I hate the media

[MikeK]

Okay, here is my thing... why can't I "embrace" a gay couple?

Not condone with or agree with but why can't I treat them the same way I would treat a couple who isn't married properly according to the Church or who is living together? (the two are the same anyway.)

When we start treating all the people who mock and spit on the rules like their obnoxious freaks... then I'll treat gay people like that.

I'm over trying to discern or feel guilty if it's wrong to have a friendship with a gay couple.

I don't know where you're getting this guilt from, there is nothying wrong with maintaining a friendship with sinners of any stripe, so long as they know where you stand on the issues of their misdeeds. If we dind't associate with sinners, we'd be very lonely. I wouldn't associate myself with sinners that might tempt me into falling into sin myself, but I'm not afraid that I'll catch gay from someone

 

[Angeldove97]

But according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, it's a pure sin.

A pure sin?

Does that make it better than whatever type of sin you'd call homosexuality?

 

[Irenaeus]

Benedicta,

and the Catholic Church will find a way around this one too... they already have in certain ways. Just like they found a way around divorce, remarriage and ABC, they are going to find a loop hole to this too becuase we would not want to run all these ppl away from the Church.

Would you care to clarify how exactly the Catholic Church has found a way around divorce, remarriage and ABC?

 

[MikeK]

Benedicta,

Would you care to clarify how exactly the Catholic Church has found a way around divorce, remarriage and ABC?

I'm not Benedicta, but:
Annulment
Annulment
Natural Family Planning (and other means, if you've been raped)

Save the pat soundbite responses. Heard 'em already.

 

[Irenaeus]

MikeK,

Annulments have been around for centuries. It's also a perfectly valid juridical process based upon notions of consent and knowledge that we apply to virtually everything else when speaking of sacramental validity. In marriage that validity is contractual and hence the state of the spouses-to-be is of utmost importance.

I would hardly say that this is "Catholic divorce" or just our way of getting out of what Our Lord said.

And as to Natural Family Planning, that is the legitimate use of natural biological processes to spread births.

I won't save the soundbite responses because I am somewhat morally obligated to mention them. Furthermore, if you believe that the Church has been betraying the teaching of Christ for the past few centuries, then she never was the Church instituted by Christ and I'll go change my faith icon in the next ten seconds to something less than Christian. If she can arbitrarily betray something in the Deposit of Faith (which includes moral precepts) then to hell with her.

 

[benedictaoo]

I don't know where you're getting this guilt from, there is nothying wrong with maintaining a friendship with sinners of any stripe, so long as they know where you stand on the issues of their misdeeds. If we dind't associate with sinners, we'd be very lonely. I wouldn't associate myself with sinners that might tempt me into falling into sin myself, but I'm not afraid that I'll catch gay from someone

I know some lesbian couples and what can I say, they are lovely ppl.

And yeah, at one point last year, I was hanging out at Chuck E Cheese with a lesbian couple and my kids were playing we their artificially inseminated sperm doner children, who the boy, he is totally gay already at age 9 or 10.... I began to ask myself, is this right? Should I be doing this?

 

[benedictaoo]

A pure sin?

Does that make it better than whatever type of sin you'd call homosexuality?

I was just being dramatic, using some theatrics. My point is gay ppl being everywhere and accepted like American Express, the shock and horror of the sin will wear off just as the shock and horror of living together wore off.

Lets be real... if there was still that stigma and shock value, we would not have done it but we did becuase no one thinks anything of it in this day and age but it's still a pure sin, a bad, sin a sin that can send you to hell.

I know not one person ever said to me, you know this is a sin and it can send you to hell. Everyone treated me as if I was perfectly okay and I was in serious mortal sin.

 

[benedictaoo]

Would you care to clarify how exactly the Catholic Church has found a way around divorce, remarriage and ABC?

I'm not Benedicta, but:
Annulment
Annulment
Natural Family Planning (and other means, if you've been raped)

Save the pat soundbite responses. Heard 'em already.

and double effect.

 

[benedictaoo]

MikeK,

Annulments have been around for centuries. It's also a perfectly valid juridical process based upon notions of consent and knowledge that we apply to virtually everything else when speaking of sacramental validity. In marriage that validity is contractual and hence the state of the spouses-to-be is of utmost importance.

I would hardly say that this is "Catholic divorce" or just our way of getting out of what Our Lord said.

And as to Natural Family Planning, that is the legitimate use of natural biological processes to spread births.

I won't save the soundbite responses because I am somewhat morally obligated to mention them. Furthermore, if you believe that the Church has been betraying the teaching of Christ for the past few centuries, then she never was the Church instituted by Christ and I'll go change my faith icon in the next ten seconds to something less than Christian. If she can arbitrarily betray something in the Deposit of Faith (which includes moral precepts) then to hell with her.

They may have been around forever. Its not annulments, its the Church's abuse. what hasn't been around forever is divorcing a guy just becuase you don't like his eye color anymore...

Its the Church knowing these ppl are full of it and granting these annulments anyway- lettin a 2, 3, 4 times divorcee even marry again.

but you know, "Everybody makes mistakes..."

 

[Irenaeus]

I know some lesbian couples and what can I say, they are lovely ppl.

And yeah, at one point last year, I was hanging out at Chuck E Cheese with a lesbian couple and my kids were playing we their artificially inseminated sperm doner children, who the boy, he is totally gay already at age 9 or 10.... I began to ask myself, is this right? Should I be doing this?

I have to admit on my own part that sometimes I feel conflicted about these people. I have friends who are gay, and they are getting married and 'having' kids, and sometimes I feel like I am totally "behind the times."

However, history does give some perspective and sometimes I think that we are very much in the position of the first Christians in Roman times, surrounded by so much brutality and immorality. We may be in the same situation where we have to gently speak the truth in love and work together as we follow "The Way."

Christians are always "different" from the world and it's when I remember that that is a normal part of being Christian, I don't feel so bad. In fact I am proud to be one...in the good sense.

Edit: I didn't see you responded to me so...

Its not annulments, its the Church's abuse.

Ok, but you didn't seem to phrase it that way. You said I thought that the Church made these things up as if she was improvising on a matter of faith and morals. Maybe I misread you.

what hasn't been around forever is divorcing a guy just becuase you don't like his eye color anymore...

Well, it depends. In some cultures divorce can be a rather trivial affair. As long as you aren't applying this to the Church I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Its the Church knowing these ppl are full of it and granting these annulments anyway- lettin a 2, 3, 4 times divorcee even marry again.

but you know, "Everybody makes mistakes..."

I really don't know about this, I haven't seen many examples of it. If and when it does happen its absolutely an abuse. However, the culture has changed so dramatically in terms of marriage and how it is viewed, it's straining the canonical presumption of validity in a multitude of cases. I don't think often it's so much that the Church grants annulments blithely, it's more that the person presenting the annulment may lie on their documents about their mental and moral state upon contracting the marriage. We really have to assume they are telling the truth.

 

[benedictaoo]

So do we not hang out with them or do we?

 

[Irenaeus]

I say hang out with them. I know there are people who may disagree with me, but Jesus Christ ate and dined with sinners, and that's where I draw the line. But I would not attend anything that would be an explicit celebration of their lifestyle: i.e., anniversaries, "weddings," and so forth. The same goes for divorcees, and so forth.

It's hard to do and I've done it, but sometimes we have to. I can't say that this is a breeze of a decision. Because even then when we deliberately absent ourselves from moments of prime importance in their lives (like marriages, anniversaries, etc) we automatically distance ourselves from being present at those things at which 'true friends' usually appear.

It is a conflict.

 

[MikeK]

MikeK,

Annulments have been around for centuries. It's also a perfectly valid juridical process based upon notions of consent and knowledge that we apply to virtually everything else when speaking of sacramental validity. In marriage that validity is contractual and hence the state of the spouses-to-be is of utmost importance.

I would hardly say that this is "Catholic divorce" or just our way of getting out of what Our Lord said.

The fact that annulments aren't a post V2 invention doesn't mean they aren't a "way around" divorce and remarriage. They are.

And as to Natural Family Planning, that is the legitimate use of natural biological processes to spread births.

Well, it's a potentially, ocasionally legitimate use of naturalbiological process to spread births. That isn't the impresion you'd get from the happy flyers in the back of the Church or the pre-marital counselers who seemingly try to sell NFP to newlyweds as if it's the expected path rather than a last resort.

Neither Bene nor I are making the claim that the Church has changed Truths - we're claiming that abuse is everywhere and nobody, even those who are quick to proclaim their own orthodoxy, seem to care.

ETA: You two post fast, geez!

 

[Andy Hardy]

So do we not hang out with them or do we?

I do

but

That's me.

The more I hang with them the more I think that they're just like everyone else. They deserve the same civil rights as everyone else and the are about as threating to the society at large as divorced and remarried couples.

Which might be claimed to be damaging to society but you don't see Christians out there demanding that those couples not be allowed the same rights and every other married person.

Besides the cross-dressers are all REALLY fun to hang with.

I recommend them as being good company.

 

[benedictaoo]

Neither Bene nor I are making the claim that the Church has changed Truths - we're claiming that abuse is everywhere and nobody, even those who are quick to proclaim their own orthodoxy, seem to care.

A freakin men.

 

[AMDG]

Anything anymore that is a source for the media is getting obnoxious to watch.

Came across craigslist tv - so i watch this infomercial type thing for ventriloquist lessons - curious what it is. Go to their facebook page ...

I rent a movie - there is a gay couple. I watch a tv series - a gay couple. I turned on a SOAP once - a gay couple. [tho since i watch little tv - i am certain it is infiltrating advertisements too]
And now craigslist tv has - you guessed it - a gay couple.

Know what you mean. It *is* infiltrating commercials. (I make a note not to buy the product.) Books for reading too. (Choose another or find something else to do.) From how things are being portrayed, one would think it the normal and not the aberration it really is.

It isn't right. The Bishops are correct--an agenda is being pushed and these are our Gethsemane years. Sin is being glorified and treated as if it were right (when we know that God has already spoken on the subject.) Oh well, maybe the pendulum will swing back, of course that's what was said would be right before Our Lord comes back--evil is called good and good is called evil. (Of course we don't have to fall into the evil one's traps. We *have* been taught right from wrong.)

 

[benedictaoo]

I do

but

That's me.

The more I hang with them the more I think that they're just like everyone else. They deserve the same civil rights as everyone else and the are about as threating to the society at large as divorced and remarried couples.

Which might be claimed to be damaging to society but you don't see Christians out there demanding that those couples not be allowed the same rights and every other married person.

Besides the cross-dressers are all REALLY fun to hang with.

I recommend them as being good company.

they are like everybody else and they are fun... I'm not even understanding the marriage thing- what do they want? Just to be recognized by the state?

if so, why do Catholics care when we don't even recognize the state's marriage?

 

[sylverpiano]

So do we not hang out with them or do we?

I have many gay friends, as I have said. Scott and I share season tickets to live theater, music and dance events. As close as I come to a dating relationship, this is the man. He is gay. His long time partner, John, does not like theater but never misses a game day party at our place. He and my brother go to all kinds of sporting events.

They are both decent people. Their relationship is really none of my business. If their lifestyle is sinful, they are not accountable to me for that sin.

It is not up to me to condone or condemn. I have my own sinful nature to overcome, and my own judgment to face.

I am not without sin, so I have no stone to cast.

 

[Irenaeus]

Neither Bene nor I are making the claim that the Church has changed Truths - we're claiming that abuse is everywhere and nobody, even those who are quick to proclaim their own orthodoxy, seem to care.

ETA: You two post fast, geez!

Alright, as long as are both on the same page. We both agree abuse is occurring, few people seem to care sometimes, and we agree that reform is needed.

Pass me a drink!

Sorry I post so fast, I hop on the computer once and a while when I'm not running around moving and cleaning stuff.

 

[benedictaoo]

I have many gay friends, as I have said. Scott and I share season tickets to live theater, music and dance events. As close as I come to a dating relationship, this is the man. He is gay. His long time partner, John, does not like theater but never misses a game day party at our place. He and my brother go to all kinds of sporting events.

They are both decent people. Their relationship is really none of my business. If their lifestyle is sinful, they are not accountable to me for that sin.

It is not up to me to condone or condemn. I have my own sinful nature to overcome, and my own judgment to face.

I am not without sin, so I have no stone to cast.

Can't argue with that.