Cardinal Dolan And Vp Biden

[thessalonian]

"Do you have evidence that the decline in marriage is directly related to same-sex marriage and not just general changing views of marriage?"

 

Actually  I would say it is the other way around.  There was an article last week out that said that lesbianism is more prominent in black women.  Hmmmm...Now let's see, black children to the tune of 60% grow up in fatherless homes.  Whites about 30%.  This of course happened after 30 years of no-fault divorce where  white single parent families went from less than 10% to over thirty and black went from over thirty to over 60%.  Now at the time of no fault divorce would anyone have said that single parent families would increase by such a huge amount?  Certainly not.  What you are asking for is evidence that does not yet exist and are saying let the social experiment begin.  We say God hates divorce and look what happened.  Now a 50% diviroce rate, way more children out of wedlock, abortion to the tune of 50 million dead babies.  A better America?  Likewise God says homosex is an abomination and we should pay attention to what he says because when we don't children suffer.  They will.  Mark my words. 

[4588686]

To the first point, refer to my response to Hasan (or, my Wikipedia page response to his Wikipedia response  :hehe2: ).

 

And, I disagree. Equal access already exists. Any man and woman are free to marry, regardless of sexual orientation. What you are suggesting is to change/replace the traditional understanding of marriage, which is a contract between a man and a woman, to a new understanding of marriage, which is a contract between two individuals (Why limit it to two? Why set age restrictions?). This would be, by definition, superseding our current understanding of marriage.

 

 

Hey, look!  It is the exact argument used to defend bans on interracial marriage #varginiavlove

[KnightofChrist]

Do you have evidence that the decline in marriage is directly related to same-sex marriage and not just general changing views of marriage?

 

I'm having a hard time understanding why you think gay couples marrying has anything to do with how straight couples view marriage and procreation. If a couple wants to marry and have a kid, they're going to do it regardless of whether gay couples can marry or not.  And denying marriage to gay couples won't make decide to marry a straight person and have a kid with them.

 

Your problems reside with the changing views of marriage by society as a whole, not specifically gay marriage.  People don't view marriage as a duty, finding someone to start a family with as an imperative.  Marriage is something that happens as a way to pledge love and devotion.  So if you want to complain about anything, complain about straight people not taking marriage seriously as a procreative  institution.

 

 

Again that's side stepping the questions put forth to you. I'll not answer questions, if you are not going to answer questions. But, I'm not convinced society or rather the majority of society is actually changing its views on marriage. What's actually seems to be happening is a small group is trying to force its unnatural views on the rest of society. Case in point California the people of that State repeatedly voted to amend their constitution to bar marriages that are not made up of one man and one woman. It sets a dangerous precedent that no one is really talking about. The results of a free and fair election, the will of the people, are being flatly rejected by the State, and the State is rejecting part its own constitution. This is very dangerous, now States may not have to worry about election resluts if they don't like them, and they can reject some or perhaps all of their constitution if they don't like certain parts.

[Fidei Defensor]

Again that's side stepping the questions put forth to you. I'll not answer questions, if you are not going to answer questions. But, I'm not convinced society or rather the majority of society is actually changing its views on marriage. What's actually seems to be happening is a small group is trying to force its unnatural views on the rest of society. Case in point California the people of that State repeatedly voted to amend their constitution to bar marriages that are not made up of one man and one woman. It sets a dangerous precedent that no one is really talking about. The results of a free and fair election, the will of the people, are being flatly rejected by the State, and the State is rejecting part its own constitution. This is very dangerous, now States may not have to worry about election resluts if they don't like them, and they can reject some or perhaps all of their constitution if they don't like certain parts.

Well I hope God is on your side, then. But since I think God is a farce, you're going to "lose" some day.

[CatholicCid]

Hey, look!  It is the exact argument used to defend bans on interracial marriage #varginiavlove

 

Interracial marriage laws prevented equal access to marriage, preventing intermarriage of men and women of different races. As I've noted, the traditional understanding of marriage, as in law today, apply equally to all men and women.

 

This also is in line with my previous posts, suggesting that the government has a vested interest in their defining of a secular institution of marriage in relation to procreation. This interest is 'color-blind' and the laws were changed to adequately reflect that, moving from "Any white man may marry any white woman" to "Any man may marry any woman." 

 

To gender-neutralize this statement, from "Any man may marry any woman" to "Any individual may marry any individual" does not aid this vested interest in promoting secular marriage in the way it did with race. Simply put, race =/= gender.

 

Also, Hasan, I addressed a question to you in Post #66 that you seem to have overlooked. If you could address that, I would appreciate it.

[thessalonian]

BTW this is a "don't touch that hot burner" senario to the kid who has never touched a hot burner before.  Though actually I wouldn't completely say that is true because the greeks and romans both touched the hot burner of homosexuality and their empires are where?  What happened to them shortly after they touched the hot burner?

[thessalonian]

Well I hope God is on your side, then. But since I think God is a farce, you're going to "lose" some day.

 

We will never lose.   It may look like it for a while but the book of revelations tells us that God wins in the end whether you believe in him or not.  Who lost when arguements were made in favor of contraception and no fault divorce?  50 million aborted babies and 30% of white children who have no father in the home and 60% of black children who have no father in the home.  Society which suffers from increased crime rates and lower test scores of these children as compared to those from two parent families.  Society which is struggling economically because they are barely replacing their population.  Check the European economies they are even worse because of abortion and contraception where they have to import muslem workers.  When God's laws are broken we are broken.

[4588686]

Interracial marriage laws prevented equal access to marriage, preventing intermarriage of men and women of different races. As I've noted, the traditional understanding of marriage, as in law today, apply equally to all men and women.

 

Jim Crow laws allowed any white man to marry any white woman and any black man to marry any black woman.  Equality!

 

And your claim about the tradition racial blindness of traditional marriage laws is, I'm sorry, laughable.  Marriage laws that are blind to any racial considerations of the parties involved has not been the social norm for some time in the west, until the very recent past, if at all.  Moreover, even the Bible has racial restriction on the institution of marriage in the OT.  The Jim Crow south was just upholding the traditionally socially accepted form of marriage. 

 

 

[4588686]

If public opinion is to decide this issue, would you support courts overturning majority votes by constituents banning homosexual marriage in a state? (e.g. Prop. 8)

 

 

Absolutely.  

[HisChildForever]

Even though we're off-topic, I like the dialogue. But if anyone can address my posts on Biden (besides Nihil, who's been helpful) I'd appreciate it. Overall I think the Cardinal has tried to take a different approach with him and other Catholics like him - at least that's my impression from the welcome he gave Biden.

 

BTW this is a "don't touch that hot burner" senario to the kid who has never touched a hot burner before.  Though actually I wouldn't completely say that is true because the greeks and romans both touched the hot burner of homosexuality and their empires are where?  What happened to them shortly after they touched the hot burner?

 

I've read that boys in these cultures (or maybe it was one and not the other) were given over to grown men as a rite of passage into adulthood - the men would have homosexual relations with the boys because it was believed that the sperm would make the boys more masculine. Weird..

[CatholicCid]

Absolutely.  

 

Interesting. So, you do not believe that same sex 'marriage' is a subjective, majority-rules idea. Would you state that there is some objective form of equality that must be met? Or, more so, why is it appropriate for the judges to overturn the majority of voters on this matter? (e.g. Prop 8)

 

 

Jim Crow laws allowed any white man to marry any white woman and any black man to marry any black woman.  Equality!

 

And your claim about the tradition racial blindness of traditional marriage laws is, I'm sorry, laughable.  Marriage laws that are blind to any racial considerations of the parties involved has not been the social norm for some time in the west, until the very recent past, if at all.  Moreover, even the Bible has racial restriction on the institution of marriage in the OT.  The Jim Crow south was just upholding the traditionally socially accepted form of marriage. 

 

I think you might have misread my post. I agreed that the "Jim Crow" marriage laws were unequal and that it was appropriate to change them so that all people would be equal in the matter of secular marriage. 

 

Also, I did not claim that the secular marriage laws have been color-blind, but that the vested interest the government has in regulating marriage is. It is for this reason that the "Jim Crow" marriage laws needed to be changed. The vested interests are, again, procreative. To prevent a couple that is capable of having and raising children due to race is an injustice. That injustice needed to be and was corrected. I do not see, however, how denying this civil right due to gender is an injustice.

 

Same-sex marriage is necessarily incapable of achieving this vested interest shared by the government. As such, why should the government should attempt to replace the definition of marriage with a new, gender-neutral definition?

 

To quote from the decision in Loving v. Virginia (which I believe you attempted to allude to earlier):

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

 

To the bolded portion: Secular marriage helps to ensure procreation and raising of children in a stable family unit. Same sex 'marriage' is not "fundamental to our very existence and survival."

 

I will be gone for the rest of the day and unable to reply until tomorrow. God bless.

Edited March 28, 2013 by CatholicCid

[Ice_nine]

 

Jim Crow laws allowed any white man to marry any white woman and any black man to marry any black woman.  Equality!

 

 

"any man can marry any woman" is not really an argument for traditional marriage though really. You could frame it like "barring same-sex couples isn't unfair because homosexuals are free to marry anyone of the opposite sex" and then you could of course correlate that statement to interracial couples/same race members and voila! you have your point proven. However, these aren't really "arguments" they're just a declaration of parameters. Consider the subject of incest.You say "well no you can't marry your father/mother/uncle/brother/sister" and they complain that they do not have marriage rights and you might respond "well you are stil free to marry anyone except a close blood-relative." (Maybe this seems less of an injustice because you're not limiting the possible pool of mates as much as barring homosexual unions, and for jeez if you want to marry your father can't you just pick ANY OTHER OLDER MAN IN THE WORLD other than your uncles maybe?!) But still you're simply setting up parameters.

 

What's wholly different is the reasoning behind drawing these boundaries of what constitues a legitimate marriage, and that's where interracial and same-sex unions differ sharply. The idea that race was a real biological phenomenon, that certain races were superior to others, and the fear of "diluting the blood-line" were the primary concerns of interracial marriage opponents. You know, you can't have mixed kids running around and start clouding the line between who is superior and inferior. That was the real fear. The joining of two unequal (in terms of intrinsic value and status) persons and the progeny that would result. This is obviously not the logic behind arguments behind the opposition to gay marriage as no children will naturally result from such unions, nor is it about keeping inferior and superior classes of people away from each other, so we can keep the caste easily segregated and discernable.

 

A concern about incest might be producing too many retarded/degenerate offspring. Not my concern really, I'd stand against it because I believe it violates sacred familial bonds because erotic expression is not appropriate in such relationships. You might also say you can marry anyone over the magical age of 18, citing consent as your justification.

 

Conerns about gays marriage are broad and varied ranging from "queers are gross" to a disagreement about the metaphysics and sexual ethics, but at the heart of the debate is certainly not the disgust of a pure-bred human intermingling in such an intimate way with a genetically inferior mutt human and the little mutt children that would result. You may find the disgust people have towards the notion of homosexual sex and unions equally repulsive, but the fact is there is a different logic and different concerns behind interracial vs. homosexual marriage. If I wanted to segregate the gays and the straights, how would not allowing gay marriage accomplish that? You insist upon drawing upon the similarites at the exclusion of the more meaningful differences.

 

It's also not, for most of us anyhow, the belief that homosexuals have some innate quality within them that makes them drastically different from straights, therefore we must relegate them to second class citizens. I think it's sad that the church has bought into the idea that one should identify themselves by their "sexual orientation," that's a fleeting, worldly idea. There's a debate about identity to be had concerning how the world says you should id yourself and how the church says you should id yourself. Surely a person who identifies as GLBTQPOXYZ would take offense at my insistence that the objects of their psyhosexual desires have little bearing on who they are as a person, just as I am annoyed when people insist I must identify as gay or straight or one of the new categories that just emerged because putting human sexuality into these categories has turned out to be not as clean-cut as anyone had hoped, but if I temporize or don't pick one I must be repressed or something.

 

Such is life. We disagree and we fight and feelings get hurt. But before I digress too much I find the comparison between interracial and homosexual marriage summed up as "see they are the same!" obnoxiously simplistic because they ignore the underlying rationale. The only real similarity is that yes, opponents of both restrict the freedom of who you can marry in different ways, and for different reasons.

 

And your claim about the tradition racial blindness of traditional marriage laws is, I'm sorry, laughable.  Marriage laws that are blind to any racial considerations of the parties involved has not been the social norm for some time in the west, until the very recent past, if at all.  Moreover, even the Bible has racial restriction on the institution of marriage in the OT.  The Jim Crow south was just upholding the traditionally socially accepted form of marriage. 

 

It's my understanding that race is a relatively new concept, from the literature I read and classes I've taken. I know you've gotten on a few people here because their definitions of "race" aren't as broad as your understanding of it. To be fair "what is race?" is a pretty complex topic and involves, I think, both input from the academic sphere and also the "common folk." So what do you mean here about interracial marriages in the OT? Do you mean intertribal relationships?

 

Also, what say you of the history of the Catholic church specifically, not American law,  dealing with interracial marriages? If I'm to follow your "argument" that the same people against interracial marriages are just like opponents of same sex marriage, why did one of the biggest proponents (will provide some sources if you desire) of civil rights and interracial marriages change so much in its opposition to "marriage equality now"? Did she change her principles of what marriage is and what the destiny of the human soul is? Was the church just more rad then and now for some reason suddenly got bogged down in all this unnecessary hate? Or are you so cynical to believe the church had ulterior motives (i.e. mo people mo money)? Just curious what you make of this.

[HisChildForever]

Here's some food for thought...

 

So many gay teens commit suicide due to bullying. If homosexual couples are recognized as spouses under the law, could this lead to better societal acceptance - I'm not talking acceptance of their lifestyle, but acceptance of who they are as human beings worthy of respect? I actually don't understand why gay boys are prohibited from the Boy Scouts...I get that the group has Christian principles but straight kids can easily break those principles by having premarital sex. Besides which, I think if kindness towards homosexuals starts at a young age, kids will grow up respectful of one another despite their differences in belief and lifestyle. And maybe this is the way to stop the bullying and teen suicides.

[Fidei Defensor]

Here's some food for thought...

 

So many gay teens commit suicide due to bullying. If homosexual couples are recognized as spouses under the law, could this lead to better societal acceptance - I'm not talking acceptance of their lifestyle, but acceptance of who they are as human beings worthy of respect? I actually don't understand why gay boys are prohibited from the Boy Scouts...I get that the group has Christian principles but straight kids can easily break those principles by having premarital sex. Besides which, I think if kindness towards homosexuals starts at a young age, kids will grow up respectful of one another despite their differences in belief and lifestyle. And maybe this is the way to stop the bullying and teen suicides.

Careful, you're moving into rational territory there… ;)

 

I think this is an important point—discriminating against a group, regardless of whether you accept the lifestyle or not, does not make them go away.  There is an obligation under the very meaning of being human to be accepting of all persons. You can choose to rise to meet that obligation or you can turn the other way and pretend they don't exist; either way, society will move forward with or without you.

[thessalonian]

Careful, you're moving into rational territory there… ;)

 

I think this is an important point—discriminating against a group, regardless of whether you accept the lifestyle or not, does not make them go away.  There is an obligation under the very meaning of being human to be accepting of all persons. You can choose to rise to meet that obligation or you can turn the other way and pretend they don't exist; either way, society will move forward with or without you.

 

Who is this obligation to?  What is the compelling reason for it?  Just because at this time in history in the United States a significant block of people has determined that we should be accepting of all persons, of which you add accepting of what they do to this acceptance, of what authority is the obligation?  To whom and why if there is no God.  Why is it any more  wrong for me to just go for what I think is correct?  What is there beyond government that justifies this compelling higher obligation that you claim exists between men?  Why is someone's rejection of it invalid?  Why is your definition of this compelling obligation and what it entails the correct one?