Gays In Military

[kujo]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1338488366' post='2438776']
As long as you attend weekly, the general tendency is to put you into the category of more committed Catholic, so long as you also self-identify as such.
[/quote]

Don't droves of Kennedys, Pelosis and Bidens attend weekly [color=#282828]mass?[/color]

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1338488244' post='2438769']
USAirwaysIHS, your statistics don't take into account the frequency of worship or the level of commitment.
[/quote]
True, but those were pretty much best-case scenario figures. As an anecdotal generalization, would you not say that as frequency of worship/level of commitment decrease, liberalness (at least in this field) increases? And even in most mainline protestant congregations, homosexual issues/"equality" are preached as doctrine.

If anything, my money would be that adding those factors in would only serve to hurt the opposing argument.

[qfnol31]

When statistics are done, they fall into the minority of statistics, but that's how statistics work.

Edit :this was a response to Kujo.

Edited May 31, 2012 by qfnol31

[qfnol31]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1338488477' post='2438781']

True, but those were pretty much best-case scenario figures. As an anecdotal generalization, would you not say that as frequency of worship/level of commitment decrease, liberalness (at least in this field) increases? And even in most mainline protestant congregations, homosexual issues/"equality" are preached as doctrine.

If anything, my money would be that adding those factors in would only serve to hurt the opposing argument.
[/quote]As commitment decreases, so too does liberality increase.

I studied some of these very statistics recently and your point depends on the separation of Protestants as well. The majority of citizens, and a greater majority of Christians tend to oppose homosexual unions. Evangelical Protestants even more so than mainline Protestants. I need to find my article on this, but as I remember it, the numbers are against gay marriage.

Added a word.

Edited May 31, 2012 by qfnol31

[qfnol31]

Look at the black Protestant reaction to Obama last month. It was pretty strongly against his recent move.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1338488801' post='2438789']
Look at the black Protestant reaction to Obama last month. It was pretty strongly against his recent move.
[/quote]
I'll give you that, but Black Churches only make up about 7% of Christianity in the US.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1338489186' post='2438796']

I'll give you that, but Black Churches only make up about 7% of Christianity in the US.
[/quote]The percentage of committed members is higher and their opposition percentage is much, much higher.

In this case, the numbers are still against gay marriage.

[kujo]

*Self-identified committed members

[qfnol31]

Not necessary...

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1338489540' post='2438800']
The percentage of committed members is higher and their opposition percentage is much, much higher.

In this case, the numbers are still against gay marriage.
[/quote]
Yes, but it's just like the Metropolitan Community Churches. They are overwhelmingly for gay marriage, but their numbers are small to the point of being nearly inconsequential as well.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1338489913' post='2438806']
Yes, but it's just like the Metropolitan Community Churches. They are overwhelmingly for gay marriage, but their numbers are small to the point of being nearly inconsequential as well.
[/quote][url="http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_117.asp"]http://www.thearda.c...tats/qs_117.asp[/url]
[i]Same-Sex Marriage (General Social Survey 2008 Cross-Section and Panel Combined)[/i]


See attached chart.

If you want a breakdown by religion, go here: http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_117_p.asp

You are right to point out that the numbers have been changing overtime, but they still aren't in favor of gay marriage.


This has another chart on religious preference in general in America:
http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_101.asp (Be sure to check out the religious patterns here; the majority of blacks tend to be Baptist, and that accounts for a large percentage of Protestantism in general.)


Here is a general chart on the Protestant breakdown:
http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_102.asp


Perhaps the most important survey for our conversation:
http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_103.asp
Check out the Patterns for this. There are a ton of numbers to wade through, but suffice it to say, I think the numbers oppose gay marriage still.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='kujo' timestamp='1338488072' post='2438767']
I think everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. In other words, we all have some notion of what constitutes "good" and "evil," and the friction that occurs in society owes itself, to a large degree, to the divergence of these beliefs.
[/quote]What about people who don't believe in heaven? Even they can sense and give value to good or bad in the present without awaiting a 'better' afterlife. It's also part of the social nature of humans that the majority aren't purely narccisistic, we recognize the benefits of a community.

There is no ultimate definition of what's right or wrong that can be applied to every situation. Heck, Catholics can't agree on the morality of abortion, bathing suits, holding hands, or the death penalty. Even the Catechism will remind you to be obedienct to your own conscience. The friction is in all religions, philosphies, and socities. There is always a tension of protecting the individual and protecting the group. There isn't a perfect societal philosophy that falls betwen the 'Borgs of Star Trek and the anarchy of the Lord of the Flies. Most people will go along with the majority, as long as it's personally peaceful. Many think deeply enough to have morals and ethics that guide their behavior and associate with like minded people. A few are so sure they're correct, whether due to hubris or belief in the codified behavior of a group (religion, philosopy), they feel committed to guide/manipulate/cajole others to agree or behave accordingly.
Nevertheless, a community does have the right and power to establish guidelines for behaviors as a group as it tries to balance what's best for the individual vs the group.

[Groo the Wanderer]

back to llamas folks.


hup hup hup

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1338491132' post='2438819']
If you want a breakdown by religion, go here: [url="http://www.thearda.com/quickstats/qs_117_p.asp"]http://www.thearda.c...ts/qs_117_p.asp[/url]

[/quote]
Interesting. According to that, only 39% of people who self-identify as Catholic oppose gay marriage.
Also interesting to see the trend according to level of education.

I also wonder if their wording of marriage had an impact...I too would state that I was opposed to gay marriage.

In any case, this was the survey I had in mind:
[url="http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx"]http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx[/url]

But this is all beside the issue at hand, which is pretty much just about DADT.

[Socrates]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1338444729' post='2438555']
If I follow, you're saying that the way in which we are to evangelize and "awaken the love of the true and the good" is to ban gays from the military.
Weird....didn't seem to work for the first 200 years of the US![/quote]
And officially sanctioning sexual perversion certainly does nothing to evangelize "awaken the love of the true and the good." I think that this is a symptom of much greater problems in our government and society, but the erosion of moral standards, in the military or anything else, is not something that should be supported and applauded by Catholics.

[quote]Also, I still don't disagree with this. It would be fantastic if every individual in the US became a Christian and decided to enact laws reflecting that fact, including banning homosexuals from military service, teaching, and other roles deemed unsuitable. The fact is that the US isn't a Christian nation. It's a secular state with a set of laws that reflect [i]that[/i][/quote]
While the U.S. is a "secular state" in the sense that it does not have any official tax-supported established national church (per the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment), it was certainly not founded as a radical secularist state in the modern sense that all considerations of moral principles are to be excluded from the law. [i]That[/i] notion would be utterly alien to all of the American founding fathers, who whether they were theologically orthodox Christians or not, were unanimous regarding the importance of morality and virtue to a free republic. The idea that American law ought to be devoid of any and all moral principle only started becoming commonplace in this country in the late 20th century.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." ~ John Adams

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." ~ George Washington

"Laws without morals are in vain." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and . . . . their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice . . . . These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea." ~ James Madison

"The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals." ~ Samuel Adams

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." ~ George Mason

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." ~ James Wilson (signer of the Declaration of Independence and Supreme Court Justice)

(To use just a very few of countless examples)

As rules banning homosexual sodomy from the US armed forces had been in place since the Revolutionary War (and were never publicly opposed until very recent times), it's nonsensical to act as though continuing a ban on active homosexuality in the military would be some kind of dangerous radical "theocratic" break from America's founding principles.

I think the currently popular, yet entirely nonsensical, idea that American law must have nothing to whatever with morality is one of the falsest, stupidest, yet most pernicious ones today, with implications going far beyond the "gay rights" issues. It's a shame that so many Catholics seem to have fallen for that claptrap.