The Politics of Homosexuality

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' date='Dec 9 2005, 02:37 PM'][img]http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/f/flinstones-updated.jpg[/img]
We'll have a gay old time!
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dang, I hope my marriage is as gay as theirs.

[Nathan]

PadreSantiago has quite a nerve accusing other people of hating America.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Snarf' date='Dec 8 2005, 08:20 PM']Please, everyone, read [url="http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/sull.htm"]The Politics of Homosexuality[/url]

I confess, I don't know Sullivan's life story, I don't know his polity, I don't know his stances on faith, et cetera, et cetera.[/quote]
Unfortunately, I am familiar with Sullivan and his agenda. He's a common "talking head" in the media. He's a "Catholic," a Republican, and used to be a "conservative" commentator, but since "coming out of the closet," he's had a single-track obsession with his homosexuality and demanding that the Church change her moral teachings on this issue. He's become a rather typical moral liberal, who is fanatically opposed to the "religious right," even joining in with the "Passion"-bashing crowd, negatively (and absurdly) comparing Mel Gibson's film to Moore's "Farenheight 911."

[quote]The hypothetical ideal "begins with the view that for a small minority of people, homosexuality is an involuntary condition that can neither be deniednor permanently repressed."  This idea "affirms a simple and limited criterion: that all public (as opposed to private) discrimination against homosexuals be ended and that every right and responsibility that heterosexuals enjoy by virtue of the state be extended to those who grow up different."[/quote]
Seems they already do.

[quote]I've seen members of this board kick and scream that homosexuality is not inherited and that it is a choice.  Perhaps this does represent a certain minority of homosexuals, but I find that view to be, when applied to the whole of all persons afflicted with homosexuality, to be naive, insensitive, and  uncharitable.  I've known many homosexuals since beginning in college, and a handful since high school.  Why do you think anyone would choose that way of life?  Yeah, there was the metrosexual fad, but that was nothing that permeates one's identity.

I agree that homosexuality runs contrary to nature.  However, that doesn't make it voluntary in absolutely every scenario.  For many people, being oriented in a certain way is not a choice.  It is their responsibility to live morally and well, and for many the de facto resolution is chastity.[/quote]
Whether or not it is voluntary is completely irrelevent to the issue here.

[quote]Thus, as I understand it, I agree with the current priesthood ban.  It would be absolutely asinine to ban men from the priesthood because of their orientation, when a priest is in ideal LACKING sexual orientation.  How many men, do you think, historically noted their lack of attraction in women, and applied it positively to a life of chastity in the religious orders?

The ban barrs anyone who is a PRACTICING or recently such homosexual from becoming a priest.  But that should be applied to heterosexuals as well, as their is virtually no difference in the eyes of God unless the seminarian was previously married.  An abuse of sexuality by a heterosexual should be no different than an abuse of sexuality by a homosexual.
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The Vatican document says specifically that those with "deep-rooted homosexual tendencies" should be barred fro the priesthood. This reaffirms what was said in a 1962 document.
The issue is not simply whether the priest commits homosexual acts, but the whole problem of sexual/psychological maturity of which homosexual attraction is a symptom.

In 1985 Card. Baum, who was head of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education stated in a Memorandum to the U.S. BIshops:

"A high standard of chastity and integration of the personality is required before admission to a seminary, such that latent or repressed homosexuality is also a counterindication requiring that the candidate not be accepted -- it would not be fair to the individual nor to the seminary community."

Says Bishop D'Arcy against allowing homosexually oriented candidates into the seminary:

[quote]To be happy, a priest must be convinced in his heart that he would be a good father and a good husband.  Like marriage, the priesthood involves making a gift of oneself to another.  Pope John Paul II called it an [i]'officicium caritatus[/i],' that is, an office of love.  It cannot be an escape for someone who is afraid of marriage, believed he would not be happy in marriage or would not be a good spouse or father.

The priest gives up something very beautiful--a lifelong relationship with a good woman, children and grandchildren, needs that are deep within our humanity.  He gives it up for something beautiful -- to be a priest and shepherd after the heart of Christ.  He must believe that Christ is calling him.

It is a sacrifice.  It is not supposed to be a sacrifice in the same way for a person with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.  He is not drawn to marriage in the same way.  Thus, immediately, there is a division in the priesthood.[/quote]

Says Catholic psychologist Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg:

[quote]I agree with the formula Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, a man who tries to help people with homosexual problems both charitably and realistically.  Candidates for the priesthood should be well-balanced heterosexual men.  That is an indispensable condition for functioning optimally in contact with those who are married and who are preparing for marriage.[/quote]

[Socrates]

[quote name='Snarf' date='Dec 9 2005, 12:07 PM']My stance on gay marriage is that marriage should have nothing to do with government, and government should be as morally libertarian as possible.  I'm not saying abortion is okay, because we define an embryo as possessing a distinct life.  So, I support gay civil unions in a strictly secular sense, though I would never hope for the Church to ever allow gay marriage.

Yes, gay civil union encourages a sinful lifestyle, but it's not the responsibility of the state to to regulate one's sinfulness until it infringes on the immediate rights of others.
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The idea that government should be completely divorced from morality is a foolish, false, and completely un-Catholic idea.

Law and governence never exists in a moral vaccum. It either supports or acts contrary to the Natural Law of God.
And even the most deistic of the American founding fathers realized this.

What defines the "rights of others"? What about the right of people to live lives and raise families without being constantly assaulted by perversion and immorality?

And even if you claim the state may not "regulate one's sinfulness," why is it required to give sinfulness and perversion legal benefits and honor??
This is nonsense.

This absurd line of thinking is what is dragging the world deeper and deeper into moral insanity.

A government that makes no distinction between right and wrong becomes an evil and tyrannical government.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Dec 9 2005, 07:42 PM']
A government that makes no distinction between right and wrong becomes an evil and tyrannical government.
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So does a government that decides to define right and wrong on its own terms.

[Theoketos]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Dec 11 2005, 09:18 AM']So does a government that decides to define right and wrong on its own terms.
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Which is exactly what a state that promoted homosexuality does.


BTW something other than its own terms does not even necessarily mean the moral will of a corrupted majority...for example the Nazi state had no right to define genocide as right.