No, but you do need to explain why marriage between a man and a woman is pending persecution. Are we making heterosexual marriage illegal? I don't understand the unfounded assumption that gay marriage is harming heterosexual marriage. Do you have any evidence beside inferred biblical speculation?
It is pending persecution because society is ramping up to do precisely what the Church considers to be a fundamental and foundational disaster which inevitably leads to persecution.
In other words you referring back to biblical speculation. I'm not surprised, but it is getting a little annoying. Kinda like talking to Baptists who think the rapture is gonna happen at any time. The only people being persecuted within this issue are gays and their families, so you have no right playing the victim card.
Nope, not biblical speculation. It doesn't say in the Bible "If you call Sodomy marriage, your country will collapse" so it is not a biblical speculation.
As to your comment that the only people being persecuted are gays and their families...read the news. People's companies are being sued, Catholic Charities (the number one adoption agency in the world) is being forced out in many places...please don't pretend the only victims are the ones you mentioned.
I appreciate the fact that you admit that the Bible does not say gay marriage will lead to societal collapse. I agree. I was looking for more objective evidence that marriage is being persecuted. I believe in a lot of biblical wisdom because I can see that wisdom reflected in the world. Issues like divorce, adultery, pre marital sex and single parenting all have evidence that shows it is harmful to society. Gay marriage has none of this. It seems that all the arguments against gay marriage are purely biblical or the weakest philosophical arguments.
Please don't compare private business willfully breaking anti-discrimination laws designed to protect all people in their states "discrimination." Catholic Charities refusing to comply to state licensing standards is also not discrimination. Discrimination is pastors getting arrested in New York for performing same sex marriages a few years ago. The UCC has to sue North Carolina to marry parishioners so they don't get arrested. That's not even talking about the most frequent forms of discrimination that gays face every day.
Sorry for the long post, I'll let you have the last word.
Sorry, just can't let that go. I find it deeply ironic that you invoke MLK in an argument for ignoring anti discrimination laws when he was instrumental in the passage of such protections. Alright, now I'm done.
Do you think MLK thought "being gay" and "being black" were anything similar, in any way, whatsoever? To put it another way, do you think MLK would be on your side or my side of this discussion about gay "marriage"?
We would only be speculating since he is dead, but his wife Corretta was a very vocal supporter of SSM and drew many parallels between MLK Liberation Theology and the gay rights movement. The NAACP, in which Dr. King was a regional leader, also supports SSM.
I believe that a better question would be do you think MLK would support exploiting ones religious beliefs to subjugate another, especially when the best argument for the discrimination is Scott's below? Would Dr. King be okay with shirking anti-discrimination laws?
I'm glad that the questions I'm asking are encouraging you out of your promised retirement from commenting - they must be good questions!
I find it laughable that someone would think that MLK would support same sex marriage. How many non-Catholic biblically based Christians think the attraction is a sin...let alone acting on it...let alone calling two men or two women a "marriage"
I find it laughable that the tactics being used to put the clamps down on gay marriage by religious organizations is actually backfiring. Do you realize why support for gay marriage is growing? It's because you have outfits like NOM, which enjoys lying about gay people and making them out to be the scum of the earth---just to try and get people(straight people that is) to hate gays and try to prevent them from marrying. But that actually gets neutral straight people to feel sorry for gays and thus support them. Then you have TFP Student Action. A group of young, straight men, who dress up with red capes and chant and play bagpipes along busy highways in bigger cities in support of traditional marriage--but their real agenda is to attract angry SSM advocates into assaulting them so they can video tape it, call 911 to report being "assaulted by a homosexual" and putting it on youtube to tell the world how nasty gays are. Again, straight people can see through their tactics and consider supporting SSM and gay people. One last example--the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, it's really because of this "religious" organization that support for SSM has increased the most. We all know what these folks enjoy doing so I won't even have to say it. But Id's say between NOM and Westboro.........they got more straight people angry enough to support SSM. The rest of the religious organizations fall in between, but they do their fare share in helping straight people feel sorry for gays! Way to go!
If you're blaming gays for assaulting traditional marriage, it's not fair to blame them and them only. Do you realize how many straight people are assaulting traditional marriage? I guarantee you that there are more divorces every single year than gay people getting married(remember Jesus said that what God has joined together, let no man put asunder). That is an assault on the sanctity of marriage. Do you realize how many straight people co-habitate and aren't married? A LOT. That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about the married couples that cheat on their spouses? I've seen it a ton! That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about domestic violence? It happens every single day of the year! That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about straight couples who can't conceive a child, yet do so with the help of a surrogate mother? I know of one couple that currently has TWO surrogate mothers carrying the fertilized eggs in their bodies! That's an assault on traditional marriage. I'll leave the best for last----how about all the UNWED parents out there having kids? THAT is an assault on the sanctity of marriage. Why say in the title to this particular blog "The Pending Marriage Persecution"? It's not "pending"....it's been persecuted long before gays were allowed to be married! Granted, gay marriage is probably the "nail in the coffin" as far as completely ruining traditional marriage, but the other factors can not be ignored either. Those too are "nails in the coffin". Gay marriage is just the final one.....
Perhaps the church should encourage legislators to: 1) Make divorce illegal 2) Make having a child out of wedlock illegal 3) Make pre-marital sex and co-habitation illegal 4) Make IVF illegal 5) Make spousal affairs illegal
The above mentioned suggestions to legislators should help strengthen marriage to the maximum. Right?
Divorce is not good. Having children out of wedlock is unfair to the children. Pre-marital sex and co-habitation are not gifts as they correlate strongly with children out of wedlock and divorce. Spousal affairs are devastating to families. The negatives of IVF can't be explained in a few sentences. All of the points mentioned as nails in the traditional marriage coffin are in fact damaging to traditional marriage, but they are not gifts. Anonymous, you align gay marriage with things that are bad for families and somehow you celebrate the connection. -Greg Armbruster
Greg, I don't understand, if you are married doesn't that mean that your not co-habitating, having pre-marital sex, and children out I found wedlock? It seems to me that your problems will be solved if we allow gay marriage.
FYI- some gays can have biological children without IVF. And even if they don't have biological children, same sex families do just fine raising children. All the arguments against gay marriage I have seen this far are purely speculative or inconsistent in regards to heterosexual marriage. I celebrate the fact that gay marriage does not harm society or children, and has been shown to be healthful both physically and economically to gays. Why do you have the right to deny marriage to a certain population when all they are asking for is the same rights and protections millions of other families enjoy in this country?
Why do you have the right to deny marriage to a certain population when all they are asking for is the same rights and protections millions of other families enjoy in this country?
Because mutual-masturbation arrangements are not marriages. You might as well pass a law requiring everyone to acknowledge me as Napoleon.
Here's how the typical conversation went over at the Catholic Answers forum:
"Can I morally do [insert unchaste sex act] with my girlfriend?"
"No."
"What!? Why is the Church so obsessed with sex?!"
My so-called pre-occupation with sex in a pornified culture hasn't changed. Sexual contact belongs in one place and one place alone: between a man and a woman in a true marriage. All else is an offense against Chastity.
But tell you what. If there is ever a Thieves' Pride Parade, or people getting fired from their jobs for not approving of another's alternative property-rights orientation, then I promise I will cultivate a "preoccupation" with the wrongness of stealing.
You seem to think that every gay person has sex with each other. That calls for speculation. You don't know that. Unless that is......you are spying on all the homosexual people you can.
Is it OK for me to say that Osama Bin Laden is in Hell now? How about Fred Phelps? Can I say that he is in Hell right now? I'll bet both of them are....but is it OK for me to assume that they are?
You seem to think that every gay person has sex with each other.
No I don't. Here's one that doesn't:
In my experience, the hardest part about being homosexual is not getting turned on by hot guys (though that can be pretty frustrating sometimes). It’s being pressured by the entire world to “be myself,” “live my life,” etc. You hear constant rhetoric about how “oppressed” people are who can’t have sex with whom they please, how people who don’t are just “living a lie.”
You’d think most pressure comes from the gay community, and a certain amount of it kind of does, but it’s actually mostly from the straight community. They gay community always reacts kind of “hurt” (like Leah points out here) when you discuss sexual ethics or say I refuse to live that way, etc. It’s like your not doing what they’re doing is the strongest judgment of them that exists. And in a Certain way it is, but it’s not; I don’t talk with gay people that much, and I pretty much stay out of the debates not on the internet. What I find a little interesting is that there’s this certain level on insecurity and guilt about it. I think, in some ways, homosexuals recognize that it’s Not impossible to not live the life they’re living. I think that’s usually the way their lives are justified to themselves: “I can’t Live, it’s Impossible, without this outlet; I Cannot Be Wrong if the alternative is death.”
The worst, by far, are heterosexuals, who are all about gay rights, though. This may be because they are the majority, but in a certain way I think it’s deeper than that. I think their defending of homosexuals is driven by a couple things. One, it comes from this weird perverted notion that you always have to protect the weak and “not judge” No Matter What. It’s derived, I think, from Christian notions of love, but it has to turned into this terrible monster known as modern liberalism. It’s actually become the case that defending the weak is more important than identifying the truth. This whole idea is rampant, and it’s pretty much suffocating to any real discussion on moral issues. “Don’t judge! What makes your life any better! You’re just filled with hate!” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has to be equal, no matter the stakes, no matter what. If you imply Anything to the contrary, you’re basically Hitler who wants to kill all gay people. And while this push is definitely from the gay community (it’s how they gain their power), it’s most strong (and most despicable) from straight people. It’s despicable because they don’t know what they’re doing. They just bandwagon on someone else’s slave morality to the degradation of everything around them. And worst of all, they’re Zealous about it. They get mad, scary mad about it.
Please explain, why is indissoluble monogamous marriage pending persecution?
ReplyDeletedo I really need to show the 400 different places where the Church and the Bible and Jesus explain how marriage is between a man and a woman?
DeleteNo, but you do need to explain why marriage between a man and a woman is pending persecution. Are we making heterosexual marriage illegal? I don't understand the unfounded assumption that gay marriage is harming heterosexual marriage. Do you have any evidence beside inferred biblical speculation?
DeleteIt is pending persecution because society is ramping up to do precisely what the Church considers to be a fundamental and foundational disaster which inevitably leads to persecution.
DeleteIn other words you referring back to biblical speculation. I'm not surprised, but it is getting a little annoying. Kinda like talking to Baptists who think the rapture is gonna happen at any time. The only people being persecuted within this issue are gays and their families, so you have no right playing the victim card.
DeleteNope, not biblical speculation. It doesn't say in the Bible "If you call Sodomy marriage, your country will collapse" so it is not a biblical speculation.
DeleteAs to your comment that the only people being persecuted are gays and their families...read the news. People's companies are being sued, Catholic Charities (the number one adoption agency in the world) is being forced out in many places...please don't pretend the only victims are the ones you mentioned.
I appreciate the fact that you admit that the Bible does not say gay marriage will lead to societal collapse. I agree. I was looking for more objective evidence that marriage is being persecuted. I believe in a lot of biblical wisdom because I can see that wisdom reflected in the world. Issues like divorce, adultery, pre marital sex and single parenting all have evidence that shows it is harmful to society. Gay marriage has none of this. It seems that all the arguments against gay marriage are purely biblical or the weakest philosophical arguments.
DeletePlease don't compare private business willfully breaking anti-discrimination laws designed to protect all people in their states "discrimination." Catholic Charities refusing to comply to state licensing standards is also not discrimination. Discrimination is pastors getting arrested in New York for performing same sex marriages a few years ago. The UCC has to sue North Carolina to marry parishioners so they don't get arrested. That's not even talking about the most frequent forms of discrimination that gays face every day.
Sorry for the long post, I'll let you have the last word.
you telling me the discrimination I mentioned "isn't discrimination because it is the law of the land" does not comfort me one bit.
Delete"Everything Hitler did in Germany was legal" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Sorry, just can't let that go. I find it deeply ironic that you invoke MLK in an argument for ignoring anti discrimination laws when he was instrumental in the passage of such protections. Alright, now I'm done.
DeleteDo you think MLK thought "being gay" and "being black" were anything similar, in any way, whatsoever? To put it another way, do you think MLK would be on your side or my side of this discussion about gay "marriage"?
DeleteWe would only be speculating since he is dead, but his wife Corretta was a very vocal supporter of SSM and drew many parallels between MLK Liberation Theology and the gay rights movement. The NAACP, in which Dr. King was a regional leader, also supports SSM.
DeleteI believe that a better question would be do you think MLK would support exploiting ones religious beliefs to subjugate another, especially when the best argument for the discrimination is Scott's below? Would Dr. King be okay with shirking anti-discrimination laws?
I'm glad that the questions I'm asking are encouraging you out of your promised retirement from commenting - they must be good questions!
DeleteI find it laughable that someone would think that MLK would support same sex marriage. How many non-Catholic biblically based Christians think the attraction is a sin...let alone acting on it...let alone calling two men or two women a "marriage"
I find it laughable that the tactics being used to put the clamps down on gay marriage by religious organizations is actually backfiring. Do you realize why support for gay marriage is growing? It's because you have outfits like NOM, which enjoys lying about gay people and making them out to be the scum of the earth---just to try and get people(straight people that is) to hate gays and try to prevent them from marrying. But that actually gets neutral straight people to feel sorry for gays and thus support them. Then you have TFP Student Action. A group of young, straight men, who dress up with red capes and chant and play bagpipes along busy highways in bigger cities in support of traditional marriage--but their real agenda is to attract angry SSM advocates into assaulting them so they can video tape it, call 911 to report being "assaulted by a homosexual" and putting it on youtube to tell the world how nasty gays are. Again, straight people can see through their tactics and consider supporting SSM and gay people. One last example--the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, it's really because of this "religious" organization that support for SSM has increased the most. We all know what these folks enjoy doing so I won't even have to say it. But Id's say between NOM and Westboro.........they got more straight people angry enough to support SSM. The rest of the religious organizations fall in between, but they do their fare share in helping straight people feel sorry for gays! Way to go!
DeleteIf you're blaming gays for assaulting traditional marriage, it's not fair to blame them and them only. Do you realize how many straight people are assaulting traditional marriage? I guarantee you that there are more divorces every single year than gay people getting married(remember Jesus said that what God has joined together, let no man put asunder). That is an assault on the sanctity of marriage. Do you realize how many straight people co-habitate and aren't married? A LOT. That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about the married couples that cheat on their spouses? I've seen it a ton! That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about domestic violence? It happens every single day of the year! That's an assault on the sanctity of marriage. How about straight couples who can't conceive a child, yet do so with the help of a surrogate mother? I know of one couple that currently has TWO surrogate mothers carrying the fertilized eggs in their bodies! That's an assault on traditional marriage. I'll leave the best for last----how about all the UNWED parents out there having kids? THAT is an assault on the sanctity of marriage. Why say in the title to this particular blog "The Pending Marriage Persecution"? It's not "pending"....it's been persecuted long before gays were allowed to be married! Granted, gay marriage is probably the "nail in the coffin" as far as completely ruining traditional marriage, but the other factors can not be ignored either. Those too are "nails in the coffin". Gay marriage is just the final one.....
ReplyDeletePerhaps the church should encourage legislators to:
1) Make divorce illegal
2) Make having a child out of wedlock illegal
3) Make pre-marital sex and co-habitation illegal
4) Make IVF illegal
5) Make spousal affairs illegal
The above mentioned suggestions to legislators should help strengthen marriage to the maximum. Right?
Where did I say who I was blaming?
DeleteDivorce is not good. Having children out of wedlock is unfair to the children. Pre-marital sex and co-habitation are not gifts as they correlate strongly with children out of wedlock and divorce. Spousal affairs are devastating to families. The negatives of IVF can't be explained in a few sentences. All of the points mentioned as nails in the traditional marriage coffin are in fact damaging to traditional marriage, but they are not gifts. Anonymous, you align gay marriage with things that are bad for families and somehow you celebrate the connection. -Greg Armbruster
ReplyDeleteLike it or not it's the truth. Weep if you don't like it.
DeleteGreg, I don't understand, if you are married doesn't that mean that your not co-habitating, having pre-marital sex, and children out I found wedlock? It seems to me that your problems will be solved if we allow gay marriage.
DeleteFYI- some gays can have biological children without IVF. And even if they don't have biological children, same sex families do just fine raising children. All the arguments against gay marriage I have seen this far are purely speculative or inconsistent in regards to heterosexual marriage. I celebrate the fact that gay marriage does not harm society or children, and has been shown to be healthful both physically and economically to gays. Why do you have the right to deny marriage to a certain population when all they are asking for is the same rights and protections millions of other families enjoy in this country?
Why do you have the right to deny marriage to a certain population when all they are asking for is the same rights and protections millions of other families enjoy in this country?
ReplyDeleteBecause mutual-masturbation arrangements are not marriages. You might as well pass a law requiring everyone to acknowledge me as Napoleon.
You have a very sick preoccupation with sex, Scott W....
DeleteHere's how the typical conversation went over at the Catholic Answers forum:
Delete"Can I morally do [insert unchaste sex act] with my girlfriend?"
"No."
"What!? Why is the Church so obsessed with sex?!"
My so-called pre-occupation with sex in a pornified culture hasn't changed. Sexual contact belongs in one place and one place alone: between a man and a woman in a true marriage. All else is an offense against Chastity.
But tell you what. If there is ever a Thieves' Pride Parade, or people getting fired from their jobs for not approving of another's alternative property-rights orientation, then I promise I will cultivate a "preoccupation" with the wrongness of stealing.
You seem to think that every gay person has sex with each other. That calls for speculation. You don't know that. Unless that is......you are spying on all the homosexual people you can.
DeleteIs it OK for me to say that Osama Bin Laden is in Hell now? How about Fred Phelps? Can I say that he is in Hell right now? I'll bet both of them are....but is it OK for me to assume that they are?
You seem to think that every gay person has sex with each other.
ReplyDeleteNo I don't. Here's one that doesn't:
In my experience, the hardest part about being homosexual is not getting turned on by hot guys (though that can be pretty frustrating sometimes). It’s being pressured by the entire world to “be myself,” “live my life,” etc. You hear constant rhetoric about how “oppressed” people are who can’t have sex with whom they please, how people who don’t are just “living a lie.”
You’d think most pressure comes from the gay community, and a certain amount of it kind of does, but it’s actually mostly from the straight community. They gay community always reacts kind of “hurt” (like Leah points out here) when you discuss sexual ethics or say I refuse to live that way, etc. It’s like your not doing what they’re doing is the strongest judgment of them that exists. And in a Certain way it is, but it’s not; I don’t talk with gay people that much, and I pretty much stay out of the debates not on the internet. What I find a little interesting is that there’s this certain level on insecurity and guilt about it. I think, in some ways, homosexuals recognize that it’s Not impossible to not live the life they’re living. I think that’s usually the way their lives are justified to themselves: “I can’t Live, it’s Impossible, without this outlet; I Cannot Be Wrong if the alternative is death.”
The worst, by far, are heterosexuals, who are all about gay rights, though. This may be because they are the majority, but in a certain way I think it’s deeper than that. I think their defending of homosexuals is driven by a couple things. One, it comes from this weird perverted notion that you always have to protect the weak and “not judge” No Matter What. It’s derived, I think, from Christian notions of love, but it has to turned into this terrible monster known as modern liberalism. It’s actually become the case that defending the weak is more important than identifying the truth. This whole idea is rampant, and it’s pretty much suffocating to any real discussion on moral issues. “Don’t judge! What makes your life any better! You’re just filled with hate!” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has to be equal, no matter the stakes, no matter what. If you imply Anything to the contrary, you’re basically Hitler who wants to kill all gay people. And while this push is definitely from the gay community (it’s how they gain their power), it’s most strong (and most despicable) from straight people. It’s despicable because they don’t know what they’re doing. They just bandwagon on someone else’s slave morality to the degradation of everything around them. And worst of all, they’re Zealous about it. They get mad, scary mad about it.
Pardon the format error. The quote (from Joe K.) starts at "In my experience..."
Delete