Do you honestly see no difference between the intimacy my boyfriend and I share and my giving to the community? Do you think the community and I can lie together, talking in the dark until the early morning, making each other laugh, healing old wounds, making each other feel accepted, loved, whole?
Do you think the community is there to support my boyfriend when he’s dealing with his family, and the long slow painful process of coming out to them? Do you think they’re there to comfort me in the middle of my long unemployment? Do you think they boost my boyfriend’s self-esteem, and help him realize just how beautiful, funny, smart, and strong he really is?
The point being, love between two individuals and love for a community are very much different things. Sure, I’m proud of the work that I do in giving to my community. But I’m prouder still of the difference I’ve made in my boyfriend’s life, and happily amazed at the difference he’s made in mine. Sometimes the world is improved most when we change each other for the better, one person at a time.
Besides, I’m an agnostic. We don’t have monastic orders. Or if we do, I’m unaware of them.
I agree with priceguy that things are getting a bit unrealistic. I also agree with him that the definitions of “virgin” and “fornicate” are not black-and-white. Who are you, and who is that OB/GYN to decide who a virgin is and who isn’t? Even a simple check of Merriam-Webster reveals that the word has many definitions, some of which are extremely broad.
Let’s be real here: at the end of a hard day at the soup kitchen or animal shelter or homeless rights coalition, are YOU going to want to crawl into a cold bed all alone? Are you going to want to spend your golden years without ever having enjoyed an intimate one on one relationship? I bet you dollars to donuts that you aren’t. You CAN serve your community AND have a romantic life. The fact that you wish to deny people that shows me how little compassion you have towards gay people.
[QUOTE}Love expressed nonsexually towards a community is a lot more beneficial for the world than loving just one person. That’s why becoming a member of the clergy shouldn’t be a problem, if you are honest about having so much love to give.[/Quote]
Why does it have to be either/or? Why can’t a gay person do great good works and also have a spouse? Plenty of married straight people can have both. You conveniently ignore the enormity of the joy one can only attain through a partnership with one person. It’s very unkind to wish to deny people that because some book (that you only follow parts of, the parts that appeal to you) says so.
Also, why would a gay person want to join the clergy of a church that thinks his basic nature is evil and shameful?
Apples and oranges. We’re not talking about government, we’re talking about religions. YOU said religious practices should be “decided by the adherents.” I never voted for the Pope; it doesn’t work that way. Religious dogma is decided by the upper echelons of the clergy and rarely do we ever get a John XXIII who gives a flying fuck what the laity want.
“Do you think the community and I can lie together, talking in the dark until the early morning, making each other laugh, healing old wounds, making each other feel accepted, loved, whole?”
—Well, if you’re this girl I went to college with, Lynnie, you could . . .
It’s my understanding of Christian doctrine (for those sects that find celibacy relevant) that celibacy itself is a calling, and a very rare one at that, and that part of its significance and meaning within the church comes in recognition of that special calling.
If I were a Christian who invested particular meaning in celibacy, I’d be reluctant to dilute the meaningfulness of that particular calling by attempting to co-opt all the people whose truer calling is to love people with particular traits into it.
I know people with callings (in various different faiths and directions), and my respect for the concept of being called is driven by the knowledge that there are people who take on paths I and others find difficult or even impossible and succeed, because that is their true course. Diverting people into a calling when they do not feel the call feels to me like setting them up for failure, and in doing so degrading the meaning and significance of being called.
Esprix, is “gracious my” the fabulous equivalent of “gotcha ya”?
A warm and loving community can be a great deal of personal emotional solace – but I fail to see the reason why a person who has fallen in romantic love with another should be compelled to find his solace in the support of a community instead of joining in a covenanted union with that other person, presuming both wish to do so.
The priesthood is a vocation, not a refuge for those who are trying to avoid some aspect of life. Unu Mondo, I’m astounded at your suggesting it for gay men as an alternative to marriage, and really wish you’d explain your thinking in more detail. I think I’m opposed to the suggestion, but you may have something in mind I haven’t thought of, rather than the “refuge” thing of my first sentence here.
As for fornication, it’s sex performed without a commitment for the purpose of gratifying sexual urges. While it’s possible to so define marriage and committed relationship that all gay sex is ipso facto fornication, that produces the classic Catch-22 already mentioned here. As for whether or not people having gay sex are having sexual intercourse, I trust we don’t need to do Clinton theology in this thread. :rolleyes:
And in case anybody has not gotten the message, what gays are talking about in seeking to have their marriages legally recognized is not your “condoning” their sex lives – but rather the recognition that the two parties to a gay marriage feel towards each other much the same as you do towards your spouse if you’re married, and for the others much the same as you’d want to feel towards your prospective spouse to contract a marriage. I get terribly ticked off when I hear the idea that anybody’s marriage is reduced in someone else’s thinking to the sexual/reproductive element – almost the only Pit threads I’ve ever started have been against two nimblewits who decided that “the purpose of marriage is children.”
I’m going to take back an earlier comment. The more I think about it, the “impact on marriage” argument doesn’t persuade me too much against homosexuality. IIRC, the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) rejects consequentialism as a method of argumentation; in other words, a negative impact of something might be cause for a prudential restraint, but it doesn’t per se make something morally invalid.
I am a straight, Christian female who hasn’t been given the privilege of marriage yet. It’s not entirely my choice, but it is my current lot in life, and it may be I’m never going to marry. I’m ok with that possibility, and I am active in this and a variety of communities. I have wonderful friends, and, if it were only sex I wanted, I can think of a few gentlemen who’d be happy to oblige. The thing is, a warm hug, or even a group cuddle might be wonderful, but they’re not the same as having someone of my own to come home to.
I was taught that for me to be interested in anyone is unacceptable, and that I was too ugly, too unpopular, and too somehow unacceptable for anyone to ever want to marry me or even, bluntly, fuck me. While I’ve overcome those lessons, I would not wish that fate on anyone, homosexual or straight. Have I been able to dedicate my life more fully to God? Probably. After all, I don’t have to take another person’s wishes into account when choosing what to do with my time. On the other hand, why should I expect, say, Mr. Visible to be happy to have more time to spend on a God he doesn’t worship? I also find it ironic that some of the people who insist homosexuals should be celibate are unwilling to be so themselves. I say unwilling because, if they say homosexual sex is a choice, well, so is heterosexual.
I’m not lonely; I’m not unhappy, but on the other hand, it would be nice if someone else would cook dinner tonight, or if I could ask someone how his day went. For those of you who have such a person, give them an extra hug for me. For those of you who don’t, if you’re straight or bi- males, my e-mail address is in my profile.
Thank you, ResIpsaLoquitor for a, ahem straight answer. I’ve been asking this for a while and many of your more conservative brethren (and sistren) have bee strangely silent.
Well, I want to be up front that as a Catholic, I have the traditional “issues” with homosexuality. However, I’m also in search of a better answer as to why it’s considered immoral, as threads like this prove that the ones provided just aren’t good enough.
I’m in a legal philosophy class right now, and a number of my classmates have a foregone conclusion that homosexuality is wrong with stock answers to back it up. I point out that that’s fine (or, I suppose, not fine to some people here), but they’re not going to be good enough for two guys who are care totally for one another. Religious theory is fine, but it can’t exist in a vacuum where real people, gay or not, are involved.
Um, yes they often are. There are plenty of devout homsexual Catholics who have chosen to live lives of celibacy because of the moral system of the Church in which they believe.
Its statements like this that’ve made me a Catholic-in-exile. I can take outright condemnation. I can tolerate someone saying I’m totally evil. But this nice “you’re only evil if you actually fall in love” schtick? It makes me wanna retch.
Catholicism nearly ruined my life because I almost was willing to believe that Jesus liked my love of another person less than he liked a heterosexual’s. Now I just think its a bunch of bullshit.
Um, yes they often are. There are plenty of devout homsexual Catholics who have chosen to live lives of celibacy because of the moral system of the Church in which they believe.
See, and Priam’s posting proves my point. I’m aware that there’s celibate homosexual Catholics out there, but they’re in the minority. My point was that, in practice, the approach most Catholics (and I say “Catholics” in distinction from Church teaching itself) use with homosexuals completely ignores that they’re persons with needs, wants, and both the desire and capacity to love and be loved. If you take away their ability to act on what they perceive as their nature, what are you offering them in return?
From their standpoint, probably not a whole lot. Given that kind of treatment, I have a hard time blaming gays for rejecting the church.
I’d also like to point out that while I’m sure there are plenty of gay people successfully living celibate lives, just like there are plenty of straight folk, one vital difference is overlooked.
The straight people chose, with no outside force compelling, to aim for that life.
So what does this mean? A gay devout Catholic is forced by a supposedly loving and appreciative Church into two positions.
Reject the religion - A painful choice for those who truly believe Catholic dogma outside of this issue, and potentially life-toppling as a major pillar of support is removed from under you.
Attempt to reject the feeling - Because of what others think, you can choose to impose a celibacy on yourself that you would not otherwise pursue. All well and good if it really worked. This strikes me as only slightly better than marrying an opposite gender partner, because at least here its only hurting you when a slip-up occurs. And yet, I have a hard time believing a devout gay Catholic attempting the celibacy enjoined on them by doctrine would not feel incredible depression each time they failed. This strikes me as a path to suicide for those without the gift.
Frankly, Catholicism’s position on homosexuality is the worst of the bunch. At least the other denomenations don’t try to come off as sweetness and light when inflicting judgement and pain on a gay person. Because when we make no bones about it, a Southern Baptist position of hellfire is predicated on the same act as the Catholic position: same-gender sex. The only difference is a Catholic might be willing to concede its not a choice.
I vote they both get stuffed, but at least I can show some respect for those who aren’t attempting to smoke-screen their statements in goody-goody gobbledeegook.
Unfortunately, the only cite I have is personal acquaitance, and I doubt the people concerned and the Board would not be happy if I outed people here. I’ll browse around the Internet and see if I can find statistics for you.
