights as I do- to marry an adult of the opposite sex who is not your brother or sister.” - But this would be against my faith. I don’t have the right to marry my boyfriend as is required by my faith. My freedom of religion is impeded by your actions. My rights are abridged unconstitutionally.
Steve, any religion makes relativism it’s core tenet is irrelevant.
No, that you cannot donate blood and WHY you cannot speaks volumes.
Marrying a woman is against your faith? That’s a new one.
Nice try, but no cigar.
I say it’s not a religious matter at all. If it were, then the atheists would be hopping mad. At least the ones who want to marry would be. No one in this country has to pass a religous test to get married.
It’s a matter of nature, not religon. Marriage is protected by society because it naturally provides the future of society- children.
So, Steve, you are prevented by nature from being married, not religion.
Well, you choose not to respect my religion but yet I’m expected to respect yours. What a double standard that is.
That I cannot donate blood is politics, pure and simple, and has no basis in scientific fact.
http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories06/march/0317062.htm
“The American Red Cross has changed its mind on the safety of blood donated by gay and transgender people, and has asked the Food and Drug Administration to change its policies.
During the FDA’s Blood Products Advisory Committee meeting March 9 and 10, the American Red Cross said it believes “the current lifetime deferral for men who have sex with men is no longer medically and scientifically warranted,” and recommended that it be modified.
The Red Cross joined its counterparts in recommending that “rational, scientifically based” deferrals be used.
“It does not appear rational to broadly differentiate sexual transmission via male-to-male sexual activity from that via heterosexual activity on scientific grounds,” said Steven Kleinman, M.D., presenting a joint statement on behalf of the Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers.
Kleinman further recommended that the FDA should lift the ban on the donation of human cells and tissues by MSMs for the same reasons.”
Marrying a woman would contradict my nature as a gay man. It was said in Leviticus, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” I don’t lie with women, therefore, I’m not breaking this rule - in fact, in order to break this rule, I would have to sleep with women. That law refers to heterosexuals who “lie with women”. I do not, because that is not the nature god gave to me. God made me homosexual, and he expects me to conduct myself as a homosexual. Marrying a woman would contravene God’s law. That the writers of Leviticus would say what they said merely indicates that they were targeting 96% of the population, not the other 4%. Since in those times, the population was much smaller than it is today, 4% of the population would not have been very many people at all - small enough, and disperse enough, to go practically without detection. The situation today is quite different.
Let me just correct one point - in Leviticus, they’re not even targeting 96% of the population… more like 48%. Obviously they weren’t referring to women either. In light of women, the statement would clearly be that heterosexual women should not lie with women, because it is also not in their nature to lie with women. Surely you wouldn’t debate that.
No, Steve, I don’t respect a religion that promotes homosexual acts as normal.
If a Wiccan wanted to marry a cat or a goat (well, maybe not a goat) because she worshipped nature, I don’t have to respect that. It’s unnatural.
Not allowing MSM blood donors to donate is political????
Then why wasn’t Bill Clinton successful in overturning it?
Why doesn’t Barack Hussein Obama make it a national debate to bring active homosexual men’s blood into the national blood supply? Because it’s not a political question, it’s a medical question.
Also, you’re doing some real hefty mental and verbal gymnastics with Leviticus to justify homosexual sex.
1 Corinthians 6:9 says that active homosexuals won’t enter the kingdom of God. Period.
1 Timothy 1:9-10 calls active homosexuals “sinners.” Perhaps you can try to jump through more hoops to get around the meaning, but you’re fooling yourself.
The Catholic Church operates in more than just the religious realm. We also operate in the realm of natural law, because our God, nature’s God, is its author. When you meet Truth, in religion or nature, you’re meeting the all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving God.
Steve, you’re not going to change my mind, though I do enjoy the conversation.
You’re in my prayers. Have a blessed weekend.
“My freedom of religion is impeded by your actions.”
Not all religions are equal. Many, many people take a valid religion, change its tenets to suit their beliefs, and call it “my religion”. Would you really expect the government to take seriously someone who follows the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? I don’t even take Church of Darwin seriously.
You’re probably thinking—does she think that Catholicism is the best religion out there? Yes. Does she think that some religions that are recognized by the government should not be considered real religions? Yes.
“It was said in Leviticus, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” I don’t lie with women, therefore, I’m not breaking this rule…in Leviticus, they’re not even targeting 96% of the population… more like 48%.”
In the first part of that argument, you’re playing a semantics game. It’s like saying “well, I don’t lie with a cow in the same way I’d lie with a woman if I liked them, so bestiality is fine.” Or saying that “lie” actually refers to sleeping and not sex, and that this passage from Leviticus is saying that it’s immoral to go to sleep next to someone of the same gender. And you can’t throw out a portion of the Bible and say “that doesn’t apply to me”.
BTW, you say the situation today is quite different.
Human nature has not changed since then, so your point is moot.
Fine, if you want to ignore the advice of the Red Cross and the blood banks, that’s your business. I’ve made my point, and nothing you’ve said has contradicted it.
1 Corinithians doesn’t say homosexuals. If Paul wanted to refer to homosexual behavior, he would have used the word “paiderasste.” That was the standard Greek term at the time for sexual behavior between males. The term is “arsenokoitai” in Greek, which indicates male prostitutes, if it even can be translated into a modern phrase at all.
1 Timothy:
9We also know that law[a] is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.
Where exactly does it say homosexuals in there? If I were perverted, that would mean I would be sleeping with women contrary to my nature. No hoops there, just straight up doesn’t refer to me at all.
I enjoy it too. It’s good to get this out in the open. The evidence people point to in the Bible is so flimsy, but many people believe it says so much more than it does.
Oh Carmela, I missed a whole post from you. My bad.
I am not defending the church of the flying spaghetti monster. I’m defending Episcopalians. Are you saying they shouldn’t be recognized by the government? It’s very interesting. So, are all religions supposed to be qualified by the Catholic church in order to be regarded as true religions? What do you have to say about jews and muslims then? The fact is, my religion is extremely close to yours, and differs only on a few relatively minor points, including this one. That you won’t respect any religion that accepts homosexuals indicates prejudice, not thoughtfulness - a carte blanche denial doesn’t show that you’re taking the topic seriously, but instead that you’re dismissing people out of hand without considering that they might have a valid viewpoint. Why not listen to what they have to say? It might help strengthen your religion, much as the Reformation strengthened Catholicism by leading to the end of indulgences and other unholy practices. With that being said, regardless of your prejudices, I will continue to support your right to celebrate your religion, because that is what is right - Jesus commands that I respect you, so that you will show the same respect unto me.
I’m not playing any games. I’m reading the whole sentence. You read the line from leviticus as “You shall not lie with a male; it is an abomination.” But that is not what it says. It says “as with a woman”. That phrase means something - words are there for a reason - and it means that the proscription applies only to people who naturally lie with women. Since clearly somewhere along the line, you have found that these phrases should also apply to women (otherwise I don’t see where your opposition to lesbians is coming from at all, since the bible doesn’t discuss female-female sex anywhere of note), then the same way that this line applies to women (essentially, in reverse, given their nature), is the way that it applies to me. God made me homosexual by nature, and does not want me to lie with women as I lie with men. It’s quite straightforward - and as you’ve already pointed out:
““God made me who I am. This is his plan.”
You are correct.”
So you’re not denying that this is my nature. We are meant to be with other men, and straight men are meant to be with women. This is the natural order of things.
Leviticus also states ‘Do not have sex with any kind of animal. You would become unclean by doing so.’ So they are quite clear that this does not mean that people can sleep with animals. They were actually very specific, but people have ignored what they actually said.
And no, you’re right, human nature hasn’t changed one whit. The size of the population has.
<<God made me homosexual by nature, and does not want me to lie with women as I lie with men.>>
As per the APA recent statement - it is NOT KNOWN where homosexuality comes from. How have you ruled out psychological and environmental causes?
And, you are a MALE. Every single cell of your body is genetically coded “MALE. “ The entire NATURAL reason for being male is to be paired with a female. The fact that your will desires otherwise is a reflection of something not in the natural ORDER. It is a DISORDER.
Explain how Natural Law [the SOURCE of our rights in the country, rights that CAN NOT be usurped by government] gives YOU the RIGHT to marry a same-sex individual!!!!
<<God made me homosexual by nature, and does not want me to lie with women
as I lie with men.>>
As per the APA recent statement - it is NOT KNOWN where homosexuality comes
from. How have you ruled out psychological and environmental causes?
—
They haven’t made any definite conclusions, but as I’ve stated, homosexuality very consistently expresses itself in 4% of the population, despite massive shifts in environmental factors - I mean, 50 years ago, we couldn’t even be seen in the light of day, and now we’re openly accepted by major religions. Yet the percentage does not change. Not only does it occur in humans, but also in other animals, underlining the probable unlikelihood of psychological causes as well. Besides, I was a fully faithful catholic when I discovered I was gay. Are you saying Catholicism causes homosexuality? I think that’s unlikely, as there are gay muslims and jews (and buddhists, and hindus) as well.
—
And, you are a MALE. Every single cell of your body is genetically coded
“MALE. “ The entire NATURAL reason for being male is to be paired with a
female. The fact that your will desires otherwise is a reflection of
something not in the natural ORDER. It is a DISORDER.
—
You’re conflating natural with normal again. Plenty of studies have shown that there are major physiological differences between straight and gay men. Every single cell of my body is coded “GAY MALE”. You just fail to make the distinction because you don’t want to, because it doesn’t help your argument.
—
Explain how Natural Law [the SOURCE of our rights in the country, rights
that CAN NOT be usurped by government] gives YOU the RIGHT to marry a
same-sex individual!!!!
—
The source of our rights is civic law. Natural law was the basis for the Declaration of Independence - not the Constitution. But in any event, it says that by nature we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because marriage is required by my religion in order to be in a holy relationship, preventing me from getting married impugns upon my right to fulfill my religious obligations, which violates both my natural right to liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The 1st Amendment states that there is no establishment of a state religion - laws cannot be made on the basis of one religion. Also the 14th Amendment states clearly:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
This includes my right to freedom of religion, and my religion clearly states that marriage for homosexuals is not only right, but necessary. By barring the government from allowing me to marry, you are imposing your religious beliefs on the law, which violates the 1st Amendment.
>>”Every single cell of my body is coded ‘GAY MALE’”.<<
Sorry. There is ONLY MALE (XY) or FEMALE (XX).
>>”You just fail to make the distinction because you don’t want to, because it doesn’t help your argument.”<<
Sorry again. The distinct REALITY is either MALE or FEMALE. Fact. Not opinion.
>>”The source of our rights is civic law.”<<
The buzzer sounds on that one, too. Our government does NOT give us our basic rights. Our government, established by the Constitution, is to PROTECT our basic rights – and, those rights are expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Those rights are ours by virtue of Nature and Nature’s God, not by what law government writes. Those rights are NOT to be infringed upon by the government. Your ‘right’ to behave converse to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God is simply not supported.
>>”This includes my right to freedom of religion, and my religion clearly states that marriage for homosexuals is not only right, but necessary. By barring the government from allowing me to marry, you are imposing your religious beliefs on the law, which violates the 1st Amendment.”<<
What religion is that? If your religion wants to ‘marry’ you in some kind of ceremony, go for it. That’s your religion…and you are free to practice it, and I’m free to NOT practice it. No violation of 1st Amendment there at all. Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are NOT in place because of any one religion. Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are in place because the citizens of this country have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to define marriage; and, have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to organize a society.
>>Plenty of HIV still enters the blood supply despite this policy, because there are scores of heterosexuals with HIV, and that the disease is marked as having anything to do with us is merely an accident of history.<<
Not really. The reason AIDS is more prevalent in the homosexually active population is that the wall of the !@#$% is only 2 cell layers thick with not much in the way of musculature to protect the blood vessels from abuse, and not much in those 2 cell layers as far as immunological protection. Simple biology, Watson.
“Sorry. There is ONLY MALE (XY) or FEMALE (XX).”
No, there are millions of genes. You’re talking about one set of chromosome pairs. Again with the cafeteria biology. They’ve identified a set of 5 genes that fairly consistently point to homosexuality. The more of these genes you have, the more likely you are to be homosexual. They persist in the genome because just a few of these traits make for a better heterosexual partner - more caring, more protective, less pigheaded. In combination with hormonal input in the womb, the sexuality of the child is established well before birth. A similar set is believed to exist for females as well. And again, it has to be something, because miraculously homosexuality evidences itself in the same proportion of the population across a fairly significant span of time in the 20th century as these numbers were recorded, despite major changes in the other possible environmental and psychological factors from the early part of the century to the late part. We’ve got an impressive body of evidence that you can’t just deny with simple truisms and folk genetics. You’re really going to have to do better than that.
Honestly, I think the guy who wrote this article isn’t even disagreeing with the premise that homosexuality is a natural phenomonen created by God. So, you’re not even just disagreeing with me, you’re disagreeing with your fellow Catholics here. What we’re really discussing is two other issues - one that homosexuality should be suppressed, that this is a challenge from God to be overcome, which I dispute is entirely not the case; and more importantly, which we are getting to shortly, that actively trying to prevent my marriage infringes upon my rights and forces your religious beliefs upon me. So I’ve been over the nature issue several times now… could the next person please at least come up with some kind of argument?
“Sorry again. The distinct REALITY is either MALE or FEMALE. Fact. Not opinion.”
I exist. Fact, not opinion. You are ignoring reality to believe I don’t exist, you are reading my words right now. We’ve always been here, and we will always be here, unless you just start cloning heterosexuals, which I’m not sure would even work, and I’m almost positive goes against your beliefs anyway (it certainly goes against mine).
“What religion is that?”
The UCC, Episcopalians, Unitarian Universalists, the list is growing. And as much as they may lose a few followers over it, they gain followers from my community, and will gain many more as trust builds. Christ has a lot to offer all of us, and heterosexuals have no monopoly on his message. These are real religions which have existed for many years, that have made a choice in good conscience. While you all rail against anti-Catholic bigotry, you might consider that your own disavowal of the real and passionate views of these churches is really nothing but the same kind of bigotry.
“If your religion wants to ‘marry’ you in some kind of ceremony, go for it. That’s your religion…and you are free to practice it, and I’m free to NOT practice it. No violation of 1st Amendment there at all.” You got some of this right, but I’m not free to practice it, as I am not free to marry a man, which my religion tells me I should if I intend to be in a relationship. That is a direct result of your actions and the actions of people like you. At most I can have a committment ceremony, which I find to be an offensive substitute that denies the reality that our relationship is every bit as valid as that of a heterosexual, as it has been chosen for me by God. No one is saying you have to go out and marry a woman - you got that part right - but you are saying I have to marry a man. You are forcing your beliefs on me.
“Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are NOT in place because of any one religion.” No, but as I’ve said, I work with baptists and mormons and other religions as well. You are part of the contingent that prevents marriage for gays and lesbians, and if you’re not going to own that, then what are you doing in this debate at all? There is no massive national conference of athiests blocking marriage for gays. There are several national Catholic conferences working towards this end. You should at least admit that you are doing what you are doing - not to do so, would be bearing false witness.
“Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are in place because the citizens of this country have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to define marriage; and, have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to organize a society.” Right. And I’m working to convince them that they are wrong, and in addition to that, that they are creating laws which are unconstitutional. Just because the majority believes something doesn’t make it right. Catholics know this better than anyone - you still rail against abortion, but the majority of the country doesn’t agree with you. And you’re even making headway on that. Minds can be changed, and they are being changed. One step at a time.
According to the Supreme Court in 1967, “Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.” The Roman Catholic Church supported this ruling. Now, if denying this fundamental freedom on the basis of racial classifications was not appropriate, denying it on the basis of sexual classifications is no better. We are born gay every bit as much as we are born black or white. Their struggle is theirs - I wouldn’t want to appropriate their struggle and say it is the same as mine. But the same logic does apply.
Even more importantly, others are working to strike down these laws at the constitutional level, which is what really should happen, because as much as Americans want to make laws against us, those laws are not constitutional. Regardless of who’s saying it, barring us from the fundamental right of marriage without due process (and, thanks to the 1st Amendment, religious condemnations do not count as due process), violates the 14th Amendment anyway.
But in the meantime, until the Supreme Court manages to make their way to this case, we must work to find that common ground with you. And I will continue to do so no matter how many words you shout in all caps at me in a thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that you have nothing with which to back up your argument.
“The reason AIDS is more prevalent in the homosexually active population is that the wall of the !@#$% is only 2 cell layers thick with not much in the way of musculature to protect the blood vessels from abuse, and not much in those 2 cell layers as far as immunological protection. Simple biology, Watson.”
Oh it’s simple, I’ll give you that. My house is made of straw, and your house is made of sticks - the hurricane’s going to blow away both our houses, mine just might go a few seconds sooner. AIDS is still prevalent in the heterosexual community. Protected sex (with a condom) between gay men is still far less risky than unprotected heterosexual sex (which you would advocate) is for women. You’re not wrong, you just read into that far more than really matters. Bottom line, we can all get HIV from one act of unprotected sex, and it really doesn’t matter in the end whether it was anal or vaginal - we may be more at risk, but you’re still very much at risk. And you should be careful, I certainly hope you are. Your bezonga’s extra padding will only help you so much.
We’re not to blame for the existence of the disease. It could just as easily have been first noticed in heterosexuals. Heterosexual sex is still very risky, with the same possible outcomes. And there are other diseases, like syphillis, which are also prevalant among heterosexuals. While condoms are a good starting point, the best protection for everyone is really monogamy - this is your position, and mine. I don’t have AIDS because I am monogamous. Why not do something positive for our community? Why not bring your values of monogamy and fidelity to the table? You choose to abandon us, you choose to offer no practical or moral fulfillment in life, you pass judgement. Encourage us get married and lead chaste lives. Why not want for us everything that you want for everyone else? We haven’t done anything not to deserve it.
>>”Why not do something positive for our community? Why not bring your values of monogamy and fidelity to the table? You choose to abandon us, you choose to offer no practical or moral fulfillment in life, you pass judgement. Encourage us get married and lead chaste lives. Why not want for us everything that you want for everyone else? We haven’t done anything not to deserve it.”<<
Jesus gave you a most positive message that you choose to ignore. Expect charity from your neighbor, however, live chastely. That is the true way to happiness. How much more positive do you want?
No one is keeping you from practicing chastity, monogamy OR fidelity. You are responsible for your behavior.
Your moral fulfillment in life is up to you. I am not in charge of your will.
I for one will encourage you to chastity, NOT marriage.
I do want for you everything I want for everyone else – to be with God in heaven. However, I cannot accept God FOR you. I can pray for you. I can speak the truth to you. However, the decision of will is YOURS and yours alone. If you choose not to accept God’s will for you, you most definitely accept the consequences.
Here’s the beauty of following God’s plan for us: Your “Heterosexual sex is still very risky, with the same possible outcomes,” tanks when you forget that remaining chaste before marriage and then marrying someone who has lived likewise means that you NEVER have to bother with condoms. You NEVER have to worry about disease. You can love freely and without worry. It really is a divine plan.
>>According to the Supreme Court in 1967, “Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival”<<
Seems to me that they realize that this ‘basic civil right’ is tied to procreation.
>>To my, “Sorry. There is ONLY MALE (XY) or FEMALE (XX),” comes the response, “No, there are millions of genes. You’re talking about one set of chromosome pairs. Again with the cafeteria biology. “<<
No cafeteria biology here. The sex of an individual is determined when a sperm from the male joins with the egg from the female. The fertilized egg, the new individual is either male or female – either the sperm carried a Y gene (to make a male) or an X gene (to make a female). Your sex is determined by which set you carry, the XY pair or the XX pair. As far as millions of genes – nope, just a little old X or a little old Y determines your sex. Hormones cannot change these genes.
>>”We are born gay every bit as much as we are born black or white. Their struggle is theirs - I wouldn’t want to appropriate their struggle and say it is the same as mine. But the same logic does apply.”<<
The same logic does NOT apply. Humans are born male OR female.
“I for one will encourage you to chastity, NOT marriage.”
Once again:
“Chastity is sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the ethical norms and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion. ... In Catholic morality, chastity is placed opposite the deadly sin of lust, and is classified as one of seven virtues. The moderation of sexual desires is required to be virtuous. Reason, will and desire can harmoniously work together to do what is good.”
We are debating the very definition of chastity here. Chastity and celibacy are not the same thing. My relationship with my boyfriend is not about lust, but about love. It’s not like we just sit around having sex all the time. There is a great deal more to our relationship than that. Sex is only one small part. One can lead a chaste life by being in a monogamous marriage with the person that they love and want to spend the rest of their lives with. Otherwise I think you mean to argue that all people who have sex are not chaste, which surely is not your position, since you do want the heterosexuals to procreate, right? You’re right, no one is keeping me from practicing monogamy or fidelity. But you’re making it a lot harder. And you are preventing me from getting married, which makes it difficult to lead a chaste life, because I cannot fulfill my religion’s requirement that we show our love in the context of marriage - and my church actively fights for our ability to get married so that we can live up to these obligations. In the meantime, our clear intent to be married will have to suffice. You are standing between me and my God. Let me tell you, I highly doubt God is happy about that. I’m doing everything I can, right here, right now, to change that. I have already accepted God into my life. I have already made that decision. I am already leading the life God wants me to lead. You fail to recognize that. Also, again by preventing gay people from getting married, you are minimizing the message of monogamy and fidelity which you preach so strongly to our heterosexual brothers and sisters. So you are actually doing harm to your message by preventing marriages between loving, committed couples, and encouraging gay men and lesbians not to lead chaste lives. It would be far more Christ-like to come into our community, recognizing that our plight is no different from that of heterosexuals, and preach the good word and how it can make our lives better, and keep us safer through monogamy and fidelity. A message of celibacy for all is not practical - and your best Catholic scholars have already come to this conclusion, which is why the Church sanctions marriage in the first place.
“Remaining chaste before marriage and then marrying someone who has lived likewise means that you NEVER have to bother with condoms. You NEVER have to worry about disease”
One hundred percent in agreement with you. Alright! We agree on something! See? This is progress. I was saying just as much before. I never do use condoms - I don’t have to, because I am monogamous.
“Seems to me that they realize that this ‘basic civil right’ is tied to procreation.” Related? Yes. Tied? No. Straight people would have no problem procreating without marriage. In fact, it would probably be a procreational frenzy of epic proportions… the population would explode with fatherless children. Marriage ensures the stability of the family, not the actual act of procreation. Believe me, straight people would have sex regardless. Denying gay people marriage means that their children (which they do have - 31% of gay couples vs 45% of heterosexual couples - not quite as many, but still quite a few) are forced into less stable households, where they may be denied services such as health care, and more dangerously, could wind up wards of the state when one partner dies, despite the fact that there is a surviving partner who could still provide the child with a loving home. You negatively impact real children’s lives by preventing marriage.
“No cafeteria biology here. The sex of an individual is determined when a sperm from the male joins with the egg from the female. The fertilized egg, the new individual is either male or female – either the sperm carried a Y gene (to make a male) or an X gene (to make a female). Your sex is determined by which set you carry, the XY pair or the XX pair. As far as millions of genes – nope, just a little old X or a little old Y determines your sex. Hormones cannot change these genes.”
No one’s disagreeing with this. What I’m saying is, you’re missing a whole other dimension to this, which is sexual orientation, which can be affected by ones genes and also hormones in the womb, and is not connected per se to the sex chromosomes which determine biological gender. One can say that ones genes makes one male or female, and say that ones genes makes one straight or gay - these two concepts are not at all mutually exclusive. Denying that ones’ genes can impact anything beyond their genitalia is cafeteria biology - you’re ignoring that ones genes can make for a far greater variety of differences than just that.
“>>”We are born gay every bit as much as we are born black or white. Their struggle is theirs - I wouldn’t want to appropriate their struggle and say it is the same as mine. But the same logic does apply.”<<
The same logic does NOT apply. Humans are born male OR female.”
Point A, Point B, no line in-between. How does the fact that we’re born male or female preclude the fact that we are born gay or straight?
How was church today? It is a lovely day, isn’t it? We had a great time.
Mary Ann, The difference between the conservative & liberal wings of the Church can be wider at times than those between denominations. You call us cafeteria Catholics, we accuse you of creeping infalliblism. I just deleted a couple of paragraphs here I was giving along explanation of how authoritative teachings can and do change etc., but maybe we should cut to the quick. Homosexual acts. First I accept as central to the faith the introduction of new souls into the world is of utmost sacredness, and that the reproductive act of a couple desiring children should be enshrined in sacrament. I foresee no gay Holy Matrimony. But surrounding this heartwood of the faith, are a swarm of issues we can and do debate, contraception, gay sex etc. As a Catholic I do respect the Authority of the Church but understand the limits of infallablity, and the development of doctrine. On commented in a similar thread in that other NCR online, that I understand all of us humans to be “objectively disordered”, and hence in need of grace. In the end I will stand alone before God and will answer Him alone about my life. Of course, if he is as stern as you all, then I’ll throw myself on the mercy of the court (it has a reputation for mercy they say) and hope for nothing worse than some extra Purgatory. In the mean time I am not a “slut” when the feelings of others are at stack, and I am not careless with their health. Finally the gulf between us can’t be crossed with a few words, but I calibrate the diversity of our Universal Church, over these kinds of differences the Protestants with form new denominations in a heart beat. We are bound together by sacrament a shared faith that the Spirit continues to guide the ancient barque of peter. God bless you too.
To Tom H, sometimes the people who claim to speak for the gay community make me want to scream, they are a very unrepresentative lot, sadly main stream gays have no time to form such groups to speak on behalf of gays (and not enough hubris to boot). Btw, going back a comment or two, judging gay life by Queer as Folk, is like judging straights by Desperate Housewives. Okay enough of that. take care.
Debating the definition of chastity – here are some appropriate CCC sections. I propose that the CCC does a better job of explaining Catholic morality than Steve does. Catholic philosopher and author, Peter Kreeft, in his ‘Catholic Christianity’ pares it down quite well: “It [chastity] means purity: pure sex, unadulterated sex, right sex, not crooked sex.” You see, homosexuals are called to chastity – yes, chastity is not abstinence – but chastity is definitely NOT homosexual acts!
>2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
>Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.“141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. [140 Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; ? 1 Cor 6:10; ? 1 Tim 1:10.]
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
“The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”
I am homosexual. God made me so. The only relationship that can be integral to my body and biology is a homosexual relationship. Our only argument here is really over the words “man and a woman”, which really don’t follow from anything else in this paragraph. Peter Kreeft almost got it right, and just overlooked really one possibility there at the end. Thankfully, Peter Kreeft is not God, nor is he the Catholic Church. We can forgive him his oversights - he didn’t know. But these oversights really ought to be addressed.
“Its [Homosexuality’s] psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. ” This makes the probably incorrect assumption that it has a psychological genesis. By ignoring the strong probability that it does not have a psychological genesis, he makes other assumptions which are equally untrue, like this one: ” They are contrary to the natural law”. Not so. Homosexuality occurs all throughout nature, much as heterosexuality does, in all sorts of animals where psychology is hardly a factor.
“tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.“” Nope - someone above mentioned the Boswell book. Very good read. Always is a tricky word. Catholic tradition has definitely not always declared this - this declaration came later, in the 12th century. Not that that stopped Catholics from persecuting homosexuals earlier than that - just, they did it in contradiction to their faith, as someone else also already mentioned.
“They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.” Somehow we find a way. The sexual act confirms and deepens the love that we share. The love that we share can be the foundation for a loving home in which children can be and are brought up in the Church. Has it ever occured to you that perhaps, God made homosexuals as spares? There are plenty of perfectly natural reasons (not to mention horrible accidents) where a heterosexual couple either dies or is no longer capable of taking care of their children. Perhaps God, in his infinite wisdom, put us here, as people unlikely to have children purely through sexual means, so that we can pick up the slack. Lord knows, most heterosexuals really don’t have the means to take in more children. He knows that even if everyone is following Him to the tee, bad things can happen, and people can die. By adding more people into the population whose sole procreative purpose could very well be to take care of the children of fallen heterosexuals, He helps ensure that all his children can be taken care of. Studies have already shown that it’s not the gender of the parents - but rather, how many parents there are. He wants homosexuals to live as couples so that we can provide a loving, two-parent home for those who otherwise would not have one. If God were to call us to provide for the children of our relatives or our friends, we would be ideally situated to do so.
“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”
Really, I find nothing to disagree with in this passage. We are called to chastity, and we can and do practice it without necessarily being celebite.
Now, if you really believe this, then how can you agree with your reading of 1 Corinthians 6:9? Catholics on this board say that 1 Corinthians 6:9 states that homosexuals cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, but now you’re saying that homosexuals *can* approach Christian perfection, provided they are celebite. You’re contradicting yourselves.
I think it’s fair to argue that Peter Kreeft is neither infallible, nor the ultimate and permanent authority on morality. He got it right for most people - and he’s not far off for homosexuals either - but by incorrectly assuming that homosexuality is purely psychological and unnatural, and incorrectly assuming that tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, he introduced some pretty major flaws into his analysis.
This is a very interesting argument to have… but I’m still waiting for someone to give me one good reason why it is necessary or even constitutional to force your beliefs about marriage on me when I’m not actually a member of your religion, or how in any way allowing my marriage would impede the marriages of heterosexuals, nor how your beliefs would in any way be threatened by us exercising our beliefs, nor how it would threaten any children, or any of the other consequences you claim that there are.
“They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.”
Wait, I’ve got more goods on this.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops would seem to indicate that contraception, which would also close the sexual act to the gift of life, does not necessarily violate the fundamental tenets of Catholicism:
“Since they are not denying any point of divine and Catholic faith nor rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, these Catholics should not be considered nor consider themselves cut off from the body of the faithful.”
So while it would appear to be your preference that sexual acts be “open” to the gift of life, it does not appear to be any kind of absolute requirement, at least to this group of bishops.
In 1963, there was a papal commission on contraception. Though a large majority of the commission (30 of the 35 lay members, 15 of the 19 theologians and 9 of the 12 bishops) voted to recommend that the ban on contraception be changed, the Vatican did not want to acknowledge that the hierarchy could be wrong on such a central teaching. It had nothing to do with the “closing the sexual act to the gift of life” argument - they just kept the policy because they didn’t believe they were able to change it. The fact that the “closing the sexual act to the gift of life” argument never even came up just goes to show that this domga was solely manufactured to oppress homosexuals, and was never meant to apply to anyone else. According to the CDC, 97% of American Catholic women over age 18 have used a banned form of contraception, which is the same percentage as the general population. You see, most Catholics didn’t give one whit about “closing the sexual act to the gift of life” unless of course it has to do with homosexuals. Again, you contradict yourselves.
Steve, God didn’t make you a homosexual. Man’s fallen free will and our fallen nature did because our forefathers CHOSE to sin.
God gives us what we choose. Our forefathers chose poorly; thus, we all suffer, in various ways.
You have the ability to choose life now.
Dueteronomy 30:15 says, “I have put before you, O man, life and death. Choose life.”
The homosexual lifestyle is one of death, as repeated posters have demonstrated here.
I don’t say this out of malice, but out of compassion for a fellow Christian.
I’m sorry, how can you be so sure of what God has done and has not done? Are you God? And if not God, then who? It wasn’t of my choosing. While a fully faithful Catholic (an altar boy, no less!), I went through puberty and it was discovered that I was most definitely homosexual - I mean, there’s just no doubt about it. It would appear that God made you heterosexual, for sure. God makes all of us who we are. If you believe God created our biology, then it follows that God made me gay. And he doesn’t make mistakes. There was never any choice, and countless researchers bring out proof every year which continues to prove that homosexuality is an entirely natural phenomenon. Proving this absolutely is probably impossible - just as it’s impossible to prove that we aren’t all space aliens from the planet Zabo or whatever the scientologists believe. So I question how much more proof you are going to require? There certainly isn’t any more proof piling up on your side of the argument.
Repeated posters haven’t demonstrated anything about how my homosexuality leads to death. They’ve demonstrated that promiscuity leads to death, yes, but I’m not promiscuous. You say there’s a “homosexual lifestyle” but in fact there are many homosexual lifestyles, and they are not all the same and do not all carry the same risks. We’ve demonstrated together that monogamy, for heterosexuals and homosexuals, is the best path. We’ve also demonstrated together (with quotes from one of the opposing side’s links) that the Catholic attitude towards homosexuals is very damaging to us, and encourages suicide along with promiscuity, which you seem to have no interest in stopping - the lifestyle of death would appear to be yours.
The best way you could show me compassion would be to stop voting to prevent my marriage, so that we can continue our journey together in God in fulfillment of his teaching, and we can just each leave each other in peace. God bless you, and I pray that God helps you find a way to better show the compassion you want to show.
Steve, no I am not God, but I am one of his creatures.
Sadly, Adam and Eve threw away our exalted heritage when they sinned. I don’t live in the Garden of Eden, and I bet you don’t either. I get sick; my physique is not perfect; I had pains in child birth, and one day I will die.
God has allowed us to continue in our fallen nature- you and me.
But to say that he created it is untrue.
I do show you compassion and pray for you and your partner.
The best way I can do it is to communicate the truth.
God bless,
Mary Ann
“But to say that he created it is untrue.”
Says you. I don’t really know where you get off being the arbiter of truth.
Again, if he didn’t create it, then who? It’s been around far longer than I have. It wasn’t me? And I had never even heard of gayness before I realized that I was gay, so… I’m not sure where you think I got it from exactly. Spontaneous homosexuality seems a bit far fetched.
Steve, you have a good mind, let in the light and the truth.
I ain’t the arbiter of truth, but I do follow Him.
God no more made you a homosexual than he gave me pain in childbirth, gave me these narrow hips, or designed that I should die a physical death.
Your homosexual nature comes from the original choice of Adam and Eve. God allows, it yes.
Do you live in the Garden of Eden, Steve?
I believe you do not.
That means you have a fallen nature. So do I. Let’s support each other in our fallen humanity.
>>>In 1963, there was a papal commission on contraception. Though a large majority of the commission (30 of the 35 lay members, 15 of the 19 theologians and 9 of the 12 bishops) voted to recommend that the ban on contraception be changed, the Vatican did not want to acknowledge that the hierarchy could be wrong on such a central teaching. It had nothing to do with the “closing the sexual act to the gift of life” argument - they just kept the policy because they didn’t believe they were able to change it. <<<
Were you there? Do you realize Catholicism IS NOT a democracy? Pope Paul VI weighed the information from the commission, yet he understood more. Have you read Humanae Vitae? Do you realize Pope Paul VI’s predictions of how contraception would change our culture have all come true. Prohpetic is the word most use when discussing this document. So what if some Catholics don’t get it? What might that prove? As GK Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
Earlier I pointed out: Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are in place because the citizens of this country have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to define marriage; and, have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to organize a society.
This is not “might making right.” It is reasonable and rational people deciding such a determination is reasonable and rational. The fact that the majority think this definition is more reasonable and rational than your definition shows that maybe YOUR definition isn’t as reasonable or rational as you believe it to be.
I agree we both have a fallen nature. I’d very much appreciate your support… that’s what I’m asking for. And I’ll support you if those nasty lawyers ever come after you… we aren’t all behind them.
Yes, believe me, I know Catholicism is not a democracy. No, I’ll be honest, I have not read Humanae Vitae. I’m sure you have. I’m not all knowing here, I’m just a good fact checker. Obviously if anything is going to change in your faith, it’s going to come from the top down. All I really aim to do is convince you to stop taking away my marriage and imposing your beliefs on me. It’s you that question my faith, not the other way around, otherwise I would be married, right now. Until the supreme court enforces the law, the government has told me that I have to somehow convince you (all of you) for my rights, for my faith, for my dignity. And I find I have a growing body of evidence to share, and God on my side. Faith is not blind. I ask you to consider whether your God has asked you to do what you are doing, or if perhaps you are overstepping your bounds. If as an American you believe in your freedom of religion, how can you expect me to accept that my marriage is taken away by others because it conflicts with their beliefs? No one is infringing on your beliefs in this way.
The fact that majority doesn’t agree me with doesn’t mean that they’re right, and you know that because you disagree as Catholics with the majority on many things - including obviously contraception. It means you are working very hard to keep them from seeing the truth for themselves. And the majority is rapidly turning to our viewpoint - 20 years ago, no one would have fathomed gay marriage would ever happen - and yet, here we are, with 4 states and DC, and more than a handful of countries around the world. We may stall out now and again, but we don’t lose ground. I’m trying to show you why they are coming to agree with me.
>>>” I’m still waiting for someone to give me one good reason why it is necessary or even constitutional to force your beliefs about marriage on me when I’m not actually a member of your religion.”<<
Steve, I’m still waiting for YOU to give me one good reason why it is constitutional for YOU to force YOUR beliefs about gay ‘marriage’ on me when I’m not actually a member of YOUR religion.
>>If as an American you believe in your freedom of religion, how can you expect me to accept that my marriage is taken away by others because it conflicts with their beliefs? No one is infringing on your beliefs in this way.<<
Of course you are. You are asking me to accept your beliefs over my beliefs.
I’m not the one currently forcing my beliefs. I’m not telling the government they have to make you believe marriage for gays and lesbians is permitted. You are telling the government not to allow me to get married. I’m not asking you to accept my beliefs, I’m asking you to accept that it is in both our bests interests for you to ensure that the government respects all our beliefs equally. Otherwise, anti-Catholic bigotry really could cause problems for you. Just wait until there’s the anti-Catholic prop 8. First they came for us, then they’ll come for the mormons, then they’ll come for you, and pretty soon none of us will have any right to practice any of our faiths.
I already did. Barring the government from recognizing my marriage violates my religious beliefs by having the government treat your religion more favorably than mine, which violates the establishment clause, the 1st amendment, and the 14th amendment, which I have already laid out for you and not heard anything back on which stands up to reason.
Steve, why are you trying to force your beliefs, and, lifestyle acceptance on us?
By CHANGING the laws of the land, you are forcing your rule down our throats.
It has little to do with religion. Two homosexual atheists could not get married either.
It has to do with nature.
“The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”CCC 2337
>>>I am homosexual. God made me so. The only relationship that can be integral to my body and biology is a homosexual relationship. Our only argument here is really over the words “man and a woman”, which really don’t follow from anything else in this paragraph. Peter Kreeft almost got it right, and just overlooked really one possibility there at the end.<<<
And, there is the distinct possibility that Peter Kreeft that got it 100 percent spot on and YOU are the one that ALMOST has it right.
More from Peter Kreeft, this time from his book ‘The Philosophy of Jesus’: “…the most radical fruit of the Sexual Revolution is ignorance: ignorance of the most basic truth of all about sex, about its basic significance, that is, what it most basically means, or signifies, “what it’s all about.” Sex is about babies. Sex is the origin of new human life. That’s why it’s so ecstatic! Sex is for procreation, the closest approximation we can ever come to the divine ecstasy of creation. And that is what the Sexual Revolution forgets, denies, covers up, or forbids.
Contraception separates sex from babies. That is like separating food from nutrition, or eyes from seeing, or ice makers from ice, or churches from saints.” (p.134-5)
You see, this is much like you separating your basic nature (you are a male after all) from what it means. You insist that God made you ‘gay’ and gave you an attraction to those of the same sex. However, you seem to forget that HE made you male. He designed you for procreation. True, he outfitted you with a certain temperament that to you seems to not fit with your ‘mechanics’; however, he DID make you male, which would seem that is what He expects you to be.
[An aside –http://www.peterkreeft.com/home.htm – many articles and audio available.]
>>>“ Barring the government from recognizing my marriage violates my religious beliefs by having the government treat your religion more favorably than mine, which violates the establishment clause, the 1st amendment, and the 14th amendment, which I have already laid out for you and not heard anything back on which stands up to reason.”<<<
As I wrote before, the laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are NOT in place because of any one religion. Laws defining marriage as “one man and one woman” are in place because the citizens of this country have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to define marriage; and, have determined this to be the most rational and reasonable way to organize a society. Also, these laws ARE applied equally to all. There is no conflict with the 14th Amendment.
Laws by their very nature will encase one view/belief over another. Hopefully the most rational and reasonable view/belief will be the one encased in the law.
You have NOT laid out why it is that YOUR definition of marriage offers anything more reasonable for the common good than the current definition. [Definitions by their very nature also are limiting – a word describes something specific. Be careful in penning your new definition, as it needs to be specific enough to actually mean something.]
[Another aside: Laws applied equally can have different effects. For instance, the rules governing Drivers’ Licenses generally have a sight requirement. The rules are applied equally to all, but if your sight is not up to regs, you will not be able to get a license. This JUST discrimination can be made because sight is integral to the action of driving – for the common good drivers need to be sighted. Same with marriage. It can JUSTLY be limited to ‘male-female’ because sex and procreation are integral parts of marriage – for the common good future citizens need to be created and those families created need to be stable. ]
I have a question for Steve, if “marriage” is approved nation wide for homosexuals, are you going to force Catholics to “marry” you in our churches? Are you going to force us to hand over children per via adoptions from catholic agencies? Are you going to tell us what to preach in our Churches (ie that homosexuality is acceptable and normal) as it is happening in Canada and other countries where homosexual marriage is legal and is “protected” by hate speech laws?
Steve-I found some answers for your questions in an article right here on this web-site. The article is called: Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ and the Persecution of Civil Society, and it is written by JENNIFER ROBACK MORSE [http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/15099]. I will cut and paste a relevant section below; however, the entire article would probably interest you as it is quite a reasonable argument.
>>“If same-sex couples can marry each other, they should be allowed to adopt. Anyone who says otherwise is acting against the policy of the state. If same-sex couples can have civil unions, then denying them the use of any facility they want for their ceremony amounts to unlawful discrimination. When the state says that same sex couples are equivalent to opposite-sex couples, school curriculum will inevitably have to support this claim.
Marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government. The duty of caring for those children exists even without a government or any political order.
Marriage protects children as well as the interests of each parent in their common project of raising those children.
Because marriage is an organic part of civil society, it is robust enough to sustain itself, with minimal assistance from the state.
By contrast, same-sex “marriage” is completely a creation of the state.
Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple.
The state must create parentage for the same-sex couple. For the opposite-sex couple, the state merely recognizes parentage.
In her essay in The Meaning of Marriage, Seana Sugrue argues that the state must coddle and protect same-sex “marriage” in ways that opposite-sex marriage does not require.
Precisely because same-sex unions are not the same as opposite-sex marriage, the state must intervene to make people believe (or at least make them act as if they believe) that the two types of unions are equivalent.”<<
Steve, you are intellectually dishonest and on this website behaving like a bully with your exhaustive posts, and the unfortunate consequences of your actions will cause many to sin and be stuck in the same mind loop as you. You really are a great example of enslavement to sin. And while your arguments may seem well laid out because you are very smart intellectually speaking, they fall apart under scrutiny and don’t fit into God’s big picture as a whole with that which is already known to be true, and your lack of the gifts of wisdom and discernment become very apparent. Obviously we won’t be able to convince you of your sin through any intellectual exercises. You’re too stuck. You can only be helped through fasting and prayer. Oh look at that, it’s Lent! Looks like the timing is just right! I offer up today in fasting and abstinence for you, Steve. (Which will be hard because I really like the lunch I brought to work today.) Who’s with me!?! Let’s all give a day this Lent for Steve!
Cheryl- thanks for the post from Mrs. Roback Morse. Some call her Dr. J.
She’s a great resource for those interested in the truth about homosexuality and society. She is the founder of the Ruth Institute, which is a powerful force fighting for the culture of life here in America.
She has her own website for those who are interested:
http://www.ruthinstitute.org/
Jennifer O.
I’ll be giving up one day this Lent in prayer and fasting for those with homosexual tendencies and the temptation to act on them, including Steve. Thanks for rallying the spiritual troops.
Another person to watch is Dr. Miriam Grossman. She has a new book that offers the truth about many of the current sexual fads threatening our culture - You’re teaching my child what? : a physician exposes the lies of sex education and how they harm your child. She also has a website: http://www.miriamgrossmanmd.com/
I like the way she addresses herself – “One hundred percent MD, zero percent PC.”
( I do not know her religious affiliation, but I have heard her on Catholic Radio and nothing anti-Catholic jumped out.)
[Oh my - the code to enter is “hell81”?!?!?]
I bookmarked her! Thanks, Cheryl.
Wow. Quite a conversation!
First off, Mr. Hoopes, I’m a new reader to your blog column. I love your particular blend of clarity, charity, and gentle humor.
As a former young male Catholic employee who was sexually harassed by my pastor (and have subsequently begun to lose my faith), I admit that I will not be able to deflect any accusations of bias, ‘tis true, but at least I think I can keep away from the religious mudslinging and posturing that’s going on above.
I just wanted to make a couple points which no one will ever read. :)
First, note how Steve (and all gay activists, for that matter) use rhetoric to their advantage. When the Catholic debaters above relied on arguments regarding natural law and Catholic teaching (the very foundation of this website), Steve invariably countered by using personal pronouns of “my religion”, “my life”, “my experience”, etc. By positing the argument in this manner, he intimates that those of us who have never been gay, who have never had homosexual experiences, who are not him, are thus unqualified to speak to his situation in life.
This is a linguistic trick as old as the hills. The instinctive way to counter-argue it is to go personal on the other side, to say “But you don’t know what it’s like to be attracted to a woman”, or worse, “But you’re wrong”. These arguments are immediately unproductive, and can be used as ammunition on the other side: “But you didn’t even listen to me! See, you don’t care about me.” Me, me, me.
Be on the lookout for this strategy!
Second, Steve does make a host of actual viable arguments, and I commend him for his tenacity and militancy. It takes a lot of passion to pound away every day. Even Catholicism was once only 4% of the Roman empire.
However, I don’t have the time nor the inclination to respond to each particle Steve’s battering ram technique of argumentation. I’d like to focus on is the “born homosexual” argument. I’m sure there’s plenty of great info and literature on this topic, but who has the time to look it up?
Somewhere in the last couple decades, this idea has slipped into the popular lexicon: “I was born homosexual. It’s not a choice. There’s not a thing I can do about it.” Once laughed off, the notion has been repeated so often and so insistently that now people tend to believe it. I’m sure that Steve can produce plenty of studies to “prove” gay DNA (by the way, the genome theory is faltering these days), but I’m sure I could also produce studies. Again, I just don’t have time (I know I’ve opened myself up to all kinds of attacks for my lack of pursuit, but I’ll have to take the lumps).
What fascinates me, though, is how practically every homosexual I’ve met is a liberal. Unless “liberal genes” are somehow transmitted along with “gay genes”, it’s interesting to note that the agenda of restructuring society and government dovetails so neatly with a particular sexual preference. Other than the apparent burning necessity to have “gay marriage” allowed, why does a sexual proclivity speak to the size of government, or the amount of money spent on education, or national defense? Why doesn’t the population of gays mirror the political spectrum of the country? I know it’s a bit of a “chicken and egg” question, but it’s always interested me how gays pretend they have no choice about their sexuality but fall into practical lockstep when addressing taxation or social reengineering.
It’s also fascinating that heterosexual men can “discover” that they’re gay, but somehow gay men never “discover” that they’re heterosexual. This is generally chalked up to gross cultural discrimination, but I take it as another example of the double standard that exists in gay talking points. Somehow, they claim, 4% of the population was born gay, and everyone else ought to be not just sympathetic, but experimentative! Who knows, you might be gay, too! Once homosexuality is completely accepted and made law, I predict that this whole “born gay” argument will disappear completely: people will be suddenly “free”, encouraged to “choose” to live gay or heterosexual. In other words, I see this whole “born gay” topic as a farcical rhetorical tidbit.
Third, the issue of rights has been bandied about in a rather grotesque way. At some point, gays are going to have to declare a definition of what they mean by the word “right”. The phrase “As a man, it’s my right to marry a man” is nonsensical in the classical definition of rights. I’ve even heard stuff like “It’s my right to drive” from fourteen year old kids. All this is similar poppycock. If I have to explain why, then everyone needs a solid liberal arts education.
I disagree that Steve’s arguments above are going to convince a whole host of young men to sin against chastity. Of course, it depends on how you define chastity, right, Steve?
Thanks, Placido. Kind words, and excellent points.
I suppose you are probably already aware of a logical inconsistency in what you have said.
You said that because a predatory homosexual targeted you, you are losing your faith. And you criticized Steve for answering natural law arguments with a “me, me, me” subjective appeal.
Now, as you know, the faith’s claims are true whether or not your pastor hits on you, or worse. You know this, and you want Steve to know that reality doesn’t change just because he wishes it were some other way.
But just as it’s tough for someone who was sexually harassed by a pastor to feel warm and respectful of the priesthood, it’s tough for a homosexual man to feel warm respect for the teaching on marriage.
Tough, but far, far, far from impossible.
My advice: Keep your faith, for the reasons you give Steve to reject his!
Tom, exactly right. Which is why I have respect for Steve, and why I’m still a work in progress.
You guys are so funny-bashing one another throught the sins of the past about who did what and to whom. Come on now, if we pray we are led to what sins is and what sins we committ. THE WORLD SHOULD NEVER LEGALIZE SIN no matter how much we want to do it or how much we do it. Rampant sin is never an excuse to do it. Bottom line is every time you might think it is a sin, pray and ask God if it is and then change your life a little every day so that YOU don’t continue to do it. We all know that homosexuality acts, and all the rest mentioned above are serious sins against God. You can bat this back and forth amongst yourselves but the bottom line will always be what God thinks.
Rest in Peace!
Judith wrote: “if we pray we are led to what sins is and what sins we committ.”
I wish it were that easy, Judith. I don’t think we ought to presume that everyone who prays actually hears God’s voice. Besides which, even wiccans pray. Who you’re talking to makes a world of difference about what conclusions you make during prayer.
Judith also wrote: “We all know that homosexuality acts, and all the rest mentioned above are serious sins against God.”
With all due respect, Judith, if we all knew that, we’d hardly be having this discussion. This type of religious “sin” slinging is precisely the form of argumentation that is most likely to cause defensive responses, and thus the least likely to succeed.
Oh Placido—STOP TRYING SO HARD…“Prayer,” says Hettinger, “is the bridge between this life and the life to come, upon which the Creator and the creature meet.”
SIMPLY PUT BY St. Augustine calls prayer “the key of heaven.” ONE OF THE GREATES SINNERS, ST. AUGUSTINE (READ HIS BOOK)
Prayer is truly a conversation between God and the soul; in prayer we address ourselves to God and He, our Heavenly Father, in His love and kindness speaks to us; in prayer the soul breathes the atmosphere of paradise, and by its union with God and its elevation to heavenly contemplation, it enjoys a foretaste of the happiness of the Saints in the celestial Eden.
What greater joy can earth afford Than holding converse with Our Lord? A pledge of life to come is this, A foretaste here of future bliss. The Royal Psalmist says: ‘‘The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon Him in truth; He will do the will of them that fear Him ; He will hear their prayer and save them” (Ps. cxliv. 18, 19).
When a person does that, he will be shown his sins…you must not be trying and I am not here to do anything else than tell you the truth whether you like it or not.
To Steve and Placido—-I disagree with Steve as he said…Homosexuality is not a burden in and of itself. You make it a burden. God never said it should be one. It is truly a gift from God that I cherish, as I cherish my heterosexual brothers and sisters and their love. God did not create us who we are so we can deny his creation. He made heterosexuals to be heterosexual, he made homosexuals to be homosexual. Denying God’s creation and denying who he made me would be the real sin. Living a lie would be a sin.
Most homosexuals, as I said, are good people. Often, they are victims. Some may have a genetic proclivity. Some may have been raised without a proper father figure. Some may have been molested. But those shortcomings do not justify a lifetime of what the Vatican calls “disordered” practices, and society is evil for promoting the idea that homosexuality—and transsexualism (now called “transgenderism”)—are as viable as heterosexuality.
We all are born with shortcomings. We all bear our crosses. We all have had challenges growing up. But a proclivity for alcohol does not justify becoming an alcoholic any more than being born in poverty justifies becoming a thief.Someday, hopefully, we will realize that many folks with troubled personalities are haunted by demons or earthbound spirits. Curious it is how radical homosexuals side so stridently with pro-abortionists and curious it is too how some have a hard glaze to their eyes and so often choose to blaspheme the Catholic Church during decadent parades or festivals (see, New Orleans; see, Key West; see, San Francisco, and Greenwich Village).
These people need to be loved and helped and need our prayers at the same time that they deserve our correction (as we also correct our own depraved passions). Spirits attach to our “woundedness.“Is every gay person “possessed”? Hardly. Can every single one of them control it? I’ll let God judge. But we can look at our own Church and note the infiltration of evil that works in this realm—preying on the loneliness of priests who don’t pray enough.
Just two weeks ago, a Los Angeles Times sportswriter who made headlines by announcing he was becoming a woman, then returned to work as a man, was found dead in a suspected suicide.
It is hardly a “gay” lifestyle (a word as clever as when the devil inspired the term “pro-choice” to cover over the blackness of abortion).
Have we gotten to the point where expressing an opinion is a “hate crime”—especially an opinion that is biblically based?Yet, to hate homosexuals is itself an evil. The Vatican reminded us of this just last week.
Instead, pray for their deliverance, for many times, there is a spiritual dynamic. (There are those who disagree.)
Our stand on it is the stand of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says (2358-2359):
“The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”
Judith, I’m not really sure who you’re responding to. If it really is me, you seem to have missed my point. I wasn’t saying that I was trying too hard to hear God’s voice in prayer. I was saying that your view of “as long as you pray, you’ll come to the truth” is too simplistic.
Steve says he prays all the time. He also says that he’s perfectly comfortable that his sex life is not only chaste, it’s normal.
Your response to Steve is simply, “Pray some more and you’ll figure it all out.” To which Steve would predictably reply, “I do pray, and this is what I hear.”
Then you’ll get into debates over who’s hearing God more correctly, and who’s really locked into sin. That’s a fruitless debate, and not one worth having.
My point isn’t that “hearing God” is hard, it’s that “hearing God in prayer” is too easily manipulated.
Indeed, you’re also presuming that every person who prays has a well-formed conscience.
Besides which…
Judith, how extremely haughty of you to remark that Steve and I (who disagree mightily, I might add) “must not be trying” to pray. That’s the type of comment that alienates.
Aquinas, the master Catholic debater, would never have presumed something like that about even his worst enemy. Rather than taking this conversation into quotes and “holier than thou” comments, let’s keep this on track or end it altogether.
Placido…I think you are haughty…God didn’t make it complicated…You guys do… and why the heck do I have to walk on ‘tip toes’ around you guys….I can speak God’s truths very bluntly….the ‘holier than thou’ comments come from the Saints and from Scripture…oh, we’re back to bashing again…I never bashed you, you do it all by yourself…example-
You see, I was ‘born’ blunt, therefore, I can do this whether or not it might hurt your feelings or be against kindness…just like all the other sins you are trying to say is ok…I can have mine and be just like you and make it ok cause that is the way God made me…GOT MY POINT YET…
See Ya!
To Placido—
Our Lady’s message to Mirjana of March 2nd, 2010
The Virgin Mary appeared to the visionary Mirjana this morning and gave the following message:
“Dear children! In this special time of your effort to be all the closer to my Son, to His suffering, but also to the love with which He bore it, I desire to tell you that I am with you. I will help you to triumph over errors and temptations with my grace. I will teach you love, love which wipes away all sins and makes you perfect, love which gives you the peace of my Son now and forever. Peace with you and in you, because I am the Queen of Peace. Thank you.”
PRAY THE ROSARY-
TO TOM HOBBS WHO SAID IN HIS ARTICLE:...Mother Teresa is an excellent example of this. Her approach was to live among the people she wanted to reach. She did that with her “Gift of Love” AIDS home in San Francisco. She didn’t judge the people there, she just served them, and that brought them to the faith.
AND I SAY THAT IN A HOMILY IT WAS STATED THAT JESUS TAUGHT THAT JUDGING IS ABOUT WHETHER A PERSON GOES TO HEAVEN OR HELL AND THAT’S ALL IT MEANT…WE MUST JUDGE ON A DAILY BASIS IF SOMETHING IS GOOD OR BAD FOR US…WHO WE HANG AROUND WITH , WHAT WE EAT AND WHAT WE PUT IN OUR MINDS….BODY, MIND AND SOUL…MOTHER THERESA HAD A CALLING TO TAKE CARE OF THE DYING NO MATTER HOW THEY WERE DYING…EVERYONE’S CALL IS NOT THAT…MY CALLING MAY BE TO TELL THE TRUTH WHEN GOD ASKS ME TO….AND HOW I WISH THAT THE TRUTH WAS TOLD TO ME IN MY YOUNGER YEARS….THE 60’S AND 70’S WERE MY WORLD AND NOT EVEN THE PRIESTS WERE TELLING THE TRUTH BACK THEN…..
“If you believe what you like in the Gospel and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” St. Augustine*** *** “He who purifies himself from his faults in the present satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand silver pieces: and he who waits until the other life to pay his debts consents to pay a thousand silver peices for that which he might have paid before with a penny.” St. Catherine of Genoa*** *** Nothing can be more dangerous than evil companions. They communicate the infection of their vices to all who assoiciate with them. St. John Baptist de la Salle***“Our Lord gives to souls of prayer a deep understanding of Himself. He never deceives them.”—St. Peter Julian Eymard *** “A FRIEND IS ONE SOUL ABIDING IN TWO BODIES”***
AND REMEMBER THAT THE LORD SPITS OUT THE LUKEWARM FROM HIS MOUTH, HIS KINGDOM
Relax, Judith.
It’s the Pharisees who object to spending time with sinners. Read Matthew Chapter 23 to see Christ’s attitude toward them.
And if Christians shouldn’t spend time with sinners, they’d better abandon me, and quick, for their own good. But then, they’d abandon you, too, Judith.
We could go hang out with Steve at least, I guess.
Tom…I think you missed my point…We have the right to judge who we wish to hang around with…of course, we are all sinners..you know very well I didn’t mean that…you just have to be right…go for it…
Reform the CCHD Now!
Dear Friends in Christ,
Please join me in signing the Reform CCHD Now (RCN) petition here (www.reformcchdnow.com).
The language of the petition is very simple: “To ensure no more Catholic dollars are spent to support organizations advocating abortion or same-sex marriage, I respectfully request the bishops suspend all national CCHD grants until the grants process has been reformed.”
If you haven’t been following the ongoing scandal with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and would like to get caught up, check out the news page on the RCN site.
It really shouldn’t be too much to ask that money given by Catholics not go to those who oppose the Church, and who do so in the name of “social justice”. True social justice recognizes the dignity of every human being from conception to natural death, and it values the the family enough to defend marriage as being between one man and one woman. To deny either of these basic truths is to oppose the Church.
It really is that simple. We just have yet to see and evidence that those who decide which groups get CCHD funds truly understand this.
Please forward this invitation to sign the RCN petition to your email list, and join me in praying for a timely and just resolution to this ongoing scandal.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
Same-sex ‘marriage’ in Mexico will create climate of cultural permissiveness, bishop warns
Mexico City, Mexico, March 2 (CNA) .- Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago of Leon, Mexico has stated his opposition to same-sex ‘‘marriage” in Mexico City, not only because it goes against the dignity of the family, but also due to the legislation’s “repercussions” on society.
The archbishop denied that “the Catholic Church wants a ‘sin’ to be criminalized,” as some have argued. However, he clarified that the Church “disapproves of marriages between people of the same sex because they undermine the foundation of the institution of the family.”
“That people want to carry on a sexual relationship and do what they wish in the privacy of their bedrooms can’t be punished by the State or turned into a crime,” he said. “What concerns the Church is elevating that to the category of marriage, because this goes against the dignity at the heart of the family.”
“Because of this,” he continued, “legislation of this nature has repercussions on the cultural perception of society.”
“Laws make up the culture of a society,” the archbishop continued, “and when norms establish these types of conduct, a permissive cultural atmosphere is created that sees (these unions) as totally legitimate.”
“It wasn’t the Church that invented the family and marriage, in reality it is something that is part of the very nature of the human being, it is written in the very complementary constitution of the sexes ordered toward fertility. This is, in reality, what is destroyed when the legal category of marriage is given to a union of this kind,” the archbishop concluded.
BAD COMPANY from the Cure’ of Ars…
My dear brethren, I call that man bad company who is without religion, who does not concern himself with either the commandments of God or those of the Church, who does not recognise Lent or Easter, who seldom comes to church or, if he does come, then only to scandalise others by his irreligious ways. You ought to shun his company; otherwise you will not be long in becoming like him without your even noticing it. He will teach you, with his bad talk as much as by his bad example, to despise the holiest things and to neglect your own most sacred duties. He will begin to turn your devotion into ridicule, to make some jokes about religion and its ministers. He will speak to you at length, in scandalous terms, about the priests or about Confession to such effect that he will cause you to lose entirely your taste for the frequent reception of the Sacraments. He will discuss the instructions of your pastors only in order to turn them into ridicule, and you can be quite certain that if you keep company with him for any length of time, you will see that, without even realising it, you will begin to lose all taste for anything which is profitable towards the salvation of your soul.
I call bad company, my dear brethren, this young or this old slanderer who has nothing but bad and foul words in his mouth.
Take good care, my children, for this type of person has a poison of his own! If you frequent his company, you may be quite certain that you will imbibe it and that, without a miracle of grace, you will die spiritually. The Devil will make good use of this wretch to sully your imagination and to corrupt your heart.
I would call that person bad company, my dear brethren, who is curious or restless or backbiting, who wants to know all that goes on in other people’s houses, and who is always ready to form judgments about what he does not see at all. The Holy Ghosts tells us that these people are not only hateful to the whole world but are also accursed of God. Fly from them, my dear brethren; otherwise you will become like them. You yourselves will perish with them
I agree. The Cure d’Ars is da bomb.
Okay, I agree too. Don’t hang out with the close-minded neighborhood cynic.
But Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, and gave an earful to the Pharisees that demanded he shun their bad company.
The Church agrees with Jesus.
Catechism: “545 Jesus invites sinners to the table of the kingdom: ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’ He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his Father’s boundless mercy for them and the vast ‘joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.’”
Catechism: 2358 Homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
So, I’ll stick with the Gospel, John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and the Catechism, thanks very much.
But I will follow the Cure of Ars’ advice. I solemnly pledge to avoid the company of close-minded people who can lead me away from faith, hope and — above all! — love.
http://www.gaypatriot.net/category/gay-male-sexuality-the-monogamous-ideal/
HERE’S ONE FOR YOU….
Here’s an even better one!
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/ny_times_exposes_the_gay_marriage_myth
you are making me laugh…ok…serious again….
For some reason, you think that I don’t love the sinner…well, not true, I have to love myself daily and that is no easy feat…but let me explain what I do mean…you go to work, you make acquaintances and on one occasion two adult women are laughing about the subject masturbation and how great it is…one of them leaves and the one friend stays whom you know goes to the Catholic church because you are closer to her than the other one…and she engages you into the subject but you say that it is a sin. Now this woman gets a bit angry because you just told her she was doing something bad, something that offended God…so she mocks you with the usual stuff, this is 2010 etc….and then she tells you that she is really not married but has lived with her boyfriend for the past 22 years and they can’t get married in the church but she refuses to tell you why and I don’t ask….but she receives Holy Communion and so you tell her that is a grave sin if she is having relations with her boyfriend also and that she should go to a priest so that she is not committing a sacrilege and a mortal sin…she tells me that it is ridiculous …she stops hanging around you and I say great because she wanted me to go along with her values and I can’t do that. So I lose a friend…happens all the time…I am not mean to these people..when someone tells me a sin and they don’t know it is a sin, I tell them…I wish someone had done that for me many years ago instead of waiting 22 years after high school to find the truths again….I have a friend from Catholic high school and haven’t seen in years, she wants to get together but someone showed her my blog and because I am a devote Catholic and her son is gay, it won’t happen…I have lost friends, family and much more because I will not make light of sin anymore in my life….what is wrong with that
I think eating with them is different than setting up shop with them.
Surely, Mother Teresa and the Cure d’ Ars are not at odds with one another.
Tom Hoops said… Catechism: 2358 Homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
——————————————
I believe I have said the same thing….and I like to be treated the same way too….
————————————
Tom Hoops said… But I will follow the Cure of Ars’ advice. I solemnly pledge to avoid the company of close-minded people who can lead me away from faith, hope and — above all! — love.
——————————————
So, you are saying that I am closed-minded about what?....I just don’t like all this wishy-washy crap you tell these people….Your job is to tell them the truth according to the Catholic Churches’ teachings….but you think you are smarter and can persude them into believing what?....Mr. Hoops, do you even pray the rosary daily?....
Liseux: It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Mother Teresa and the Cure d’ Ars could be at odds ...
I suspect that the circumstance is the key here. If you’re in a small provincial French town where everyone’s Catholic but there’s a town atheist who likes to rattle believers, it’s best to keep your distance. If you’re in Calcutta, you’ve got a certain obligation to reach out.
We’re in Calcutta, not Ars.
Judith: You’re becoming profane and insulting. Don’t force me to Cure d’Ars your access to this blog!
This point brought the most lively discussion from my students. They seemed to know right away that what I suggested was true: In our day, groups of people who are pro-homosexual “marriage” tend to be much more likely to be warm, welcoming and accepting of others than groups of Christian or Catholic believers. (Yes, I know there are significant exceptions; but the fact remains that in one group people feel accepted and in the other they feel judged.)
—————————————
the reason for this is obvious…..they know what Catholics teach and believe, so why would they be comfortable in their company when they can be in the company of people who accept their sin of homosexuality and won’t tell them it is a sin….I have come to the realization that you are a danger to the Catholic Faith especially if you teach young people to tolerate sin for the sake of ‘love’, what kind of love is this..it is not God’s love…Christ ate with sinners and met sinners etc I know the gospels too, but once Christ told them the truths, He told them to go and sin NO MORE…
Christ didn’t have these discusions with them, persuading them and coddling them….He told them and taught them and then said, you choose…..we are to teach just like Christ taught….you tell a person the truth, they may come back for more and they may not…..
I’m done…happy Tom
Thanks, Judith. Just to be clear:
The point is to realize what homosexuality is: It’s destructive, physically and spiritually, it’s marriages are (statistically) not “marriage” the way we define it. And it’s winning and will claim more and more souls.
Therefore, we need to speak the truth tirelessly, and we desperately need to find ways to make the truth reach those who need to hear it most.
Most effective, I think, are stories. Let’s find the stories of people who have seen the dead end this lifestyle is, and tell them so that more can benefit from what they found.
And, like Jesus, who spent time eating with sinners, speaking with the woman at the well, holding at bay the accusers of the woman caught in adultery, spending time with the disciples who abandoned him, and has been so patient with each of us, let’s find ways to let this truth be heard by those who most need to hear it.
I agree that the circumstances are key. If I had the time, I know I could find a quote by the Cure about reaching out to those in similar situations that we are discussing.
If we just look at Jesus’ words and actions, he points us in the right direction.
More good is done with charity and humility than hell fire.
Took the time, and I couldn’t find a quote on the Cure d’Ars reaching out to sinners in one of his written sermons. So I’ll eat that comment I made. Hmmmmm…. not so tasty…. good penance, though.
You all have a blessed day.
I always did like the hell fire, or the truth, it worked with me…:)
Hello Judith,
Hell-fire worked with me too. I read in the Bible during a trying time that adulterers, fornicators, thieves, murderers, liars, etc. would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Ouch! and more than that….. I returned to confession after a 10 year absence, and now…. God’s still working on me.
BUT I realize that God is a God of mercy AND justice, and his mercy overshadows his justice. (St. Faustina)
Trying to beat the computer here….
Hell-fire doesn’t work with all. If fact, it turns them away. I have noticed that. Some will be reached only by example and a firm message of God’s mercy and love.
We can still tell the truth IN LOVE. The hell-fire stuff is obvious, to those who are here. It’s our love that isn’t always obvious to them.
Also, I think that through our love and mercy, spoken in truth, God will take care of the judgement.
Judith, If you don’t mind me asking, what level do you teach? You said you have “students.”
I teach 7th grade CCD and my own children at home.
Hi liseux…I agree with that…the ‘hell fire’ or thruths I received was just the word of God (not people screaming at me) from people, the bible and other experiences in life that I came throughout several years and I would call that God’s mercy and love.you might like my blog, especially the two latest articles I posted last night…off to the gym right now but nice to meet you…it ws 20 yrs for me when I went to confession but I also got ‘clunked’ on the head big time and I would call that God’s mercy!....thru those years, people told me nicely and reminded me that such and such was a sin and i didn’t jump on the wagon right away, but it went into my subconscious….what if those people didn’t tell me truths, I shudder to think of my sould and maybe how much longer I would have suffered as a great sinner…
http://catholic-politics-health-quilts.blogspot.com/
oh, one more…on this confession line where it was 20 yrs. for me I was very excited and happy and nervous…so I asked this lady behind me a question and ended up telling her that it was 20 yrs, for me….well, after I came out of the confessional and was praying my penance prayers, she tapped me on the shoulder and said “You realize that if you had died before this confession, you would have gone to hell”...I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life….thank that woman or angel for that ‘hellfire’ of truth..
But Judith, she didn’t know that you were going to hell for sure.
There are all kinds of situations. If you had died and wanted to go to confession, but a train or something similar stopped you, God would take that into account as your DESIRE for confession.
WE cannot judge the final destination of anyone, in fact the Church proclaims those who she knows to be in Heaven, not hell. That’s up to God alone.
hi liseux…the supernatural world is more open than most people realize…what she said to me wasn’t taken in a bad way…it was like an angel speaking to me…probalby was…
I don’t teach school….
I agree that the supernatural world is “open.” That’s a great way to look at God’s acceptance of repentant sinners and his love for sinners who haven’t repented yet.
http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/war-in-the-heavens.html
just a snip-it….from the beginning….
For the time being, most Christians still maintain certain limits, vague lines across which hedonist culture cannot invade our personal lives. Though the limits are constantly probed and pressured, faint alarm bells still ring within us from time to time whenever there is too much violation. We overcome our fear of being “negative” or “intolerant” and rise to the defense. However, our response is often wavering, and rarely is it consistent.
and a snip-it from the end….
And what will another three generations bring into play if our moral sense continues to weaken? Dr. Russell Kirk, in a lecture on the moral imagination, warned that a people who reject the right order of the soul and the true good of society will in the end inherit “fire and slaughter.” When culture is deprived of authentic moral vision, he says, the rise of the “diabolic imagination” is the inevitable result. What begins as rootless idealism soon passes into the totalitarian sphere of “narcotic illusions” that end in “diabolic regimes.”
LISEUX—book-Snakebite Letters by Peter kreeft, he used to write for NCR, great writer, google him…an excerpt fromthe book above…it is written by satan to his lower devils about how to deceive us…sometimes my experiences of myself and family and friends gives me the edge on this topic…brother died like this, was very devote, daily Mass etc….but the world got him thru alcohol and drugs and sex and money and down he went faster than a speeding bullet….thank God, his soul was saved at the last minute…
SMAKEBIT LETTERS…. For one thing, we control most media personnel; for another, fog and clouds and vagueness are our element. It’s not for nothing that His Imperial Lowness is called “the prince of the power of the air”.
Remember my previous advice about spiritual warfare: don’t let him suspect he’s at war, that his choices are a matter of life or death. Don’t let him think of death. “Memento mori” lost many a soul. There are few sins they will commit on their deathbeds. So blind him to the fact that he is on his deathbed as soon as he is born.
Keep his eyes off the principle he knows with certainty from his experience as well as from the Enemy: that obedience always brings happiness and disobedience always brings misery. He has had many past experiences of temptations given in to, and they’ve all given him guilt, misery and regret. He has also had many past experiences of temptations overcome, and that has always give him joy, peace and gratitude. You wonder how you can keep such a clear truth of experience from him? Just turn his eyes from the past to the future, from the actual to the potential. The more he lives in the future, the more he’s ours, for we are the masters of the unreal, and the future is unreal, the not-yet. The Enemy is the master of reality, and lives in the present, and wants them to do the same. But through the work of our agents, we can convince them that “living in the present” really means following every desire and whim in hope of attaining promised pleasure, i.e., living in the future!
Learn from your successes, Braintwister. After triumphs in sexual temptations, apply the same technique in other areas, especially greed for money. The Enemy’s Son spoke far more about money than sex, yet the mortals hardly ever worry about greed, only theft. Many have more lust for money than for sex.
With success, you will begin to notice a general shiftiness in your patient, a fear, a hiding, a vague dishonesty that covers his whole life, like a cloud. That’s the great effect of unrepented sin. You’ll also notice an addictiveness creeping into his whole personality, for addiction to anything makes him an addict, a slave. After sexual addiction, try alcohol. Start with candy, end with drugs.
Above all, keep him away from truth, especially simple, concrete truths like the three reasons to say no to fornication:
1. It can kill you. AIDS.
2. It can kill your marriage. Premarital promiscuity doubles
the likelihood of postmarital divorce. (We’ve kept those statis¬
tics well hidden.)
3. It can kill your soul, like any sin.
The Enemy has commanded premarital chastity and post-marital fidelity, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Your job is iffing, anding, and butting.
Your affectionate uncle, Snakebite
I am acquainted with Dr. Kreeft’s books, and the one you mentioned is on my “to acquire” list.
You don’t have to convince me, Judith.
I’m glad you have “the edge” on these topics. I too sometimes I think I have an edge, but then I have to remember that facts, information, apologetics tools are great, but my humility starts to slip.
It’s good to have a healthy balance.
I have to remember to say the “Litany of Humility” by Fr. McNulty, because I can be quite “hammer” just to win a debate. I know the old saw- win a debate, lose a friend or convert.
liseux…that was cute…I’m just agreeing with the Cure of Ars, Peter Kreeft and Fulton Sheen.so we all will take a course in humility..I also agree with Lovasik, who wrote the HIDDEN POWER OF KINDNESS…
Kind thoughts help you deal successfully with others.
As a mother’s love draws the heart of her child like a powerful magnet, so, too, does the genuinely kind person wield the power to influence others for good. Only a kind person is able to judge another justly and to make allowances for his weaknesses. A kind eye, while recognizing defects, sees beyond them. Its gaze is like that of a gentle mother who judges her beloved child more leniently, and at the same time more correctly, than a stranger would.
No one ever saw human weakness more clearly than Jesus saw it in His apostles. Yet how patient He was with their worldliness, their faults! The wellspring of His patience was a kindness of heart that nothing could disturb. His followers clung to Him with an unshakable confidence. Love radiated from His person and warmed the hearts of those surrounding Him. Nevertheless, on occasion He could show a firmness that nothing could weaken. Never did He waver or compromise when the glory of His Father or the salvation of souls was at stake.
Thus, uncharitable judgments and prejudices, misunderstandings and suspicions, envy and jealousy, and uncharitable words and slander will not take root in a soul that thinks kind thoughts. Aversions and bitterness disappear, strained relations are smoothed out, and petty arguments end of themselves.
To keep firmly to supernatural principles in your daily conduct is not easy.
Kind thoughts imply a great deal of thinking about others according to a divine ideal — the ideal of charity. By sweetening the fountains of your thoughts, you destroy the bitterness of your judgments. And if you are habitually kind in thought through supernatural motives, you are far on the way to becoming a saint
Say no to perversion, to homosexual life and behavior, say to to promiscuity, say no to drugs, say no to the wrongs of life and reaffirm traditional family values and morals, say no to racism, say no to prostitution, Say no corrupt politicians, say no to thieves, murderers and criminals, say no to pedophiles, say no to fanatical religious zealots, say no to indecency and immorality. Say no to Crazy religions, SAY NO TO HOMOSEXUALITY. SAY yes to LIFE and say yes to LOVE.
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