Perhaps if you look at it a little more closely you will see through the pinhole. GLBT have never been given the full rights of marriage, only a little pinhole to shut them up. No one can say, not even me, that this would continue to be a trend if GLBT were granted equal marriage laws and rights. Perhaps they haven’t taken the pinhole too seriously, since no one else has. BTW, heterosexuals also commit adultery, don’t think that no one out there doesn’t realize this.

My relationship is mine yours is yours. Spend your money and don’t tell me what to buy.
I treasurer my dude and he does me, your attack on our marriage is desperate last resort.
Your kids are going to be unfaithful and lie. Your gay kids will triumph.
Straight people have gay babys.

“Many” gay couples may have some variety of open relationship in comparison to heterosexual marriages, but as a journalist I can tell you that journalists pick their words for a reason, and “many” does not mean “most”.

As a journalist for a gay community publication who deals with ordinary GLBT people every day I can tell you, that while couples in the gay community who are in open relationships are a lot more open about it than heterosexuals in that situation, such arrangements are nowhere near the majority.

The vast majority of same-sex couples that I have met who are interested in being married see it as a public declaration of an enduring monogamous love.

Thanks, Andrew. The article says “about 50 percent” of “gay marriages” have admitted of other partners with the consent of the other “spouse” ... which is not only near the majority, but may even BE the majority, if that “about” falls above the halfway mark.

Tom, I think the teller is- “New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians IN THE BAY AREA.”

Because the gay community makes up less than 5 percent of the population it is very difficult to source representative sample groups for this sort of research.

The easiest people to find are those in gay ghetto type areas who spend a lot of time in the gay bar scene and live what you might call a stereotypical “gay lifestyle”, whereas those who are well integrated into their local communities and who’s lives and values are more in tune with those of their heterosexual friends and family members are much harder to include because they live spread out across the country.

In fact the more stable and monogamous their relationships, the less time they need to spend in the gay scene and the harder they are for researchers to include.

I lived in San Francisco for several years, and worked there in the financial distict after college. I knew years-long committed homosexual couples ... and I also saw the truly scandalous parades and carrying on that many of the homosexual population engages in.

As one gay activist told me for an article: “Our lifestyle is very much about party, pageant, parade, and promiscuity. … There was an article in the gay press last year titled, ‘How to Stay Married and Still Be a Slut.’”

I know that homosexual relationships exist. I just refuse to ignore the truly promiscuous nature of the gay scene that dominates the lifestyle, and see no reason why we should suspend reason when we’re doing something as important as redefining marriage.

Many, many gay and lesbian people do not share the values of the stereotypical gay scene and have very little to do with it- particularly if they are partnered. As someone who works in the gay press, I can tell you that most gays and lesbians do not read the gay press and those who do are either highly politicised or the kind of people for whom their sexuality is the most dominating feature of their lives. As each generation of young gays and lesbians come out successfully and keep their relationships with their heterosexual friends and family members, the more their values will be in line with their heterosexual peers. The scene that you refer to is a result of gays and lesbians being herded into ghettoes as a result of prejudice, and so-called family values people historically judging gays and lesbians as detestable no matter how well they conducted their lives. I want to get married to the man I love, not because of some radical agenda, but because my parents are married, my siblings are married or engaged and most of my closest heterosexual friend are married. I grew up being taught that if you really love someone- that’s what they do. Most of the gays and lesbians I know who want to get married feel that way for the same reason. Unfortunately, gays and lesbians will always be judged based on the most extreme members amongst us, for the simple reason that when we live our lives as you do, unless you know us personally, we are invisible to you.

Keep grasping at straws, theocrats.

I think this is just grasping at straws in a losing argument.  To be truly fair - how many heterosexual relationships are not completely monogamous? If we just do a straw count of politicians in the national spotlight, we will see it is a large percentage.

I am in a relationship - completely monogamous for 25 years.  All of our friends in relationships - to my knowledge - are faithful, committed and ‘blend’ in with the rest of their neighborhoods as just another couple or family.  No swinging parties, no semi-naked parades.  We leave that for the straight people to do at Mardi Gras.

I know there are many committed homosexual couples whose lives have enriched their communities.

I know that the number of homosexual couples is not negligible and that they are due respect and dignity, not discrimination and rejection.

I also know – from research – that their “marriages” have a lot more infidelity than heterosexual ones (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02)

We all know that gay sex hurts – and injures.

Not many know about the dramatically high incidence of domestic violence among gays: Google lesbian battery and only look at the gay-friendly sites if you wish.

Social scientists know that in countries where homosexuals have long been accepted, the homosexual suicide rates are off the charts.

It is because there are people with same-sex tendencies that I know and love that I refuse to put on blinders.

And it’s also because I know that the institution of marriage is vitally important and desperately needs to be strengthened, not given up on, that I refuse to simply shrug my shoulders when I see it being redefined away.

The more that homosexual relationships are studied, the more disorder will be discovered.  No matter how you spin things, the pieces just don’t fit together.

Thanks for the blog, Register. PLEASE put it in the print edition, as I will be sure to save it for future reference.

BTW, Tom, many thanks to you for being on the front lines for us.

It’s the marriage myth period. I know plenty of “good Catholic” straight people who take lovers on the side. Face it, marriage is out-dated. I don’t know why the gays want it some much anyway. One needs only to look at the recent sex scandals among priests to know what happens when you try to force human sexuality into a mold that nature never intended.

The research suggests that marriage isn’t as bad as you suggest. The common “half of all marriages fail” statistic is false—it compares divorces each year to new marriages, not all divorces to all marriages.

And marriage is still, statistically, the safest place for children ... and for economic health. Abandoned wives are the biggest class of poor in America.

The fact that you have anecdotal evidence of the all-too-common tragedies in marriage is a reason to STRENGTHEN marriage as an institution, not redefine it such that every marriage is that much more threatened.

Your point at the end is so true, and it’s something I’ve felt for quite a while: Many of us feel comfortable, or at least properly equipped with facts and reason, to defend the unborn. Science is on the pro-life side, as is more than half the country. But taking on gay “marriage”? We’re left feeling that while we know the truth, the words to defend marriage don’t come readily to our minds, our mouths.

Thanks Tom for posting this—I would have missed the NYT article. You are an eloquent apologist.

I think you cannot kick a class of people out of your culture and expect all of them to still play by your rules.  For those 50% of American gay marriages that the study cites, if they work, they work.  Maybe not in the Christian paradigm that they were ousted from in the first place, but so be it—this is what Christianity created when it said they’re all bad people.

George, wrong is still wrong even if everyone does it. “Everyone” runs stop signs, but some end up getting killed because of it.

We shouldn’t get rid of laws and vows because people break them. Talk about chaos!

A marriage vow is no less important even if some people break them.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that God doesn’t exist (or His existence is irrelevant).

Let’s also assume that beyond the shadow of a doubt, human beings are the product of natural selection.

Let’s also assume that the ‘gay gene’ without a doubt has been proven to exist.

If this ‘gay gene’ exists, then it would have to be a dead gene that will eventually be selected out. The fact that it hasn’t means that a) we haven’t given it enough time or b) we’re not here by natural selection.

Jj, Christianity has not said that homosexuals are “bad” people. It does say that we’re all sinners and that we live in a fallen world.

We’re called to love those with homosexual tendencies.

From the Catechism: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible.  They do no choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial.  The must be accepted with 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

I pray to God that even as a conservative educator you teach your students to seek and report the truth without bias. I was raided in the Catholic faith and I am a practicing gay Catholic. Because of the beliefs that my parents and my faith gave me I have a deep respect for the institution of marriage. Because for me personally a sexual relationship required love I did not engage in any type of sexual relationship unit I was 26 years old, and you know what Tom 20 years later I am now married to that man and in those 20 years neither one of us has ever been unfaithful.  I would hope that any woman making what must be the worst decision of her life, to terminate a pregnancy, would have comfort in God and the Catholic faiths love. As Catholics wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all did not judge and forgave as Jesus did. Think about it Tom.

Mark, your story is what makes it so tough to argue about this issue.

It’s hard when one’s convictions add up to a big fat “No” to apparently sincere and noble people like you.

But please read the research, realize what is happening in homosexual “marriages,” and be willing to defend marriage, an institution you respect, from those who would change its meaning.

Your parents, in this world or the next, will be proud of you for it!

Mark, I don’t understand what a woman having comfort in aborting her baby would have to do with the issue of homosexual “marriage.” Abortion in intrinsically evil- it’s always sinful.

I would think that a woman would have comfort in sincere repentance which her faith has helped her to gain. Surely, there can be no comfort in killing one’s child.

Tom, you have never heard of swingers, swing clubs, or married couples with a strait male and a swinging bi female? 

Are you pretending that 1/2 of all straight marriages do not end in divorce?  Children are quite normally the product of a hetero union, even if for only ten minutes, but with 1/2 of all kids in 1-parent homes, what is left of marriage to defend?

The straight people are the ones who have already ruined marriage.

No, half of all marriages don’t end in divorce ... but it’s worse than it should be.

Marriage is vitally important for economic prosperity, emotional and moral health.

Thus, if we see that marriage is weak, we should strengthen it.

This is further evidence that the legalization of gay marriage would radically “cheapen” marriage from a basic social unit ideally suited for raising children to something where anything goes. Research clearly points to social and economic benefits of traditional marriage for the couple and their children. Would the same statistics hold if we radically altered the definition of marriage? I doubt it unless the letters m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e have some magical propeties that hold society together. It’s obvious that marriage, in its traditional form, benefits society. Same-sex marriage can’t promise us the same thing.

Well said.

“Social scientists know that in countries where homosexuals have long been accepted, the homosexual suicide rates are off the charts.”

Could this be that teens who are gay and who kill themselves in countries where homosexuals have long been accepted are more likely to have been honest with their friends and families, whereas teens who are gay and who kill themselves in countries where homosexuals are not accepted are likely to keep their sexuality a secret, even to their graves?

Andrew: “The vast majority of same-sex couples that I have met who are interested in being married see it as a public declaration of an enduring monogamous love.”
Rene and Daryl :” My relationship is mine yours is yours.”
OK- Then, why the need for a MARRIAGE license?  Marriage INVOLVES the community, as a license is approval by the state (by the community).  If you merely want to declare your love and/or keep the community out of it, you DON’T need a marriage license.

Mark: “As Catholics wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all did not judge and forgave as Jesus did.”
Actually-don’t forget the last part of what Jesus DID say – “Go and sin NO more.”  While God is willing to forgive, He also is expecting something.

George: “One needs only to look at the recent sex scandals among priests to know what happens when you try to force human sexuality into a mold that nature never intended.”
Actually, it would be more correct to say THAT is what happens when you put a homosexual in such an office.

So many of the cultural and political changes we face today are a result of successful marketing campaigns that have altered our thinking for several decades now. The gradual societal acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex ‘marriage’, imposing an appealing but excessive strain on our sympathies, will never quite succeed because there will always be a sense of it either falling too short of normal, or going too far from normal. Can anyone think of a single, important philosophical or religious leader in thousands of years of human history who advocated changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex ‘matrimony’? (Consider the etymology of the words ‘matrimony’ and ‘marriage’). The wide acceptance of the homosexual subculture will always miss the mark because, as all historical societies and religions have known, there is something fundamentally wrong about it. I venture to say that even many thinking homosexuals themselves understand the fundamental error in changing the ‘old’, Christian moral order with homosexuality as a mainstream lifestyle.   

We’ve heard the question, “how does same-sex ‘marriage’ affect your marriage?”, with the hoped-for answer being, “it doesn’t”. But the effects are far-reaching for society and also come close to home. For consideration, search for the 2006 New York magazine piece “The Cuddle Puddle at Stuyvesant High School”, with the subtitle, ‘Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Clearly, they’ve never observed the social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metro-flexible New York teen’. These percentages are rising each year—by design. Parents trying to raise virtuous children must now, after decades of successful “progressive” marketing, deal with the social acceptance of every element of the homosexual agenda. So yes, same-sex ‘marriage’ does affect my marriage and my family and yours.

What your facile analysis fails to mention is that this figure tracks almost precisely with empirical studies of heterosexual infidelity.  The only significant difference between gay and straight couples in this respect is that the gay couples don’t seem to be lying about it.  This article is the worst kind of misleading propaganda.

Ummm ... Reader? “tracks almost precisely with empirical studies of heterosexual infidelity.” So you are saying that empirical studies show that half of all heterosexual marriages are “open” marriages in which the couples allow the other to have other sexual partners?

Cite those studies for us ... The New York Times reporter tried and couldn’t find a single one.

I disagree with you Reader.

The male sex drive is generally much higher in a one month span than a female’s sex drive is. Nature’s God planned it that way, so we would have future generations of God’s children.

If women and men had equal sex drives all the time, then we’d always be thinking about having sex, and get little else in the way of building society done. Sounds nice for some, but not good for raising families.

The sex drive of a woman peeks with her fertile time each month. According to the natural law, this makes sense. Why would a woman have hormonal sex drive during her infertile time each month?

This is one reason why homosexual sex is disordered, and I believe, helps to account for all the male homosexual promiscuity- even WITHIN a “marriage.” The male-on-male sex drive is in OVERDRIVE according to nature.

Any man or woman who has studied natural family planning is aware of much of this.

Male and female sex drives are balanced according to nature. Thanks, God.

I see the logic. For decades socially discourage and legally ban gays from forming permanent bonds. Then fault them for not doing so when its finally allowed in a few places.

We use the same logic with blacks. Strip them of all social and economic opportunity. Impoverish them. Then, when the gangs, drugs, abandoned single mothers and welfare queens roll out, blame them for their own despair.

Shame on you!

I see no one here who is faulting homosexuals for not getting married.

Also, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Roberts, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Attorney General Eric Holder, even our current President Barack Hussein Obama refute your welfare roll and despair claims.

Make your permanent bonds. Take care of the legal aspects of power of attorney, etc. It’s when you try to redefine marriage for all of society that you run into problems.

What do you mean “redefine” marriage? The current “one-man, one-woman who marry for love” model is less than 100 years old. Prior to that, it was the “one-man and as many women as he could afford and keep in line with the back of his hand” model. And read Boswell’s book “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe”. Gays have been getting married long before Constantine.

I take it history wasn’t your major, Greling? Or that author’s either, it seems.

“Also, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Roberts, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Attorney General Eric Holder, even our current President Barack Hussein Obama refute your welfare roll and despair claims.”

So, a few successful blacks ‘refutes’ the claim that racism still exists and blacks are still discriminated against, are still economically disadvantaged and still, are still racially profiled (even if they teach at Harvard), and are still disproportionately incarcerated and disparately sentenced for drug crimes.

And let’s not forget, Holder and Obama are also half white too. And Condoleeza was from parents who were foreign born and never had to deal with the double consciousness of having an ancestry rooted in American chattle slavery. She can trace her ancestry to a physical place. Obama’s father was a wealthy African who married a wealthy white woman and they lived in a ranch on Hawaii, while sending little Barack to a luxe private prep school.

But, I guess on your logic, the fact that 99% of all presidents who have been elected in his country were white and 100% were male ‘refutes’ the fact that there are poor white males who are struggling in this country as well.

“I take it history wasn’t your major, Greling? Or that author’s either, it seems.”

Go research St. Anselm and St. Aldred and what their sexuality and marriages were like and get back to me.

Sorry, that’s “St. Saint Aelred” not “Aldred”.

“Can anyone think of a single, important philosophical or religious leader in thousands of years of human history who advocated changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex ‘matrimony’?”

Plato

Oh, and I forgot…

Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Martha Nussbaum…

Greling, polygamy might be prevalent in the Eastern cultures, but not in Western societies. Your point about “’one-man and as many women as he could afford and keep in line with the back of his hand’ model” being the rule 100 yrs. ago is certainly fringe history and quite outlandish.

Redefining marriage in this country has been defeated at the polls every time it has be ALLOWED to come to a vote.

Also, your claim of our society stripping African Americans “of all social and economic opportunity” is equally outlandish, false, and even insulting to those who great figures who have worked hard and achieved success.

Greling, you have peaked my interest about the homosexual history. I will definitely do a bit of research- with a reliable source, of course.

Even liberal sources I’ve read have always mentioned the homosexual lovers of the people in the time of Constantine, but never have they mentioned that they married them. Remember, even the Romans knew that a male lover could not provide the emperor, general, or slaveholder with a legal heir.

Gays are no better than rapists and molesters.  They cannot love because all they want is sex sex and more sex.  They ate disgusting people whose should never br accepted.  Stay strong with your faith in the church and we shall force the change of there sick sexual agenda.

Yikes, Lamar. Good thing Christ didn’t think that about your sins, which according to our faith are themselves disgusting enough for you to be damned without his intervention!

Seriously though, your statement is in DIRECT, UNEQUIVOCAL violation of Church teaching which says the very opposite. Prejudice of all kinds is disgusitng, and particularly against a group that so desperately needs our help, and particularly when that predjudice will turn more people away from the Church!

And Greling, I’ve come to agree with you. Apart from the contemporary figures you cite, I mean.

You’re right: Let’s make Augustinian morality the rule of the land, and give Plato’s ideas that the same respect the best thinkers always have!

Bah.  As a gay woman in a content, fulfilling, and intensely monogamous marriage situation, I cringed at that article when I saw it.  I despise it when other gay people do things to enforce the stereotypes that dissenters argue are true, as it does nothing to help.  Please be well aware that though there are open gay marriages, there are many, many, many monogamous ones too; the fact isn’t that these couples are gay, the fact is that they don’t have the mind or morals to keep their sex in one place.  I agree that open marriages are unhealthy and wrong.  I’m quite thankful, however, that being gay doesn’t mean being polygamous any more than it meas lisps and limp wrists. My wife is the only woman I’ve ever had intimacy with, and I’m more than satisfied.

Several recent studies have indicated that as many as 1/3 of Catholic priests are gay.  But these studies cannot be right.  Priests are, after all, celibate and asexual.

If things had worked out differently and Michael Jackson had never sang “I’ll be there” as a young child, who knows what might have happened.  Perhaps he would have joined the priesthood.  We would have never heard about the chimp and the elephant man, and never-never land. 

This proves that God truly does have a plan for each of us.  I believe He wanted us to enjoy beautiful songs like “Thriller”, “You are not alone”, and “Beat It”.

What is it with Christians trying to make everyone have sex a certain way? Are you guys gonna start climbing through our bedroom windows to make sure we’re doing it according to your rules? Peak under the covers to make sure everything is in the right place? What?!

Just because you don’t engage in something it does not give you the right to take away someones basic human rights! What people do in their marriage is no one’s business exept for the married couple themselves. What people do in their sex life is not legal grounds for anything. If it were, I know a whole lot of straight people who would not be allowed to get married either!

I know quite a few straight couples who also have open marriages, so if you’re gonna take away gay marriage because some gay people engage in open marriage, you’re gonna have to ban straight marriage too, because you guys do it too! So don’t try and pull this crap on us! You’re sex lives are just as, if not more, messed up as ours!

Get a life and stay out of other people’s sex lives ya perverts! Yeah that’s right, I called YOU perverts! Who else would be so obsessed with other people’s sex lives!? I mean, you’ve made laws on what kind of sex whole states can or can not have! Dominatrices don’t have that kind sexual control issues!

Seethelightofgod Ummm … if you have statistics showing that one in three priests is homosexual, please reveal the source so we can evaluate them. If you don’t, then don’t claim you do.

SeeMyMarriage … The New York Times wasn’t perpetuating a stereotype, it was reporting on a study. It’s a statistic, not a stereotype.

Aaron … If you are saying that all sexuality should legal, that’s disgusting. If the homosexual “marriage” logic leads there, and it does seem to, that’s another argument against it. Mackenzie Phillips is like other incest victims who are absolutely convinced it’s just consensual sex, too.

If you’re not saying all sexuality should be legal, then let’s discuss parameters honestly, and look at evidence of injury and The New York Times story.

Umm. Aaron. The Church is not trying to make everyone do it a certain way.  The Church RECOGNIZES the Way that it goes, however.  Let me explain…humans have a certain nature, are made in a certain way and operate in a certain way.  Male and female are made for each other.  Their bodies complement one another.  This complementation is NECESSARY for life.  For new life and the continuing life of humanity.  Your very human nature is controlled by the “rules” of your body and soul.  The Church doesn’t make the rules.  Nor does it impose any consequences – your nature does that itself.  You do have free will.  However, that doesn’t mean whatever goes – as your body/soul has integrity all its own.

Oh sure Tom here you go:  http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=20565

But my point was to say that God has a plan for all of us, and obviously not every homosexual ends up being a priest.  It would be nice if all of them would, but that is just not being realistic.

Thanks, Cheryl, some one finally mentioned nature

Thanks for the link, “SeethelightofGod”. for the record, the article doesn’t support the statement: “Several recent studies have indicated that as many as 1/3 of priests are gay.”

Says your article: “Just how widespread is homosexuality among priests and bishops? For obvious reasons, no reliable statistics are available.”

Cheryl and Tom Hoopes, this is my body, my body parts, you don’t have a right to tell me how to use them. As for the church not telling people how to do that, explain why oral sex is illegal in the bible belt, even between married couples? And I am speaking about adult sex, not incest. When it comes to what two adult human beings do in their sex life, yes it should all be legal, because no one has a right to tell you what you can and can not do with your own body. In case you forgot, telling people what they do with their own bodies is against their basic human rights, which are protected by the constitution! Thought you guys have slipped some laws in there even though it’s extremely illegal, but that’s okay, it will be exposed one day!

Thanks Aaron. MacKenzie Phillips was 19. You think her victimization was okay? She thought it was consensual, too!

But careful: This is what THe New York Times is pointing to: There is a totally different understanding of what’s right and wrong in sexual relationships in the homosexual community.

Tom Hoopes, AGAIN I will say, I am not speaking of incest! The above article has nothing to do with incest, it’s about open relationships, something that more and more couples gay and straight are engaging in.

You may not like it, but it is their right as Americans to engage in this if they so choose. Remember that not everyone is Christian, and this country was founded on freedom of religion. You would not want to live in a country where the more powerful religion makes the laws! Because in those societies religious majority changes over time. So if we make America into a place where religion makes the rules, what happens when the next religion comes into power and they don’t like yours? That’s right, the bible get’s banned, and Christains suffer legal persicution!

Theses laws are not in place to protect just none Christians, there set up to protect everyone, Christians included! If you do not wish to be told that you can not do as you please and worship as you please, than stop telling others what they can do and how they must worship!

And yes that is what is happening, and has happened! There are many laws in place that came straight out of the church. They have nothing to do with people outside the faith, but they’re forced to follow these rules because they’ve become law. In essence, they are forced to be Christians.

But what happens when the Christian faith becomes the less popular faith? What if us “perverts” get together and vote that you all have to have open marriages cause it’s our belief that’s it’s healthy and everyone should do it?

This is the kind of society America is being turned into by making it a nation controlled by majority religion. Where other people can force their personal beliefs on you! It’s great while you’re still in control, but what happens when you’re not anymore?

I know, Aaron. I’m just testing our your principle that all consensual adult sex should be legal.
You now agree that in the case of incest “adult” and “consensual” aren’t the only qualifiers we need.
We need to hear why you have the authority to rule out incest. Why should your morality trump Mackenzie Phillips and her dad’s?
Are you the sex police, Aaron?
Is the rule: Whatever Aaron feels comfortable with is morally right?
I fear chaos lies down the path of Aaron-centered morality ... and it seems like your argument is more about justifying sex that you want or may want than applying a principle that will benefit society.

Tom Hoopes,

Incest has been proven to be damaging, however, maybe there is legal argument to say once you’re an adult the law should have nothing to say about it, but I’m not the one to make that argument because I do think it causes harm. But if a group of adults get together and say they want to make it legally okay to be with daddy, I won’t stop them, it’s their life. I honestly don’t care what you choose to do with your body when you’re and adult. That’s the difference between me and Christians, I just don’t care what other people want to do with their own lives! Why should I? It’s not my life? But I’m forced into these kind of discussions because other people DO care how I lead my life!

As for what I want for my own sexual lifestyle, I never said this is what I would do! Personally I believe in commitment, and if my man did this I’d brain him, and I’m sure he would me too! But that’s the rules of OUR relationship! We have no right to tell other people what rules they must have for their own relationships! A girl asked me once if her boyfriend knows she’s with another guy and he’s ok with it, is she still cheating on him. I told her that was her relationship and it has it’s own rules that have got nothing to do with me. So if they’re both okay with it, who am I to tell them how to live their lives?

I will always make the argument that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as there is no harm done to someone else in the process. You wouldn’t want me coming into your relationship and telling you the rules for it! So keep your nose out of mine! That’s all I’m saying.

“I fear chaos lies down the path of Aaron-centered morality” That’s the point I’m making! What if you had to live your life by these rules? What if you couldn’t choose to be faithful? What if I made laws that said you had to sex the way I think is best? One day someone may be able to do just that! It’s happened before. People get tired of the following a moral code they don’t believe in, so eventually they overthrow and impose their own. Usually the first rule of that code is to ban the previous moral code that repressed them for so long! That’s why America is about laws, not morality. If I’m having sex on your living room floor, than yes, you have a say in it, but if I not you don’t because it’s not affecting you in any way.

Aaron-
You do not understand.  It is not I telling YOU how to use your body.  Your body is as it is.  It comes with its own nature.  YOU can’t even tell your own body HOW it should be.  Try to tell your body it is “female” (assuming you are male)….but, every single cell in your body has male-coded DNA.  Your hormones operate as male, your muscle tissue and brain tissue is decidedly male, etc., etc.  You can use your body in ways unimaginable to me, but there will be REAL consequences.  Even if you never heard of the Pope, or if you disagree with the Pope, you will still suffer those consequences. It is your human nature.  It just is.

Aaron: “That’s why America is about laws, not morality.”

Laws need to be just.
Justice is a moral standard.

I see your larger point, Aaron, but I still want to point out that the logical consequence of your argument—by your own admission—is that incest can be legal, too.

In fact, the first beneficiaries of the redefinition of marriage will be polygamist compounds. How can we tell them that it’s illegal to marry these 18 year-old-girls—daughters included—if we can’t make judgments about sexuality?

And if we CAN make laws against their sexuality, then by what standard?

Aaron-I disagree.  A society cannot exist if people did as they pleased.  That is anarchy.  Law defines rights and obligations.  Yes, you have certain rights, but you also have obligations.  As example – most people would say pornography is not for children.  To help keep children FROM pornography, the adults of a society may have to buck up and keep porn from the airwaves and billboards.  Rights with obligation.  Can’t separate the two.
The “rights” you speak about are NOT the ability to do anything you please.  The rights we have as citizens of this country are those rights we have by virtue of our human nature.  As you continue to fight the fact that there is a human nature (a human nature that comes with its own natural rights and obligations), be cognizant that you may free yourself right out of “rights.”

Tom-Don’t stop there. What would stop someone from marrying themselves? Numbers wouldn’t be important.

Tom Hoopes
Polygamy is a separate issue from gay marriage. Gay marriage is between two people, same as straight marriage. Most of the time, the wording doesn’t even have to be changed when gay marriage becomes legal. They just start issuing licenses. In polygamy they would have to write a whole new set of laws regarding property, custody, and who has power of attorney.

Like if I’m dying and my husband tells the doctors to keep fighting. No one’s gonna dispute that, But if you’ve got 4 wives a 2 saying pull plug and 2 saying keep fighting, and they’re all legally this man’s wives, who do they listen to? If me and my husband adopt kids and I die, he gets them. But if a man dies and he’s got 4 wives, some biologically related to the children, other’s not, all wanting custody, who do they go to? After all, the one’s who are not biologically related to the children are still their mothers in the eyes of the law!

And yes you’re right, oneday they might make it legal to recognize polygamy, but gay marriage does not make the argument for it because it’s still between two people. But just so we’re clear, just because polygamy isn’t legally recognized, it’s still practiced. No one is going to bust down the door and arrest a man for having sex with an 18 year old! He still marries these girls, the marriage just isn’t legally valid in the eyes of the law, but it still exists.

You have to let people lead their own lives. We may not like that these girls are being taken advantage of, but if they are 18, legally they are adults, we can not stop them from going along with whatever they wish, harmful or not. I know you don’t like that, I don’t either, but if we start picking and choosing what we allow adults to do we put ourselves on a path to being a society where morality, not legality rules. As I said before, that road doesn’t lead to any place good (look at WWII Germany). And it doesn’t last.

Okay as an example, one of my female friends was pregnant and she had invited all of us to go to the bar with her one night. I told one of her close friends I’d heard a rumor about her and she said “It’s no rumor” I threw a fit and said how dare she go the bar in her condition! I said I was going to go with her, and if I saw her start to take a drink I would stop her. Her friend looked at me and said, “No…no you absolutely will not!” I looked at her and said “But I have to”. She looked at me and said “She’s a grown woman, these are her decisions. We have no right to tell her what to do.”  I started arguing that I had every right, but she said to me “Aaron, you know that’s not true. It’s her life and her decision to make. We can think what we want about her, but it’s her choice to make! When this baby comes out we can make sure no one hurts it, but we can’t tell her what she can and or can not do to her own body! Look inside yourself, you know that’s true!” I started crying and she hugged me and said she knew how much that sucks, but that’s how it is, people have to lead their own lives, even if it means they do things we don’t like. She was right of course, but it did suck horribly. In the end though, our friend didn’t go to the bar that night.

Sometimes freedom does suck horribly because with freedom comes the freedom to make bad choices. But it always has to be our choice to make. If I were in her place I wouldn’t want someone telling me that I had to drink, so therefore I had no right tell her not to drink, and as I said, it sucked when I realized that, but truth often does. That’s what freedom is. We can’t tell other people what to do, even if we know it’s harmful to them, because, who decides what’s harmful? Many people consider religion as a whole harmful because it starts wars, leads to cults, and the violent persecution of none believers, so some fell it should be outlawed. So if we let people just take away our rights to do something cause it might be harmful to us, maybe others will come along later and decide what we do is harmful and ban it.

This is the danger of trying to control people when it does not affect you! If it is going to harm you personally, than you have every right to fight against it, but if not than you have to let people be free to do it, even if you don’t like it or agree with it.

This discussion should include the reasoning behind the Catholic Church’s stance on moral issues. People often react unreasonably to Catholic teaching, which seems at first imposing, but they fail to take the next step and ask “why” the Church teaches as she does. What those resistant to the Church fail to recognize are the unseen (and maybe unintended) consequences of their decisions. This is where the wisdom of the Catholic Church must be afforded its due. Many of the arguments in favor of unfettered sexual freedom, including redefining marriage, are arguments stuck in stage-one thinking—they never consider the long-term, negative consequences for society and the individual. The value of 2000 years of philosophical and theological study, based, in my opinion, on the deepest and most correct understanding of human nature, is found in only one institution on earth—the Catholic Church.

But in a world of moral relativism where there can be no absolutes, the very words “wisdom”, “truth”, “goodness” and “beauty” are undefinable. But we, as thinking Catholics, understand what these words mean and the standards they are based upon. As GK Chesterton said, “A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and conceivable idea that something else may be wiser than he is.” But today morality and ethics are relative and the only ‘knowledge’ most people are willing to consider comes from the modern trinity: me, myself and I.

We need to understand what set of conditions produce the best opportunities for human flourishing. The ‘progressive’ mindset continually argues directly against the two foundational social issues that the Catholic Church protects—LIFE and FAMILY. The Church protects these fundamental elements of human existence because it has the wisdom to understand the proper conditions in which human life thrives. It sees the consequences of short-term, progressive, stage-one, morally relative thinking that appeals so much to the so-called ‘enlightened’ left. Remember, Pope JPII said that the Church never imposes, she only proposes. This is truer than her opponents choose to believe. And she proposes the most correct route to human happiness and human dignity by offering solutions that furnish the standard for action based on disciplined choices rather than unbridled passions and appetites. The Church understands human nature and human behavior, and she offers this understanding to world, but not all are open enough or wise enough to receive it.

In Canada, which already recognizes same-sex marriage, the polygamists have made a new run for legalizing their unions.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=42307

It’s all about redefining marriage. If you can redefine it to be between two males, surely the definition can be expanded to three males, or one man and three women.

Once you move the barrier, the sky is the limit to redefinition.

Why not?

Mark T
This is just the kind of thing I’m talking about. These are your beliefs and you’re saying that everyone must follow them, that’s the kind of thinking the almost exterminated the Native Americans who lived here before us. What about their human dignity? What about their LIFE, their FAMILY?

What about the people who were burned alive because they were suspected of witch craft? What about the persecution of the Jews? You’re right, Christainty does protect family and life, as long as it’s in the church,  but outside of the church historically that’s been an entirely different matter!

Some Native American tribes practiced same sex marriage, but when the white man came he didn’t agree with this, and this along with most of their religion was wiped out! Remember at one time their relgion, their practices ruled this land (yup, American homosexual marriage is actually older than the constitution) but Christain settlers came and redefined marriage and religion for these people by taking away theirs, and replacing them with their own ideals.

History has a way of repeating itself, what happens when the day comes when someone shows up at your door telling you you have to convert to Scientology, because it’s now the big religion in America and big religion makes the laws? That’s what you’re fighting for. If only one moral code is enforced over all, eventually the moral code changes, and the previous moral code is seen as affront to the new power, so it’s banned from being practiced.

Mary Ann Wenske

thatgayguysblog.blogspot.com

Who redefined what?

One side wants marriage limited by natural moral principles.

The other side wants marriage to apply to them, but hasn’t articulated a reason marriage should be limited to two people, or unrelated people ... you yourself Aaron could think of no justification to keep a father away from his 19 year old daughter, if he can get her to consent.

Tom hoopes,

Actually what I said was I wouldn’t make an argument for or against it because if you’re both adults I really don’t care what you do. But it argument can be made that in the case of incest children can be born with serious birth defects. But then so can smoking.

As for polygamy, again new laws would have to written to accommodate multiple wives. Not so with gay marriage. It’s simply a matter of issuing a license. But again I must remind you that making something not legally recognized does not stop it. Well still have polygamist marriages even though in the eyes of the law they’re not legally valid. You can’t arrest someone for getting married, only deny legal recognition of the marriage.

As for this natural, moral law: If we go by what comes naturally to us, for me that’s homosexuality. If we go by morality than who’s? There are more than one set of more rules. Every culture, (of which America is made up of many) has its own idea of what’s moral and what isn’t. Some Native American tribes for example included same sex marriage in their moral code, the original moral code of this country I might add, before someone, I won’t say who, came in and destroyed their moral code and replaced it with there own.

But I guess no one worries this will one day happen to Christianity? If they were, they certainly wouldn’t be trying to make it legal for the most powerful religion to control laws. Cause if Christianity is one day no longer the majority, it could be outlawed and replaced, much like the Native religion was.

Aaron stated, “This is just the kind of thing I’m talking about. These are your beliefs and you’re saying that everyone must follow them….”

Ironically, Aaron, that’s what the homosexual marriage movement and you are doing today with this agenda of redefining marriage.  You want to change the definition of marriage for the rest of us to suit your needs.

And yes, it is redefining marriage, so don’t play cute word games. Homosexual “marriage” will legally change marriage from one man, one woman. If it didn’t, the new laws and regulations in Massachusetts would not be necessary.

Tom Hoopes has proven that homosexual “marriage” will necessitate changing the laws of our country as would polygamist marriages. For example, homosexuals have already petitioned the courts in Mass. to have their unnatural unions presented at normal in public schools. Any talk about sex in health class must include presenting homosexual sex as healthy alternative.

Also, homosexuals petition the courts so that they can be married at certain places and not experience “discrimination” by those who disagree with their actions.

Homosexual “marriages” will not only open the door to polygamous unions, but also to others-

Bestial “marriages”  A British Jewish woman “married” a dolphin. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1549217/posts?page=228

If homosexuals can marry, why not a British millionaire and the animal she loves?

Also, in Germany, an incestuous union between a brother and sister who already have four children is winding through the courts. Germany has homosexual unions, so what’s wrong with a brother and sister marrying who love each other?
http://bentcorner.com/2008/11/incestuous-german-brother-and-sister-fight-to-stay-married/

Open up the definition of marriage, and we’ll see this here in America as well.

@Tom: I’m saying that the people who were studied are perpetuating a stereotype, not the study or statistics themselves. Thankfully not all gay people have open relationships, just like how not all straight people have open relationships, either.  Like I said, I’m gay and my wife and I are perfectly monogamous, and in all honesty I don’t think we’re a rare sort of gay couple.

I think it’s odd that a supposedly liberal-friendly newspaper would print news about homosexual “stereotypes.”  Aren’t they the ones in the business of making marriage a level playing field?

I do believe that Tom has this one correct- the NYT has “blown the lid” off of homosexual marriage.  They just didn’t know that the facts hurt their own point of view.

Aaron: “Actually what I said was I wouldn’t make an argument for or against it because if you’re both adults I really don’t care what you do.”

Hi there Aaron.  I am an adult.  And, I do KNOW that YOU care ‘what I do.’  You see, I don’t agree with your lifestyle.  I don’t approve of gay ‘marriage.’  And, because I do this, you complain.  So, you see, YOUR actions indeed show that you care what another adult is doing.

Aaron: “As for polygamy, again new laws would have to written to accommodate multiple wives. Not so with gay marriage. It’s simply a matter of issuing a license. But again I must remind you that making something not legally recognized does not stop it. Well still have polygamist marriages even though in the eyes of the law they’re not legally valid. You can’t arrest someone for getting married, only deny legal recognition of the marriage.”

Of course new laws need to be written.  Case in point, that NC/NH (?) case concerning the child caught in a battle between the lesbian partner and the birth mother (who used to be ‘gay,’ but now is ‘straight.’)  A nightmare, I’m sure, for the courts.  [Not to mention for the child.] 

A license is permission, an approval.  You cannot coerce approval from a person that believes gay ‘marriage’ to be wrong.  Heck, you cannot even coerce your body cells into thinking you are ‘naturally’ the other sex…no matter what your desires are - your body cells, body chemistry, and body plan is that of a MALE.  Your body knows its ‘nature’ better than your mind does.  Just as the quadruple-bypass patient desires and longs for ‘bacon and eggs,’ he has come to understand his body is not built for ‘ham and eggs.’

@aaron: I’m not saying that everyone must follow my beliefs. What I’m saying is that the Catholic Church, in its wisdom, understands the route to human happiness and I accept it based on a lifetime of observing the world and examining the various explanations of the human condition. Part of human nature is to resist truth; the Church understands this. But when that resistance is eased and the Church is given a fair look, its wisdom becomes readily apparent. In all honesty, if the Church were to officially give the green light to same-sex ‘marriage’, I would accept it because I know it would be based on sound reasoning and a fundamental understanding of how it would benefit mankind. Given what I’ve read on the Catholic view of human nature and natural law, from Augustine to Aquinas to John Paul II, a papal encyclical allowing homosexual ‘marriage’ (that word is important) seems like an impossibility.

Mark T, you explain Church teaching very well.  The Church doesn’t make natural law, it explains it. 

Aaron, et. al., it is your very own human nature that puts NATURAL limits on you.  I suggest reading John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.  It is a most wonderful work explaining exactly how that happens.  (If that reading is beyond you, author Christopher West has done a fine job of making JPII’s work accessible.)  Or, read through Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae from 1968.  Forty years ago he predicted the effects wide-spread contraceptive use would have on our culture.

@aaron: Slightly off-topic, but I’d like to briefly address your notion of ‘freedom’. I think what you define as freedom is not well enough thought out to be workable, long-term for society. People seek freedom and liberty and we want as much of them as possible. But what we also want and need are limits, boundaries, frames, discipline and walls—we want a normal and natural morality which, by definition, must have limits. Freedom separated from moral virtue is an unworkable illusion. Completely free immoral choices blind a person to the true state of his life, enslaving him to evil rather than the good he was meant for. A society based on unlimited freedom has never worked, and has always resulted in chaos and individual slavery to vice rather than virtue.

Consider Chesterton’s metaphor for the ‘walls’ of the Catholic Church, written 100 years ago:
“Those countries in Europe that are still influenced by priests are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and colored dresses and art in the open air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame that has preserved the pleasure of paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge, they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them, they were all huddled in terror in the center of the island; and their song had ceased.”

The interesting paradox is that so many thinking people in the Catholic Church are quite at ease, happy, and singing for joy because they have found real freedom and true liberty INSIDE the walls of the Church. Modern progressive doctrine seeks a freedom outside all walls which is unnatural, unworkable and destructive.

“Redefining marriage in this country has been defeated at the polls every time it has be ALLOWED to come to a vote.”

The same can be said for interracial marriage, which until 1967 was illegal in 37 states and constitutionally banned in 15.

“And yes, it is redefining marriage, so don’t play cute word games.”

Marriage has already been redefined, several times in this country. AND THANK GOD! If we kept the same definition of marriage of 100 years ago, me husband would be in jail because it was a “crime against nature” and a “sin against God”. Leave it to the ninny finger-pointing crowd to define marriage for everybody else, as if whom I spend the rest of my life with really affects them. Leave the gays alone. They do nothing to us, so we should do nothing to them.

Naomi,

Interracial marriages were not put to the vote in more than a dozen states. Besides, interracial marriages are quite natural, and have been going on long before anyone “legalized” them. If they weren’t natural, they would have chldren born to the unions.

The homosexual agenda IS affecting my life, Naomi.  I do not want my children taught that unnatural sex is healthy and a viable alternative. Also, children are being affected by being raised in a male/male or female/female environment when all the research shows that children flourish the best in a stable home with a mom and a dad.

Children have a right to a mother and a father role model.

That should be, “If they weren’t natural, they would not have children born to the unions.”

and I don’t want my children being taught that strictly Christian religious fervor is the only proper one, because I don’t think that it’s natural for people to be so one-religion minded.  I don’t want to outlaw the spread of Christianity, however. 

Mary Ann, we all want our children to think that our own morals are the highest.  They’ll make their own choices when they’re adults, no matter what you stress when they’re children.  The fact of the matter is that for me and the protection of my relationship with my wife, I need it to be marriage.  Period. Your decisions to support the government not allowing two people of the same sex are affecting my life directly.

‘...same sex to get married…’**

Generally, heterosexual morals do not cause a higher than normal suicide rate, an early death rate, or higher levels of depression.

That’s why I don’t want homosexual sex being promoted as a healthy option or alternative lifestyle.

The reason why homosexual people statistically are more depressed and suicidal than straight people is because of the social stigma and assertion that homosexuality is wrong.  It is not simply because they are gay, it’s because of how ‘gay’ is treated by those who are convinced its wrong.

I considered killing myself once.  Why? Because my relationship with my mother over my orientation was so strained that for an instant, it seemed like no other way out.  It wasn’t the fact that I’m gay, however, it was because of my mom’s reaction to the fact that I was gay.  The best way to cure depression and suicide in the gay population is for society to realize there’s no problem with being gay.  Denying that this is the reason why gay people can be that way so frequently is doing nothing but perpetuating the problem, and then being blind to the fact that you are.

Actually, the suicide rate for homosexuals is higher even in places where the is no particular social stigma, where homosexuality has been normalized for years, like the Netherlands:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/844684r376r043p3/?p=827520248c2143af9beb59b53390af93&pi=1

The point of all this is that Americans are normalizing homosexuality based on exceptional situations like yours, instead of looking at the tragic bigger picture.

The New York Times reveals that the real situation in the homosexual community is very different from what we’re told by activists promoting marriage.

Mary Ann Wenske
I KNOW you didn’t just say that because gay people have a higher suicide rate that’s a reason to deny them rights and keep them down! What you just said is like a racist saying that white people should be the only ones to have rights because being black leads discrimination!

Studies have shown that gay people are most likely born gay. Our brains form more like that of the opposite sex in some areas, like sexual attraction, while we’re still in the woumb. I knew when I was 7 years old that there was something different about me, and it’s the dogma of the church that was forced on me that made me consider suicide as a young teen. When you hear your whole life that your very existence is an abomination, let’s see how high your suicide rate goes! Oh and btw, that thing about it being it “abomination”: if someone had told me from the start that the bible says the same thing about eating shrimp, it might have put things in a little more perspective!

As for forcing my beliefs on you, that’s not what we’re doing. We want a simple legal term to define our relationship. It’s got nothing to do with your own marriage or your life! Have you been forced to marry someone of another race? Does the fact that people of other races marry affect your marriage in any way? Well, the same thing your saying about our marriages changing yours is the same thing racists church leaders were saying when it first became legal.

And as I’ve said before, original marriage in America (in some Native American tribes) included marriage between members of the same sex till the church came and redfirned marriage by their rules and forcing their relgion up on a people who already had their own belife system. That is if they didn’t just kill them outright in the name of God.

??
Aaron, it’s The New York Times, not Mary Ann Wenske, saying that for about half of homosexual “married” couples in San Francisco, marriage has been redefined to mean “non-exclusive relationship.”

If you force us to legally call “marriage” relationships with that kind of track record, you will indeed be forcing your will upon the people and emptying our marriages of meaning, legally.

my god, I just lost everything I’ve been typing.  Sigh. 

Anyway, What I was basically going to say was that just because being gay is perhaps more acceptable overall, that doesn’t mean that lots of people still don’t have issues with it on a personal basis, and are still causing the same sorts of depression and problems that would turn out a higher rate of suicide.

if EVERYONE in the entire world had no problem with gayness, there’d be no reason for a gay person to kill themselves except for other, unrelated issues.  Since anti-gay sentiment is still a rampant problem, even if only on a personal level and not societal one, gay people will still be killing themselves more often than others.  It’s really that simple.

oh, and my situation really isn’t that exceptional if it’s only half of all gay relationships that are open, is it?  I still have the other half on my side.

I hate that about our comments. If your computer blips, you lose everything. I hit “Select all” and “copy” occasionally so I’ll have a recent version.

And, my friend, half of marriages not conforming to basic understanding of marriage is an AWFUL percentage! Don’t be too cavalier about that one.

I type it on Word first sometimes also.  I’ve lost a bit on here too!

Actually, it can be a blessing. The second time I write the comment, it’s usually a lot more succint.

Tom Hoopes
But you already embraces these marriages! Straight married couples have been doing this for years! Example: Wife swapping parties and swinger’s clubs! All marriage, even between heterosexuals, is different! The true myth of marriage is that there is one definition for it!

Marriage is like a person, it can be religious, it can be none-religious, it can be legally recognized (like a U.S. citizen) it can be not legally recognized (like an illegal immigrant), it can be black, it can be white, it can be mixed race, it can be good, it can be bad and so on. There is no one definition of marriage, any more than there is one definition of person!

Marriage is defined by culture (again, America is not one culture, but many) and by the people it involves! For some marriage means commitment,  for some it means having someone at home but still have other sexual partners, for some it means financial security, for some it means love, for some it means an arranged understanding that has nothing to do with love, for some it means being bound together in mutual hatred of each other, and still for others, it means a playful joke (Britney Spears)! All of these are legally recognized marriages as long as their between a male and female!

So just what is this single definition of marriage that everyone keeps talking about? It’s defiantly not love, cause I can walk into a court house today and marry a girl I hate! It’s not commitment either, cause I can marry said gir, and kiss my boyfriend instead of her, after we’re pronounced man and wife, and the judge isn’t gonna dissolve the marriage. It’s not raising children either, cause we can both be sterile and still get married. So, what is this single definition? Do you know?

The final thing I’m gonna say is that, I think it’s great that these couples can talk to each other so honestly and come to the conclusion that that their relationship works best if they don’t limit themselves to each other sexually. They could lie and say they’re going to be faithful and then cheat, the way that the majority of straight married couples do, but they choose to lay it all out on the table with each other and admit that they’re probably going to have sex with someone else at some point. At least they’re self aware. But I guess if a relationship is based on a lie that make it’s better? I guess if they snuck around behind each others backs like straight married couples do, that would be more proper?

I’m not disagreeing that it’s a bad percentage—it certainly is terrible, and I wish they’d stop.  However, one point is that there is still a 50% that isn’t doing that, and their well being and protection as a couple still has to be considered, too.  The second point is that being gay and married doesn’t have ‘open’ as a requirement, it’s just an unfortunate choice of those individuals.  Don’t punish all of us for the foolery of some.  Or half, in this case.

Aaron, show me the study that shows that half of heterosexual marriages are mutual arrangements of serial infidelity and we’ll talk.

I’d actually like to see that study myself.  Except I have the feeling that straight couples would gear more towards cheating than open, simply because straight people feel like they have more social gains to loose if they do something sexually unacceptable like that. Lots of gay people already feel like they’ve destroyed any sense of socially acceptable behavior, so why care?  That’s the tragedy right there; the ‘well I’m already ten minutes late for class, I may as well not go’ mentality that leads to actual breakdowns.  Lots of gay people really just need to understand that being gay doesn’t make them special.  They’re still just like everyone else, they’re just physically attracted to the same gender.  I’m a terrible gay person, lol.

Tom Hoopes
Studies have concluded that at least one partner in 30-60% (it’s hard to get an exact number because most people will lie if they’ve cheated) will engage in infidelity. Most heterosexual marriages are open marriages, the only difference is that the other spouse is kept in the dark about it! At least the people in the NY times study were honest with their partner and have an honest relationship!

Naomi Keller; “Leave the gays alone. They do nothing to us, so we should do nothing to them.
Naomi-I, for one, am leaving them alone. That, however, includes my NOT approving of gay ‘marriages.’  You see, it is THEY who won’t leave me alone.

SeeMyMarriage: “Since anti-gay sentiment is still a rampant problem, even if only on a personal level and not societal one, gay people will still be killing themselves more often than others.  It’s really that simple.”
Have you EVER thought outside of your box and considered that the problem may be more directly related to living CONVERSE to one’s genetic, physical and psychological blueprint???  Akin to that heart patient who refuses to acknowledge that his eating eggs, bacon and butter has anything to do with his clogged arteries.  He desires the fatty foods – but his body cannot be healthy with them.

Aaron, you admit that your heterosexual “study” (curiously NOT cited) isn’t correct because the somehow the heterosexuals LIE.

Yet you think that the homosexuals DON’T lie in their study.

You’re not credible at all in your veracity or your “studies.”

SeeMyMarriage: “The fact of the matter is that for me and the protection of my relationship with my wife, I need it to be marriage.”
I do not understand. Please explain ‘NEED.’

Cheryl
I can’t speak for all gay people, but for me, it’s not about getting people to approve of gay marriage, it’s about getting them to not stand in it’s way legally, that’s all. The majority of people in my area think that interracial marriage is wrong. They still teach their kids that it’s wrong, and no one is going to stop them from thinking it’s wrong, or teaching other’s that it’s wrong. But they would not go so far as to try and get it voted out, or amend the constitution to prohibit other’s from doing it. I’m not trying to force gay marriage into your belief system, I’m simply asking to be legally bound to my partner in a universally understood legal term so that we have the same rights and protections that other couples have under the law. That’s it!

I’m not gonna come to your home, or even your Church and get married. I’m not gonna come up to your child and say “have you considered gay marriage for your future?” I just want to get married, go back to the privacy of our own home, and not bother anyone.

Aaron- “And as I’ve said before, original marriage in America (in some Native American tribes) included marriage between members of the same sex.”
Aaron-How do you take what is found only in SOME Native American groups and claim that was the ‘law of the land in America?’  As I see it, if I only look at the OTHER tribes, what I see is that same-sex marriage WASN’T the ‘law of the land.’

And, your, “Studies have shown that gay people are most likely born gay,” is in direct opposition to the direction the APA has moved recently.  At one time the APA claimed that homosexuality was due to a gay gene, and even claimed research showed that.  However, their most recent statement is that there is no understanding of how ‘homosexuality’ comes to be.  Apparently all the ‘gay-gene’ supporting research has vanished.

I was speaking from previous studies that I’ve seen, but if you want a site you can look at,a quick google search and here ya go:
http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/quizzes/public/infidelity_statistics.html

No, I’m sure some homosexuals do lie, but there’s less motive for people to lie about being in an open relationship, when the other partner already knows about it. The reason that I said most people lie about this is because at least half all marriages end in divorce and good chunk of that is due to infidelity. So that alone means a great deal of spouses have found out about the affair, but there would still be a large portion of undiscovered infidelity in existing marriages. Yet only around 23% of men and !4% of woman admit in most studies that they’ve cheated, even though divorce statistics suggest it’s much higher.

Aaron: “...I’m simply asking to be legally bound to my partner in a universally understood legal term so that we have the same rights and protections that other couples have under the law.”

Aaron-Why do you think it is that societies recognize marriage in the first place?  What is it that marriages provide to a society? 
And, as I have said before, a license is a permission or approval.  A license is issued by the government.  As Teddy Roosevelt said – “The government is YOU and I.”  You might approve, but I don’t.

Aaron-The fact of the matter is that those arguing for gay ‘marriage’ argue for it based on the right of equality.  The right of equality finds its basis in natural law – we are created equal and thus have equal rights to be.  Natural law DEPENDS on our human nature.  But, homosexuals are denying their human nature.  So, in effect gays have quite an illogical argument…they base their argument on an ideal they don’t believe is true.

Aaron-“I’m not gonna come to your home, or even your Church and get married. I’m not gonna come up to your child and say “have you considered gay marriage for your future?” I just want to get married, go back to the privacy of our own home, and not bother anyone.”
Ah, you see, a license is approval.  Once the government puts that in place, I can be fined and jailed for my NOT approving.  It is happening in Canada right now.  It happened to the photographer in the Southeast (NM?), Elaine Huegenon (sp?); it happened to e-Harmony; etc.  It IS already affecting people and it isn’t even the law of the land.

Cheryl “And, your, “Studies have shown that gay people are most likely born gay,” is in direct opposition to the direction the APA has moved recently.”

Couldn’t find what you were talking about but here’s some links to what I was talking about, and no, there probably isn’t a gene as first thought, it was thought it was caused by genes because woman with more boys were likely to have a least one gay son, so it was thought that woman that were genetically more fertile also had a the gay gene, but later research showed that a boy child is more likely to be born gay in a family of lots of boys because of the amount of male hormones the mother produces which increase with each male pregnancy. This suggests hormones, not genetics cause homosexuality, but it’s still a physical difference.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/26/health/main1753553.shtml
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1815538,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7456588.stm

Cheryl

“Ah, you see, a license is approval. Once the government puts that in place, I can be fined and jailed for my NOT approving.”
No you can’t, the law clearly states that Churches can not be forced to provide services to anyone it doesn’t want to. The church can refuse to marry people for any reason, or no reason at all. As for what eharmony and the photographer, these are businesses, a business can be sued for discimination practices against minorities, churches and individuals can not.

Ya know what, this is consuming way too much of my time and is pointless. It’s in the courts hands now so none of this matters. Believe what you will, I don’t really care what is. This is my last post here.

Don’t you people see that if we allow gays to marry, people will marry animals, children and multiples!  It is just a matter of time…why are you gays so selfish?!?  Do you really want to be responsible for the destruction and devolution of our country - because it WILL be YOUR fault!

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
—Edmund Burke.
“Families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference.”
—Pope John Paul II

Aaron-Some reading for you from - www.narth.com
>>APA’s New Pamphlet On Homosexuality De-emphasizes The Biological Argument, Supports A Client’s Right To Self-Determination
A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D., MBA, MPH
>>>Pro-Homosexual Researchers Conceal Findings: Children Raised by Openly Homosexual Parents More Likely to Engage in Homosexuality [link]
>>>Latest Twin Study Confirms Genetic Contribution To SSA Is Minor
N.E. Whitehead, Ph.D.

Great John Paul II quote, Tom. So great I want to use it in the future!  I googled it, and it just brought me back to the Catholic Online site that quotes the Register.

Do you know where he said it or wrote it?

(I am always quoting the quotes of you Register guys!)

Familiaris Consortio No. 44. It’s got some journalistic license in the way it’s quoted in part here, but I don’t think it hurts the context:

“The social role of families is called upon to find expression also in the form of political intervention: families should be the first to take steps to see that the laws and institutions of the State not only do not offend but support and positively defend the rights and duties of the family. Along these lines, families should grow in awareness of being ‘protagonists’ of what is known as ‘family politics’ and assume responsibility for transforming society; otherwise ***families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference.*** The Second Vatican Council’s appeal to go beyond an individualistic ethic therefore also holds good for the family as such.”

SeeMyMarriage: “The fact of the matter is that for me and the protection of my relationship with my wife, I need it to be marriage.”
I do not understand. Please explain ‘NEED.’

I need it to be marriage because only marriage assures me and my wife the 1k plus federal and however-many-numbered state protections given to married couples.  Civil Unions only give partial ammounts of them; the same for Domestic partnerships.  Anything less would be telling me, my wife, and however many other thousands of gay couples that our relationships aren’t as valuable as straight ones, and therefore need less protection—and I can assure you from personal experience that they most certainly are on an equal level.

SeeMyMarriage: “Since anti-gay sentiment is still a rampant problem, even if only on a personal level and not societal one, gay people will still be killing themselves more often than others.  It’s really that simple.”
Have you EVER thought outside of your box and considered that the problem may be more directly related to living CONVERSE to one’s genetic, physical and psychological blueprint???  Akin to that heart patient who refuses to acknowledge that his eating eggs, bacon and butter has anything to do with his clogged arteries.  He desires the fatty foods – but his body cannot be healthy with them.

lol, the ‘think outside the box’ insult is constantly being tossed around in these debates—you tell me I’m not doing it, I tell you you’re not doing it—so I’ll spare us all that at this point.

Anyway, we’re not talking about purely physical and self-reliant issues, like artery cloggage.  An issue like that is only affected by the individual themselves.  We’re talking about emotions and psychological mindset, which is very reliant on those around an individual, as well as the individual themselves.  I’m 100% gay.  I’ve been living for 4 years now with no thoughts of suicide or depression, because my mother’s backed off the subject and I’ve realized that there’s nothing wrong with being gay.  Perpetuating the idea that something is will only hurt gay people, so I have to highly recommend for the emotional and mental safety of others that you stop.

>>First of all, after my numerous comments, someone pops in with the name of Cheryl, too.  The “Cheryl” commenting at 5:51pm was not this Cheryl.  [Does this site not limit user names per blog-thread??]<<

>SeeMyMarriage pines, “Anything less would be telling me, my wife, and however many other thousands of gay couples that our relationships aren’t as valuable as straight ones, and therefore need less protection…”<
Gee.  Do you think there is something a heterosexual couple can offer society that a same-sex couple can’t?  I can think of a BIG one.  Beyond that, we are back again to basic human nature.  Man and woman complement each other, both for their own good AND the good of society.  It is really quite basic.

>Also, you quip: “Perpetuating the idea that something is [wrong with being gay] will only hurt gay people, so I have to highly recommend for the emotional and mental safety of others that you stop.”<
Give me a break.  There IS something disordered about THINKING one is something one is NOT.  If you were born female, you are a female.  Your body chemistry AND design is designed to be female, and is designed (and expected) to complement the male.  Just as your body is expecting to become pregnant and lactate BECAUSE you are a female.  Guess what…your cancer rate rises IF you don’t bear a child and IF you choose not to breastfeed that child.  Nothing you can do about it.  That’s what comes with the territory of being female.  And, it would be criminal NOT to speak the truth about it.  Your body is female, and is designed to operate as one.  To your quip I respond: “Perpetuating the idea that something IS NOT wrong with being gay will hurt people.  Therefore, I highly recommend for the emotional and mental safety of others that you stop.”

This article is particularly dishonest in its comparison of gay couples (who mostly cannot be married and/or have chosen not to be married) with the ideal of straight marriage (where monogamy reigns).  The “fact” that there are open relationships among some gay couples says nothing about the commitment of couples that would choose to get married.  Instead it highlights the structure and stability—which support monogamy—that people like the author wish to continue to deprive of by excluding them from marriage.  In the end, the study makes clear something the author choses to ignore: gay relationship are more honest than straight ones. The partners more often talk about and negotiate openness, whereas straight couples engage in deceit.  Come back when you have an study talking about honesty and fidelity in straight unmarried couples; then you can compare apples to apples.

I have been reading all the interventions coming back and forth and I cannot help but to join in. There have been a lot of personal, let’s call them, attacks with regards to different viewpoints on how sexuality should or should not be, or whether Christian moral standard is better than gay moral standards…and many other issues that are not less important. What I have to say regards more the way many people argue, saying there’s no objective standard, that everybody thinks different and so there is nothing that says what is right and what is wrong…in other words a total relativism. But just to show you how stupid this argument is, when the relativist says there is no universal truth, or good, or affirms anything at all he is saying it absolutely, assuming then that is true. In other words, “it’s true that there is not truth”, which is absurd.
There has to be something objective, something universal to what we can relate to and that is human nature, which somebody already mentioned, although many want to deny the fact of its existence. Nature is a structure, the way we are made whether we want it or not. Human nature makes us to be men, not dogs, not a plant, but rational animals. Now, someone was asking for a definition of man, well here it goes: Rationalis vel intellectualis natura individua substantia (Boetius), that is to say, rational or intellectual nature in an individual substance. Man is not only a body, but it has a soul, a rational dimension, and that is precisely why we cannot say “I am my body” because there is more to us than just the corporal dimension. We are body and soul. Now thanks to our soul, our rational dimension we can discover that there is a set of principles in nature, but that we discover within us through our conscience and there they become laws, that tell us more or less what is right and what is wrong. So there is a set of principles to such as do good and avoid evil, but is our conscience to tell us don’t do this or do that. So there is a common ground from where to build. Obviously there is the positive law where we make the “rules” for society, and just as a reminder, the finality of society is the common good, although many politicians won’t hear about it.
Now, let’s just call common sense for a minute, although nowadays is the less common of the senses, and let’s just observe the world around us. It is evident, just from the physical perspective, that men and women are different, and complementary. They have the same dignity, they share the same human nature but they are different. If they share the same nature and they are complementary, when they come together and form a family the fruit of it can just be an individual of the same nature, a human. That’s just nature. Well, just draw the consequences. You want to define marriage, well, let’s say that is the union of a man and a woman, freely done with consensus, publicly proclaimed and that has as a priority the procreation of their children. Why a man and a woman? Well, you tell me. Now, it is true that there are a lot of infidelities and that there are a lot of things that do not go right in a marriage, but there are different causes. One of them is that we are human and as such we can fail, but deeper than that is the original sin, that not because you don’t believe in it doesn’t exist, Man is a mystery and will remain a mystery. Mystery of freedom taken most of the time as libertinage, mystery of rationality although prompt to close the eyes so as not to see truth, mystery of will which carries him to do things even against its own nature. It is not my intention to be exhaustive. The only thing I would really ask is just to look at the facts, leave aside all prejudices and to really behave as human beings.

Hmmm.  The study Mr. Hoopes refers to BEGINS by talking about a MARRIED same-sex couple.  A couple that got “married” without getting married; i.e., they refused to acknowledge one of the main aspects of marriage – MONOGAMY!

>bradrothert argues: “ The “fact” that there are open relationships among some gay couples says nothing about the commitment of couples that would choose to get married. Instead it highlights the structure and stability—which support monogamy—that people like the author wish to continue to deprive of by excluding them from marriage.”

>One would think that studying how COMMITTED same-sex couples operate should provide pretty good examples of how committed same-sex relationships operate.  The behaviors evidenced in such studies are behaviors that are ingrained in individuals.  The behaviors evidenced are representative of the beliefs of the individuals.  The act of getting married does not change one’s belief system.  It is quite realistic to conclude that the individuals will behave in pretty much the SAME way AFTER they are “married.”  Example: ‘Wanda’ dates ‘Burt’…they decide to ‘commit’ to each other and move in together.  However, ‘Burt’ continues to date other women, yet tells ‘Wanda’ not to worry, because he will be ‘faithful’ after they are married.  Do you think ‘Wanda’ is naïve enough to believe ‘Burt’ can change his behavior?

>Also-you are telling me that gay couples are not capable of the kind of stability and structure that somehow springs from marriage.  Why wouldn’t they be?  Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell can do it.

“Gee.  Do you think there is something a heterosexual couple can offer society that a same-sex couple can’t? ... ... It is really quite basic.”
  Sarcastic or demeaning tones are unnecessary, so let’s keep this civil and intellectual, not insulting.  If I read the tone in your response incorrectly, I apologize.
  Anyway, you’re refering to children and I have to say, perhaps gay couples whose can’t make children together alone is nature’s way of saying that we need less children in the world.  Which we do, of course, if you look at how overpopulated the world is getting at the rate that it is.  Gay couples could also easily be meant to provide the platform needed to adopt children, and being an adopted child myself, I can assure you that there is an excessive ammount of parentless children in the system that could all use good homes, too.  Obviously sterile couples aren’t enough to handle the load, and gay couples can help. 

“Give me a break.  There IS something disordered about THINKING one is something one is NOT.  If you were born female, you are a female.  Your body chemistry AND design is designed to be female…  ... Therefore, I highly recommend for the emotional and mental safety of others that you stop.””
  I can assure you that I don’t think I’m male.  I know that I’m not.  The fact of matter remains that I hold no physical or emotional attraction to men yet I do to women.  Also, please don’t assume that my body chemistry and design is meant to have children [and I find it demeaning for any woman to make childbearing as their primary focus in life, but I’ve always thought that way]  because it’s actually not.  This is of course only a situation personal to me and it doesn’t speak for all lesbians in the world, but I have a medical condition that makes me almost completely infertile and ups my testosterone levels. It also results in less menstruation periods, which I’m fine with too.  Of course, I’m perfectly comfortable the way I am and the doctor said I’m not in any serious danger, so I’m letting it be.  So, no, the typical confines of female doesn’t apply to me. 
  Anyway, I don’t compliment males physcally or emotionally; it would be a constant struggle for one to overpower the other.  I’d rather be the one ‘active’ in the relationship, and I am.  I’m more than satisfied.

SMM, I don’t think that Cheryl was being demeaning….. but you know, it’s difficult to stay above the fray on a long conversation like this. I think you all are doing great.

Overpopulation brought me back in to this topic.

Overpopulation is a myth.  Ask the governments of Russia, Japan, Germany, and other countries that PAY women to have children if they are overpopulated!

Japan is so underpopulated, it has to bring in Phillipino workers to do the “menial” tasks, but when they don’t want to go home, the Japanese get perturbed because the Catholic Phillipinos are changing the Japanese culture.

Catholic Italy and Spain are in a death spiral as far as population goes. Last I read, the women were having about 1.4 children, with 2.1 being the replacement level.  Europeans have bought into the Culture of Death, with abortion, sterilization, birth control, and trying to mainstream sterile homosexual sex. Talk about a continent without hope! They are literally afraid to have children.

Look for the Moslems to overtake Europe because….. they have children.

I should also point out that childless married couples is on the rise in straight couples, so obviously marriage doesn’t = children to many straight couples today.  Should they not be allowed to marry, according to the idea that marriage is for children, therefore for opposite sex marriage?

“For the 25 to 29 bracket, 28 percent were childless in 1998, up from 16 percent in 1976; for 30- to 34-year-olds, it was 20 percent, compared with 11 percent in 1976; for 40- to 44-year-olds, 19 percent were childless, up from 10 percent in 1976. The 2000 census figures on fertility weren’t available at press time, but Amara Bachu, co-author of the Census Bureau’s 1998 report, “Fertility of American Women,” says: “From the data we’ve gathered so far, it looks like childlessness is continuing to go up.”“

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2001_Oct_1/ai_79052844/

And this doesn’t have anything to do with the above comments, but I feel like I should point something out.  We’re dealing with groups of individuals that can’t necessarily be overall described by the group they’re contained in.  There are no straight morals and no gay morals, because every person within those groups have different ones.  Beyond being attracted to my wife fully and utterly, I don’t fit what’s thought of as gay morals; multiple lovers, hard drinking/partying, drugs, etc… I don’t do any of that.  We actually write novels together for enjoyment, soo…. it’s hard to confine us in what’s typically thought of ‘gay lifestyle.’  There really isn’t one, there’s simply destructive and non-destructive ones, and we’re the former, not the latter.

You people shock and appall me! I have a 7-year-old son and he is exhibiting atypical behaviors that suggest that he’ll most likely grow up to be gay. I know for fact that it is indeed inborn. I can just see it in the way that he differs from his older brothers. That is why I support gay marriage. It’s not for me, but for him. So, yes this issue does affect me personally, because I love my son. I want the best for him. You all should just be ashamed to call yourselves followers of Christ. What would Jesus do? I’m not Jesus, but I’m sure to death that he wouldn’t just throw someone like my son to the curb to make people like you feel good. You people don’t believe in love or family. You worship a picture of what you think would be the ideal family, but that image is but a hollow illusion of what real love looks like. Go back to your sorry gated community lives of American Beauty and Desperate Housewives. We all know it’s just a cookie-cutter facade.

You people?  Okay…..

Just because your son exhibits certain “behaviors” doesn’t mean he is homosexual. Also, did you hear yourself call his behavior “atypical”?

What is typical? Surely, we could get into some stereotypes here. One of my sons enjoys music and reading, another sports and playing with sticks. I’m not going to label them before soon.

My heavens, your son is only 7, and you’ve already pegged him for a homosexual marriage?!

I don’t watch Desparate Housewives, or the other depraved show you mention, and I doubt if many of the conservatives here do.

SMM, wishing infertility on a country isn’t too swift…. who is going to pay your pention???

My children will (gladly). Unless you’re real old, and then I will, if and when I go back to work. lol

Those stats. mean little.  I was in that bracket for a while, too as was Mr. Hoopes. My husband and I were “childless” until 10 months into our marriage we had our first child.

I keep thinking the machine is going to knock out my post, so I’m not posting too much!

I never said if I know for sure if he’ll grow up to be gay. All I know is that I’ll love him conditionally regardless and do the best I can to keep him away from your type, Mary. I pray none of your children ever grow up to be gay…for their sake.

...“unconditionally”

‘cause that’s what true love is.

SeeMyMarriage: “Anyway, you’re refering to children and I have to say, perhaps gay couples whose can’t make children together alone is nature’s way of saying that we need less children in the world…  I should also point out that childless married couples is on the rise in straight couples, so obviously marriage doesn’t = children to many straight couples today. “

[Thank you Mary Ann Wenske, for addressing the myth of overpopulation.]

It is simply the order of the natural world that same-sex individuals cannot reproduce.  It is completely rationalization on your part to come up with the thinking that nature is designed this way to curb population.  Men and women are DESIGNED for procreation.  You cannot remove procreation from marriage.  Those in childless marriages most certainly are aware of their procreative ability, as I’m sure they need to rely on some sort of contraception to curb it.  The childless due to fertility problems…their coupling is still operating with the end-goal of procreation.  The fact that one part does not work as it should does not mean that procreation isn’t being worked toward.  This is simply NATURE.  Whether you like it or not, NATURE has control over you.  Female bodies ARE MEANT to have children.  That is how they are designed.  That is WHY YOUR cancer risk GOES UP if you do not bear a child.  That is WHY YOUR cancer risk GOES UP if you do not breastfeed your child.  That is why your cancer risk goes up if you have an abortion.  You body is EXPECTING certain things BY NATURE.

Karen Jameson- “…because I love my son. I want the best for him.”

Then please get some information on Gender Identity Disorder.  Help is available for your son.  [See http://www.childhealing.com/articles/genderidentitydisorder.php]

Karen, the mentality of “you people” and “your type” do no good a two-way dialogue, especially when you speak about unconditional love.

Hopefully, your love is unconditional on all planes, not just to those who agree with you.

If not, then you do what you accuse others of doing.

I wish you and your son the best.  I know that there are groups like Courage for those who do want help.

>>“I find it demeaning for any woman to make childbearing as their primary focus in life…”<<
Wow- children are a BLESSING.  They are the FUTURE.  Childbearing is NOT a dirty word, nor a demeaning activity.  Childbearing is NECESSARY for society to continue.  And, as such, it should be the primary focus of us all.

>>”...because I love my son. I want the best for him. You all should just be ashamed to call yourselves followers of Christ. What would Jesus do? I’m not Jesus, but I’m sure to death that he wouldn’t just throw someone like my son to the curb to make people like you feel good.”<<
Why do people continue to forget the 2nd half of Jesus’ message (“Go and sin no more.”)?  Jesus would admonish those who failed to treat your son with charity.  However, He would expect your son to live chastely.  And, that ‘chastely’ is not to make US feel good; rather, it is to provide your son the truest freedom and happiness he can have (so as not to be a slave to sin).

-beats machine with hammer- why does this thing keep deleting my posts? LOL.  Anyway, I just spent the last 15 minutes posting something that I’ve realized makes no difference in the minds here.  I wish everyone a fruitful and healthy life, believing whatever you will and regardless of whether or not it’s against me and my life.  Ciao, everyone.

Also typing quickly——

Same here, SMM. I truly wish you and your family the best.  I also wish you a blessed Lent (if you’re not Catholic, then a blessed time leading to the Resurection of Easter).

FYI -  Regarding the “population myth”...my husband once pointed out to me that Pope Paul IV’s encyclical Humanae Vitae and Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb were both released in the same year;  and, interestingly, Pope Paul VI’s predictions have ALL come true, while NONE of Ehrlich’s have.

FYI (corrected typo :-) -  Regarding the “population myth”...my husband once pointed out to me that Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae and Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb were both released in the same year;  and, interestingly, Pope Paul VI’s predictions have ALL come true, while NONE of Ehrlich’s have.

My son is fine the way he is. He is not “disordered”. The Church will one day repent for all of the cruelty and pain that he suffers, the same way the Church is still repenting for Copernicus & Gaileo, its silence during the Holocaust, and its centuries of demonizing of the left-handed. It will soon come a day when we value human beings over outdated dogma and flawed doctrines.

Karen Jameson: “My son is fine the way he is. He is not “disordered”. The Church will one day repent for all of the cruelty and pain that he suffers.”

How does the Church cause ‘cruelty and pain?’  The Church teaches charity.  The Church expects chastity.  (Has ‘chastity’ become a dirty word, too, like ‘childbearing’?)  The Church identifies the desire of homosexual behavior as disordered, simply because in the ordered natural world we live in, one would expect a MALE to be attracted to the FEMALE.  That is how a MALE is designed.  To have an attraction to the same sex IS disordered, simply by virtue of DEFINITION.  The Church is not being cruel, it’s being rational.  Is it cruel to identify alcoholism as a disorder?  Is it cruel to identify abuse as a disorder?  Is it cruel to identify overeating as a disorder?  No.  To identify is to help.  Our bodies are not designed to be healthy with excessive alcohol, excessive abuse or excessive food.  It is the BEHAVIOR of doing those things that causes us pain and suffering.  Not the identification of them.

Last year the State of MN chased a mom and her son across the country because they ‘knew’ the outcome from the son receiving treatment was much better than the outcome of the son NOT receiving treatment.  Leaving aside the question of the State’s authority, I am bringing this up because I see a similarity in OUTCOMES with your son’s case.  Finding him a good counselor/doctor who can treat him with charity and respect may very well end in an outcome that is better for him.  Resigning him to a life of homosexuality (I’m sure a cross many homosexuals would PRFER NOT to be carrying) is to resign him to higher risks of depression, anger, substance abuse, promiscuity, etc.  Why would you not WANT your youngest son to have as much chance as your oldest at happiness in life?  Just thumping for gay ‘marriage’ is not doing enough to secure real happiness for your son.

Because you love your son and want the best for him – please get some information on Gender Identity Disorder.  Help is available for your son.  [See http://www.childhealing.com/articles/genderidentitydisorder.php]

Comparing gays to alcoholics? OK, I have nothing more to say to you. I cannot debate with a completely irrational individual who has not a clue.

Cheryl, thank you for presenting the truth on the issue of homosexuality and for keeping a civil discussion.

>Posted by Karen Jameson: “Comparing gays to alcoholics? OK, I have nothing more to say to you. I cannot debate with a completely irrational individual who has not a clue.”<

I’m sorry, Karen, but I have to question your rationality.  [By the way, what does your husband think of all this, I wonder?]  You have a SON.  Your son is a MALE.  To expect he can’t live as one is highly irrational.  Thinking the lifestyle of living as God/nature intended is equal to living a homosexual lifestyle is irrational.  Resigning him to a life of homosexuality (I’m sure a cross many homosexuals would PRFER NOT to be carrying) is to resign him to higher risks of depression, anger, substance abuse, promiscuity, etc. And, ask any nurse - gay male health of certain body areas IS NOT PRETTY.  Your son DESERVES all you can do to encourage him to live as God/nature intended.  What alcoholics and gays acting on their proclivities have in common is that they BOTH NEED HELP.

Brothers and Sisters, what I see in these messages is that we are going down.  We are going down big time.  But what the profane and lewd crowd doesn’t know or see coming, is that we are going down like Christ and rising again on the third day.  So, be prepared to sacrifice, gird your loins and grow in virtue through the fire of God’s purifying permission of their demonic behavior.  Their works only serve to make us grow more in holiness.  We are being purified.  And God is using them, through their own efforts and to their own demise, to make it happen. There are just some wonderful apologetics going on here on these pages.  These are truly the greatest times we live in, when we who are so far gone from God, yet he uses us, the lowliest and weakest of our generations, to show His divinity and sovereignty over all the heavens and the earth!  Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

There are a few points that I would like to make to aaron and any others who read this and I apologize if my arguments have already been made by someone else but I tried to read as much as I could so as not to repeat and didn’t see them. You claim that there is something scientifically and biologically different in homosexuals as opposed to heterosexuals. In your argument you claim the brain forms closer to that of the opposite sex, which is better than the gay gene argument which I don’t buy at all, but is still flimsy in my opinion.  But my counterpoint then is this, just because you MAY be biologically driven to find members of the same sex attractive does NOT mean you have to act on those attractions or urges. God granted us free will and individual moral judgment. Meaning that you KNOW what is right and wrong not you can CHOOSE what is right and wrong. All those human rights that you claim the church is trying to oppress are the same gifts that you could be using to prevent yourself from doing something that you KNOW to be immoral and unnatural. As someone stated earlier about natural selection, if homosexuality were caused by a gene it would have died out because it would have no avenue of reproduction, or else if that gene survived it would only be through the mutation of some other gene. If homosexuals are biologically different then Nature would have made them that way, but I don’t believe that either because if homosexuality were natural then two members of the same sex could reproduce, and yet they cannot. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps same sex couples can’t reproduce for a reason? And you can’t blame the church for that one, that is all God’s decision. God alone designed and executed the semantics of human reproduction. Secondly the point that in a large number of heterosexual marriages ONE of the members has partners on the side and labeling that as an open marriage but the number of couples is deflated due to that member lying about their infidelity and that if they were truthful there would be just as many or more “open” heterosexual marriages as open homosexual ones. My counterpoint to this argument is a simple question of the definition of “open marriage.” It was my understanding that an OPEN marriage meant that both members are aware of any extramarital partners that one or both of the members may have and that BOTH members of that union need to approve of the excess partner(s). Your example does not fit that definition at all, if one of the members of a heterosexual marriage is unfaithful and LIES about it then the other person in the marriage couldn’t have possibly approved of that activity therefore directly disqualifying that marriage as being open. That doesn’t even consider that in most OPEN marriages BOTH partners are practicing infidelity not just the one that is lying to cover their tracks. Whereas in the homosexual marriages both parties know about the one members infidelity and approves of the partner that the one is being unfaithful with except that it is more normal for BOTH parties to be practicing infidelity with the knowledge and approval of their supposed spouse. If homosexuals want the right to marry maybe they should first spend some time learning what being married means rather than try redefine it to suit there lifestyle. Now I understand that we are not talking about ALL homosexual couples but when Mr Hoopes can quote credible sources such as the NY Times saying that many homosexual couples are practicing this consensually I think it is fairly obvious how that can be a threat to the covenant of marriage as God, not man, defined it. Finally I get so tired of people using the separation of church and state argument against the government making laws that have roots in christian beliefs. People misunderstand that amendment, it DOES NOT state that the government may not be influenced by religion when making its decisions. That would be near impossible to do when considering that this nation was founded on principles very similar to those of Christianity. In addition to the fact that the lawmakers and enforcers are only human so they are flawed and biased, and if they believe in Christian values those values will always influence their decisions and that CANNOT be helped, those beliefs are part of who they are. But what that amendment of the constitution DOES state is that the government may not prevent you from participating in the practices of ANY religion that you choose, so long as those practices are not detrimental to society or physically harmful to another individual. I.E. no virgin or infant sacrifices to appease the gods of the harvest for a good yield.

Good point, J. Rackow.  It is amazing the lengths one will go to rationalize one’s behavior.  The most confusing argument, though, is the “God made me this way [gay],” argument.  After all, God made them either Male or Female…..either they have the Male “XY” genes and Male anatomy OR they have the Female “XX” genes and the Female anatomy.  So what if they have urges or desires to lay with those of the same sex.  After all, they DON’T have to give in to their desires, and, second, God has spoken by what anatomy he has bestowed upon them.  THAT is how God made them.

If Homosexual marriage don’t encompass fidelity why even enter into them?