Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:50am

The Marriage Debate: Lessons and Prospects

A scene from the “Hunky Jesus” contest, held annually during Easter in San Francisco. Dozens of homosexuals dress up as Our Lord and engage in public homosexual acts for their amusement and the amusement of thousands of spectators. Its relevance for this post will become clear by the end of it.

Tom Hoopes at CatholicVote.org recently posted his assessment of what lessons the  “gay marriage” debate has taught those of us on the pro-tradition side. I was going to write about this myself, but I’ll go ahead and examine his four lessons as a starting point. My intention is be constructive, because as Hoopes correctly points out in his opening lines, the pro-equality side of this debate has been very successful at defining the parameters and central issues of the debate thus far. We need to assess and regroup. If Mr. Hoopes would like to reply to this, I would certainly welcome it.

1. We learned that being grossed out by homosexuality hurts us.”

Hoopes recalls a discussion with someone raised by homosexual parents:

“What people like my mom see in the religious right is people who say, ‘Ooo, this is icky and disgusting and horrible,’ reflexively, without explaining why,” he told me. “Then my mom and her friend look at their own lives, at their sacrifice and friendship and generosity and say, ‘Well, these people are just hate-mongers.’”

Hoopes concludes:

“There is no reason we should feel special disgust at homosexual acts compared to any other sexual sin. And there is no reason we can’t appreciate the mutual friendship and authentic love in a long-term homosexual couple. If we know what marriage is, a thousand such couples shouldn’t in any way threaten us.”

“Disgust” is a very peculiar phenomenon in that it is neither irrational nor easily expressed with words. Animals in nature have the physical senses to warn them of potential dangers; human beings in society have certain social senses to ward of certain dangers as well. I can’t explain why rotting garbage smells “bad” (even if I can offer a scientific account of why it smells the way it does); I affix the label “bad” to it because it is something I want to avoid, and I want to avoid it because I have an involuntary gag reflex that triggers when I inhale the odor.

Homosexual behavior is repulsive to us because it is harmful to society (more on that later), and we are social beings. The comforting narrative that homosexual activists have developed – that any aversion to homosexuality on the part of a heterosexual is a sign of repressed homosexual desires – is a way of making their positions and lifestyles unfalsifable. If you accept them, great. If you don’t, it is a sign that you secretly do. There can be no legitimate opposition. If you think gay is gross, you probably are gay. A fascinating self-defense mechanism, but one not supported by a shred of serious evidence.

Next, homosexuals aren’t averse to displaying their hearty disgust with heterosexuality (their derogatory name for us is “breeder”) when it suits their own desires and interests. They also go out of their way to provoke anger and disgust with their unjustifiably obscene public marches through major cities, which I consider to be acts of violent ideological aggression against Western Christian civilization. So I’ll take their complaints about our disgust seriously when that word is publicly denounced and banished from their lexicon, and when they aren’t actively trying to provoke disgust in society at large. To imagine that you can deliberately dress, speak and act in ways that you fully know and intend to make people uncomfortable and offended and then complain about people’s discomfort and offense has a proper label: sociopathy. To acquiesce to it is a sinful act of cowardice.

One other thing is required: an acknowledgement that the pro-tradition side has developed rational, secular arguments in favor of its position, instead of a default assumption that it is all either based on “eww gross” or decontextualized passages from the Pentateuch.

“2. Being okay with heterosexual sexual sin hurts us.”

True, but does it really need to be pointed out? Who among us “ok” with sin? The kind of people who tend to think that sin is no big deal, or doesn’t even exist, aren’t exactly the type of people to favor traditional marriage. The people who are in favor of traditional marriage at virtually any level beyond the ballot-box are well aware of the need for consistency on these matters. If major pro-tradition groups were habitually indicating that they were less than firm on matters such as pornography, fornication or adultery, then we might have a problem.

“3. Our opponents don’t have an argument, but they do have a history of injustice.”

So do Christians. Anti-clerical regimes led by Freemasons and Communists murdered millions of Christians in the 20th century all over the world. Christians are persecuted today by Islamic governments all over the world. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t read about an Islamic massacre of innocent Christian civilians somewhere between Morocco and Malaysia. Non-Christians don’t seem to care in the least. This doesn’t mean we should return the indifference, of course, but we should realize that “injustice” isn’t really the issue here.

Hoopes claims:

Our opponents’ tactics are undesirable, but understandable. Homosexuals have spent a lifetime being sneered at and bullied.

Certain homosexual individuals may experience bullying, yes. But the suggestion that radical gay political tactics are the result of bullying is really naive and must be challenged. These tactics are essentially continuing the tradition of radical left-wing tactics employed by communists, feminists, and others for over a hundred years now. It is about the unbridled pursuit of political power to establish domination and crush resistance. In other words, it is war. 

Radical homosexual groups routinely denounce anyone who disagrees with them, regardless of what they have actually said or done, as hateful, oppressive, and intolerant. They do not care whether or not such statements are truthful, because the ends justify the means. If it advances their political agenda to label all dissent and opposition as “hate”, then they will do it.

The CEO of Chick-fil-A was declared a gay-hating bigot on the basis of remarks that no sane or honest person would regard as hateful (which is why millions of people ended up supporting him). Is the explanation for this really that “gays have been bullied”? Of course not. The explanation is that they have absolutely no moral qualms about aggressively lying to achieve their goals, just as the pro-abortion group NARAL had no moral issues with saying that tens of thousands of women died from back-alley abortions every year. They didn’t.

“4. At this point, we can only win this the hard way: Through charity.”

Hoopes concludes:

The way pro-lifers turned the tide of abortion opinion was through charity: Finding the wounded people at the heart of the problem, and serving their real needs. Without the long, sustained effort at loving unwed mothers, we never would have had the pro-life victories we received.

Comparing the marriage debate to the abortion debate is a very risky maneuver. And it isn’t so easy to pin-point a single cause of the success of the pro-life movement. I happen to believe that it was the willingness of pro-life groups to be confrontational, especially with detailed, graphic images of aborted fetuses, that turned the tide. People needed to see that when we were talking about abortion, we weren’t talking about a “clump of cells.” People needed to see the mangled, butchered human form on display, because the success of the pro-choice movement depended almost entirely on the claim that the “fetus” wasn’t really a human being. Once we destroyed that claim, it was the beginning of the end.

In any case, one thing is certain: the pro-life movement has been on the offensive. It did not allow itself to be guilted and shamed into silence. Whenever some voice of “moderation” attempted to reign in the movement, the rank-and-file activists rejected them and became more outspoken. They did so because they know that there can be no compromise on the sanctity of life.

If we feel this way about marriage, then we must act it (and if we don’t, we really ought to shut up and go home). We must be on the offensive, relentless, confrontational, shocking – but always in truth. The images that destroyed the political power of pro-abortion groups were  truthful, they displayed a shocking reality. The pro-life movement always had truth on its side and so its confrontational tactics were perfectly justifiable. If the pro-tradition side of the marriage debate wants to succeed, it too must be confrontational in truth. And we can only do that when acknowledge that we are at war. 

 

 

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Paul W. Primavera
Monday, August 13, AD 2012 8:19pm

Good post, Bonchamps!

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Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 12:01am

[…] The Marriage Debate: Lessons and Prospects – Bonchamps, The American Catholic […]

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 3:54am

I believe that to introduce the morality of homosexual acts into a debate about civil marriage is a distraction. The argument is a simple one: (1) Mandatory civil marriage, makes the institution a pillar of the secular Republic, standing clear of the religious sacrament (2) The institution of republican marriage is inconceivable, absent the idea of filiation – the rule that the child conceived or born in marriage has the husband for father – enshrined, not in Church dogma, but in the Civil Code (3) The sex difference is central to filiation..

The state has a legitimate interest in marriage and it is important to note what precisely that is. Mandatory civil marriage originated in France on 9th November 1791 and was a product of the same Revolution that had just turned 10 million tenant farmers into heritable proprietors. This was no coincidence.

The Code of 1804 contained no formal definition of marriage, but jurists have always found a functional definition in the provision that “The child conceived or born in marriage has the husband for father,” which mirrors the doctrine of the Roman jurist, Paulus, “.pater vero is est, quem nuptiae demonstrant.” (Marriage points out the father) [Dig. 2, 4, 5; 1].

This was the opinion of the four most authoritative commentators on the Civil Code, Demolombe (1804–1887), Guillouard (1845-1925). Gaudemet (1908-2001) and Carbonnier (1908–2003), covering the period from the introduction of mandatory civil marriage down to our own day and long before the question of same-sex marriage was agitated. In 1998, a colloquium of 154 Professors of Civil Law, including Philippe Malaurie, Alain Sériaux, and Catherine Labrusse-Riou unanimously endorsed this interpretation of the Civil Code. This led to the introduction of civil unions (PACS) for same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike in the following year. Given this background, it is no wonder that, in the Bègles case, the attempt to establish the right to SSM on equality grounds was rejected by every court that heard it – the Tribunal of Grand Instance, the Court of Appeal in Bordeaux, the Court of Cassation, the Constitutional Council and the European Court of Human Rights.

No one will deny that the state has a clear interest in the filiation of children being clear, certain and incontestable. It is central to its concern for the upbringing and welfare of the child, for protecting rights and enforcing obligations between family members and to the orderly succession to property. To date, no better, simpler, less intrusive means than marriage have been found for ensuring, as far as possible, that the legal, biological and social realities of paternity coincide. And that is no small thing.

It is significant that, in a country so committed to the principle of laïcité as France, no one has suggested that the opinion of the jurists, or of the courts which have endorsed it, are either the result of religious convictions or an attempt to import them into their interpretation of the Code.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 7:06am

Bonchamps

It was intended to demonstrate that defence of traditional marriage need not concern itself with the morality or otherwise of homosexual behaviour. It is, after all, a juridical question and not a moral one.

Claims to SSM on equality grounds have been successfully defeated by concentrating on the simple question of how marriage differs from other forms of life for couples and the state’s interest in marriage as a legal institution, alongside, but different from these other forms.

Otherwise, civil unions for smae-sex couples will be regarded as “marriage-lite” and civil unions for opposite-sex couples, which are proving very popular in every country that has introduced them, are unintelligible.

Hmmm
Hmmm
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 7:12am

Bonchamps,

What Mr.Paterson-Seymour wrote has plenty to do with what you wrote. His argument, as I understand it, is that Christians confuse the immorality of the act that we are forbidden from doing by Christ’s law with the actions of the state to secure peace and public order.

These “gay rights” groups exploit this confusion full hilt by making the issue entwine the legal, social and ethical aspects of marriage in a way to normalize sodomy.

How are we to argue FOR a secular marriage (which the state provides) as a pillar of society between a man and woman if we can’t speak with clarity on what a secular marriage pertains and what the state’s interest in such a marriage is.

I agree with Mr.Paterson-Seymour that it confuses the audience of our times to combine the immorality of the Sodomic act with the legal and social aspects of marriage- which relies on a patrimony that is not possible by redefining marriage to include same sex couples. There is a reason why same-sex marriage (at least in the United States) started out as something pushed by the American Hard Left 60s activists, the SDS. The purpose, as it has always been, is to destroy the last vestiges of patriarchy and the traditional Western family. Forgive me for the long quote but it’s better to quote the essay, “The Emergence of Gay Liberation” by Estelle Fredman and John D’Emilio found within the textbook: A History of Our Time: Readings on Post-War America Forth Edition Edited by William H. Chafe and Harvard Sitkoff:

Appearing as it did at the end of the 1960s, gay liberation adopted much of the revolutionary rhetoric of the new Left. GLF’s [Gay Liberation Front] statement of purpose announced that “we are a revolutionary homosexual group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation of all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature…Babylon has forced us to commit ourselves to one thing…revolution!” Rather than fight the ban on homosexuals in the military, radical gays urged resistance to the Vietnam War. They marched in solidarity with groups such as the Black Panther party, and saw themselves as an integral part of the larger movement of oppressed minorities seeking the overthrow of a destructive social order.

In articulating a critque of America’s sexual mores, gay liberation borrowed heavily from the new literature of radical feminists. It argued that the oppression of the homosexuals stemmed from a rigidly enforced system of heterosexual supremacy that supported the primacy of the nuclear family and the dichotomous sex roles within it. Sex was just one more vehicle used to enforce subordination and keep the system functioning. For some, gayness itself symbolized an act of political resistance to conventional roles. “We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure,” wrote Martha Shelley of GLF. Rather than being abnormal, homosexuality was seen as a natural capacity in everyone, suppressed by family and society. Gay liberation promised an end to all that. “Gay is good for all of us, ” proclaimed Allen Young, a former SDS member who joined GLF in 1970:

The artificial categories “heterosexual and homosexual” have been laid on us by a sexist society….As gays, we demand an end to the gender programming which starts when we are born…The family…is the primary means by which this restricted sexuality is created and enforced…[O]ur understanding of sexism is premised on the idea that in a free society everyone will be gay.”

(Any highlighted parts were the work of this writer:)

This is clearly the political fight we are facing, and the integralist-Catholic position shouldn’t concede by placing the ethics of the Church into the fight as well.

Paul W. Primavera
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 7:20am

God thinks the moral dimension of SSM (or rather, the lack of one) is of greatest importance, and it is God’s opinion, not the State’s, that ultimate counts.

Personally, I don’t care how homosexual behavior is removed from the public square, so long as it is.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 9:26am

Paul W Primavera

Traditional marriage can be defended on its own terms as the legal institution that establishes the legal bond between fathers and their children. It is, thus, irrelevant to same-sex couples. In other words, there is different legal treatment of same-sex and opposite-sex couples, because their situation is not analogous. Surely, this is something on which unprejudiced people of good-will can agree.

Why cloud the issue by arguing about the morality of homosexual relationships? How does that advance the case?

Chris-2-4
Chris-2-4
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 1:25pm

Michael, everybody knows marriage can be defended on its own terms. The point is, we are not in a DEBATE about whether we should allow gay marriage in addition to traditional marriage. We are quite literally in a battle over the imposition of gay marriage by people who don’t give a damn about your well crafted arguments because they are too busy engaging in lewd public acts with the express purpose of offending people with small children and then using the opportunity to shame them into acceptance by calling them disgusting, breeder homophobes.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 1:45pm

Chris-2-4

Obviously, whatever one says will make no impact on partisan gay activists, but what the example of France shows is that such arguments can prevail with opinion-formers.

Virtually every professor of Civil Law took part in the 1998 Colloquium and they were unanimous in their opposition to SSM, although a majority approved of civil unions for same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike, as an alternative, not to marriage, but to unregulated cohabitation.

This, in turn, convinced the courts, which always take their cue from the jurists and even convinced that bastion of liberalism, the European Court of Human Rights.

That was the debate worth winning and it was won decisively.

In the US, by contrast, the supporters of traditional marriage have used arguments that allowed them to be cast as motivated by irrational animus or religious dogma. In France, such a charge would have been palpably absurd and no one ventured to make it,

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 2:14pm

Bonchamps

I would simply endorse what Hmmm says above

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 2:32pm

Well, “We learned that being grossed out by homosexuality hurts us.” is Hoopes’s complaint and I think it is well-founded.

You, in turn, seek to justify expressions of disgust – “Homosexual behavior is repulsive to us because it is harmful to society (more on that later), and we are social beings.” This may well be so, but prudence would suggest that we should not allow ourselves to be drawn on the topic. Rather, we should make clear our opposition to SSM is based on its absurdity.

Chris-2-4
Chris-2-4
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 2:42pm

One other thing is required: an acknowledgement that the pro-tradition side has developed rational, secular arguments in favor of its position, instead of a default assumption that it is all either based on “eww gross” or decontextualized passages from the Pentateuch.

I don’t know. Perhaps someone read the above and thought it was saying “we need to develop these rational, secular arguments”.

But Michael, if you read that, it clearly asserts that Bonchomps knows there are rational secular arguments like the ones you’re making and calls upon the activists to acknowledge their existence.

I don’t think Bonchamps was looking for a discussion of “Hey let’s come up with all the best rational, secular arguments in this post that we can use to win this culture war.”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 2:57pm

Chris-2-4

I still maintain that the two issues have been unnecessarily linked by the champions of traditional marriage in their discussion of the issue.

I do not suggest that “disgust with homosexual behavior – especially when it is deliberately provocative – is a moral failing, or something that needs to be thought-controlled at all times,” any more than my dislike of Crème de menthe is a moral failing/ But, I should not mention it in a discussion of the liquor licencing laws.

Pinky
Pinky
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 3:15pm

“2. Being okay with heterosexual sexual sin hurts us.”

OK, this is a fair point. Does anyone think that Newt would have received as many votes as he did if he’d had two dudes in his past? I think this is even more of a problem among evangelicals, who emphasize fidelity to one’s *current* spouse but ignore past marriages.

Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 5:03pm

I hope that we can defeat the militant homosexual movement at the election booth and in the court of public opinion. I also hope that those homosexuals who are trying to live chaste and celibate lives will not be discriminated against, harrassed or subject to persecution on the basis of their same-sex attraction or any other basis, for that matter.

However, when God was faced with militant homosexuality, He destroyed it with fire and brimestone. Yes, that was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah (contrary to liberal revisionist history and liberal theology). Of course, I do not advocate the first use of force against militant homosexuals any more than I advocate first use of force against the militant abortionists of Planned Parenthood. But the Democrats will give up neither homosexuality nor abortion without a fight. The Democrats proved this in the 1800s with slavery and it took a bloody civil war to put them down that time.

Now call me a pessimist and perhaps I am. But these evil, wicked, diabolical people will hold onto their sexual depravity and child-murdering in the same way that the people of Judah held onto theirs in spite of the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah. And let’s remember this one little thing: God does NOT change. If He was willing to prune the branches of the tree that was Israel, then He will do the same to us grafted in Gentiles exactly as St. Paul describes it in Romans chapter 11. Whether He does that by an asteroid strike on an evil nation (perhaps that was the fire and brimestone rained on Sodom and Gommorah), or He does that by allowing another bloody civil war is open to debate. I don’t want either of those alternatives and am praying for mercy, but unless we repent as a nation, then we can, must and should expect exactly one of those alternatives: natural disaster or war. We deserve no less, and indeed, because we have put up with “luv, tolerance and nice-nice-ness” these freaking godless sex-perverts, we are no better than the children of Israel who intermarried with the pagan Canaanites.

Cancer must be excised lest the patient die, and the excision is long overdue. We better repent before the Surgeon’s knife of eternal justice approaches.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 7:48pm

“– that any aversion to homosexuality on the part of a heterosexual is a sign of repressed homosexual desires – is a way of making their positions and lifestyles unfalsifable. If you accept them, great. If you don’t, it is a sign that you secretly do. There can be no legitimate opposition. If you think gay is gross, you probably are gay. A fascinating self-defense mechanism, but one not supported by a shred of serious evidence.” “There can be no legitimate opposition”

On the contrary: ” I DO NOT DO THAT”. “I WILL NOT DO THAT” “I VALUE MY IMMORTAL SOUL” “I AM GREATLY DISTRESSED FOR YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL” Pray with your body

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 8:01pm

Using the persona of Jesus Christ, claiming “in persona Christi” is a lie by the homosexual practitioners. Jesus Christ crucified is the only expression of Jesus Christ’s love for mankind allowable. Jesus Christ did not do the things these homosexual practitioners say He did. Therefore, they are kidnapping the Person of Christ to forward their position without Jesus Christ’s permission. It is like me saying that Proctor and Gamble makes Colgate toothpaste. It is a lie, like uttering a bad check, plagiarism, or perjury in a court of law. Make them put up or shut up, and stop using Jesus Christ’s name to further their own business until they bring forth evidence that Jesus Christ gave them permission to use HIS HOLY NAME. Holy Orders.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 8:15pm

“In articulating a critque of America’s sexual mores, gay liberation borrowed heavily from the new literature of radical feminists.”
Actually, it is the radical feminists who have prevented the maturation of the males amongs us. It is called emasculation. Homosexuality was, at one time, diagnosed as ‘arrested development’ by the American Psychiatric Association. The change to ‘normal’ was forced and demanded by the homosexuals themselves, kind of like practicing psychiatry and self-diagnosing oneself without a license. Now, I think I will elect myself president. Oh, Napoleon already has the job. It is late

Paul W. Primavera
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 8:34pm

Mary De Voe,

One cannot reason with or apply reason to baboons whose sole aim and goal is the publicly sanctioned – even glorification – of the titillation of their genitals. These people are without conscience and have demonstrated themselves to be less than sentient. There is a cure for such rabidness, and God visited that cure on Sodom and Gommorah. I pray that doesn’t have to happen again.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 9:18pm

Paul W. Primavera: And this in San Francisco waiting for the big earthquake. Except what you say is true. The homosexual will be shaking his fist at God while he goes down into the inferno. The Catholic Church is the only person authorized to act “in persona Christi” and like Mary who escaped into Egypt to protect baby Jesus, the Catholic Church can ask the court to cease and desist using the NAME of Jesus Christ on the grounds that these individuals are not ordained to do so. Real people have just as much right to be in the public street as anybody else. A procession with the crucifix will do.

One touch is assault and battery. Make my day.

It is not freedom of speech to utter another person’s name without the other person’s authorization. In legalese, it is called power of attorney. The Catholic Church has the authorization. Now, the homosexual agenda has to prove that they, too, have the authorization, or power of attorney to speak for Jesus Christ. It appears that the homosexual agenda does not have power of attorney to speak for Jesus Christ and a cease and desist order from the court is in order.

Paul, these people do not even know what “titillation of their genitals” is, having coarsened themselves into oblivion. That is the trouble with addiction.

Peter
Peter
Tuesday, August 14, AD 2012 11:14pm

As Jesus would say: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s (civil marriage, including gay marriage), and unto God the things that are God’s (religious marriage).”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 2:45am

Bonchamps

“For the love of all that is holy, we are not discussing the law here. We are discussing the battle for public sympathy and support.”

But public sympathy and support for what? For a change in the law. To achieve this, activists have had some success in persuading the courts that laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples have no rational basis. They also seek to persuade the electorate and legislators that the law can be changed without affecting the public, legal purpose of marriage.

Peter

The distinction between “civil marriage” and “religious marriage” does not hold water.

Marriage in its origin is a contract of natural law; it may exist between two individuals of different sexes although no third person existed in the world. In civil society, it becomes a civil contract regulated and prescribed by law and endowed with civil consequences. In most civilized countries, acting under a sense of the force of sacred obligations, it has had the sanctions of religion superadded; it then becomes a religious, as well a natural and civil, contract; for it is a great mistake to suppose that because it is the one, therefore it may not likewise be the other. But marriage remains one and the same for all that.

It is, perhaps, worth noting that, although the Mosaic law prescribes many ritual provisions for various offices and transactions of life, there is no ceremony prescribed for the celebration of marriage.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 3:34am

Bonchamps

You wrote, “There’s a difference between the battle and the merits of the objective”

And the battle will only be won by convincing those who have the power to shape public policy, in the courts and in the legislature of those merits. We will not do that, if our objections appear to be the rationalisation of anti-gay animus, or an attempt to impose religious values by law.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 5:51am

I certainly did not intend my remarks to have any personal application

Hmmm
Hmmm
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 6:38am

Bonchamps,

Not everyone who is against sodomy is “grossed out” by what is considered homosexual actions. (I include myself in that category.) The irrationality of act and how they define themselves is much more bothersome to me quite frankly. I don’t believe I’m too inured from having such a reaction but it may be the case. And that case, whether habituated or natural, is felt by an equal number of humans who don’t share your disgust for these actions. As I understand it, any argument (especially in modern-liberal milieu we exist in) that is premised on one’s disgusts isn’t go to go very far for this reason: People’s disgusts and reactions are predicated in a complex and not fully understood manner and when everyone is sovereign, there is no reason for me to entertain your disgusts more seriously than my own or any Joe and Jane American. From there, it is very easy to entertain the liberal’s propaganda that since his anthropology is uncertain; his ideas incorporate the universal (and natural) actions of all men as good or useful and makes no outcasts of those who agree to tolerate all differences despite anyone’s conventional and “small-minded” thinking. The “universal man” has no time for such the unsophisticated and petty reactions that arises from disgusts. And the majority of people, tepid in thought and action, would surely side with this for fear that they may find their habits and lives questioned for inducing a similar revulsion in one group or another down the line.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 6:46am

To portray or characterize Jesus Christ as virgin, innocent, as the TRUTH and perfect charity is true. Judas Iscariot hung himself and he burst open. Judas Iscariot literally “spilled his guts” for betraying Jesus Christ with a kiss. We have four witnesses to the TRUTH, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The bible tells us to add or subtract nothing from the TRUTH. Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of our hearts, as “it was not so from the beginning”.
When Jesus defined the relationship between the sexes “from the beginning”, Jesus defined human sexual behavior to eternity. When Adam knew Eve and Eve brought forth Cain, Abel and Seth, Eve was of the age of informed sexual consent. Both Adam and Eve were adults. Violating the law of God is known as “adultery” that is, not behaving as an adult would behave, but faking it.
Any sitting judge, who cannot discern the good from the evil or the TRUTH from the fake needs to be impeached, which simply means that the judge would be sent to live with his own ignorance or sin.
Now, these individuals claiming to portray Jesus Christ are liars and perjurers, or show me where in the Holy Scripture, the story of Jesus Christ’s life, does Jesus bless and approve such behavior. Jesus only denounces any sexual behavior outside of the bond between male and female, from the beginning unto eternity.

Pinky
Pinky
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 11:55am

If I may intrude on Bon and MP-S here, the traditional marriage crowd does have legal arguments, along with cultural, moral, and Biblical arguments. There’s also the visceral argument: the feeling that a lot of people get in their gut when they see homosexual acts. Everyone has a different personality, and that means that different arguments will reach different people. I don’t find Michael’s argument persuasive at all, but that’s just me. There isn’t going to be one argument that wins the day, I’ll bet.

Maybe I’m wrong. The natural law argument seems irrefutable. But that’s just me. I think a lot of people need some intellectual framework so they can say that their opposition to gay marriage isn’t just based on discrimination. For the past several decades, we’ve been retraining ourselves as a culture not to react to individuals outside our comfort zone. That’s a good thing, but it’s made us unable to trust our guts on gay marriage.

To a Catholic or an evangelical, the Biblical argument suffices. But it can always be rebutted by pointing to O.T. laws that no longer apply. Because the evangelical doesn’t understand ecclesiology, he can’t reply to that. The Catholic can, but he’s got to explain ecclesiology first, and a lot of people won’t bother to listen. An evangelical can bring up St. Paul’s writings, but then that degenerates into an argument about whether Paul was an apostle, the authenticity of the Bible, translation from the Greek, et cetera.

Anyway, my point is, we need to get all our arguments in a line, and know how to respond to the rebuttals. Even with all that, some people are still going to assume that we’re motivated by bigotry. The comparison to the pro-life movement is apt – but remember, we’ve only really begun that fight, and on our best day 45% of the population still disagrees with us.

Seraph
Seraph
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 2:00pm

The reason we feel disgust at Homosexual acts is because the are against the natural law and are unnatural. By definition these acts go against nature and are perverted.

Homosexual acts are not the same as Heterosexual acts. When a man fornicates with a woman, there is nothing disgusting about the act itself. Sex between a man and a woman is natural and normal. There is nothing unnatural or perverted about it. The problem is not the sexual act, but that the act was outside of marriage and is the sin of fornication. Sodomy and other Homosexual acts are always intrinsic evils and unnatural.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 5:02pm

If it is from God it will continue. If it is not of God it will die of itself. The homosexual does not being forth offspring which pretty much assures that the homosexual will die out. What is so outrageous is that the homosexual agenda is being enforced through the courts as legal, being taught in school as real. It is not real. A fake husband and a fake wife, a fake mother or a fake father is not real. No court ruling can make it real. There have been homosexuals since Sodom and Gomorrah but only now has homosexual behavior been codified as real. (In Sodom and Gomorrah the homosexuals had the upper hand, but that did not change the law of God) Here in America, homosexual behvior, abortion and prayer ban have become the law of the land. It is wrong to force a lie on anybody with a rational soul, especially someone who constitutes government and pays for government through taxes. The homosexual will argue that he pays taxes but like the atheist, the homosexual must have something to come home to and that is the truth.

MPS; ” or an attempt to impose religious values by law.” All religious values are imposed by law, leaving only vices on the outside. That is why they are called outlaws. “Render unto Caesar” Caesar belongs to God. Or do you think that Caesar created himself?

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 15, AD 2012 5:38pm

Hmmm: ” From there, it is very easy to entertain the liberal’s propaganda that since his anthropology is uncertain; his ideas incorporate the universal (and natural) actions of all men as good or useful and makes no outcasts of those who agree to tolerate all differences despite anyone’s conventional and “small-minded” thinking. The “universal man” has no time for such the unsophisticated and petty reactions that arises from disgusts. And the majority of people, tepid in thought and action, would surely side with this for fear that they may find their habits and lives questioned for inducing a similar revulsion in one group or another down the line.”

The “universal man” has a rational and immortal soul and a destiny in eternity. The man is composed of human body and rational soul. Homosexual behavior ignores the transcendence of man, the evil to avoid and the holiness that must be pursued.

Our founding principles are grounded in Divine Providence and our unalienable rights are endowed by “their Creator”. Without God, man has only himself, as you stated. But with God,”their Creator” man has been guaranteed FREEDOM,TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 2:00am

Mary De Voe wrote MPS; ” or an attempt to impose religious values by law.” All religious values are imposed by law, leaving only vices on the outside.

But that is simply not true. When the Code Napoléon was adopted in most of Europe, it expressly abolished offences against religion, notably blasphemy, sodomy and witchcraft. This was in accordance with the Roman principle, deorum injuria diis cura – offences against the gods are the gods’ business. If they are food citizens in this world, the magistrate need not concern himself with their destination in the next.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 9:32am

“…but rather to impose social equality and criminalize religious institutions that refuse to recognize homosexuality as morally valid”. Marriage is an act of God. Militant homosexuality intends to impose the state over the will of God among the people of God, destroying the knowledge of the human being as composed of body and soul and the state as servant of the people of God. Same thought, dfifferent words.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 10:16am

Michael Paterson-Seymour:

Again, religion is man’s response to the gift of Faith from God. The Triune God is Three Divine Persons in one God. It is the Person of God in man’s human, rational, immortal soul, WHO gives man his sovereign personhood and all endowed unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It is the Supreme Sovereign Being WHO gives the human being existence. God is existence; which begs the question: “If the atheist rejects God, Existence Himself, does the atheist exist?” Hmmm, being fallible has its perks. (Isn’t this why the devil himself acknowledges almighty God, refuses to obey, but, the devil himself knows God)

Human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights.

The Supreme Sovereign Being is perfect Generosity, perfect Charity and perfect LOVE. God is VIRTUE, all VIRTUE, no vice. God created man in original innocence with sovereign personhood. Man constituted government for the purposes inscribed in our founding principles, acknowledging “their Creator”, “unalienable rights”, “Divine Providence”, “to secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our (constitutional) posterity” among other rights. The right to the TRUTH, the whole truth and nothing but the TRUTH is every man’s right expressed in a court of Justice. Man as a sovereign person, as a human being with body and soul, has a right to the TRUTH. The TRUTH is found only in virtue. The TRUTH is never found in vice.

FREEDOM is granted by God. Would one impose Rousseau’s, Napoleon’s or Roman FREEDOM on man to bless the human race, or God’s FREEDOM?

Sorry, Michael Paterson-Seymour, I espouse the perfect FREEDOM granted by God in all virtue without vice, and as far as the imposition of Divine Providence on the American citizen, it has already been done in the Declaration of Independence.

Nardia
Nardia
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 3:33pm

People, you are missing the point. The objective is not to convince the homosexual activists. The objective is to convince the society at large, that may not share our religious values. They have to be convinced using secular arguments.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 3:47pm

Nardia: “People, you are missing the point. The objective is not to convince the homosexual activists. The objective is to convince the society at large, that may not share our religious values. They have to be convinced using secular arguments.”

How secular are the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution or even the Emancipation Proclamation, and/or the Gettysburg Address?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, August 16, AD 2012 4:30pm

Plato: Gorgias: “the passive homosexual” as ridiculous, loathsome, disgraceful, shameful, and wretched.

Plato’s writings contain numerous condemnations of homosexual intercourse. See Laws 636c. Plato, speaking through the character of the Athenian stranger, rejects homosexual behavior as “unnatural” (para physin), describes it as an “enormity” or “crime” (tolmema), and explains that it derives from being enslaved to pleasure. Plato, and other great pre-Christian thinkers, rejected homosexual acts on moral grounds.

Gay marriage is solely about those getting “married.” This narcissism is the main difference with valid marriage.

Sodomy is solely for and about those engaging in it (mutual masturbation). It is illicit, sterile, and separated from God. It denies God as Creator. It denies the purpose of God’s creation and His participation with us in the Creation of children. To put forth this foul abomination as equivalent to marriage denies the barrenness of sodomy, which is the goal of all this bloody nonsense.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, August 17, AD 2012 2:48am

T Shaw

Aristotle’s comments are interesting.

“Others arise as a result of disease [??????] (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate the liver of his fellow), and others are morbid states resulting from custom, e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these sex with men [?????????? ???? ???????]; for these arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, from habit.” [Nicomachean Ethics Book 7:5] [Arist Eth Nic 1148b 27-30]

His equation of sodomy with nail-biting or eating coal may seem fanciful, but what they have in common is their essential futility. I am sure that Aristotle intended these rather bizarre illustrations to emphasise the main point: that there are no “reasons” for bad choices- just causes.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, August 17, AD 2012 5:31am

Michael Paterson-Seymour:

Thank you.

I never dreamt I could say the following, “Apparently, Aristotle, Plato, and I have something in common.”

It seems liberals think they are smarter than Aristotle, Newton, Plato; not to mention God Almighty.

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