Bush calls for gay marriage ban

[Jaime]

[quote name='ironmonk' post='1006097' date='Jun 15 2006, 07:31 AM']
To disagree with the bishops opinion's is one thing.

To be disobediant to them is a sin. (Unless they directly go against the Magisterium)

God Bless,
ironmonk
[/quote]


Meaning what exactly?

[Aloysius]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1004481' date='Jun 13 2006, 08:01 AM']
Would it be a tremendous jump to say to someone "A person is not Catholic if they don't believe in the dogma of the Eucharist"? Or would you prefer to say that there were parts of his belief that did not jive with Church teaching? If someone does not recognize what is integral to Catholicism (i.e. Eucharist) then that person is not considered Catholic.

If natural law states that there are criteria that are integral and necessary to the definition of marriage, you cannot define marriage without them. To do so contradicts natural law.
[/quote]
if someone is not Catholic but they decide to believe in Mary as the Mother of God, I would support their belief in Mary as the Mother of God; even if they did not believe in other dogmas.

This ammendment is just like that; the state saying they believe in marriage as between one woman and one man. That is in line with natural law. Just because other parts of their understanding of marriage are flawed does not mean we should not support this part which is not flawed.

[track2004]

Must be an election year if Bush is talking about how sacred marriage is. I wonder why he forgets to mention it during the odd years... maybe he's focusing on winning the war or the national debt... probably not though considering.

[qfnol31]

As Catholics we must recognize the two types of marriages, Natural and Sacramental.

Natural Marriage, which is what couples should enter into if they are going into civil marriage, requires four things:

1) Permanence
2) Procreation, or the openess to life
3) Exclusivity
4) Heterosexuality, as implied by the second requirement. Do we all agree thus far?

[quote name='track2004' post='1007087' date='Jun 16 2006, 06:43 PM'] Must be an election year if Bush is talking about how sacred marriage is. I wonder why he forgets to mention it during the odd years... maybe he's focusing on winning the war or the national debt... probably not though considering. [/quote]

Umm, it's actually not going to help him at all this year, nor next year, nor the year after to push for it...


hot stuff, your last analogy cannot work because you set a positive versus a negative definition.

Does this amendment deny any of the four parts of Natural Marriage? I don't think so...

Your person denies the True Presence.

"To be Catholic you must believe in the True Presence," is itself a very different statement than you have above.

"To be a marriage it must be between a man and a woman."

Edited June 19, 2006 by qfnol31

[Jaime]

[quote name='qfnol31' post='1008051' date='Jun 19 2006, 01:14 AM']
As Catholics we must recognize the two types of marriages, Natural and Sacramental.

Natural Marriage, which is what couples should enter into if they are going into civil marriage, requires four things:

1) Permanence
2) Procreation, or the openess to life
3) Exclusivity
4) Heterosexuality, as implied by the second requirement. Do we all agree thus far?

[/quote] well everyone but the government. No civil ceremony requires any of these. Making US civil marriages contrary to natural law.

[quote]
Umm, it's actually not going to help him at all this year, nor next year, nor the year after to push for it...[/quote]

It might not, but that is certainly why it was trotted out. It was a huge help to the 2004 elections to have a referendum on the marriage amendment in key states. If it doesn't help, its because they went to the well once too often. As I said before, if Bush had really wanted this amendment to move forward, Specter and others (who supported it it 2004) would have voted for it and Bush would not have been travelling with another key vote.

[quote]
hot stuff, your last analogy cannot work because you set a positive versus a negative definition.

Does this amendment deny any of the four parts of Natural Marriage? I don't think so...

Your person denies the True Presence.

"To be Catholic you must believe in the True Presence," is itself a very different statement than you have above.[/quote]


My analogy works just fine. If one does not hold dogmas as truth, one cannot be considered Catholic. If a civil ceremony does not include permanence and procreation, it contradicts the natural law definiton.



[quote]

"To be a marriage it must be between a man and a woman."
[/quote]

But it doesn't end there Zach. You know that because you started out with it. Marriage has to be defined accurately or the effect is contrary to furthering our society.

The amendment defines marriage
Doma defines marriage
civil ceremony defines marriage

And their definitions are all short of the true definition

Without the intrinsic parts of marriage included, it is contrary to natural law. It is simply in error to say "well close enough"

[qfnol31]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1008440' date='Jun 19 2006, 05:21 PM'] well everyone but the government. No civil ceremony requires any of these. Making US civil marriages contrary to natural law.[/quote]

Last I checked no civil marriage is allowed to contradict two of these (excluding, therefore, permanence and procreation).

You are not allowed to get married if the person you are marrying is of the opposite sex. Doesn't mean people don't try and that some officials allow these people.

It's still against the law.

You are not allowed to practice polygamy in the United States.

The state is not supposed to dictate permanence and procreation, for laws that decided such are (in my opinion on the latter and most assuredly on the former) contrary to the purpose of human law, id est, against the Natural Law. Permanence and procreation are something the couple must decide. If they don't want to have kids, the state cannot force them to have sex. That would not be fair. If they want to end their marriage...well, that's most certainly an evil, but I don't think the state can have any say in if a couple should remain married. It isn't the state that goes against the Natural Law in those two, but the people.

Your problem in this argument is a misunderstanding of the place of Natural Law. We are individually bound by Natural Law and human law is derived from this Natural Law. Yet, human law should not and cannot dictate every part of Natural Law. To do so would be unjust and against the very nature of the two laws. Human law is not meant to dictate the Natural Law to us, but to remind ourselves that it is there and to help us act in accordance with it.

Therefore, a human law which does not go against the Natural Law and does contain part and is something that should be dictated (not all of Natural Law can be dictated by human law) is a just law.

Human law is bound within all of Natural Law, but is not all-inclusive. This law, as I read it, is not a defintion that exludes the possibility of procreation and permanence, but rather asserts that anything other than the union between man and woman is not marriage. Otherwise, the way you're reading that sentence, the government (made up of many married people) thinks that marriage is a union and nothing more. I don't think that's the case. No one's that dumb, I hope.

[quote]My analogy works just fine. If one does not hold dogmas as truth, one cannot be considered Catholic. If a civil ceremony does not include permanence and procreation, it contradicts the natural law definiton.[/quote]

No, that's where you are absolutely wrong. If it doesn't include all of the Natural Law it does not make it a contradiction.

Your problem is a lack of distinction between the natures of Divine Law, Natural Law, and human law. You want to say that because this human law does not contain all of the Natural and Divine Laws it must therefore be an invalid law. Yet this human law does not contradict these two laws. It is therefore, by Catholic standards, just.

In the Catholic Church there are many things we must believe before we can consider ourselves faithful Catholics. We are bound to every part of the Divine Law. Human law (as I know I've said and will say many times in this post) is not bound to include all of the Natural Law.

You also show a misunderstanding about the nature of Dogmas. Dogmas are infallibly defined truths that cannot have any additions to them. The Immaculate Conception is infallibly defined. It is more than infallibly taught. To leave out a part of that definition is to deny much more than just the infallible definion and truth (which it does as well). Remember one of our first discussions about [i]Ex Cathedra[/i] statements? This is why I refused to let the distinction between infallible definitions and truths be thrown out the window. It makes a difference. I'll try an example here. We know infallibly that Our Lord becomes present in the Blessed Sacrament. To define this Sacrament we must include that. However, in the definition of the Sacrament, infallibly taught, we do not know when this transformation occurs or that we must call it Transubstantiation (I, a good Latin, prefer this term, whereas an Eastern Catholic like Todd is not bound to it, as we all are not). To leave these two things out of a definition of the Blessed Sacrament does not make me a heretic in the least. Just so, a human law that leaves out some, while perhaps not the best law, is not therefore invalid because of it.

Perhaps you should go back and read the Catechism on this issue.

I do, on the other hand, think that civil divorces are an evil thing.

[quote name='Catechism']1902 Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner, but must act for the common good as a "moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility":21

A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence.22[/quote]

[quote]1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.

1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. the rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:

Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11

1959 The natural law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.[/quote]

[quote]1979 The natural law is immutable, permanent throughout history. the rules that express it remain substantially valid. It is a necessary foundation for the erection of moral rules and civil law.[/quote]

Obviously we both agree with this. Human law cannot contradict the Natural Law. However, it is not in the nature of the former law to require everything of the latter. Reading these, there is the implication that while Natural Law is the basis for human law, human law does not contain the entirety of Natural Law, even in such cases as this.

The Angelic Doctor talks more about this throughout the section on Law in the Summa. New Advent has this if you want to read up on it.

[quote]But it doesn't end there Zach. You know that because you started out with it. Marriage has to be defined accurately or the effect is contrary to furthering our society.[/quote]

I think that this is, as I said, not intended to be the end-all definition of marriage, but rather to make marriage solely between a man and a woman.

[quote]The amendment defines marriage
Doma defines marriage
civil ceremony defines marriage

And their definitions are all short of the true definition

Without the intrinsic parts of marriage included, it is contrary to natural law. It is simply in error to say "well close enough"
[/quote]

What do each of these have as their full definition of marriage, if they so give one?

[qfnol31]

[quote]You are not allowed to get married if the person you are marrying is of the opposite sex. Doesn't mean people don't try and that some officials allow these people.[/quote]

Oops, unless.