The tolerant Catholic Church

[Castiel]

Like i said one reason being.

Why would it be immoral? they at least have the ability to naturaly.

I dont think you can compare something as horibble as infertilty to the plite of homosexual couples. I dont think homosexual couples should be parenting in anyplace. And before you say why not, i believe a child needs both a mother and a father. Single mothers and fathers that have been put in a less than ideal situation due to some misfortune or another, maybe a death of a partner. Purposely placing a child into such a situation is wrong. Foster home children etc is debatable. Not really something i can be bothered debating about right now.

Like i said they are welcomed to marry as long as there is a distinction between the two, hetrosexuals using a different term.

like i said " (Disregarding any abnormalities a woman and man may face regarding procreating)" unnatural means does not bring it on par with natural procreation.

A lesbian couple for example can procreate using similar IVF treatment, in fact they can procreate in a very natural way using a sperm donor, so can homosexual men using a surrogate.....in fact the use of surrogates was commonplace throughout many ancient cultures, including Muslim ones....Ishmael was born of surrogacy for example....in fact it was commonplace for handmaidens to bear children as surrogate mothers.

Why do you believe a child needs a mother and a father, would a polygamous bisexual marriage be morally wrong using the very same criteria you use....they would be able to procreate and there would be both a mother and father in the family unit.....would that be unnatural and why?

How does that impact on your moral code and your justifications for it? Or is it simply the need to discriminate based on sexual preference the true reason that you are trying justify.

 

[dowie]

I don't believe in using such scenario's to justify my belief: that a child needs a mother as much as it needs a father.

There are fundemental issues in our world that I feel need to be kept sacrosanct, and this is one of them.

Why - what do you base that view on other than some subjective bias due to religion? Tradition? etc...


food for thought:

Nontraditional Families and Childhood Progress Through School
Michael J. Rosenfeld, Department of Sociology, Stanford University,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000058/?tool=pmcentrez

The results show that children of same-sex couples are as likely to make normal progress through school as the children of most other family structures.

Most of the other research out there seems to suffer from being based on small sample sizes (and some other flaws) - however mostly reaching the same conclusion.

 

[FoxEye]

If the state/government wants to institute gay marriage that is up to them.

However, it must not be forced upon religious groups of any kind that they must comply and provide marriage services to homosexuals. You cannot force someone to act against their conscience (whether you believe they are wrong or not).

Personally I wonder how far this will go. When a gay couple decides they want to be married in their local church, and the vicar refuses because they are gay, will this be the next flashpoint?

I say that because I'm fully expecting gay marriage to be instituted by the government. I expect the majority will say nothing and the vocal supporters will see it pushed through.

 

[Angilion]

No, they look the same, it's value is debased by the existence of a valueless one.
The marriages are not the same, one is a commitment to God and society, the other is grabbing the name for it's associated kudos, just like the car example.

You specified a genuine difference between the two cars. Now you're claiming the opposite. So your examples aren't even internally consistent.

You're also making up differences between marriage and marriage and using those differences that you made up as support for your argument that there are differences between marriage and marriage. That's not just an obviously circular argument, it's a circular argument wholly based on an entirely fictional distinction.

Why do people try to copy existing brands rather than make their own.

If you actually believed that statement, you'd be campaigning for Christian marriages to be made illegal. After all, marriage predates Christianity and therefore, according to your own argument, Christian marriages are worthless copies of marriages, grabbed only for the sake of the associated kudos.

It's irrelevant what Muslims do in terms of this society, just as a Christian marriage is irrelevant in one of theirs. However both societies would regard gay marriage as disruptive. The point of marriage is to reinforce social cohesion.

Using the argument of yours that I replied to, allowing Muslim marriages be legal in this society is disruptive and breaks down social cohesion. I don't believe that - I was using your line of argument.

No it isn't, practically everyone is the same, has roughly the same values and roughly the same orientation. If there were no foundations, which in the UK were provided by religion, then it would be chaotic.

There is a huge variety of minor differences, nobody really understands anyone and there is a degree of freedom allowed. That's what I meant by disparate and chaotic - if we had too much uniformity and order, we'd have an absolutely totalitarian tyranny. I used "disparate" and "chaotic" on that scale because I assumed you were doing so as well, since you were arguing that homosexual relationships cause society to be disparate and chaotic. I'd assumed that you weren't being insanely irrational and arguing that homosexual relationships completely end society, creating chaos on a national scale and making it a free for all anarchy without any social cohesion at all.

 

[Angilion]

Surely you can't say that one fleeting feeling is the result of years of denial? more a curiosity perhaps?

I'd pencil it in as "a bit bi", personally. Someone who is entirely heterosexual won't want to have homosexual sex (or vice versa).

EDIT: I think it's worth pointing out that your original statement was this:

So you're telling me, a straight guy, who has been in a straight relationship for 8 years, If I suddenly decide that I want to find out what being gay is like, that I've always been gay, just in denial?

That's not the same as "one fleeting feeling".

 

[Angilion]

[..]
Again personally, I find homosexuality unnatural and in truth I find it dis-pleasurable viewing homosexual intimacy, but that’s probably more to do with upbringing than anything else. You often hear people counteracting the unnatural claim by pointing out “flying in aeroplanes is unnatural” or “your PC not made from a tree” etc and again this argument is ludicrous at best.

I'm not sure of which position you are saying is ludicrous at best:

The "x is wrong because it's unnatural" argument

or

The counter-argument pointing out how "x is wrong because it's unnatural" is both ludicrous (many unnatural things are very beneficial and have greatly improved many lives and saved many more) and utterly hypocritical unless the person making it lives a natural life (which very few if any people do, and none of them could be posting on a forum).

 

[Angilion]

Because there is a massive difference...no?

No. Some minor, generally irrelevant differences.

Maybe because one can procreate and the other not, i think that’s enough of a difference to differentiate between the two.

But that's not what you're saying should be the thing used to differentiate between the two.

Many people are in heterosexual relationships in which procreation is impossible. There are a variety of reasons why that could happen - choice, medical necessity, disease, age.

So if you are being honest, you must place all those heterosexual relationships together with homosexual relationships and you must move every heterosexual relationship into that grouping as soon as the woman has her menopause.

Do you differentiate that way, the way you claim to differentiate?

 

[Angilion]

iirc civil partnerships don't get some tax or legal protection that marriage does, can't remember what exactly, someone posted it on here though.

Civil partnerships are legally defined as being identical to civil marriages. There is no difference between the two. They are the same thing.

If you think I'm wrong, explain why. "iirc [...] can't remember what" doesn't cut it. All that does is promote the idea that there is a difference while making a counter impossible (because there's nothing to counter).

 

[Angilion]

There is an example of twisting the debate, the family 'relations' or 'relationships' in the sense of incest and such were never mentioned but any right thinking and moral person would take it for granted that such relationships can never be right.

That is exactly the same thing that people on the more extreme end would say about homosexual relationships - that any right-thinking and moral person would take it for granted that such relationships can never be right. I'm sure that some of them have used those very words.

Personally, I have no moral objection to consenting adults forming sexual relationships with each other. So if two close relatives, both adults and both consenting, choose to form a sexual relationship with each other, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with them marrying each other, too. There is a practical issue when it comes to the possibility of children because it increases the chance of various medical problems, but that's not always relevant and it's a different issue to the moral one.

In short, my position is consistent with itself. It looks like that's not true for most people. It looks like almost everyone's position boils down to "relationships I approve of or will tolerate are OK because I say so, relationships I disapprove of are not OK, again because I say so. I don't need to support my position with any kind of consistent argument."

 

[SheepBeast]

[I skipped through the last couple of pages because I'm gonna go to bed so forgive me if this is no longer relevant to the discussion.]

Craterloads I think you are missing the fact that the idea of "marriage" was never dictated or 'invented' by mother nature, it is a human social construct which has developed relevatively recently in our history. Obviously many animals form lifelong partnerships and this would be the equivalent of marriage, but as Castiel said many animals form incestuous or homosexual relationships as well. How can you say that the former is "natural" and the latter is not?

In addition, I don't see the point in giving gay couples the same legal rights as heterosexual ones but using a different word to describe them. Why is this necessary Craterloads? You answered this in an earlier post that you think a distinction needs to be made on the grounds that heterosexual couples can procreate while homosexual ones can't. Well in your opinion should we have a different term for an infertile man now? 4 genders to choose from on all official forms and documents? The answer is NO because that would be ridiculous. People are not defined by their ability or inability to bear children.

Also, Castiel made a very good point earlier in the thread, that just because you yourself find something distasteful does not mean it is objectively or 'naturally' so. This is something you don't seem to be picking up on.

 

[Tefal]

Civil partnerships are legally defined as being identical to civil marriages. There is no difference between the two. They are the same thing.

If you think I'm wrong, explain why. "iirc [...] can't remember what" doesn't cut it. All that does is promote the idea that there is a difference while making a counter impossible (because there's nothing to counter).

ok


Civil partnerships do not get the full pension rights marrage does also they are not civil unions they are legally separate (which has some discrimination issue see the gay couple in the B&B for details, but for example you and a woman cannot have a civil partnership you can get a civil union, but a cay couple cannot get a civil union only a civil partnership)


Civil Partnership - Pensions

Entering into a Civil Partnership doesn't give you automatic rights to survivor benefits - married couples would automatically get these benefits. The Civil Partnership Act makes some changes to UK pension rules for Civil Partners and falls short of full equality.

State Pension & contracted out rights in private sector schemes guarantee retrospective benefits to Civil Partners only to 1988.

The Government has stated that it will treat Civil Partners equally in public sector pension schemes such as the NHS, teachers, Civil Service, etc. Full details are still to be published. It is hoped that Ministers will sanction retrospective rights.

Private sector occupational pension schemes are, unfortunately, ignored by the Civil Partnership Act. Pension trustees are still able to discriminate against Civil Partners. If you are a member of such a scheme you should lobby your pension trustees to ensure they amend their rules to include Civil Partners.

Private personal pensions were not discriminating because usually the member can elect to nominate whoever they wish to receive their benefits on their death.

This area of the Civil Partnership Act will need careful scrutiny over the next few years.

http://www.gayfinance.info/civil-partnerships/civil-partnership.htm

first google sure you could confirm o na .gov source with more time.

 

[dodgem]

In short, my position is consistent with itself. It looks like that's not true for most people. It looks like almost everyone's position boils down to "relationships I approve of or will tolerate are OK because I say so, relationships I disapprove of are not OK, again because I say so. I don't need to support my position with any kind of consistent argument."

This is the conclusion I have come to also, particularly with Craterloads, who seems to be arguing that gay couples may not get married because they are gay.

So far no-one has been able to provide a consistent and full argument as to why gay marriage should not be allowed, and the closest anyone has come is to argue using religious belief as a point of proof. Since marriage is not about religion, but about 2 people committing themselves to each other, the religious belief argument is also invalid...

 

[koolpc]

2 men, 2 women....... totally unnatural. Simples

 

[Nitefly]

Why not, if there are no genetic issues, whats the difference if your not "hurting anybody"

Because there will be genetic issues.

 

[Fran]

You specified a genuine difference between the two cars. Now you're claiming the opposite. So your examples aren't even internally consistent.

that was a fairly striaght forward metaphor, so I'm not sure how to explain it further without just repeating the same words unless this is nitpicking for the sake of providing a counter argument ?
Car look same, speed not same, value based on brand image degraded.

You're also making up differences between marriage and marriage and using those differences that you made up as support for your argument that there are differences between marriage and marriage. That's not just an obviously circular argument, it's a circular argument wholly based on an entirely fictional distinction.

if marriage is a bit of paper then yes, but it's not.
Married people have a defined status within society that most people aspire to, what does a gay marriage symbolise to society ? That we can distort anything and everything just so that 1% of society gets to pretend they are not a minority.
Short people are always going to be short, banning high heels isn't going to change that.
Marriage has always been about procreation, pretending it's also for sexually incomparable people is facile.

It's like banning racist language, people will still think the same even if you take their means of expression away.
People will look at a gay 'married' couple and think they are aping a hetro couple while are pretending they don't stick out like sore thumb. They will, people will still see the enormous pretence involved, see the lack of children and wonder what the point of it all was. All that fuss just to get a badge that people will still see as 'pretend marriage'

If you actually believed that statement, you'd be campaigning for Christian marriages to be made illegal. After all, marriage predates Christianity and therefore, according to your own argument, Christian marriages are worthless copies of marriages, grabbed only for the sake of the associated kudos.

That is a pretty meaningless distinction in today's society, nobody equates their current position with history several centuries ago. Our current society was created with religion at it's core, therefore marriage is commonly understood to be a Christian concept and it is still valued on that basis. You think of marriage and you think of a church, a life long commitment and it being between a man and a woman.
Marriage in that context provides a safe and agreed way for people to mate, the woman is provided with security so that when she gives up her virginity she is still protected. Because it is a social contract, men do not later renege on the deal (unless they are a king and have a handy axe)

Using the argument of yours that I replied to, allowing Muslim marriages be legal in this society is disruptive and breaks down social cohesion. I don't believe that - I was using your line of argument.

The mere existence of Muslims within a Christian society is patently disruptive so it's irrelevant what marriage arrangements they make. If they for example allowed gay marriages it would be less disruptive than redefining the Christian concept of marriage.

To detour slightly, when this happens (and it will, clearly the aim for all parties is to undermine religion and replace it with state control), some lesser churches will begin to offer gay marriages in a church, this then undermines Christianity as a whole as people will question why one group allows it and others don't and as a result it discredits the integrity of all churches.

I'd assumed that you weren't being insanely irrational and arguing that homosexual relationships completely end society, creating chaos on a national scale and making it a free for all anarchy without any social cohesion at all.

It's a retrograde step, you'd have to be blind not to have noticed that moral standards within society have declined as each new generation seeks greater freedom for itself.
You don't have to look further than the internet to appreciate that people have a dark side, and that isn't just some imaginary population of oddballs, it applies to everyone. Even at the simple level of stealing films without censure is now the norm.
Yes the church is mostly static, it doesn't follow society because society is consuming itself, not stealing from your fellow man is obvious yet now it happens and we fall over ourselves to justify it. Man is inherently self destructive to himself and others, give him freedom to do anything and it will only head in one direction. People only want to win the lottery, never to appreciate what they already have.

Marriage is the cornerstone of most peoples lives, it symbolises a particular act of union and is the accepted path to having children. Those couples define our society as they repeat the same process generation after generation. Gays and for that matter eunuchs, stand outside that cycle. Pretending they don't by giving them a badge that says 'married' is pointless. Subverting that instituon for the arbitrary concept of fairness only undermines it because we all know that at it's core a gay marriage is a barren sham.

 

[Nitefly]

Fran, I think you will like this:

http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf

I return now to the main thread of my argument and summarize it. Society cannot live without morals. Its morals are those standards of conduct which the reasonable man approves. A rational man, who is also a good man, may have other standards. If he has no standards at all he is not a good man and need not be further considered. If he has standards, they may be very different; he may, for example, not disapprove of homosexuality or abortion. In that case he will not share in the common morality; but that should not make him deny that it is a social necessity. A rebel may be rational in thinking that he is right but he is irrational if he thinks that society can leave him free to rebel.

He's completely wrong though. Morality should only be used as one out of a selection of tools to determine whether something is acceptable or not. It is not by itself conclusive of anything and it's use in such a way is nothing but dangerous.

 

[Hodders]

As usual on any emotive subject there ends up being about 4 discussions all going on at the same time.

Marriage - if two people love each other and want to be married where is the problem. Dont quote 'unnatural' - see here

Children - there is nothing wrong with same-sex couple bringing up children. What matters for children (and I have 2) is a caring loving supporting environment. If it is a single parent or two same sex parents or a heterosexual couple makes no odds and studies confirm this

Religion - just get over it. From leviticus 15:19 saying that you shouldnt have anything to do with a woman on her period to other daft ideas the bible is full of them. Please dont start with the pick and chose argument - either the whole book is the 'word of god' or it isn't. If the latter then you are also free to disregard the same sex relationship ideas.

There is a massive correlation between education, intellegence and 'faith' (see here)

Using religion to justify anything is just plain daft - you may as well use teh elephant behind the skirting board or the flying spaghetti monster.

 

[RDM]

That is a pretty meaningless distinction in today's society, nobody equates their current position with history several centuries ago.

Which is sort of the point. Society changes and so things within it change. Why should marriage be immutable? It obviously hasn't been in the past, so why should it be now?

Our current society was created with religion at it's core, therefore marriage is commonly understood to be a Christian concept and it is still valued on that basis. You think of marriage and you think of a church, a life long commitment and it being between a man and a woman.
Marriage in that context provides a safe and agreed way for people to mate, the woman is provided with security so that when she gives up her virginity she is still protected. Because it is a social contract, men do not later renege on the deal (unless they are a king and have a handy axe)

You seem to have a remarkably skewed view of what marriage is in this country. You are aware that somewhere between 65-70% of all UK marriages are not held in a Church?

To detour slightly, when this happens (and it will, clearly the aim for all parties is to undermine religion and replace it with state control), some lesser churches will begin to offer gay marriages in a church, this then undermines Christianity as a whole as people will question why one group allows it and others don't and as a result it discredits the integrity of all churches.

I think allowing the occassional Gay marriage is the least of the Churches problems when it comes to credibility these days. That aside there are already some Christian denominations that are happy to bless civil unions. There are also many churchs that now allow women clergy. Has that discredited the integrity of all churches?

It's a retrograde step, you'd have to be blind not to have noticed that moral standards within society have declined as each new generation seeks greater freedom for itself.

I would not suggest that the generally more liberal attitudes to homosexuality are a retrograde step at all. Much like I would not say that the generally more liberal attitudes towards mixed race marriages is a retrograde step. Or the more liberal attitudes towards race, religion and many other things it was acceptable to be bigoted against in times past. Not all change is bad and not all change will lead to moral decay.

Marriage is the cornerstone of most peoples lives, it symbolises a particular act of union and is the accepted path to having children. Those couples define our society as they repeat the same process generation after generation. Gays and for that matter eunuchs, stand outside that cycle. Pretending they don't by giving them a badge that says 'married' is pointless. Subverting that instituon for the arbitrary concept of fairness only undermines it because we all know that at it's core a gay marriage is a barren sham.

I assume then that you consider childless marriages a barran sham too?

At the end of the day as a happily married heterosexual man allowing gay couples to marry will have zero impact on me, on how I feel about my wife and how I feel about marriage in general. The only thing that will change is we will live in a slightly more fair society that is slightly less bigoted. I see that as a good thing.

If gay people are allowed to get married how would it impact your marriage or your attitude towards marriage?

 

[Craterloads]

A lesbian couple for example can procreate using similar IVF treatment, in fact they can procreate in a very natural way using a sperm donor, so can homosexual men using a surrogate.....in fact the use of surrogates was commonplace throughout many ancient cultures, including Muslim ones....Ishmael was born of surrogacy for example....in fact it was commonplace for handmaidens to bear children as surrogate mothers.

Why do you believe a child needs a mother and a father, would a polygamous bisexual marriage be morally wrong using the very same criteria you use....they would be able to procreate and there would be both a mother and father in the family unit.....would that be unnatural and why?

How does that impact on your moral code and your justifications for it? Or is it simply the need to discriminate based on sexual preference the true reason that you are trying justify.

It’s not really difficult to understand, man + man is different from man + woman. Can you not see the difference? Another point to make is the term "marriage" has traditionally been used throughout history for heterosexual couples. Considering all the talk about British values and the erosion and un-adopting of them, why take them away now.

What’s wrong with a "civil partnership"? Why all the fuss about using the term "marriage"

Just because something is different doesn’t make it descrimatory does it? Just as differences are worded and pointed out in everyday life. On your passport you have you ethnicity, why is there need for this.

Shouldn’t we be celebrating differences? Differences add to society as a whole. Don’t heterosexual couples deserve the right to keep “marriage” as a term for themselves, why discriminate against them?

Don’t really understand why infertility or any other genetic disorder between heterosexual marriages is being used as some sort of justification for homosexual marriage. Pointing out extreme situations is a not a justification to make something the norm.

 

[Fran]

Fran, I think you will like this.

Yep, looked him up when you mentioned him before
Umm, OK similar starting position I guess, but I'm trying to be pragmatic about what I think will happen, rather than just say 'it's morally wrong'

This is the thing about small changes in previously accepted ideals, we never appreciate the changes, even in hindsight because they get swamped by the events they precipitate. It's like History, it tends to be self justifying.