I assert in the Equal Marriage debate that heterosexual marriage is in no way affected by recognition of gay marriage: not individually, and not as a whole. But perhaps Flavius’s is. He asserts it will be damaged by the statutes on equal marriage. How might that be?
Part of the problem is that we use words differently. He says that heterosexual sex is “natural”, and I agree. It bonds two people together, and may have the potential for conception. I say homosexual sex is natural. He says, “You can’t seriously believe that it’s natural for a man’s sex organ to be inserted in another man’s rectum?” and I hear the distaste in his words. He finds the thought horrible, harmful, and unnatural.
Well, yes, I do, as it fulfils the purpose of sex to bond people, and it happens. He also thinks that people hurting each other or themselves is unnatural, which begins to show what “natural” might mean to him: in accordance with God’s purposes for humanity, in accordance with our good. But I still see the good which comes from two gay people bonded together as a couple, which he does not see.
How will the redefinition of marriage hurt him, individually? Fiddling with marriage and the family with a redefinition will create chaos: a host of confusing new laws to accommodate the new definitions, the intrusion further of the State into the affairs of the Church, and the dissolution of familial bonds as an entire generation will grow up with the idea that something as basic and immutable as the family can be arbitrarily redefined at will.
That is, people will not have his moral boundaries. Gay men will not try to marry women in an attempt to make themselves straight; instead, they will find partners they can love physically as well as in friendship. I think that benefits them, and those gay men who have tried marrying women then formed gay relationships agree. I think it is “natural” in his sense, in accordance with God’s will for our good.
How might it hurt him, then? This is my attempt, rather than his: he might meet people who disagree with him. He might see gay couples, and people- even Catholics- who believe that they are properly married. His moral view will be challenged. This will cause him such distress that he cannot bear it.
Or, he genuinely cannot conceive that others might see the Good differently from how he sees it, let alone that they might have as much right to decide what is good for them. Humanity finds Good by trial and error- we have tried Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and it is not a Good end, and we know that now. To me, Good and Truth are indeed one and eternal, but we cannot know them, only grope towards them. So his idolatry of his Magisterium prevents him from making any progress towards knowing what is truly Good.
Clare Flourish 
Hmmmmm! We have been here before, methinks. Interesting, that your writer suggests that the intrusion of the State into the affairs of the Church is undesirable. Is that what happens, if marriage between two persons of the same sex is de-punified by the State? I rather think that the State is sending out a very important message, that the Church should be no hiding place for discriminatory practices. Interesting, too, that whenever homosexual sex is under discussion, it is always with the most prurient aspects in close focus. Forget consensus and focus on force and “un-natural acts” whatever that is supposed to imply. What about lesbian sex? And what about love?
Does Christ not invite us to love our neighbours as ourselves? Does Christ look into other people’s sex lives and judge them better or worse? That would be unloving, judgemental. Interesting, that in the debate with the “pro-sexual” lobby, the paramout virtues of loving our neighbour and resisting judgement lest we be judged are overlooked, and obscure passages from the bible are touted as an excuse for intolerance….here we go again.
Clare, I really think you should think about a career in writing. I am sure there are some magazines etc that would be very happy with regular contributions of this calibre and interest.
Ann XX 🙂
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Writing for money is something I am considering, how I might do that. Thank you for your encouragement.
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“I rather think that the State is sending out a very important message, that the Church should be no hiding place for discriminatory practices.”
So – get with the programme, or we’ll put you in jail. Fascist.
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If you do something which is clearly wrong, your “religious beliefs” should not protect you. For example, telling children that their God-given sexuality is “unnatural” and must not be expressed, in a “faith school”. But payment of damages, rather than jail, is appropriate: a thing your dioceses know how to avoid, with covert transfers of funds followed by bankruptcy.
Bigot.
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“If you do something which is clearly wrong, your “religious beliefs” should not protect you.”
Yes, I agree. But I also believe that it is not for small, hysterical, militant pressure groups to decide ‘what is clearly wrong’ – especially when their position is flimsy, goes against thousands of years of traditional understanding, goes against the moral consensus of most of mankind throughout recorded history, and would demonise the religion on which our civilization was built and made great.
I believe that it should be up to the people as a whole, and – as a I am sure you know – there is much less sympathy for sodomy under the skin than there is on the lips.
” But payment of damages, rather than jail, is appropriate”
So, believing something that is wrong, and saying something that is wrong, deserves jail, does it?
Fascist.
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The heart of our argument is this. If I win, you win. You are disabused of one of your illusions. If you win nationally, I die. You get to tell people that our God-given nature is objectively disordered, and must not be expressed. We get immured in self-hatred and we fail to thrive. You say that is only a small minority, so does not matter, and you call me fascist?
It is not just a belief and a statement, in a faith school, but an act. Saying that homosexuality is objectively disordered, in a school, directly hurts some pupils, and even the straight ones are adversely affected, constrained into a false ideal of masculinity or femininity rather than allowed to flourish in their own way.
You also show our dispute when you refer to the “traditional understanding throughout recorded history”. People get morally better. In England until 1485, war was the ordinary pastime of gentlemen and the way of progressing politics. From 1485, murder, sometimes judicial murder, became the way of progressing politics: a small improvement. Bloody Mary martyred Christians, burning at least three hundred people in five years, but Elizabeth refused to make “a window in men’s souls”. Your “traditional understanding” puts artificial restrictions on natural flourishing, and has been superseded, which you with your “Magisterium” are incapable of recognising.
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What people believe to be right, and what they in fact do, may be completely different things. So, in history people did not live up to their ideals: so what else is new? What’s your point?
You want to impose your will to strangle somebody else’s (viz. my) beliefs. I don’t believe in coercing people into believing my Faith, and I don’t believe in forcing political measures (e.g. criminalising homosexuality) on a population which does not accept them.
I also don’t think that people are so weak-willed that if they determine to follow a path in life that they believe to be right, they will be dissuaded by my disapproval, however vigorously expressed. David Starkey has made this point very well, in a popular youtube clip.
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Yes, but you do believe in artificial restrictions. You may not want us criminalised, but your bishops in 1967 did not want us decriminalised. Thank God my argument has won so far.
As for the pain of internalised homophobia, consider the career of Kenneth Williams, and even Kenny Everett, who was not much older than I.
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Such “pain” is the inevitable result of social stigma. Stigma can be a useful and good thing, depending on its objects; the fact that it happens is not an argument either way.
If someone feels inner anguish, because he is guilty of monstrous sin, I am glad – it might just save his soul. The question is, is Sodomy monstrous sin? I believe it is, therefore I support its being stigmatized.
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But you cannot justify that, either by moral argument or by proper biblical interpretation, just by traditional prejudices.
You are glad when we feel inner anguish. That says it all, really.
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I have justified it, and you have given up addressing my arguments, and have reverted to abuse, which suggests to me that you feel somewhat challenged by them.
I am glad when *I* feel inner anguish as well. I pray for it every morning, I say, “Lord, I love Thee with my whole heart: help me daily to love Thee more and more, and DO THOU INCREASE MY SORROW FOR MY SINS”
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If you are reduced to asserting my arguments are mere abuse, then there is no point in us continuing.
I find your pleasure in anguish interesting, and would love to hear you about it, face to face. I can refute that too, but not by this medium.
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I don’t take pleasure in anguish, simpliciter; I take pleasure in the knowledge that a pricked conscience is a healthy conscience. As the Lord says, those whom He loves, He chastens.
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“People get morally better.”
That’s just fatuous. Our society is full of single mothers and broken families. It kills millions of unborn children for reasons of convenience.
Any idiot can say, “the moral behaviour of today is superior” and then say, “we have seen moral progress.”
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Ah. “Convenience”. You think a woman’s decision that she needs an abortion is frivolous. You have no idea of her as a human being. You have no empathy.
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No. I believe human life is sacred, and that by no means may an innocent person be killed, for whatever reason.
You prefer convenience to what is right; the ends cannot justify the means, whatever the circumstances, when the means are intrinsically evil (viz. the killing of the innocent).
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Blah, blah, blah. Please let us not get on to abortion. Or, if you like, please do. Please say here all you like about abortion. Just don’t expect me either to agree, or to explain to you how you are wrong. You can find adequate explanations of that elsewhere.
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If you will not debate the point, then I’m not going to waste my energy on it.
You still don’t seem to be very forthcoming with either facts or argument; I thought we made some progress yesterday on that point, but you seem to have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, and reverted to brick-battery.
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Really? And what do you call that comment?
I explain, over and over. You do not have ears to hear.
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“The heart of our argument is this. If I win, you win. You are disabused of one of your illusions. If you win nationally, I die.”
What matters is not who wins, but who is correct. If I must die in the cause of Truth, so be it.
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Oh, Quia, you won’t die. You will just get pleasantly miserable. But you really don’t know God’s will. You interpret the Bible to condemn far more behaviour, in this case, than it really does, for example. That arises from an old taboo. It is old, but it has been seen through, thank God.
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You want to use the force of law against me. You want it to stop at a fine. I don’t trust you that it will stop there.
The taboo is natural, and we have these natural moral feelings for a reason. People have not ‘seen through it’; they have violated their consciences to the point at which they can more or less comfortably ignore it, though by your defensive behaviour, I would suggest that you are not completely at ease yourself, for the which I thank God.
Decadent societies fall soon after their morality goes to point; it went for the Roman Empire before us, and it will go for us as well. It’s already happening. I assure you that the Muslims – who are out-breeding the indigenous population, and are certainly out-breeding the sodomites – will be less forgiving about sodomy than any Christian.
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I want to prevent you harming people. You are deliberately obtuse.
We have these moral feelings, which includes your us and them thinking. Wise people may transcend this: there is only us.
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I’m not deliberately obtuse; I say things as I see them, and I get little thanks from this world. My treasure, however, is in heaven.
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What I want you to do is use your God-given common sense and empathy, rather than call mothers who need an abortion frivolous, and delight in gay people’s inner anguish. You say things as you see them, and close your ears and your heart. God forgive you.
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I didn’t use the word frivolous, I said that they put convenience before doing what is right, which I maintain they do. People can do that under very great pressures, and I wouldn’t say that they act ‘frivolously’; it doesn’t make what they do right, however – though it does make it more understandable.
Common sense tells me that having sex with a member of the same sex is not right, and you are not going to persuade me to do violence to my common sense.
I have already explained that I pray for ‘inner anguish’ myself, not because I think it’s desirable in itself, but because I think it is healthy to feel sorrow for doing something evil.
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There is the other thing which divides us. Common sense tells me that “it is not good for the man to be alone” and therefore he should find a partner who is natural to him- that is, of his own sex, as “natural” as being left-handed is. Old prejudice and dusty falsehoods tell you he should remain celibate.
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It’s not prejudice, it’s a moral apprehension. I believe that sexual immorality is bad for people; I think social decline in general, and the increased vulnerability of e.g. homosexuals to mental illness, suicide, and diseases, bears this out.
Notice that God’s response to its being not good for the man to be alone was to create for him a wife.
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You really are blind. That comment-
The British National Party leader, a true fascist, was on a radio phone-in, and I called to express my contempt for him. I will engage anyone in conversation, for a limited time. However, your reference to our increased mental illness, without acknowledging that it is caused by persecution by your church and other homophobes, shows your incapability of empathy or understanding.
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As I have already argued, whether those factors which tend to increase your rates of mental illness are good or bad is an entirely separate issue.
Paedophiles have increased rates of mental illness; I’m sure there’s overlap in the causation. The question is, is it right for society to stigmatize the behaviour? In the case of paedophilia, most would say “yes”. In the case of homosexuality, I say “yes” as well.
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So now, you compare us to paedophiles, after complaining noisily that I insult you. I had already put you on moderation, and you show I was right. Unless you can say something which is not morally repugnant, no further comment from you will be authorised.
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As to your false equivocation of sexual preferences and left and right handedness, I have already explained that I reject it, and given my reasons.
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I don’t necessarily believe he should remain celibate; some people who have suffered with homosexual urges should marry. As a speaker on the subject who had suffered from these temptations put it, “I finally realised that it didn’t matter that I found women attractive, but only that I could love one woman.”
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So, what proportion of gay people do you believe are bisexual? If you suggest celibacy is right for any gay man, you make pointless demands for his harm. Or should he try to convert? Thank God, US law increasingly prohibits such false, damaging “therapy”.
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“you make pointless demands for his harm.”
Not if the alternative – viz. continuing in a homosexual lifestyle – will send his soul to hell. I would say that abstaining from that particular indulgence, though inconvenient in some ways in the short term, would be not to his harm but to his great benefit.
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Oh wow. That one is still morally repugnant, but an insanity you have not before uttered.
You do not know who will go to hell, and your imagining that God follows your petty, wicked rules is ridiculous and disgusting. Turn to Christ.
ADDED: I had several further comments from the poor benighted Catholic, the last saying I would go to Hell as a transvestite. He is on moderation, and the only thing he can do about it, apart from sockpuppet games, is to say something sensible or worthwhile.
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*deserves a fine.
Sorry, typos again.
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So what is it called when heterosexual couples have the same sexual desires and share their bodies in all ways as considered “homosexual acts.” This is where the naming issue keeps frustrating me. It’s a waste of energy to pay attention to naming and blaming. I also would love to see more posts from the positive people who support your search for acceptance. I think that the statement “bad press is good press” might be considered in your writing. You do give a voice even though you object to the sentiment of so many negative people. Tell me more stories about the leaders who believe in a free loving and supportive community environment. I know they are out there.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi
love.
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That is something I think about. I do not like the facebook news from TS friends, who publicise articles about some silly priest or other who thinks equal marriage is a bad thing. However, I like to think I am answering them. I do this for me, you know, as well as for any readers: like watching a horror film, I look at the nasties in a safe environment, and answer them, and call them fools. I seek to desensitise myself from them, so they hold no more fear for me. Another blogger wrote how pitiable some cardinal or other was, in his rage and hate, and another quoted one ad longum, saying he sought to let the man show what a fool he was, simply by letting him be heard.
Yes, I like the idea of positive stories. Perhaps posts on how straights welcome equal marriage legislation. Lots do. Equality wins. And- some of my posts are positive.
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Hello dearest! and CONGRATUALTIONS!!! YOU have been been bestowed the Star Award-Blogger of the Year 2012 see the link and follow the instructions….http://cherryberrylemonlime.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/5541/
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Thank you. I have two stars now, I will do a post if I get the six.
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You are so very welcome. Happy new 2013
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