Supreme Court to Decide on Same Sex Marriage
- Thread starter Belle Du Jour
- Start date
JaneBond007
New Member
Homilies are given all the time on the cultural and political climate but are not to endorse any candidate. Where is it that churches are silenced on political issues?
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Uh...Uhh.....
I see some 'Shade' is being thrown... big time with this post. 
I got one... a big canopy of a 'shade'.
But I gotta be nice....
Galadriel...
I need to share this. I am really being blessed by your posts such as the one above and the others. They are filled with rich life's lessons and blessings.
To you, "Lady Belle" (Belle Du Jour) and JaneBond007, your love for Jesus is so rich and so obvious. You are strings of real pearls which have a true soft and beautiful luster. It's not about Catholic on non-Catholic, nor other denominations or non-denominations. No one can 'touch' the love for God that each of you express and I thank God for each of you.
There is no perfect 'Faith' other than Jesus Christ, Himself. The love you express for Him, speaks volumes.
Please keep sharing. Your hearts are what I see and they surpass all Religions. We all know that I'm not Catholic, I don't think anyone could handle me if I was (Girl, you know I'm a trip
) Yet, you're my sisters and I love each of you. 
Keep sharing... I'm 'listening'. :yep;
Love,
Shimmie
Galadriel
Well-Known Member
@Galadriel...
I need to share this. I am really being blessed by your posts such as the one above and the others. They are filled with rich life's lessons and blessings.
To you, "Lady Belle" (@Belle Du Jour) and @JaneBond007, your love for Jesus is so rich and so obvious. You are strings of real pearls which have a true soft and beautiful luster. It's not about Catholic on non-Catholic, nor other denominations or non-denominations. No one can 'touch' the love for God that each of you express and I thank God for each of you.
There is no perfect 'Faith' other than Jesus Christ, Himself. The love you express for Him, speaks volumes.
Please keep sharing. Your hearts are what I see and they surpass all Religions. We all know that I'm not Catholic, I don't think anyone could handle me if I was (Girl, you know I'm a trip
Keep sharing... I'm 'listening'. :yep;
Love,
Shimmie
Thanks Shimmie, right back at you
. I've always enjoyed your posts and conversations, Scripture quotes and insights. Now, if I can manage to be half as nice as you, then I'll be on a roll!
Thanks Shimmie, right back at you
Now, I gotta behave..... I need help.
Galadriel
Well-Known Member
Archbishop Cordileone in a USA Today Q&A makes the case for traditional marriage.
He NAILS IT! WOW!
Interview below:
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone chairs the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. Here are his views on the subject in response to questions from USA TODAY:
Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry?
A:[/B]The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife?
I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.
To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship.
How can we do this to our children?
Q: If the Supreme Court opens the floodgates to gay marriage in California (or beyond), what will be the result?
A: If the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, this will not go down in history as the Loving v. Virginia but as the Roe v. Wade decision of our generation.
No matter what the Supreme Court rules, this debate is not over. Marriage is too important and the issues raised by treating same-gender unions as marriages are too fundamental to just go away. Just as Roe v. Wade did not end the conversation about abortion, so a ruling that tries to import same-sex marriage into our Constitution is not going to end the marriage debate, but intensify it.
We will have a bitterly polarized country divided on the marriage issue for years if not generations to come.
Q: Why is this of such importance to children?
A: Why has virtually every known civilization across time and history recognized the need to bring together men and women to make and raise the next generation together? Clearly something important is at stake, or human beings of such different cultures, histories and religions would not come up with the basic idea of marriage as a male-female union over and over again.
... When we as a culture abandon that idea and ideal, children suffer, communities suffer, women suffer, and men are dehumanized by being told they aren't important to the project of family life.
Modern social science evidence generally supports the idea that the ideal for a child is a married mother and father. The scientific study of children raised by two men or two women is in its infancy ... several recent studies ... are painting a less sanguine portrait thatsome professional organizations have yet acknowledged about whether two dads can make up for the absence of a mom, or vice versa.
We all know heroic single mothers who do a great job raising their kids (just as there are gay people who take good care of their children). But the question of the definition of marriage is not about success or failure in parenting in any particular case.
The job of single mothers is hard precisely because we aren't as a society raising boys to believe they need to become faithful husbands and fathers, men who care for and protect their children, and the mother of their children, in marriage. And we aren't raising girls to be the kind of young women with the high standards and the self-worth to expect and appreciate such men, and not to settle for less.
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged?
A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people's right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing.
But the larger picture that's becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it's a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination.
If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son's education, and they were told they had no right to do so.
Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don't allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). ... Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts.... Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. ... Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of "anti-discrimination" is trumping liberty and compassion. ...
When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won't hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. ... It's not kind, and it doesn't seem to lead to a "live and let live" pluralism.
Q: You have spoken of gay marriage as a "natural impossibility." But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite-sex couples who are elderly or infertile?
A: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a "one flesh" union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.
Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do.
Infertility is, as you point out, part of the natural life cycle of marriage (people age!), as well as a challenge and disappointment some husbands and wives have to go through. People who have been married for 50 years are no less married because they can no longer have children.
Adoption can be a wonderful happy ending for children who lack even one parent able or willing to care for them. But notice, when a man and woman cannot have children together, that's an accident of circumstances, the exception to the rule. When a husband and wife adopt, they are mirroring the pattern set in nature itself. ...
Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.
Q: Is it particularly difficult for you to play a leading role against gay marriage in a place like San Francisco? Does it change your relationship with gay congregants?
A: Truthfully, I am really excited to be in San Francisco. I remember the first time I saw the city as a boy when our family drove up from San Diego to meet my father who was unloading his tuna boat here. ... To me San Francisco was and is The City! It represents vibrant, pulsating, creative, cosmopolitan life and I love it. Of course I realize many people in San Francisco disagree with the church's teachings on marriage and sex, but there is also a very deeply embedded Catholic culture here with many people who understand and cherish the church's teachings. My job as an archbishop is to teach the truths of our faith and the truths of the natural moral law, and whatever challenges that entails I embrace with enthusiasm.
We can learn to respect each other across differences and even to love one another. That's my hope anyway. And my job description.
Continued below...
He NAILS IT! WOW!
Interview below:
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone chairs the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. Here are his views on the subject in response to questions from USA TODAY:
Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry?
A:[/B]The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife?
I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.
To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship.
How can we do this to our children?
Q: If the Supreme Court opens the floodgates to gay marriage in California (or beyond), what will be the result?
A: If the Supreme Court overturns Prop 8, this will not go down in history as the Loving v. Virginia but as the Roe v. Wade decision of our generation.
No matter what the Supreme Court rules, this debate is not over. Marriage is too important and the issues raised by treating same-gender unions as marriages are too fundamental to just go away. Just as Roe v. Wade did not end the conversation about abortion, so a ruling that tries to import same-sex marriage into our Constitution is not going to end the marriage debate, but intensify it.
We will have a bitterly polarized country divided on the marriage issue for years if not generations to come.
Q: Why is this of such importance to children?
A: Why has virtually every known civilization across time and history recognized the need to bring together men and women to make and raise the next generation together? Clearly something important is at stake, or human beings of such different cultures, histories and religions would not come up with the basic idea of marriage as a male-female union over and over again.
... When we as a culture abandon that idea and ideal, children suffer, communities suffer, women suffer, and men are dehumanized by being told they aren't important to the project of family life.
Modern social science evidence generally supports the idea that the ideal for a child is a married mother and father. The scientific study of children raised by two men or two women is in its infancy ... several recent studies ... are painting a less sanguine portrait thatsome professional organizations have yet acknowledged about whether two dads can make up for the absence of a mom, or vice versa.
We all know heroic single mothers who do a great job raising their kids (just as there are gay people who take good care of their children). But the question of the definition of marriage is not about success or failure in parenting in any particular case.
The job of single mothers is hard precisely because we aren't as a society raising boys to believe they need to become faithful husbands and fathers, men who care for and protect their children, and the mother of their children, in marriage. And we aren't raising girls to be the kind of young women with the high standards and the self-worth to expect and appreciate such men, and not to settle for less.
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged?
A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people's right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing.
But the larger picture that's becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it's a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination.
If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son's education, and they were told they had no right to do so.
Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don't allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). ... Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts.... Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. ... Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of "anti-discrimination" is trumping liberty and compassion. ...
When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won't hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. ... It's not kind, and it doesn't seem to lead to a "live and let live" pluralism.
Q: You have spoken of gay marriage as a "natural impossibility." But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite-sex couples who are elderly or infertile?
A: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a "one flesh" union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.
Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do.
Infertility is, as you point out, part of the natural life cycle of marriage (people age!), as well as a challenge and disappointment some husbands and wives have to go through. People who have been married for 50 years are no less married because they can no longer have children.
Adoption can be a wonderful happy ending for children who lack even one parent able or willing to care for them. But notice, when a man and woman cannot have children together, that's an accident of circumstances, the exception to the rule. When a husband and wife adopt, they are mirroring the pattern set in nature itself. ...
Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.
Q: Is it particularly difficult for you to play a leading role against gay marriage in a place like San Francisco? Does it change your relationship with gay congregants?
A: Truthfully, I am really excited to be in San Francisco. I remember the first time I saw the city as a boy when our family drove up from San Diego to meet my father who was unloading his tuna boat here. ... To me San Francisco was and is The City! It represents vibrant, pulsating, creative, cosmopolitan life and I love it. Of course I realize many people in San Francisco disagree with the church's teachings on marriage and sex, but there is also a very deeply embedded Catholic culture here with many people who understand and cherish the church's teachings. My job as an archbishop is to teach the truths of our faith and the truths of the natural moral law, and whatever challenges that entails I embrace with enthusiasm.
We can learn to respect each other across differences and even to love one another. That's my hope anyway. And my job description.
Continued below...
Galadriel
Well-Known Member
Continued...
Q: Has it become more difficult to oppose gay marriage over the years? Does it seem the tide is turning against you?
A:There is a problem here – an injustice, really – in the way that some people are so often identified by what they are against. Opposition to same-sex marriage is a natural consequence of what we are for, i.e., preserving the traditional, natural understanding of marriage in the culture and in the law.
But of course people who are for the redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women are also against something: They are against protecting the social and legal understanding that marriage is the union of a husband and wife who can give children a mother and father.
So there are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other. ...
Those of us who favor preserving the traditional understanding of marriage do not do so because we want people who experience attraction to their same sex to suffer. We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone. Everyone should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat differently things that are different. Marriage really is unique for a reason.
Q: Do you have friends or family members who are gay? How do you balance your public policy positions with those relationships?
A: Of course! I am a Baby Boomer, and I grew up in Southern California. The larger question you raise about my relationships with people I care about is: How can we love each other across deep differences in moral views? The answer I have found is that when we want to stay in relationship, we can and do. Love finds a way. When we want to exclude or hate, we find each other's views literally intolerable.
Of course, it helps that my friends know me, directly and unfiltered through any other source. When you know someone personally, it's much harder to rely on stereotyped or media-created images. It's a lot harder to be hateful or prejudiced against a person, or group of people, that one knows personally. When there is personal knowledge and human interaction, the barriers of prejudice and pre-conceived ideas come down.
Q: What are your main goals: Supreme Court, lower courts, state legislatures, public opinion, religious liberty?
A: My main goal is none of these. I'm a faith leader, and my main goal is to seek to create a Catholic community in San Francisco where people know what the church teaches and uses this knowledge to guide their own lives and get to heaven. I want to help people understand the truth of natural marriage and, for people of my own faith, the deeper, theological, even mystical meaning of marriage as designed by God.
Using words, though, is only one way of teaching. Usually one's actions speak louder than words. So there is a place for public manifestations of principle. The civil rights marches of the '60s are a good example of that. Yes, they were a way to agitate for long overdue political change, but they also had a teaching effect in that they got people to think about the injustices of racism.
Engaging with the broader culture is also part of my teaching role as an archbishop, and of course my right as U.S. citizen.
Q: Are you worried about the recent trend in courts and states going against you? How best to stop that trend?
A: The natural law has a power written on the human heart that doesn't go away.
Notice how there is no controversy in this country now over the evil of Jim Crow laws. Shortly after the Civil Rights Act the cultural change was complete. This is because it was the right thing to do. The truth cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
Draw a contrast here with the pro-life movement: After the Roe decision, it was commonly thought that our society would soon easily accept the legitimacy of abortion. But what has happened? The pro-life movement is stronger now, 40 years later, than it ever has been. This is because of the truth: Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. That is not a matter of opinion or religious belief; it is a simple fact that cannot be denied.
The same principle applies with marriage: It is simply a natural fact that you need a man and a woman to make a marriage and that a child's heart longs for the love of both his or her mother and father. Even if the Supreme Court rules against this truth, the controversy will not die out, as it hasn't on the abortion issue.
The problem is, the longer a society operates in denial of the truth, the greater is the harm that will be done. The examples of the racist policies and practices of the past in our own country make this clear, as does all the harm that abortion has done to women and all those in her network of relationships.
With marriage, we have to consider the harm that will be caused by enshrining in the law the principle that children do not need a mother and a father. The circumstances of our struggles change but the truth does not.
Q: Has it become more difficult to oppose gay marriage over the years? Does it seem the tide is turning against you?
A:There is a problem here – an injustice, really – in the way that some people are so often identified by what they are against. Opposition to same-sex marriage is a natural consequence of what we are for, i.e., preserving the traditional, natural understanding of marriage in the culture and in the law.
But of course people who are for the redefinition of marriage to include two men or two women are also against something: They are against protecting the social and legal understanding that marriage is the union of a husband and wife who can give children a mother and father.
So there are really two different ideas of marriage being debated in our society right now, and they cannot coexist: Marriage is either a conjugal union of a man and a woman designed to unite husband and wife to each other and to any children who may come from their union, or it is a relationship for the mutual benefit of adults which the state recognizes and to which it grants certain benefits. Whoever is for one, is opposed to the other. ...
Those of us who favor preserving the traditional understanding of marriage do not do so because we want people who experience attraction to their same sex to suffer. We recognize and respect the equal human dignity of everyone. Everyone should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat differently things that are different. Marriage really is unique for a reason.
Q: Do you have friends or family members who are gay? How do you balance your public policy positions with those relationships?
A: Of course! I am a Baby Boomer, and I grew up in Southern California. The larger question you raise about my relationships with people I care about is: How can we love each other across deep differences in moral views? The answer I have found is that when we want to stay in relationship, we can and do. Love finds a way. When we want to exclude or hate, we find each other's views literally intolerable.
Of course, it helps that my friends know me, directly and unfiltered through any other source. When you know someone personally, it's much harder to rely on stereotyped or media-created images. It's a lot harder to be hateful or prejudiced against a person, or group of people, that one knows personally. When there is personal knowledge and human interaction, the barriers of prejudice and pre-conceived ideas come down.
Q: What are your main goals: Supreme Court, lower courts, state legislatures, public opinion, religious liberty?
A: My main goal is none of these. I'm a faith leader, and my main goal is to seek to create a Catholic community in San Francisco where people know what the church teaches and uses this knowledge to guide their own lives and get to heaven. I want to help people understand the truth of natural marriage and, for people of my own faith, the deeper, theological, even mystical meaning of marriage as designed by God.
Using words, though, is only one way of teaching. Usually one's actions speak louder than words. So there is a place for public manifestations of principle. The civil rights marches of the '60s are a good example of that. Yes, they were a way to agitate for long overdue political change, but they also had a teaching effect in that they got people to think about the injustices of racism.
Engaging with the broader culture is also part of my teaching role as an archbishop, and of course my right as U.S. citizen.
Q: Are you worried about the recent trend in courts and states going against you? How best to stop that trend?
A: The natural law has a power written on the human heart that doesn't go away.
Notice how there is no controversy in this country now over the evil of Jim Crow laws. Shortly after the Civil Rights Act the cultural change was complete. This is because it was the right thing to do. The truth cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
Draw a contrast here with the pro-life movement: After the Roe decision, it was commonly thought that our society would soon easily accept the legitimacy of abortion. But what has happened? The pro-life movement is stronger now, 40 years later, than it ever has been. This is because of the truth: Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. That is not a matter of opinion or religious belief; it is a simple fact that cannot be denied.
The same principle applies with marriage: It is simply a natural fact that you need a man and a woman to make a marriage and that a child's heart longs for the love of both his or her mother and father. Even if the Supreme Court rules against this truth, the controversy will not die out, as it hasn't on the abortion issue.
The problem is, the longer a society operates in denial of the truth, the greater is the harm that will be done. The examples of the racist policies and practices of the past in our own country make this clear, as does all the harm that abortion has done to women and all those in her network of relationships.
With marriage, we have to consider the harm that will be caused by enshrining in the law the principle that children do not need a mother and a father. The circumstances of our struggles change but the truth does not.
JaneBond007
New Member
It's not about Catholic on non-Catholic, nor other denominations or non-denominations. No one can 'touch' the love for God that each of you express and I thank God for each of you.
There is no perfect 'Faith' other than Jesus Christ, Himself. The love you express for Him, speaks volumes.
Please keep sharing. Your hearts are what I see and they surpass all Religions. We all know that I'm not Catholic, I don't think anyone could handle me if I was (Girl, you know I'm a trip
I dunno, I'm far from what you describe...lol. It's just every single day, picking up the cross. But for me, it absolutely is about catholicism. I only have 2 choices, directly given by the L-rd to me. If it weren't for catholicism, I would not truly know him. I'm speaking for myself and am not doubting anyone's conversion. But I can't survive as a christian without catholicism. I know for myself that, even though catholics are not perfect, I have the prescribed faith in Christ that He instituted on earth. As I pray the rosary and learn of the spiritual fruit, it becomes more evident to me every time. It's funny, too, cuz I was just thinking of this a few days ago, even last night.
I'm not being contrary nor divisive and I pray no one takes it that way, but I have to clarify for myself and my testimony what it's about for me. It's absolutely about Christ in the Eucharist and that would be impossible without the catholic church (eastern included). I hope that makes sense and I hope and pray I haven't offended anyone. What I mean is that I cannot separate the two for myself, as I have no options outside faith in Christ except for in His catholic prescribed faith. I just had to declare it so no one is confused about where I personally stand.
I love you too, sis in Christ.
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I'm not offended. Not at all.
There's no greater love than what we each share in Jesus Christ. I am honoured to 'know' and have you as my 'sister'. Jesus is our 'Core Being' .. He is our 'All in All'. He is our Forever. No greater love...
Galadriel...
This is remarkable. Every Christian on earth can be thankful for such a wonderful represention of why we fight for pure Marriage... 'One Man, One Woman' under God.
The way he breaks down every answer dispels every lie and negative comment that has been applied to those of us who do not support gay marriage. There's no hatred among any of us. We just don't support it. And when the Bishop shared that 'they' don't support our views as well... Praise God for this man's testimony. I bolded it above and it's worth it's weight in Platium.
Anyone who would continue to address 'us' as haters, bigots, etc., after reading the Bishop's message, has a lot to learn about life. The hatred is coming from them, not those who oppose the changing of pure Marriage.
Oh and the way he broke it down about loved ones in our lives who are gay...
He is ON POINT.... When someone 'KNOWS' you, there can't be hatred. I've been sharing this all along. My gay family members and friends, KNOW that I love them. They KNOW. Again, this is such an awesome message.
Please keep these reviews coming. They are needed and most indeed appreciated. Thank you so much.
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JaneBond007
New Member
Uh...Uhh.....
I got one... a big canopy of a 'shade'.
But I gotta be nice....
Independence....churches aren't maintained by churches and the only ones who 1/2 way receive any funding are through social services to help people. They just are the facilitators of the programs. The govt. doesn't contribute monies to churches. I don't get that post.
EXACTLY!
That post was just an opportunity to pull some shade on Christianity, however it only showed the ignorance of one who posted it and the ones who 'thanked' it. They don't have a clue about Church business.
Blackpearl1993
Well-Known Member
Several more examples of how the denigration of marriage affects everyone and every entity:
"What same sex "marriage" has done to Massachusetts- 2012
http://ow.ly/k1ZYF
"What same sex "marriage" has done to Massachusetts- 2012
http://ow.ly/k1ZYF
Belle Du Jour
Well-Known Member
Blackpearl1993
Well-Known Member
It's so scary to think this could happen nationwide.
I actually think the supporters behind this and of course the spirit that is truly behind them DO want us to be scared. What's really sad is the desire to indoctrinate others. This isn't about "just" about having the legal right to marry, it's about changing the hearts and minds of those who cling to truth. I refuse to support this foolishness just as most of you ladies do, and I refuse to have my children's minds manipulated by the devil.
Belle Du Jour
Well-Known Member
This is what burns my britches! It went very quickly from "we just love each other and want the right to be together" to "if you don't fully accept my lifestyle we WILL sue you and come after you! You MUST accept this lifestyle as normal, regardless of what your religious beliefs are."
Right now, two gay students are fighting for a priest at GWU to be fired for, guess what, standing by his beliefs!
There are two lawsuits that I know of against a florist and a hotel owner who don't want to participate in gay "weddings." Very likely, the law will compel them to do so or pay. This is just WRONG.
Most of the foolish people on FB who were putting up equal signs to be cool and fit in probably don't even realize how deep this goes. The gay lobby didn't even get their inch before taking a mile.
Right now, two gay students are fighting for a priest at GWU to be fired for, guess what, standing by his beliefs!
There are two lawsuits that I know of against a florist and a hotel owner who don't want to participate in gay "weddings." Very likely, the law will compel them to do so or pay. This is just WRONG.
Most of the foolish people on FB who were putting up equal signs to be cool and fit in probably don't even realize how deep this goes. The gay lobby didn't even get their inch before taking a mile.
divya
Well-Known Member
Here is another case where a teacher was fired from her job at a Catholic school because it was revealed that she was gay in her mother's obituary. She intends to fight it, but what she fails to realize, is that when she delves into the realm of the church, it is holy ground. The truth will come out in the light...and it did.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobil...d-teacher-catholic-high-school_n_3103853.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobil...d-teacher-catholic-high-school_n_3103853.html
Belle Du Jour
Well-Known Member
I heard about that on FB. The thing is why do people want to have their cake and eat it too? Why not teach at a public school where no one would care? I wonder if she was at mass in school keeping up the charade while living an active homosexual lifestyle? Why do people cling to this idea of cultural Catholicism but deny what the Church teaches?
I'm sure when she signed her contract, there was something in there about promising to adhere to the beliefs of the church so she won't have a leg to stand on.
JaneBond007
New Member
The church is not going to make you resign your post unless you are an open, practicing homosexual as a priest. Other positions of the laity, I don't quite know...but I'm sure they are open to scrutiny by the diocese. Things is, as openly gay/practicing priests, there is conflict of interest in guiding the flock.
Our principal of our former parish was gay and nobody knew Sister Janet was gay until her death. Was she having sex with the love of her life, another sister? I dunno. I'd like to think that she was taking communion devoid of mortal sin. In fact, I know a brilliant Jewish-catholic writer (I don't care who doesn't comprehend that hyphenated adjective..I do and it's simply what she is) from Canada who is not practicing homosexual sex but is gay. That's just how she is. She does have someone she loves and talks quasi openly about it.
I know of others who are orthodox Jewish who are gay but do not have sex. I guess it depends upon the situation but I do know that wouldn't be appropriate for a priest, actually, even where there is no sex. But I let G-d be the judge. We loved Sister Janet and yes, it was somewhat of a shock at her funeral, but we got over it.
But the thing remains, as for the RCC, that disposition is not fully comprehended and we are not afraid of science. We know we do not know all the psychological/physiological facets of gay people. But we do know that the action of homosexual sex is wrong. That is what is prohibited. We do not (no longer?) condemn the person of that disposition as being a sinner. You have to commit the sin to be guilty of it. For example, and a poor analogy, if you wanna rob a bank, you're not a robber yet until you commit it. And yet, one can't quite compare homosexual makeup with that of "guilty of the heart" because truthfully, we don't know all there is to know about it. People should remain prayerful and totally respectful.
Our principal of our former parish was gay and nobody knew Sister Janet was gay until her death. Was she having sex with the love of her life, another sister? I dunno. I'd like to think that she was taking communion devoid of mortal sin. In fact, I know a brilliant Jewish-catholic writer (I don't care who doesn't comprehend that hyphenated adjective..I do and it's simply what she is) from Canada who is not practicing homosexual sex but is gay. That's just how she is. She does have someone she loves and talks quasi openly about it.
I know of others who are orthodox Jewish who are gay but do not have sex. I guess it depends upon the situation but I do know that wouldn't be appropriate for a priest, actually, even where there is no sex. But I let G-d be the judge. We loved Sister Janet and yes, it was somewhat of a shock at her funeral, but we got over it.
But the thing remains, as for the RCC, that disposition is not fully comprehended and we are not afraid of science. We know we do not know all the psychological/physiological facets of gay people. But we do know that the action of homosexual sex is wrong. That is what is prohibited. We do not (no longer?) condemn the person of that disposition as being a sinner. You have to commit the sin to be guilty of it. For example, and a poor analogy, if you wanna rob a bank, you're not a robber yet until you commit it. And yet, one can't quite compare homosexual makeup with that of "guilty of the heart" because truthfully, we don't know all there is to know about it. People should remain prayerful and totally respectful.
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sweetvi
Well-Known Member
divya
Well-Known Member
Yes, there was a clause within the contract making the upholding of Catholic principles a condition of employment. I wonder if during the course of her 19 yrs there, she became homosexual or if she was prior to her employment there. Either way, it is proper that she be removed.
Galadriel
Well-Known Member
Agreed. If she signed the contract and broke it, then the school is justified in dismissing her.
This is what burns my britches!
It went very quickly from "we just love each other and want the right to be together" to "if you don't fully accept my lifestyle we WILL sue you and come after you! You MUST accept this lifestyle as normal, regardless of what your religious beliefs are."
Right now, two gay students are fighting for a priest at GWU to be fired for, guess what, standing by his beliefs!
There are two lawsuits that I know of against a florist and a hotel owner who don't want to participate in gay "weddings." Very likely, the law will compel them to do so or pay. This is just WRONG.
Most of the foolish people on FB who were putting up equal signs to be cool and fit in probably don't even realize how deep this goes. The gay lobby didn't even get their inch before taking a mile.
At the bolded... Simply Adorable.
Lady Belle, you made my day. Only a 'Lady' would say something like this.
I totally agree... 'Originally'.... (rolleyes)
This was 'supposed' to be ONLY about 'marriage'. However ... I knew all along that it wasn't. Ever since I saw a news report a few years back... a gay activist, said in an interview, that they wanted more than a 'bite' of the apple.
I have news for this gay agenda... big news.
"You're not going to win'. Sin never does.
It's time for activists to get the 'backlash', not those who are innocent. From now on, each time a judge, a gay activist, a political gay lifestyle advocate directly and on purpose, without hesitation, moves to harm, sue, take away the rights of one's faith to not support the gay agenda, it is THEY who will fall, no longer the innocent who have no part in this.
I'm speaking of those who have chosen to strip the rights and who seek to punish those who do not wish to support the gay lifestyle.
They may 'alter' a man-made law; they may try and gay-mon-ize the Bible, however they can NEVER alter God who is the Supreme Being over any and every court and law of any land.
Father God... thank you for protecting those who choose you above the gay agenda. If you be for us, who dare be against us. With you on our side, we can never be denied. T
Thank you for protecting the rights of those who seek your righteousness and prevail in faith........ in you. Let them not be defeated nor bullied. Restore to those who have been victimized by those who sodomize; the courts must restore seven-fold of all that was stolen from them, in business, personal finances, posterity, and peace... Restore unto them, all that was stolen by the enemy who is trying to force his way upon us.
In all that is said and done, satan shall not prevail...
Thank you Father God... for healing us all and delivering us from evil, leading us not into temptation, but making us more than Conqueror's through Jesus Christ who loves us.
In Jesus' Name... Amen and Amen Again.
Galadriel
Well-Known Member
The florist lady in Washington is being sued by the ACLU http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/florist-faces-second-lawsuit-over-gay-wedding-refusal/
Nice & Wavy
Well-Known Member
5 And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court,
6 and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Hallelujah!
7 Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? Yes...we are those descendants!
8 And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying,
9 ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ Hallelujah!!!
10 And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy— You are giving them a chance to repent.
11 behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. Marriage between a Man and a Woman!!!
12 O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” We know to pray and we know that you will save the Sanctity of Marriage in this nation. Our eyes are on you!!!!!
2 Chronicles 20: 5-12
6 and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Hallelujah!
7 Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? Yes...we are those descendants!
8 And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying,
9 ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ Hallelujah!!!
10 And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy— You are giving them a chance to repent.
11 behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. Marriage between a Man and a Woman!!!
12 O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” We know to pray and we know that you will save the Sanctity of Marriage in this nation. Our eyes are on you!!!!!
2 Chronicles 20: 5-12
What a Word, What a Word, What a Word! My Lord... Praise the Name of Jesus.
All we needed is the 'proof' to present our cause before the Lord and before the courts. Christians are not going to 'tolerate' this. It's gone too far, way too far.
It's not like gays do not have other places to patron who will accommodate their sin. They have numerous gay accommodations. They 'own' much of them; so why go where their lifestyles are not 'celebrated'?
They are purposely seeking out businesses who will not patronize them... (yes, PATRONIZE... Kiss up to them.
) so that they can file suits against them. This is wrong on all accounts. gays know exactly what they are doing. However, they better watch it, because I'm not playing with my praying. They will not prevail in this. In Jesus' Name, everyone who has been victimized by these unlawful, unjustified gay lawsuits will not be able to prevail against the children of God.
No...
I'm not having it.
France ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/europe/france-approves-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0
Their government ignored / overruled the French Citizen's vote which was totally against gay marriage.
This is nothing but a dictatorship and it will not prevail... because it's wrong.
I still say, 'Vive Le France' (Long Live France). The people ruled against gay marriage and the people who did so shall stand.
I'm just gonna continue to draw closer to God and allow Him to contend with those who contend with me. God never loses. And He is not going to allow these legislators and gay advocates alter His ordinance for Marriage, One Man, One Woman under God.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/europe/france-approves-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0
Their government ignored / overruled the French Citizen's vote which was totally against gay marriage.
This is nothing but a dictatorship and it will not prevail... because it's wrong.
I still say, 'Vive Le France' (Long Live France). The people ruled against gay marriage and the people who did so shall stand.
I'm just gonna continue to draw closer to God and allow Him to contend with those who contend with me. God never loses. And He is not going to allow these legislators and gay advocates alter His ordinance for Marriage, One Man, One Woman under God.
Nice & Wavy
Well-Known Member
This summed it up for me....PRAISE THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS FOR HIS WORD AND HIS PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT SIT DOWN AND ACCEPT WHAT THE WORLD SAYS IS RIGHT...BUT WHO WILL TELL THE TRUTH....IN LOVE!
It's long...but please read, its well worth it!!!
Love and the Inhumanity of Same-Sex Marriage
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/04/15/love-and-the-inhumanity-of-same-sex-marriage/
More and more commentators are saying that we have passed the tipping point on same-sex marriage in the United States. Almost daily another politician or public figure stands before a microphone to declare his or her support. It feels like the dam has burst; the paradigm shifted. Whether or not same sex marriage is a political fait accompli, I don't know. What concerns me in the present hour is the temptation among Christians to go with the flow. The assumption is that the nation no longer shares our morality, and that we must not impose our views on others and blur the line between church and state. Besides, we don't want to let any political cantankerousness get in the way of sharing the gospel, right? So we might as well throw in our lot. So the thinking goes.
How hard Christians should actively fight against same-sex marriage is a
matter for wisdom.
But that we must not support it, I would like to persuade you, is a matter of biblical principle. To vote for it, to legislate it, to rule in favor of it, to tell your friends at the office that you think it's just fine—all this is sin. To support it publicly or privately is to "give approval to those who practice" the very things that God promises to judge—exactly what we're told not to do in Romans 1:32. Further, same-sex marriage embraces a definition of humanity that is less than human and a definition of love that is less than love. And it is not freedom from religion that the advocates of same-sex marriage want; they want to repress one religion in favor of another. Christians must not go with the flow. They must instead love the advocates of same-sex marriage better than they love themselves precisely by refusing to endorse it.
I am saying this for the sake of you who are Christians, who affirm the authority of Scripture, who believe that homosexual activity is wrong, and who believe in the final judgment. I don't mean here to persuade anyone who does not share these convictions. My goal in all of this is to encourage the church to be the church. What good is salt that loses it saltiness? Or what use is light under a bowl? Rather, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Deeper Understanding of Humanity
I believe Voddie Baucham is exactly right to say that "gay is not the new black," and that we should not formally equate sexual orientation to ethnicity or sex as an essential component of personal identity. It is amazing to me that recent legal battles simply take this equation for granted without holding it up to the light and looking at it. There are several assumptions behind the idea that a person with same-sex attraction might say "I am a homosexual" in the same way someone might say "I am a male" or "I am black." First, one assumes that homosexual desires are rooted in biology and therefore a natural part of being human. Second, one assumes that our natural desires are basically good, so long as they don't hurt others. Third, one assumes that fulfilling such basic and good desires are part of being fully human.
All the talk about "equality" depends upon these foundational assumptions about what it means to be human. Marriage then becomes an important prize to be won for people with same-sex attraction because, as the oldest and most human of institutions, marriage publicly affirms these deep desires. Everybody who participates in a wedding—from the father who walks a bride down an aisle, to the company of friends, to the pastor leading the ceremony, to the state who licenses the certificate—participates in a positive and formal affirmation of a couple's union. It is hard to think of a better way to affirm same-sex desire as good and part of being fully human than to leverage the celebratory power of a wedding ceremony and a marriage. Make no mistake: The fundamental issue at stake in the same-sex marriage debate is not visitation rights, adoption rights, inheritance laws, or all the stuff of "civil unions." Those are derivative. It is fundamentally about being publicly recognized as fully human.
Biblically minded Christians, of course, have no problem recognizing people with same-sex attraction as fully human. There are members of my church who experience same-sex attraction. We worship with them, vacation with them, love them (keep reading). What Christianity does not do, however, is grant that fulfilling every natural desire is what makes us human.
Christianity in fact offers a more mature and deeper concept of humanity, more mature and deep than the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle has of him or herself. It is more mature because Christianity begins with the frank admission that fallen human beings are corrupted all the way down, all the way in. A child assumes that all of his or her desires are legitimate. Adults, hopefully, know better. And a mature understanding of fallen humanity recognizes that our fallenness affects everything from our biology and body chemistry to our ambitions and life loves. Same-sex attraction is but one manifestation. This is why Christ commands us to go and die, and why we must be born again. We must become new creations, a process that begins at conversion and will be completed with his coming. Also, the fact that Jesus is Lord means his authoritative claim on our lives reaches all the way down, all the way in. We have no right to stand before him and insist upon our definitions of masculinity, femininity, marriage, love, and sexuality. He gets to write the definitions, even when they go against our deepest desires and sense of self.
Rooted in biology or not, there is a difference between gender, ethnicity, and "orientation." Orientation consists primarily of—is lived out through—desire. And the fact that it involves desire means it is subject to moral evaluation in a way that "being male" or "being Asian" are not.
Here is what's often missed: neither the fact of the desire, nor its possible biological basis, gives it moral legitimacy. Don't mistake is for ought. We understand this quite well, for instance, when it comes to the behaviors associated with some forms of substance addiction or bipolar disorder. The biological component of these maladies certainly calls for compassion and reams of patience, but it does not make their attendant behaviors morally legitimate. To assume they do means treating human beings as just one more animal. No one morally condemns a leopard for acting instinctually. Yet shouldn't our moral calculations for human beings involve something more than assent to the biochemistry of desire? We are more than animals. We are souls and bodies. We are created in God's image. To legitimize homosexual desire simply because it's natural or biological, ironically, is to treat a person as less than human.
All of this is to say, Christianity not only offers a more mature concept of humanity, it offers a deeper concept. It says we are more than a composite of our desires, some of which are fallen, some of which are not.
Remarkably, Jesus says that our humanity goes deeper even than marriage and sex, and certainly deeper than fallen versions of them. He says that, in the resurrection, there will be no marriage or giving in marriage. Marriage and sex, it appears, are two-dimensional shadows that point to the three-dimensional realities to come. A person's humanity and identity in no way finally depends on the shadows of marriage. Dare we deny the full humanity of Christ because he neither consummated a marriage nor fathered natural children? Indeed, wasn't the full humanity of this second Adam demonstrated through begetting a new humanity?
There is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's version of the human being. It is inhumane to morally evaluate people as if they are animals whose instincts define them. And there is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's quest for same-sex marriage. It is inhumane to call bad good, or wrong desires right. It is inhumane to equate a person with the fallen version of that person, as if God created us to be the fallen versions of ourselves. But this is exactly what same-sex marriage asks us to do. It asks us to publicly affirm the bad as good—to institutionalize the wrong as right.
Christianity says that we are not finally determined by ethnicity, sex, marriage, or even sinful desire. We are God-imagers and vice-rulers, tasked with showing the cosmos what God's triune justice, righteousness, and love are like. The Christian message to the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle is that we believe they are even more human than they believe.
It's long...but please read, its well worth it!!!
Love and the Inhumanity of Same-Sex Marriage
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/04/15/love-and-the-inhumanity-of-same-sex-marriage/
More and more commentators are saying that we have passed the tipping point on same-sex marriage in the United States. Almost daily another politician or public figure stands before a microphone to declare his or her support. It feels like the dam has burst; the paradigm shifted. Whether or not same sex marriage is a political fait accompli, I don't know. What concerns me in the present hour is the temptation among Christians to go with the flow. The assumption is that the nation no longer shares our morality, and that we must not impose our views on others and blur the line between church and state. Besides, we don't want to let any political cantankerousness get in the way of sharing the gospel, right? So we might as well throw in our lot. So the thinking goes.
How hard Christians should actively fight against same-sex marriage is a
matter for wisdom.
But that we must not support it, I would like to persuade you, is a matter of biblical principle. To vote for it, to legislate it, to rule in favor of it, to tell your friends at the office that you think it's just fine—all this is sin. To support it publicly or privately is to "give approval to those who practice" the very things that God promises to judge—exactly what we're told not to do in Romans 1:32. Further, same-sex marriage embraces a definition of humanity that is less than human and a definition of love that is less than love. And it is not freedom from religion that the advocates of same-sex marriage want; they want to repress one religion in favor of another. Christians must not go with the flow. They must instead love the advocates of same-sex marriage better than they love themselves precisely by refusing to endorse it.
I am saying this for the sake of you who are Christians, who affirm the authority of Scripture, who believe that homosexual activity is wrong, and who believe in the final judgment. I don't mean here to persuade anyone who does not share these convictions. My goal in all of this is to encourage the church to be the church. What good is salt that loses it saltiness? Or what use is light under a bowl? Rather, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Deeper Understanding of Humanity
I believe Voddie Baucham is exactly right to say that "gay is not the new black," and that we should not formally equate sexual orientation to ethnicity or sex as an essential component of personal identity. It is amazing to me that recent legal battles simply take this equation for granted without holding it up to the light and looking at it. There are several assumptions behind the idea that a person with same-sex attraction might say "I am a homosexual" in the same way someone might say "I am a male" or "I am black." First, one assumes that homosexual desires are rooted in biology and therefore a natural part of being human. Second, one assumes that our natural desires are basically good, so long as they don't hurt others. Third, one assumes that fulfilling such basic and good desires are part of being fully human.
All the talk about "equality" depends upon these foundational assumptions about what it means to be human. Marriage then becomes an important prize to be won for people with same-sex attraction because, as the oldest and most human of institutions, marriage publicly affirms these deep desires. Everybody who participates in a wedding—from the father who walks a bride down an aisle, to the company of friends, to the pastor leading the ceremony, to the state who licenses the certificate—participates in a positive and formal affirmation of a couple's union. It is hard to think of a better way to affirm same-sex desire as good and part of being fully human than to leverage the celebratory power of a wedding ceremony and a marriage. Make no mistake: The fundamental issue at stake in the same-sex marriage debate is not visitation rights, adoption rights, inheritance laws, or all the stuff of "civil unions." Those are derivative. It is fundamentally about being publicly recognized as fully human.
Biblically minded Christians, of course, have no problem recognizing people with same-sex attraction as fully human. There are members of my church who experience same-sex attraction. We worship with them, vacation with them, love them (keep reading). What Christianity does not do, however, is grant that fulfilling every natural desire is what makes us human.
Christianity in fact offers a more mature and deeper concept of humanity, more mature and deep than the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle has of him or herself. It is more mature because Christianity begins with the frank admission that fallen human beings are corrupted all the way down, all the way in. A child assumes that all of his or her desires are legitimate. Adults, hopefully, know better. And a mature understanding of fallen humanity recognizes that our fallenness affects everything from our biology and body chemistry to our ambitions and life loves. Same-sex attraction is but one manifestation. This is why Christ commands us to go and die, and why we must be born again. We must become new creations, a process that begins at conversion and will be completed with his coming. Also, the fact that Jesus is Lord means his authoritative claim on our lives reaches all the way down, all the way in. We have no right to stand before him and insist upon our definitions of masculinity, femininity, marriage, love, and sexuality. He gets to write the definitions, even when they go against our deepest desires and sense of self.
Rooted in biology or not, there is a difference between gender, ethnicity, and "orientation." Orientation consists primarily of—is lived out through—desire. And the fact that it involves desire means it is subject to moral evaluation in a way that "being male" or "being Asian" are not.
Here is what's often missed: neither the fact of the desire, nor its possible biological basis, gives it moral legitimacy. Don't mistake is for ought. We understand this quite well, for instance, when it comes to the behaviors associated with some forms of substance addiction or bipolar disorder. The biological component of these maladies certainly calls for compassion and reams of patience, but it does not make their attendant behaviors morally legitimate. To assume they do means treating human beings as just one more animal. No one morally condemns a leopard for acting instinctually. Yet shouldn't our moral calculations for human beings involve something more than assent to the biochemistry of desire? We are more than animals. We are souls and bodies. We are created in God's image. To legitimize homosexual desire simply because it's natural or biological, ironically, is to treat a person as less than human.
All of this is to say, Christianity not only offers a more mature concept of humanity, it offers a deeper concept. It says we are more than a composite of our desires, some of which are fallen, some of which are not.
Remarkably, Jesus says that our humanity goes deeper even than marriage and sex, and certainly deeper than fallen versions of them. He says that, in the resurrection, there will be no marriage or giving in marriage. Marriage and sex, it appears, are two-dimensional shadows that point to the three-dimensional realities to come. A person's humanity and identity in no way finally depends on the shadows of marriage. Dare we deny the full humanity of Christ because he neither consummated a marriage nor fathered natural children? Indeed, wasn't the full humanity of this second Adam demonstrated through begetting a new humanity?
There is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's version of the human being. It is inhumane to morally evaluate people as if they are animals whose instincts define them. And there is something inhumane about the homosexual lobby's quest for same-sex marriage. It is inhumane to call bad good, or wrong desires right. It is inhumane to equate a person with the fallen version of that person, as if God created us to be the fallen versions of ourselves. But this is exactly what same-sex marriage asks us to do. It asks us to publicly affirm the bad as good—to institutionalize the wrong as right.
Christianity says that we are not finally determined by ethnicity, sex, marriage, or even sinful desire. We are God-imagers and vice-rulers, tasked with showing the cosmos what God's triune justice, righteousness, and love are like. The Christian message to the person engaged in a homosexual lifestyle is that we believe they are even more human than they believe.
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