Question About Gay Marriage

[theculturewarrior]

First, I give the Church my assent of faith.  It is my desire to be 100% orthodox.  That said, if they're not Catholic, why should we care as Catholics whether or not the law regards them as married.  Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, right?  I have stated this as an opinion but my post is really a question.  Does the Church teach as a matter of doctrine that secular, multicultural countries should give the force of law to the Catholic model of marriage?  It seems like a violation of civil liberties, because some religions do not oppose homosexuality, and this would seem to violate their freedom of religion.

[theculturewarrior]

Please do not debate.

[Anomaly]

See what you think about this:  http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c2a2.htm

1897 "Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all."¹⁵

 

1923 Political authority must be exercised within the limits of the moral order and must guarantee the conditions for the exercise of freedom.

1924 The common good comprises "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily" (GS 26 1).

1925 The common good consists of three essential elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person; prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; the peace and security of the group and of its members.

1926 The dignity of the human person requires the pursuit of the common good. Everyone should be concerned to create and support institutions that improve the conditions of human life.

 

 

Does the support of homosexual marriage improve the common good and improve the conditions of human life in all circumstances?

Edited December 10, 2012 by Anomaly

[Basilisa Marie]

Well, on one level, you have a point.  We're lucky to live in a nation where freedom of religion, expression, and speech are rights and the pursuit of happiness is a national virtue, so why are we so concerned with forcing other people to act like we do?

 

Part of the problem is that there are lots of Catholic organizations that operate in the public square - like schools, hospitals, adoption agencies, etc.  Would those organizations have to give equal benefits to spouses of same sex marriages?  Can Catholic schools be attacked for teaching what the Church teaches about marriage? And if so, does that say something about that organization's relationship to Church teaching?  Catholics are invested in the questions, they have a reason to care about them. 

 

But to answer your question: Does the Church teach as a matter of doctrine that secular, multicultural countries should give the force of law to the Catholic model of marriage?   There was a time when Rome saw America as a rather nasty experiment and called the separation of Church and state the Americanist heresy.  But now the Church formally recognizes the freedom of religion.  All in all this is a complicated issue, and you'll probably get different answers.   As Catholics we DO have an obligation to stand up for what is right, for Church teaching.  But how do we do that?  Some bishops publicly denounced Catholic lawmakers who would pass same-sex marriage laws.  Other bishops privately met with Catholic lawmakers who would do the same.  There are many ways to go about doing the same task. 

[CatherineM]

Because when bad things become law, even badder things happen. The Bishop in Calgary faced prosecution for hate speech because he wrote an article for the catholic newspaper on what the church teaches about gay marriage. We have Justices of the Peace here losing their jobs because they won't perform gay marriages. Activists have publicly stated they intend to force catholic priests to do them. We don't live in a bubble.

[Slappo]

I would start with the pretext that you are referring to marriage between one man and one women the "Catholic model" of marriage. It isn't the Catholic model, it is the natural law model as seen between the procreative abilities of the biology of male and female. To answer the question, yes we must uphold the natural law even in the secular realm. As Aquinas would say, any law that is contrary to the natural law is no law at all.

[Anomaly]

Because when bad things become law, even badder things happen. The Bishop in Calgary faced prosecution for hate speech because he wrote an article for the catholic newspaper on what the church teaches about gay marriage. We have Justices of the Peace here losing their jobs because they won't perform gay marriages. Activists have publicly stated they intend to force catholic priests to do them. We don't live in a bubble.

 

No doesn't mean No, anymore, I guess.  It could happen.  Celibacy is a Doctrine, not a Dogma... :hehe2:

Edited December 10, 2012 by Anomaly

[cappie]

We ought to deal fairly with persons of homosexual orientation and their needs. In the same spirit we do not accept ad hominem attacks on defenders of traditional marriage spiced by the use of pejoratives such as “homophobe” and “bigot”.

 

Marriage is shaped by the needs of our common humanity. Despite varying cultural expressions, it has come to be seen as the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other, of the type that is fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. This concept of marriage is consistently found across cultures throughout history.Marriage involves a comprehensive union of spouses, and norms of permanence and exclusivity. These combine to create a special link to children, for their sake, that protects their identity and nurture by a mother and father. These elements taken together reflect the current understanding of marriage, and demonstrate the inadequacy of the revisionist understanding.

 

By describing marriage as a comprehensive union of spouses, we mean a sharing of lives and resources, a union of minds and wills, and hence the requirement of consent for forming marriage. But we also mean something more: the bodily union of a man and a woman whereby the two become “one flesh”. If two people want to unite in the comprehensive way proper to marriage, they must, among other things, unite organically – that is, in the bodily dimension of their being through sexual intercourse.

 

With one exception a person is complete within themselves as to bodily organs and their functions: heart, lungs, stomach and so on. In other words, to fulfil any of these functions a person does not require a contribution from anyone else. The one biological function for which individual adults are naturally incomplete is sexual reproduction. In sexual intercourse, but not in any other form of sexual contact, a man’s and a woman’s bodies coordinate by way of their sexual organs for the common biological purpose of reproduction. In this way they perform the first step of the complex reproductive process. Their bodies become one by coordinating for the biological good of the whole, thereby securing future generations at the same time as they are giving unique expression to their love for each other.

 

This way of viewing marriage has become less persuasive only because widespread contraception has masked the link between marital sexual activity and the rearing of children. That in turn conveys the impression that all modes of sexual expression seem equivalent. But marriage remains deeply and uniquely oriented to bearing and rearing children. By contrast, two men or two women cannot achieve the same kind of union, since there is no child-oriented outcome or function toward which their bodies may coordinate. Same sex partnerships lack essential and natural orientation to children: they cannot be sealed by the generative act.

 

A child’s relationship to both mother and father is inherent to marriage. Children conceived by other means may find themselves with people in parental roles who are in a same sex relationship, but such relationships are not the origin of the child. It is possible for children to be nurtured in such a household, but however good that nurturing, it will not provide the biological link and security of identity and relationship that marriage naturally demands and confirms.

 

Marriage also provides children with a role model of the human love of their parents relating as man and woman. Its complementarity ensures the unilateral love of each parent to the child and the necessary differences between motherly and fatherly love. In contrast, the revisionist case incorrectly asserts that there is no necessity for a child to experience both fathering and mothering within the family.

 

Neither marriage breakdown, the early death of a parent, the adoption of children, de facto relationships, nor the practice of step-parenting negates these arguments. The complications and tragedies of an imperfect world do not justify the redefinition of marriage.

[theculturewarrior]

We ought to deal fairly with persons of homosexual orientation and their needs. In the same spirit we do not accept ad hominem attacks on defenders of traditional marriage spiced by the use of pejoratives such as “homophobe” and “bigot”.

 

Marriage is shaped by the needs of our common humanity. Despite varying cultural expressions, it has come to be seen as the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other, of the type that is fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. This concept of marriage is consistently found across cultures throughout history.Marriage involves a comprehensive union of spouses, and norms of permanence and exclusivity. These combine to create a special link to children, for their sake, that protects their identity and nurture by a mother and father. These elements taken together reflect the current understanding of marriage, and demonstrate the inadequacy of the revisionist understanding.

 

By describing marriage as a comprehensive union of spouses, we mean a sharing of lives and resources, a union of minds and wills, and hence the requirement of consent for forming marriage. But we also mean something more: the bodily union of a man and a woman whereby the two become “one flesh”. If two people want to unite in the comprehensive way proper to marriage, they must, among other things, unite organically – that is, in the bodily dimension of their being through sexual intercourse.

 

With one exception a person is complete within themselves as to bodily organs and their functions: heart, lungs, stomach and so on. In other words, to fulfil any of these functions a person does not require a contribution from anyone else. The one biological function for which individual adults are naturally incomplete is sexual reproduction. In sexual intercourse, but not in any other form of sexual contact, a man’s and a woman’s bodies coordinate by way of their sexual organs for the common biological purpose of reproduction. In this way they perform the first step of the complex reproductive process. Their bodies become one by coordinating for the biological good of the whole, thereby securing future generations at the same time as they are giving unique expression to their love for each other.

 

This way of viewing marriage has become less persuasive only because widespread contraception has masked the link between marital sexual activity and the rearing of children. That in turn conveys the impression that all modes of sexual expression seem equivalent. But marriage remains deeply and uniquely oriented to bearing and rearing children. By contrast, two men or two women cannot achieve the same kind of union, since there is no child-oriented outcome or function toward which their bodies may coordinate. Same sex partnerships lack essential and natural orientation to children: they cannot be sealed by the generative act.

 

A child’s relationship to both mother and father is inherent to marriage. Children conceived by other means may find themselves with people in parental roles who are in a same sex relationship, but such relationships are not the origin of the child. It is possible for children to be nurtured in such a household, but however good that nurturing, it will not provide the biological link and security of identity and relationship that marriage naturally demands and confirms.

 

Marriage also provides children with a role model of the human love of their parents relating as man and woman. Its complementarity ensures the unilateral love of each parent to the child and the necessary differences between motherly and fatherly love. In contrast, the revisionist case incorrectly asserts that there is no necessity for a child to experience both fathering and mothering within the family.

 

Neither marriage breakdown, the early death of a parent, the adoption of children, de facto relationships, nor the practice of step-parenting negates these arguments. The complications and tragedies of an imperfect world do not justify the redefinition of marriage.

 

Thank you for this!  Could you elaborate on step parenting within the context of a Catholic marriage?  Just curious, I would like to see how this theology applies in case my wife ever leaves me and the kid(s).

[Gabriela]

This is why I'm a Libertarian. The government has no business in making any laws about marriage. Marriage should be left to the churches.

[eagle_eye222001]

This is why I'm a Libertarian. The government has no business in making any laws about marriage. Marriage should be left to the churches.

 

This is a viewpoint I'm liking more and more.

 

I now call myself a libertarian republican for partially this reason.

[Gabriela]

This is a viewpoint I'm liking more and more.

 

I now call myself a libertarian republican for partially this reason.

 

I could go Ron Paul, Rand Paul, or Gary Johnson. Call yourself a Republican? Don't care. So long as you're a Libertarian at heart! :-P

[eagle_eye222001]

I could go Ron Paul, Rand Paul, or Gary Johnson. Call yourself a Republican? Don't care. So long as you're a Libertarian at heart! :-P

 

Rand Paul 2016 :crusader2:

 

Gary Johnson ....came so close to voting for him as I agree with virtually everything else but his weird seeming support for gay marriage on a federal level? :blink:

 

 

 

But don't worry.........I didn't sell out to Romney :P ....unlike McCan't last time. <_<

 

 

I've been in enough discussions.......I'm definitely a libertarian at heart... :)

[Ice_nine]

I"m just being realistic, we've lost the battle/debate/whatever over gay marriage. I don't think it's of much use to fight for the imposition of Catholic sexual mores via the law on a society that has become, for all intents and purposes, pagan.

 

I believe in Catholic teachings on sexual as much as the next guy, but truth is holding the belief that *insert playful euphemism for masturbation here* is actually immoral, relegates you to borderline insanity as do all of the adjacent beliefs (concerning esp fornication and homosexuality) that human sexuality is about more than some redirected blood flow, released endorphins and even "love." So really you can talk about natural law all you want but it's essentially useless when the whole culture generally operates by the moral code "as long as you're not hurting anybody . . ."

 

There are several more fundamental problems that we need to fix, that in my opinion can't be strong-armed via the legal system. I've lately feel like all this insanity over gay marriage is trying to put a band-aid over a gaping jugular, and I'm pretty tired of this exercise in futility. We need a vastly different strategy. Catholic social principles no longer enjoy influence over the public sphere, they did for a 1000 or so years, but safe to say that time is over. I'm not really worried because the Church has done well in hostile societies before, but to continue to operate without recognizing these realities is foolish imo.

 

But I'm just a stupid kid, what do I know?

[theculturewarrior]

But I'm just a stupid kid, what do I know?

 

 

What it feels like to have a future.  And what fxd means.  It seems as though we have become too lazy to spell the word fixed.  I want to believe that I am wrong about that though.  That said, in regards to your post, point very well taken and thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Edited December 12, 2012 by theculturewarrior