New Book On Homosexual Behaviour

[Ice_nine]

 

And I love how everybody is jumping up to condemn my words, but that nobody has yet to actually write a reasoned reaction against it. 

 

you'd likely find our reasoning to be too "narrow" and "simplistic" anyhow. 

 

And your avatar is literally a dude in an armchair, and he looks like he's about to philosophize. It's just too perfect.

 

 

ETA: PAGE TEN!

 

do I get a prize?

Edited June 18, 2014 by Ice_nine

[Perigrina]

ETA: PAGE TEN!

 

do I get a prize?

 

Don't I get the prize for starting the thread?

[Benedictus]

I am not aware of any belief systems which teach that it is immoral for a person to be a woman, Catholic, disabled or an ethnic minority.  So I am not sure what religious grounds there could be for such behaviour or how it could be an exercise of anybody's religious freedom.  The closest thing I can think of is an extreme form of Orthodox Judaism that does not allow unmarried men to interact with women.  If such a man were a store clerk he might refuse to serve a female customer.  Do you think that he should be forced by law to do so?

 

Having laws against discrimination is reasonable, if fairly applied.  In Canada, there is no legal recognition of discrimination against Catholics (it is not possible by definition), although the other groups you mentioned would be protected.  I am actually fine with anti-discrimination laws including homosexual people among the protected groups.  Church teaching is opposed to unjust discrimination against homosexual people.

 

Allowing people who have moral objections to same-sex marriage to refrain from supporting it is not discrimination against any group of people.  It is a principled response to an action one believes is immoral.  It carries a natural consequence of loss of business.  Why should the government impose further penalties, especially when doing so is a violation of freedom of religion? 

 

There are definately historical examples, even biblical ones, of racial and ethnic discrimination. In some parts of India the Catholic churches still sit people according to caste system. Until recent history most churches treated black and ethnic minority people like second class. They have since 'moved on', but you are making points to support business owners discriminate against LGBT people in the same way they used to do so with Black people in years past. Your logic therefore also proposes that noone is discriminated against if a business owner has religious beliefs which prevent him providing a cake for a mixed race couple getting married.

I didn't restrict belief to a religious system. Why do that? But there definately is sectarian religious discrimination around e.g Muslims shop owners refusing to serve Jews. There are also definately cases of religious people refusing to serve women living, or dressed, in ways they disagree with.
A person's belief and action aren't more justified because it's supported, or opposed, by a religious system!  If someone believes something and acts upon it for themselves, according to conscience, then your point seems to follow that if they have a business, or are employed, then their beliefs should trump first place in any operations of that business.

You seem to place no regard for the community, the place of law or the customers exposed to that business. I think rights and freedoms of each person are balanced and fair when there is a conflict.
One person's views cannot veto or trump the rights and freedoms of others in a relational context. Similarly, if one holds freedom of religion as being central then they shouldn't try to stop same sex marriages, in church or not, when a religion agrees with it or the local congregation, with the power to do so, agrees to them. If freedom of religion is so central then why do so many people, relying on it to discriminate, not afford equal freedom to others with opposing views?



 

[Benedictus]

Actually, Christ's Church has been teaching that homosexual activity is sinful and disordered for many centuries before AFA or Focus on the Family were ever founded.  You can read those teachings in the Catechism.

 

Trying to dismiss the Church's constant moral teachings by association with the American political right is a popular tactic among "Catholic" progressives, but remains a dishonest diversion.

 

Of course, you can also save money and get the same stuff for free by reading this document by Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith under Pope St. John Paul II.  (Short summary for those with reading difficulties: yes, the Church firmly opposes legal "gay marriage" and "civil unions.")

 

And, yes, Bennie, I know you'll immediately dismiss it, but it's just for fun and the benefit of those actually interested in what the Church teaches.

 

 

 

Actually, you missed the ball on what he was saying, though I doubt you have any desire to understand.

 

Saying something long enough doesn't make it fair or accurate. Similarly, just because a certain person, or a number of people agree with something, doesn't make it true. I would guess that the teachings on homosexuality will be downplayed, modified or respun by the church in line with contemporary scholarship and science at some point. It just isn't in a position where it can do so at the moment and hold the unity of the worldwide church together.  Unity comes at a cost, but it, at least, prevents a bigger drift towards an even worse fundamentalism.  I suspect the church will be watching how things play out elsewhere, giving a big amount of time for global development, and then they'll nudge along once God has done some upturning work in the world.  It's sad they can't openly lead on issues by acknowledging the academic scholarship or the scientific case, but that's as it is.

I wasn't making any association towards the political right, I mentioned secular organisations of a similar thinking to the OP post source. Given the similarity of views expressed between them that wasn't a dishonest diversion at all. They are of the same ilk, and there has been a cross over between a few of them in the past.  The OP source writer wasn't saying much of anything relevant. He has spent most of his career writing such pieces for these organisations, probably because he can't find an outlet or support for such views anywhere else.
 

Edited June 18, 2014 by Benedictus

[NotreDame]

PAGE 10!!!!!!!!!!!!   I KNEW YOU ALL COULD DO IT!  Some of you had to dig pretty deep - and by pretty deep I mean rock bottom - but you kept digging and made it here to page 10 today.  I'm so proud of you all!

 

 

you'd likely find our reasoning to be too "narrow" and "simplistic" anyhow. 

 

And your avatar is literally a dude in an armchair, and he looks like he's about to philosophize. It's just too perfect.

 

 

ETA: PAGE TEN!

 

do I get a prize?

 

 

Don't I get the prize for starting the thread?

No.  You gave us lemons but we made lemonade:

 

[CatholicsAreKewl]

So boring.

[Perigrina]

 

No.  You gave us lemons but we made lemonade:

 

I gave an OP to start a discussion on teleology, not the debate we ended up with.  This discussion was not as sweet as the lemonade that I am familiar with.  Many of the posts seemed rather bitter

[NotreDame]

This discussion was not as sweet as the lemonade that I am familiar with.  Many of the posts seemed rather bitter

 

Lol.  Good point. :hehe2:
 

[Nihil Obstat]

I gave an OP to start a discussion on teleology, not the debate we ended up with.  This discussion was not as sweet as the lemonade that I am familiar with.  Many of the posts seemed rather bitter

I detected a clear flavour of gall and vinegar. The unmistakable drink of the sinner. :|
Thus the Source of living water is made to drink vinegar, the Giver of honey is fed with gall; Forgiveness is scourged, Acquittance is condemned, Majesty is mocked, Virtue ridiculed, the Bestower of showers is repaid with spitting.

[John Ryan]

And your avatar is literally a dude in an armchair, and he looks like he's about to philosophize. It's just too perfect.

 

A dude in an armchair? That is no dude, that is Andy Warhol!

[Perigrina]

The majority of people in developed nations tend to view marriage and family as n important and basic human right.
If you take a look at article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

This clearly shows that it is recognised by the UN that marriage and family are fundamentally important to humans and that the concept of marriage isn't unique to a particular religion.
It is strikingly obvious that they haven't mentioned "without any limitation due to sexual orientation" but they also haven't stated that marriage must be constrained to one man and one woman.
Of course, the Catholic church don't recognise the UN's authority on matters concerning marriage but on the flip, non Catholics, which represents the majority of people in the world, don't recognise the Catholic church's authority on matters concerning marriage.
 

 

The United Nations says nothing about what marriage is, just who has a right to marry.  In many cultures throughout history, marriage has not been between one man and one woman.  Therefore it might be reasonable to assume that polygamy is a right and to argue that all the countries which make it illegal are denying polygamists their basic human rights.  It is more difficult to argue that laws preventing same-sex marriage are a denial of rights, since it has not occurred in any cultures throughout history. There is no reason to think that a long-term relationship between members of the same sex can be a marriage, other than claims made in recent decades.

 

It is not simply a matter of the United Nations not having the authority to say what marriage is.  If they were to declare that marriage can be between members of the same sex, it would be similar to it declaring that pi = 5.  It is beyond reason to declare that reality is other than it is, not merely beyond their authority. 

 

Also, although this is not especially relevant to what is right, I find it extremely unlikely that the majority of people in the world support same-sex marriage.  This is an idea of Western liberals, not a basic human aspiration.

 

 

 

From my own non Catholic perspective it appears that Catholics are singling out a group (homosexuals) and trying to interfere with their ability to marry and form families (which I also see as a fundamental human behaviour).
I would have sympathy for the Catholic position if gay marriage were harming people in society or causing society to become unstable, but it is not.
To me it seems that it is a case of one group of people looking over the fence and telling people outside their group how to live. Not only telling, but taking actions to ostracise (by refusing to provide goods and services, by voting against gay marriage, by making public statements that gay marriage is immoral).

Sure it's a free country, and sure, you believe that your god doesn't like gay marriage but there are many people whom are not Catholics and do not believe in your god and do not believe in the authurotiy of your Church on such matters. We do not believe that there is anything wrong with two consenting adults committing to each other in a loving relationship (a family). To us, it appears threatening, aggressive, oppressive and discriminatory when an organisation focuses on a group and try to impede them and their lifestyle whilst allowing others not in that group to live a married lifestyle.

I'm not trying to be combative with you on this, but I do wonder if some Catholics are able to view the world from beyond their own group and beliefs. Are you able to understand why non Catholics see this as discrimination and infringement on basic human rights?

 

Catholics, most Protestants, observant Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. do not believe in same-sex marriage. This is not some quirk of Catholicism.  It was the belief of virtually every person in human history and every religion until a few decades ago.  It is still probably the belief of the majority of people in the world. So most non-Catholics agree with us, not with you.

 

Same-sex marriage certainly does harm people if people can be sued or prosecuted for not giving it their full support.  More indirectly, as the book cited in the OP posited, same-sex marriage means adopting philosophical assumptions that have serious ramifications.   Would you want to live in a world where people believed that they could declare that pi = 5 and this would make it so?  I think it sounds dystopian.

 

The people who see this as infringement on basic human rights are using philosophical assumptions that are completely foreign to me.  More to the point, there is little justification for these assumptions.  Few people examine them or even have the background in philosophy to think about them.  They take these assumptions as a given and condemn any who question or reject these assumptions as hateful bigots.

 

The book in the OP is a serious philosophical approach to current issues.  Nobody objected to it on philosophical grounds (at least not up to this point in the thread).  People jumped immediately to name-calling and attacks.  Can't you see the problem with this?

[Perigrina]

I detected a clear flavour of gall and vinegar. The unmistakable drink of the sinner. :|
Thus the Source of living water is made to drink vinegar, the Giver of honey is fed with gall; Forgiveness is scourged, Acquittance is condemned, Majesty is mocked, Virtue ridiculed, the Bestower of showers is repaid with spitting.

[Perigrina]

A dude in an armchair? That is no dude, that is Andy Warhol!

 

You need a picture of him with his most famous work. Not only will this make him more recognizable, it will save you from accusations of superciliousness.

 

[Credo in Deum]

A dude in an armchair? That is no dude, that is Andy Warhol!

 

Armchair Andy Warhol.

[Perigrina]

I find all of these debates silly, because I am not confident that natural law is naturally anti-homosexual. So many people throw down natural law as a gauntlet and somehow think that is where the debate ends on human sexuality. If memory serves me, St. Aquinas once asked if walking on one's hands is sinful, because that is not their teleological purpose. St. Aquinas responds in the negative. I have never been convinced of the argument that in the case of the emission of semen, or the sex act in general, natural law demands that it always and everywhere be open to procreation. It appears to be a very narrow and simplistic understanding of natural law. I do not have to reject the idea of reason in nature (natural law) to come to this conclusion.

 

I think that full explanations of how natural law applies to sexual morality do not often occur in phorum discussions.  Possibly your impression that the arguments are narrow and simplistic is a result of a medium that is not likely to do them justice.  Have you had an opportunity to look at essay or book length treatments of the question?