Gay marriage thread

[Ferretfancy]

I feel rather sorry for the Cardinal - it seems that like the closeted gay man who seeks to suppress his feelings by beating gay men up there is likely to have been some self-loathing in the vitriol of his anti-gay statements .

Barbirollians

I respect the fact that you feel sorry for the Cardinal. One very unfortunate occurrence was that the priests who were his accusers were angrily criticised by sections of the press and the Cardinal's supporters. This was because they quite understandably did not wish their names to be revealed except in their sworn statements to the Vatican.

I think it's possible that the Cardinal would have continued to deny everything if the Vatican had not forced him to come clean, but he could have dealt honestly with the matter from the outset without adding to the distress of his victims.

If you are brought up from childhood on a diet of guilt and sin with the prospect of divine punishment just for being yourself, trained to hide a deep aspect of your personality and assume a false personal disguise, self loathing will always follow.

[scottycelt]

We now have 'nuns forcing oppressed women to have endless pregnancies ' (still trying to work that one out!) and 'cardinals beating gay men up ... '

Any more clinching arguments in favour of 'gay marriage' ... ?

[Julien Sorel]

Any more clinching arguments in favour of 'gay marriage' ... ?

Cardinal Keith O'Brien's against it?

[amateur51]

Cardinal Keith O'Brien's against it?

certainly ... and it winds scotty up sunnink rotten too

[Pabmusic]

I might agree with you here, Scotty, if the Catholic Church didn't feel that it had the right to interfere in the lives of people who aren't members - for example, in opposing same-sex marriage...

This is the nub of it. And the justification for interfering with the lives of non-Catholics is unfounded belief - not testable knowledge. Unfounded belief is even considered superior to testable knowledge. There has been much discussion of virgin birth and immaculate conception, but it's all unfounded belief.

"You cannot do that because my religion tells me it is wrong" is one of the more frightening things around. And yet, as I've pointed out before, religions pick and choose the bits of their faith that they want to follow. Catholics use only nine of the Ten Commandments - they dropped the second (prohibition against idols and graven images) from their Bible over 1000 years ago. (They made the commandments up to ten again by splitting the last into two.)

(Most) Christian religions ignore the Bible's clear endorsement of slavery, its clear instruction (given twice) to kill your disrespectful children, its instruction to kill witches, its endorsement of rape (God's instruction to kill the Midianites and all their livestock, but to keep the 32,000 virgin females for themselves). Some sects even ignore the clear Christian invention of hell - the place where you are tortured for eternity for not believing.

[jean]

Catholics use only nine of the Ten Commandments - they dropped the second (prohibition against idols and graven images) from their Bible over 1000 years ago. (They made the commandments up to ten again by splitting the last into two.)

Just FTR, they didn't actually drop anything - it's all there, just divided up differently.

As for splitting the last two, I've never been all that keen on one's neighbour's wife being lumped in with his goods, but there you go.

Here's and interesting article on the history of the numbering.


.

[scottycelt]

certainly ... and it winds scotty up sunnink rotten too

Ah ... well that makes four!

Any more arguments which may further contribute to the already impressively solid case in favour of 'gay marriage' ... ?

[scottycelt]

This is the nub of it. And the justification for interfering with the lives of non-Catholics is unfounded belief - not testable knowledge.

So what you are saying is that Catholics have no right to express their beliefs while non-Catholics can dictate what they (Catholics) must believe because Pabmusic and Flossie have decreed Catholic belief as 'unfounded'... ?

Can you confirm that's what you actually mean, Pab ... ?

[jean]

So what you are saying is that Catholics have no right to express their beliefs...

Nobody's said that. You can express them as much as you like, but you can't enforce them on anyone else.

[Pabmusic]

So what you are saying is that Catholics have no right to express their beliefs while non-Catholics can dictate what they (Catholics) must believe because Pabmusic and Flossie have decreed Catholic belief as 'unfounded'... ?

Can you confirm that's what you actually mean, Pab ... ?

Nobody's said that. You can express them as much as you like, but you can't enforce them on anyone else.

No. It's not what I mean at all. Jean has understood it correctly.

A very interesting article, Jean, and I withdraw my accusation that the Catholic Church dropped the 'graven images' commandment. It just chooses to ignore it.

[scottycelt]

Nobody's said that. You can express them as much as you like, but you can't enforce them on anyone else.

I assume 'you' hasn't enforced his will on you. So why do you imagine 'you' enforces his will on anybody else? I can only assume 'you' means the Catholic Church, in this particular case.

Certainly it has strict rules and those who don't like them can easily "escape". All organisations have rules. I feel certain that even anarchist clubs must have rules. These couldn't exist otherwise. Have you any personal experience or reports from others of such abominable totalitarianism behind this ecclesiastical Berlin Wall?

On the contrary, Catholic adoption agencies, which even non-Catholics in the business acknowledge provided a vital service to abandoned kiddies, were forced to close because of conscientious Catholic opposition to gay adoption. These agencies were not demanding non-Catholic agencies had to be against gay adoption, all they asked was their own organisations would continue as they always had done before. No, it was 'stuff your principles, do as you're told or close'. So, quite naturally, the agencies closed.

Catholic agencies weren't enforcing their will on anybody it was the other way around!! In the link that I provided Andrew Pierce, who is both gay and a lapsed Catholic himself, talks of the great debt he owes to one such agency and the dedicated people within it. He should know.

And the kids themselves didn't seem to matter one scrap. They were/are simply sacrificed on the altar of modern secular ideology.

Wonderful.

[jean]

I assume 'you' hasn't enforced his will on you. So why do you imagine 'you' enforces his will on anybody else? I can only assume 'you' means the Catholic Church, in this particular case.

It means anyone who wants to extend their authority to people who do not wish to subscribe to it.

It means that churches which does not wish to marry gay people (which no-one at all has tried to make them do) wants to stop the State from allowing them to contract civil marriage.

Once marriages without any religious component were allowed, the definition of marriage was no longer the property of the churches.

For example, the churches are free to regard marriage as binding until death, and to refuse to remarry divorced people - but it is none of their business if the state disagrees.

[jean]

A very interesting article, Jean, and I withdraw my accusation that the Catholic Church dropped the 'graven images' commandment. It just chooses to ignore it.

It is a misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine to suppose that Catholics bow down to or serve the images they make.

[Pabmusic]

It is a misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine to suppose that Catholics bow down to or serve the images they make.

Hmmm. A distinction rather than a difference? But who am I to say?

[scottycelt]

It means anyone who wants to extend their authority to people who do not wish to subscribe to it.

It means that churches which does not wish to marry gay people (which no-one at all has tried to make them do) wants to stop the State from allowing them to contract civil marriage.

Once marriages without any religious component were allowed, the definition of marriage was no longer the property of the churches.

For example, the churches are free to regard marriage as binding until death, and to refuse to remarry divorced people - but it is none of their business if the state disagrees.

But the churches can't stop the State from going ahead with anything, that's the whole point. All some are saying is that they believe what is proposed is wrong and shouldn't go ahead. Secular organisations 'lobby' the Government all the time that proposed bills shouldn't go ahead and nobody complains.

If any Government proposed the re-introduction of capital punishment, because the polls showed a majority of the population supported it and the churches opposed it, would you (and Pab) tell the churches to go away and mind their own business?