Except of course that married gay couples in those states aren’t married in the eyes of the federal government. They’re still a long way from true marriage equality.
Because ideology and rhetoric are far more comfortable to swathe yourself in than cold, hard reality and evidence.
The war on drugs is predicated on the notion that people being freely able to take drugs will lead to an increase in drug use and the start of the disintegration of society (I’m simplifying but that’s the emotive core of it). However if you point to actual places where drugs are decriminalised (Portugal) or legalised/regulated (the Netherlands) you have no evidence of this outcome, so the premise of the argument is clearly flawed. The fact that the US is still waging the war on drugs, even when other countries have stopped and managed to not fall into the sea, and in spite of the growing body of academic opinion that says the war is hurting more than it is helping, shows that the policy is based on anything but evidence.
It’s the same for those who continue to hold views on homosexuality that they claim are about the good of society, or the family, or the sanctity of marriage etc but which actually are just them saying they don’t like it, because the evidence from the countries which have SSM shows that none of the doomsday prophecies ever come true. As a gay myself I can actually reconcile myself far more easily to someone who says “I just don’t like homosexuality, I think it’s wrong because I do, and that’s that” than to someone who tries to pull some bullshit justification out of their backside which they feel then legitimises their view. It’s the reason why I won’t give religion a pass on this at all, and I don’t understand the need to give “religious conscience” a free ride when it comes to practising discrimination.
I realize the premise quoted by the OP is what would happen if society’s views on SSM became analogous to those on race, in which opponents were generally viewed as being so far out of the mainstream that simply being Catholic (or whatever) would have the stigma of being in some white nationalist party, or whatever. But I don’t think the comparison to race is the most likely.
I think if SSM becomes a widely accepted practice in the US, it would be viewed similar to the abortion issue. The law is the law, it is argued about but is upheld, and having a different viewpoint on the issue would most certainly not be a scarlet letter.
I’m Catholic and honestly the the fierce opposition the church has to homosexuality has a shaky grounding at best. There’s like, what 2 or 3 passages that address it? There are probably more instances advocating the stoning of adulterers. It’s paranoia and frankly of all the Catholics I know I can think of one person who actually holds the line with the Church and frankly he’s a douche.
So - tangential question, is there ANY way those of us in the church can sway doctrine?
Although that’s true, it should be held in mind that — in the eyes of the Catholic Church — any sexual act must be open in principle to the possibility of conception. (Ignoring for a moment such cases as sterile married couples.) This fact alone would forbid any kind of same-gender sexual activity. Don’t forget that the Church seems to hold that the best kind of life to lead, outside of the vocations, is in marriage with lots and lots o’ children; to them it seems wrong (“unnatural”, “disordered”) to desire otherwise.
Waiting and hoping? That’s about it.
(FWIW, and maybe not very much, I had a fairly recent brief flirtation with Catholicism. One issue that shook me out of it was the Church’s view of persons like me, who do not desire children — it’s one thing to forbid sex but another to insinuate there’s something wrong with me.)
Americans are pretty famous for being Cafeteria Catholics, so I can see them being pretty much in the mainstream on SSM, as they are on abortion. But I can’t see the Church itself reversing it’s stance on homosexuality. I mean, they’re still anti birth control!
I’d use a stronger word than “naive” if it really never occurred to this guy that if opposition to same-sex marriage comes to widely be seen as equivalent to racism then opponents of same-sex marriage will be seen as equivalent to racists. He doesn’t need to personally believe that this is fair to see that the former would almost certainly lead to the latter.
I suspect this was actually just an attempt to play the victim and make same-sex advocates look like the real bigots, who if they had their way would discriminate against people based on their religious beliefs. In reality there’s no way it would become legal to prohibit same-sex marriage opponents from running for public office, etc., they’d just be very unlikely to win due to the unpopularity of their non-mainstream views. As for Catholics, I personally know quite a few Catholics who are all for same-sex marriage. Looking at Wikipedia’s list of countries that already recognize same-sex marriage, a majority (6/10) have large Catholic populations and several are predominantly Catholic. If the Portuguese (84% Catholic) can deal with legal same-sex marriage then the Catholics of the US should be able to as well.
This. When I was still Catholic, I was taught that you can disagree in good conscience with Church teaching especially when said Church teaching has not been declared to be dogma. It would be very easy for Catholics to simply ignore the Church hierarchy on this issue.
Doesn’t that sort of defeat the point of being part of an established religion one of whom’s central tenets that the stewardship of God’s workings on earth is the priesthood? If you accept that the the hierarchy of the church represent God, even if it’s not on something official, then what’s the point in supporting that particular flavour of Christianity at all? There are plenty of Christian denominations within the Protestant wing that don’t have a hierarchy and allow personal interpretation of scripture, including acceptance of homosexuality.
If you’re going to argue with this point (or indeed abortion, birth control, divorce etc) then why not just chuck out the rest of it?
It’s all arbitrary anyway, so why not pick and choose? Theology isn’t like math - you can’t decide to “like” addition while disregarding subtraction.
That’s a false analogy, so you’re right, it isn’t. Maths is based on objective fact and choosing to disregard one part of it would have actual consequences for the world of science and engineering, no matter whether you think it should or not. Theology, which is a completely human theoretical construct, only impacts on humans, so yes you can decide to choose one part and ignore another, or ditch the whole lot and pick something else (or nothing) if you really want to. People typically don’t want to make that choice because it comes with a social price tag, or because they’re comfortable with it because it’s how they were raised, but that’s not the same as saying they have no hoice in the matter.
Catholics are required to accept dogma, but not all Church teachings are dogma.
For instance, you can’t deny the divinity of Christ and still call yourself a Catholic. Well, you can, but the Church will excommunicate you if you make a big deal about it.
And what a Catholic supports in the civil sphere is not necessarily what he might support in the ecumenical sphere. So, a Catholic might support SSM at the government level, but still accept that it ain’t going to happen in RCC.
Sure, but the point being made originally was that one can disagree with the Church hierarchy on an issue, which is essentially saying you’re arguing with the Church’s position on something. Yes one can exist in a state of cognitive dissonance of believing that Church’s teachings in one part of your brain and rejecting them in another, but to me that just sounds like harder work than ditching a belief system that doesn’t actually mesh with what you think.
Where is Catholicism an Established Religion? England has its own Church but most countries have free range religions.
Perhaps they like the Church decor better? Some of the Protestant churches are awfully plain–minimalist but not all that elegant. The Episcopalians come close–Christ Church Cathedral in Downtown Houston is pretty Gothic; there was a bad fire in 1938:
But, even there, a very small crucifix above the altar is the only “graven image” you can see. No Stations of the Cross, no BVM, no candles you can light. And no services in Latin, ever…
Regarding the OP: I wouldn’t be concerned about what the Freepers think. In my mind, they’re one step above the KKK–& as a Catholic kid in Texas, I knew we were among the groups they hated…
No Church is required to marry anybody. They refuse all the time, for all sorts of reasons…
I was using established to mean an organised religion, with an orthodoxy, some kind of central authority etc. I’m pretty clear that covers the Catholic Church (and if you want to be pedantic it’s the established - that is, the state religion - of Costa Rica, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco and Vatican City).
I have no idea what this anecdote is supposed to be telling me.
Well… so? What’s to keep someone from declaring himself Pope of the New Catholic Church or the True Catholic Church? What authority is going to prove he isn’t? Sure, his closet may not have as many fancy hats and silk slippers as Joseph Ratzinger’s, but that’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?
Well, it’s only been the last 700 or so years that priests weren’t allowed to marry. They were allowed to marry for 1300 years before that – the first 2/3rds of church history. About twice as much time allowing married priests as forbidding them.
So they can always just go back to that, when the celibacy of priests becomes too big an impediment to recruiting enough priests. Just give out an explanation to cover this last temporary period, and that the church are now reverting to the original rules.
P.S. There already are even a few married priests in the Roman Catholic Church. There’s an exception for a priest in a communicating church, like a Greek Orthodox church, who wants to convert and become a catholic priest. If he’s already married, he can stay married, and still be recognized as a catholic priest.
And with the recent splits in the Anglican/Episcopal church over women & gay priests, the Roman Catholic church has been trying to attract away some of the Conservatives who are upset by this. Including indications that married Angliican priests can become Catholic priests, while staying married (provided, of course, that they aren’t female or gay).
I didn’t think that was what you were saying. But when you said “why should the church get a pass?”, who here said they should?
Question – what is the church’s position on an elderly couple getting married? After all, they’re certainly not going to be having kids!
As a proud Cafeteria Catholic, I am not going to set foot in the ol’ Hierarchy vs Laity of the Catholic Church swamp, but I’ve been recently thinking about an OP-related something my daughter said after reading one of those anti-ssm rant sites. She said reading such stuff made her reflect upon the fear of shame.
People who share that cluster of beliefs (the inferiority of races other than white, hatred of homosexuality, disbelief in science . . . well, you know the cluster) are afraid that their beliefs will be made so shameful by the greater society that they will be driven into social exile, shamed out of a world which once pretty much believed what they still do. Not an unjustified fear, obviously. They already know that they are mocked by people with more education, greater cultural experience, etc. But even worse than being mocked is being shamed.
If you are ridiculed by strangers, but you know that there are people who love you, support you, believe what you believe, you can withstand a lot. But if you are truly isolated and shamed, that’s something that can kill you, psychologically if not literally. Hence the desperate, passionate, unreasoning clinging to the group. I don’t think we take the fear of shaming as the serious political force I am beginning to think it is.
I just so wonder what motivates people to cling with all their being to beliefs so demonstrably horrible. Thus, you know, this pondering thing I’m doing here.
I remember another thing she said, now – she said that if one imagines a culture in which everyone is a part of the whole, instead of everyone being an individual interacting at will with other individuals, then it is a lot easier to see that in such a culture, anyone who deviates from the norms of that culture is a threat to the culture itself, because everyone is – must be – deeply connected to everyone else. What you do affects everyone around you. When people say, how is my marriage to someone of the same sex going to threaten YOUR marriage, well, that is how. It is a different way of looking at things and I can’t even say that, when it’s stated that way, that it doesn’t have a kind of beauty and warmth to it sadly missing in our atomized modern world.
There are obvious retorts.
Oh, and my daughter would like to be able marry her girlfriend someday.