I am sorry, Mr. Moto is completely right. A man sticking his penis in the mouth of a consenting man, in the privacy of the one of their homes, is completely ruinous to public morals, goes against the concepts of right and wrong, and shows they can not be trusted in business affairs.
I was a jackass for ever thinking differently. :dubious:
Look, you’re posts are jumbled and contradictory, Scott Plaid, which is likely an indication that your thinking on this subject is similarly flawed.
Gay or straight has nothing to do with it. Sex in general is caught up in morality in a million different ways. If somebody cheats on another, and they have an exclusive monogamous relationship, that’s immoral. If one partner doesn’t let the other one know of a sexually transmitted disease that they carry, that’s immoral too.
Consent has nothing to do with it, and neither does the sex of the people involved.
I could come up with many more, but these two are sufficient to show that I am right, and you are wrong.
Thou speakest with forkèd tongue, Happy Scrappy Hero Pup.
You explicitly stated in the post I replied to that you did not support the right of gay people to be married. Explicitly. Have you changed your mind? You can’t claim it’s a minor quibble, because you yourself drew a distinction between gay marriage and gay civil unions. You can’t claim that the distinction is irrelevant if you support one and oppose the other.
Meanwhile, I’m opposed to the government’s symbolic declaration that my relationships are worth less than hetero relationships.
A completely irrational declaration. The Catholic Church already, as I mentioned in my last post, maintains stricter rules on marriage than the state. It won’t marry divorced persons. It’s common, at least (perhaps not Church law - I don’t know) for Catholic weddings to require premarital counseling, and only Catholics may be married in a Catholic church.
Are you under some sort of bizarre misapprehension that the federal government would - or legally could - force Catholic clergy to perform gay marriages? What, did you fail high school civics? "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment . . . " and all that jazz?
Excuse me? My reasoning was quite explicit. I started by noting that you supported gay civil unions and opposed gay marriage, for explicitly religious rationales. Do you read the contents of your post differently than that? Thus you wish to use the law of your church as the law of the land. You decided that your church’s definition of marriage should prevent my church from performing gay marriages. Where did I go wrong in my reasoning? I’m genuinely curious, because I took only your post and made the obvious conclusions from it.
I don’t understand what you could mean with that last quote - because you explicitly declared that you do not support the right of gay people to get married - you only support the separate but equal institution of “civil union”. Thus, marriage is a right you wished to be reserved to hetero couples. You explained that Scott Plaid, in your view, is “perfectly willing to restrict my Church’s right and duty to interpret the will of God.” Since you wish gay marriage to be banned not only within the Catholic church - where it will be banned no matter what the government decides - but also within the United States as a whole, you clearly feel that your church’s right and duty to interpret the will of God also involves applying that will to those outside of your church. If you don’t like the nasty implications of what you said, then examine it carefully.
But don’t call it a semantic distinction in one breath, and in the next support civil unions and oppose gay marriage. Clearly, you agree that the distinction is far more than merely semantic. Certainly I think with the very real threat to gay people’s rights - including adoption, housing, employment, the ancillary benefits of marriage, and most importantly (and sadly still relevant) our rights to live lives free of violence - is such that fighting against a symbolic “fuck you” by the U.S. government is not our highest priority. But don’t vote for the insult and then tell me it doesn’t matter. Either it’s a semantic distinction, and thus you feel the same way about both, or it’s an issue with very real, if symbolic, import - you don’t get to have it both ways.
A gay sex act can never be immoral?
Think about that statement while you take some deep breaths.
It’s not hard to think of gay sex acts that are immoral.
Excalibre, go back and read my posts again, specifically these parts:
and
We’re quibbling over semantics. I’m not trying to deny you anything.
Don’t be a dick. Either that, or don’t telegraph that you failed basic reading comprehension.
I’m not worried about the federal government forcing my church to do anything.
I apologized for insisting on applying my own meanings to terms that are applicable to situations outside the scope of my own argument, and then I agreed with you that sexual orientation ought not be a disqualifier for any right, privilege, or obligation of citizenship.
And I have not used the term “civil union” in this debate, and I don’t intend to.
It’s my assertion that gay marriage (the State kind) ought to be exactly the same as straight marriage (the State kind). Just don’t expect the Catholic Church to follow suit or demand that it ought to.
I agreed with you a few posts back, man. Don’t let that stop you from condemning me if you don’t want to stop, but it’s always been useless and now even yout tenuous semantic excuse is gone.
And I agree with your take on it. Uner the OP’s premise, one could just as easily state that we should have NO respect for people who support homosexuality and gay marriage. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
The sword cuts both ways. Or the brush paints in both directions, whichever is more applicable.
Never can be, no. But so can heterosexual acts, such as rape. What does this have to do with anything at all?
Why don’t you tell us, since you’re the one who brought it up?
I claimed that HRHP said that homosexual acts were instrinsically immoral. That is keeping with the fact that in the past, he has claimed that the church says gay people should not do what their hearts tell then to do, that is to say, make love to their loved ones, but instead stay celebate, as indeed a reading of the basic texts would tell you, combinded with the fact that he supports the statements of that same church in the thread I last linked too.
So what? You certainly are aware that HSHP’s notions of morality are binding on him only? As a Catholic, the most he can do is see to his own moral behavior and the education of his children that he raises within Church traditions.
I know this, being Catholic myself.
Now, if you’d like to talk about the law, then that’s another thing. But HSHP
supports civil marriage for gays, and I support civil unions for them. So what’s your beef?
No, I didn’t. I said that this is Church teaching.
No, I didn’t.
That’s a big and somewhat inconsistent jump.
I believe the word you’re looking for is “chaste.” If you’re going to put words in my mouth, don’t make me sound as stupid as you sound here.
Why don’t you make an assertion rather than pester me with vagaries?
Bricker, the one problem I have here with your current stance is trying to work Full Faith and Credit into it. It may be easier to consider mixed race marriages, as I consider the situation equivalent. It may not, also. But what would have happened if a black/white couple was married in New York, then moved to, say, Arizona under Even Mecham?
I don’t like arguing morals - or rather, I don’t like arguing that another person’s moral system is fundamentally wrong. Just as you feel perfectly right in saying gay sex is morally okay (and I would obviously agree with you. It’s fun, too.) someone who is a member of a church, and a decent human being besides (and no, Scott Plaid one does not preclude the other) is just as correct in saying otherwise - their morals have as much basis in fundamental truth as yours or mine. Granted, this idea can no doubt be stretched to a ridiculous extent (so please don’t bother trying) - but fundamentally, I think it’s sound to say that a person who does not share my moral views is not wrong from any perspective except my own; they are not necessarily flawed in character.
Which is why I take a pragmatic approach to the question. It makes more sense, I believe, to argue that others have a right to violate my moral code on their own, and I have a right to violate theirs as well. The only reasonable bound for this right is when it interferes with another person’s fundamental rights: you don’t have the right to kill not because it is immoral (though most would believe it is) but because it violates another person’s right to live.
I don’t see the point in condemning HSHP’s moral system, if indeed that’s what he believes. As long as he doesn’t interfere with my right to practice hot gay lovin’ all night long in my own home, it makes no sense to force a screaming match. (Incidentally, I have a friend who is a devout Catholic, and who respects my right to be gay while believing it is morally wrong. I would hate to lose him in my life, and we are perfectly able to get along with differing moral viewpoints.)
Tell me, then, were my reading comprehension better, how would I have construed this sentence (set off in its own paragraph for emphasis, no less: “However, I do oppose gay marriage.” Please help your reading-impaired friend Excalibre understand why this doesn’t actually indicate opposition to gay marriage.
Another part where I perceive a contradiction, though clearly one must not exist:
“Where does that put me? You’re using a distinction I routinely draw to make one of your ‘points,’ yet you’re perfectly willing to restrict my Church’s right and duty to interpret the will of God.”
I assumed that “you’re perfectly willing to restrict my Church’s right and duty to interpret the will of God” to mean that by condemning opposition to gay marriage, Scott Plaid was somehow restricting the Catholic Church’s right and ability to interpret the will of God. Clearly, again I was wrong. Please elaborate.
Are you saying that queermos can vote? Thank you. We appreciate it.
You “oppose gay marriage” while supporting unions “grant[ing] same-sex couples the exact same rights (and obligations) under the law as mixed-sex couples.” I agree that you have not used the phrase “civil union,” but it sure sounds to this reading-impaired 'mo that you’re suggesting exactly that: a separate-but-equal union for gay couples. One that is not “marriage.”
Again, why do you keep specifying that you want the Catholics left out of it? You did so in your first post in the thread. Who do you think would expect that? No one expects the Church to relax its other conditions on marriage, which are indeed stricter than the states. Do you expect jack-booted government thugs to force a sobbing priest to give the sacrament of marriage to leatherdykes?
I’m trying hard to give you a chance to explain statements that seem contradictory to me. I’m really willing to listen, even if my snarkalyzer has kicked up a couple notches since the thread began. If I misunderstood something, please do explain it.
Maybe his “beef” is that you’d say that after writing your first paragraph. What, exactly, is your basis for supporting civil unions for homosexuals? How is that different than “civil marriage for gays,” exactly? What grounds do you base it on? How, exactly, do you justify unions for homosexuals and marriage for heterosexuals?
It sure as hell better not be on the basis of morality or religion, because your notions of morality and religion are binding on you only.
Sweet Jesus.
I did, man.
Right here:
I used “marriage” to mean the Catholic ceremony, in the context of Catholicism. And I was wrong to do that. It muddied the issue.
Seriously, stop being a dick.
So, to sum up, I oppose Catholic marriage for homosexual couples.
I support state/secular marriage for homosexual couples. Not a seperate-but-equal institution, the same institution.
I’m willing to apoligize if I have been less than clear. But I think that if you go back and read my posts without the “I must snark this” filter, you’ll see that I’ve said the same thing before.
Two reasons.
First off, I don’t believe gay marriage is possible in America right now, unless it is imposed by the judiciary. That is an undemocratic solution that can create a backlash (currently being felt) and so far has not addressed the problem that many benefits ancillary to marriage are federal ones.
Meanwhile, Connecticut has passed civil unions with little opposition. I think they could similarly pass at the federal level and be linked to federal benefits.
Also, many people I have known have set up households where no sexual relationship was present, yet the issues of taxation, medical decision making, and such were still present. My best friend growing up lived with his mother and his aunt. They couldn’t be married, gay or straight - their relationship in no way resembled a marriage. Yet a civil union would have suited them well.
I believe that a civil union should be open to any two people not currently in a traditional marriage, and that benefits should be equivalent.
These are practical considerations. You’re welcome to disagree, but note that they aren’t rooted in moral arguments. This is completely separate from the Catholic notion of marriage, which is a sacrament routinely denied to many people considered married by the government.
That sacrament is between my wife and me, our kids, and our church, and doesn’t involve you in any way.
It sounds like it, but just because a majority of people don’t feel ready for it is no more of a reason then when the big argument of the day was integration into schools. What is actually done, legally, ideally, should have EVERYTHING to do with a basic conception of equality before the law, along with a certain guarantee to happiness and liberty, and nothing to do with what is “practical.”
Now, I understand that to get an ideal state of civil unison into effect would require a new set of laws that pretty much duplicates all the same legal rights of marriage. Now, not only is that insulting to a loving relationship, but given the current state of the union, it is likely that any bill guaranteeing “civil unions” that are just like marriages in all but name, would go through so many “compromises” that it would turn out as having less legal protection then a real marriage would provide. Contemptible. :mad:
Agreed.
The internal struggle between my pragmatism (I am essentially pragmatic in most of my life) and my political idealism is more frustrating on this issue than on any other.
Catholics didn’t create marriage, like many other institutions they took possession of it and then acted as if they always owned it.
When will the Catholic Church cease to behave like the universe revolves around them like a priest and his harem of altar boys?
“Catholic marriage” is just as viable a term as “Jewish marriage” or “Unitarian marriage” or “state marriage.”
I’m Catholic. And I’m not going to make up a new word for my joining ceremony just so you can take cheap digs at my religion.
We didn’t create marriage, but we have just as much right to it as anyone else, remember? Equality?
The second part of your quote, Mockingbird, is beneath you. At least Excalibre has valid points underneath the snark. All you’ve got so far in this thread is cheap jokes and vitriol.