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lost_in_this_world

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lost_in_this_world

I truly am not wanting a debate but I find it incredibly interesting how on mainstream tv it would be abnormal for a family to not have a gay child or one that is questioning their sexuality. Why is it no longer acceptable to have a family of heterosexual people in mainstream tv?  

As stated, I don’t want this to turn into a debate about gay rights, it’s just something I noticed and wondered when the change happened. 

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20 hours ago, lost_in_this_world said:

I truly am not wanting a debate but I find it incredibly interesting how on mainstream tv it would be abnormal for a family to not have a gay child or one that is questioning their sexuality. Why is it no longer acceptable to have a family of heterosexual people in mainstream tv?  

As stated, I don’t want this to turn into a debate about gay rights, it’s just something I noticed and wondered when the change happened. 

My opinion, its for the same reason they usually have divorced characters. Because its "interesting". 

The Simpsons have been going for decades and they long ago started repeating stories. But imagine if Homer and Marge got divorced. Imagine if Bart realized he might be gay. Theres a lot of "new" stories they could tell. They could be telling these stories I dont know, I haven't watched it in many years.

Unfortunately as far as the world is concerned sin and temptation and brokenness are interesting.  The one exception I can think of as far as tv is concerned is 7th Heaven, which was really one of the last of its breed. They somehow made drama wholesome. I can't think of any other examples in the "drama" category for sure.

 

 

9 hours ago, little2add said:

pope+francis+statements.png

 

Just so you know the Pope said this in response to a question about a priest who engaged in homosexual sex acts with boys (15 year olds, which was legal in the 3rd world country where it happened). When this was revealed, the Pope stood by him saying "who am I to judge". That is the context of that remark. And given that context people should probably stop quoting it. 

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29 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

context of that remark. And given that context people should probably stop quoting it. 

I didn’t know that.   Where in the world is such a deviant ( homosexual sex with boys )  behavior illegal ?

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Context for Pope Francis's statement "then who am I to judge him?"

You will need to scroll down to the question posed by Ilze Scamparini below - and the response by Pope Francis in which the much quoted statement occured and make up your own mind  (All formatting is mine).   There are two questions involved.  The first is about Msgr. Ricca .........and the second question (in which Pope Francis makes the comment) is about the gay lobby.

 

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO RIO DE JANEIRO
ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXVIII WORLD YOUTH DAY

PRESS CONFERENCE OF POPE FRANCIS
DURING THE RETURN FLIGHT

Papal Flight
Sunday, 28 July 2013

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130728_gmg-conferenza-stampa.html

 

Ilze Scamparini - I would like permission to ask a delicate question: another image that has been going around the world is that of Monsignor Ricca and the news about his private life. I would like to know, Your Holiness, what you intend to do about this? How are you confronting this issue and how does Your Holiness intend to confront the whole question of the gay lobby?

Pope Francis - About Monsignor Ricca: I did what canon law calls for, that is a preliminary investigation. And from this investigation, there was nothing of what had been alleged. We did not find anything of that. This is the response. But I wish to add something else: I see that many times in the Church, over and above this case, but including this case, people search for “sins from youth”, for example, and then publish them. They are not crimes, right? Crimes are something different: the abuse of minors is a crime. No, sins. But if a person, whether it be a lay person, a priest or a religious sister, commits a sin and then converts, the Lord forgives, and when the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is very important for our lives. When we confess our sins and we truly say, “I have sinned in this”, the Lord forgets, and so we have no right not to forget, because otherwise we would run the risk of the Lord not forgetting our sins. That is a danger. This is important: a theology of sin. Many times I think of Saint Peter. He committed one of the worst sins, that is he denied Christ, and even with this sin they made him Pope. We have to think a great deal about that. But, returning to your question more concretely. In this case, I conducted the preliminary investigation and we didn’t find anything. This is the first question.

Then, you spoke about the gay lobby. So much is written about the gay lobby. I still haven’t found anyone with an identity card in the Vatican with “gay” on it. They say there are some there. I believe that when you are dealing with such a person, you must distinguish between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of someone forming a lobby, because not all lobbies are good. This one is not good.

If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in a beautiful way, saying ... wait a moment, how does it say it ... it says: “no one should marginalize these people for this, they must be integrated into society”. The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another, and there is this one and there is that one. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, so many lobbies. For me, this is the greater problem. Thank you so much for asking this question. Many thanks.

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On 11/22/2018 at 8:11 PM, lost_in_this_world said:

 on mainstream tv

A few years ago I remember articles about organisations protesting that gay characters were not in each mainstream TV show and lobbying for their inclusion. Apparently the lobbying worked! So, to answer your question, not more than a few years ago...

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On 11/23/2018 at 3:54 PM, little2add said:

I didn’t know that.   Where in the world is such a deviant ( homosexual sex with boys )  behavior illegal ?

Uruguay; the age of consent is 15. He was caught with a rent boy. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10191600/Popes-eyes-and-ears-in-Vatican-bank-had-string-of-homosexual-affairs.html

When these things were exposed, the Pope stood by his appointee. Although the mans behavior was notorious. 

I personally feel very few qualms about judging the behavior of priests who break their vow of celibacy with adolescent boys. 

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On November 24, 2018 at 8:13 PM, Lilllabettt said:

Uruguay; the age of consent is 15. He was caught with a rent boy. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10191600/Popes-eyes-and-ears-in-Vatican-bank-had-string-of-homosexual-affairs.html

When these things were exposed, the Pope stood by his appointee. Although the mans behavior was notorious. 

I personally feel very few qualms about judging the behavior of priests who break their vow of celibacy with adolescent boys. 

Maybe what he meant was that we're to hate the sin but love the sinner? I agree that the pope needs to call him out on his bad behavior though and do something about it.

On a different note, I get annoyed when so many people who watch certain t.v. series and movies claim that two best friends of the same sex are gay or say that they want them to get together because of how close they are. They claim that it's good for the gay rights movement for them to be represented as a couple. Are people not allowed to care about their best friend without being romantically attracted to them? My best friend in middle school and I were once accused of being gay because we simply hugged each other once.

To complicate matters, shows sometimes make jokes that a pair of best friends care about each other so much to a point where they come off as or are mistaken for being gay, despite them being heterosexual. Then if they answer back, frustrated that people keep calling them gay when they're not, they get accused of protesting too much to the point where it looks like they're in denial. 

I agree that we shouldn't ignore that gay people exist in the read world and that lots of people who are gay might feel isolated not being able to point to an example of a gay character in fiction, but it sounds like forced tokenism to even people who support the gay agenda. Forced tokenism is what a lot of people who are ethnic minorities experience too.

There's also this cliche that some people point out whenever a villain in a movie or t.v. series is gay. The writers may not be trying to come off as offensive to some people, but some gay people don't appreciate the possible implication that they're villains. Lots of them have experienced harassment, discrimination, and even hate crimes for being gay, which is definitely wrong, so some see this as further bigotry. Imagine if you were part of a group where you were represented a lot as being the bad guy in a lot of stories. Unless you belong to a hate group like white supremacists who should rightfully be called out for all the evil that they've done and continue to do, that would be awful. 

In stating this, I'm not saying that those who live a gay lifestyle are as bad as them. I'm also not saying that those who don't live as the Church teaches aren't seriously sinning. They're both committing serious sins, specifically sins of grave matter, but they're different kinds of evil behaviors. One is a group that might commit murder or sympathize with it, while the other isn't. The average person is going to say that a hate group is evil while living out a homosexual lifestyle is more controversial. 

Also, I don't want to come off as homophobic or as not treating gay people with dignity, but I'm uncomfortable when a gay couple is featured on t.v. or in movies. We as the audience see them together and how much they care about each other. They seem happy, and I'm tempted to disagree with Church teaching. So I avoid watching them so as to try to prevent this from happening. I'm also not close friends with any gay couples either for this reason. (Not that I'm close friends with anybody right now.) These are near occasions of sin for me.

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Ash Wednesday

To answer the poster's original question, perhaps one reason why they push gay/questioning families on TV so much is because they are afraid of criticism and being viewed as "homophobic" -- if you want to make it in the business these days, generally you have to go with "the agenda" or you're done.  Not that I agree with it.  I also think that people have a tendency to want to overcompensate for past social wrongs, or at least things they viewed as wrong. Treating homosexuals as anything less than fellow human beings and children of God WAS wrong. However, upholding and celebrating the traditional family structure based on a marriage between a man and a woman was not.

As for "Who am I to judge?" -- the problem I have with this quote, regardless of what the Pope's intentions were when he said it, is that it has been overused and abused so much by people to justify a relaxed attitude about sin and an inability to tolerate any criticism about it. In fairness to Francis, at the very least he came out this week and stated that men with deep rooted homosexuality shouldn't be priests. But I'm sure people are going to sweep that aside and ignore it. People have been taking what the pope says and just picking, choosing, and hearing what they want to hear for decades now. 

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1 hour ago, tinytherese said:

 

On a different note, I get annoyed when so many people who watch certain t.v. series and movies claim that two best friends of the same sex are gay or say that they want them to get together because of how close they are. They claim that it's good for the gay rights movement for them to be represented as a couple. Are people not allowed to care about their best friend without being romantically attracted to them? My best friend in middle school and I were once accused of being gay because we simply hugged each other once.

 

The whole "friends of the same sex must be gay" is actually rooted in homophobia.  So the next time someone does that you inform them of that. I'm sure it'll be productive lol. People that do that are anxious about sexuality and thus see it everywhere. Platonic love is not a real thing to them.

16 minutes ago, Ash Wednesday said:

Treating homosexuals as anything less than fellow human beings and children of God WAS wrong. However, upholding and celebrating the traditional family structure based on a marriage between a man and a woman was not.

Do you think it was worth it? I feel as a civilization we've traded acceptance of gay lifestyles in order to get treatment of gay people with the dignity they deserve as persons. Did God allow this as a decent trade? Probably it's easier to be gay now... but is it easier to be gay and celibate? I am not gay and have no idea. 

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What I'm worried about is gay, bisexual, etc. characters showing up in kids and family entertainment. I've heard it happening in Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, and Postcards from Buster. Idina Menzel is trying to convince Disney to give her character a girlfriend in Frozen 2. It's going to get harder for families to avoid talking about this even with little kids.

It's not easy to talk about with adults, let alone toddlers and preschoolers. Even if they forbid their kids from watching this stuff or tell them that they can maybe watch it when they think that they're old enough to properly handle it, they'll be surrounded by peers who watch it. They may even go to a friend's house where they're allowed to watch it. Then the kids, parents, and guardians will be seen as homophobic by a lot of them.

Not everybody can homeschool their kids. And even if they could, they don't hold their kids prisoner or live under a rock isolated from everyone else in the world. Do parents and guardians need to interview each friend that their kid meets as well as their parents or guardians? How do you appropriately handle say your preschooler meeting a peer who's gay, or meeting a peer who's being raised by a parent or guardian who's gay, or encounter a teacher who's gay? (I'm not saying that gay people can't be teachers, because that's discrimination. There are those out there who are gay, but who are private about their sex lives. However, what if they're shoving a gay agenda down everyone's throat including their students?)

Edited by tinytherese
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Ash Wednesday
8 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Do you think it was worth it? I feel as a civilization we've traded acceptance of gay lifestyles in order to get treatment of gay people with the dignity they deserve as persons. Did God allow this as a decent trade? Probably it's easier to be gay now... but is it easier to be gay and celibate? I am not gay and have no idea. 

Those are good questions. I'm not gay either. Much like heterosexuals -- were people more chaste in the past, or was activity just kept a secret? Seems to me there's a spectrum of opinions and beliefs among gay Catholics just like among hetero ones -- and of course those that don't want a label at all. 

I'm venturing to guess that chastity is harder now for everyone, because not only is it not viewed as an ideal anymore, it's openly mocked. 

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24 minutes ago, Ash Wednesday said:

Those are good questions. I'm not gay either. Much like heterosexuals -- were people more chaste in the past, or was activity just kept a secret? Seems to me there's a spectrum of opinions and beliefs among gay Catholics just like among hetero ones -- and of course those that don't want a label at all. 

I'm venturing to guess that chastity is harder now for everyone, because not only is it not viewed as an ideal anymore, it's openly mocked. 

Yea, and to complicate matters, it's good that people don't silly sally shame as much as they used to (not that we should encourage sex before marriage), but now virgin shaming is a thing. People who are virgins are seen as freaks, prudes, or people assume that they must lack the social skills necessary to get in bed with someone.

Some men have developed a creepy obsession with marrying a virgin and look down on women who regret having premarital sex and have changed their ways. I've even heard of men who refer to widows and those who divorced and received an annulment from the Church as "sloppy seconds" or "damaged goods." They may even look down upon women who've been raped because they've technically had intercourse. 

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