Comments on: Clear and Present Danger in Traditional Marriage?

By: Michael Currie

Michael Currie — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:03:33 +0000

To those advocates and or defenders of Gay
marriage is there an acceptable way to disagree with your position and not be labeled a hater or be accused of having blood on our hands, not that I would expect you to make the argument for me but is it actually possible.
You do know that in the USA there are approx.30,000 suicides a year of which about 8or 9 thousand happen to young people between the ages of 14 and 29. The reasons given range from depression, bullying to break-ups etc. Most are not related to homosexuality.
In the course of my life I have seen kids and adults being picked on for many reasons; from the color of their skin to their height, to being fat, being in the band, being a greaser, not being greaser, doing well in school , not doing well in school or just not being in the right clique. and so on. By your reasoning theres a lot of blood out there This does not even begin to address the more serious issues involving ethnic, Religious, philosophic and life style positions on any number of subjects.
You seem to want to have both ways, one, that this is a very serious issue which needs to be addressed and on the other hand oppossing points of view are not to be tolerated.
It would seem that this attempt to alter the sexual ethos of a society, with help from others, is a serious thing due serious consideration. Given the messines of our body politic there will be extreme voices on both sides. It is easy to pick the more egregious voices from either side(the straw men) and pretend that they represent the best arguments, they don’t. The problem deepens when one realizes that the best arguments will be ignored, so we are left with appeals to emotion and the basest of all ploys, power. This movement, gay rights, represents a seismic shift in our society and most people do not know how to deal with it so they acquiesque, shrug there shoulders and move on with there lives. Maybe the Edenesque world envisioned by the proponents will come to pass and people years hence will wonder what all the noise was about. But regardless there will be change and since this issue represents one of the organizing principles of cultures for millenium changing it to mean something else will have effects far beyond its proponents intentions but what the heck we want it.

By: Alicia Torres

Alicia Torres — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 23:14:14 +0000

“All my days I’ve been searching, to find out what this life is worth, through the books and babbles of time, I’ve made up my mind. Love is my Religion”

If only we were curious in a way that we could seek to understand one another as appose to curiosity sought to judge our brothers, we would find true happiness in co-existence with people distinct from us.

Love conquers all, Jesus Christ said “love one another, as I have loved you”

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 13:02:50 +0000

Kevin Staley-Joyce,

Chris Rovzar’s article summed it up nicely and there has no response except to justify “the behavior” that perpetuates institutionalized discrimination. You may want to take the quote below to heart and spend some quiet time in prayer and meditation.

“She’s [Maggie's] not just opposed to gay marriage. She’s working as hard as she can to create an environment that delegitimizes the gay lifestyle, claiming that it “takes away freedom” from other people and threatens America’s very way of life. Institutionalized discrimination reinforces personal prejudice, that’s just a fact.”

If you do respond to the above observation, please send me a note and I’ll be sure to read your response.

By: Fred

Fred — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:27:54 +0000

Sorry TJ, Homosexuality is at best a disorder, at worst a willful perversion. Actually, it is probably a continuum with one of those possibilities as a pole at each end. For instance an otherwise perfectly heterosexual male prisoner who has sex with other male prisoners because that’s what’s sexually available is clearly making a choice. At the other end of the continuum are homosexuals who do seem to be biologically different from heterosexuals, indicating some genetic component similar to the genetic predisposition to alcoholism (The fact, by the way, that alcoholism is partially genetic in no way makes it more desirable, more healthy, or less of a disorder). Many individuals move across that continuum in various ways to varying degrees. I forget the exact percentage, but a fairly substantial number of heterosexuals have some homosexual experience then go on to lead normal heterosexual lives. There is also bisexuality, which seems to defy simplistic “geneticism.” So for you folks to claim some biological imperative that makes you a separate “race” similar to such genetic features as black skin or the epicanthic fold, is at best a half-truth and at worst utter nonsense.

By: Dblade

Dblade — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:04:55 +0000

Amazing how many people miss the point, both in the comments here and in the linked Gallagher article.

The point is that it seems regardless of the societal acceptance or not of gay marriage specifically, gay youths still are dealing with intense emotional issues and trauma. Therefore the legality or not of it specifically doesn’t seem to help.

That isn’t a strike against it, but instead suggests that neither side should really focus on it as much as they do. The converse is true: despite gay marriage being legal, Massachussets hasn’t devolved any worse than any other state in terms of the death of traditional marriage. Gallagher’s relentless focus on it is not all that needed.

The disturbing thing is that if these statistics are true, in a culture which is about as close to tolerance as legally can be done without criminalizing doctrines, GLBT teens are STILL cast adrift in increasing numbers. If the poster mentioning Holland is correct, even in a culture that casts off the number one bugbear of gay rights advocates, Christianity, they still are troubled.

I think this shows the limits of purely political changes.

By: TJ Parker

TJ Parker — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:31:12 +0000

To someone above who wrote that what we need to address is something very Catholic: “The feelings of inadequacy of homosexual teenagers absolutely should be taken seriously, but seriously in the sense of these teens needing help dealing with the disordered nature of their same-sex attractions and how those attractions, disordered as they are, do not define their value as persons. The false “help” from the homosexual community, demanding from and accusing others who speak of homosexual activity as immoral, only masks the actual problem.”

Yes, that help is called “Gay Pride”. You don’t help people by telling them how “disordered” they are and then offering them no alternative other than to spend their entire life without love or companionship or understanding. Some of you probably think you can offer a “cure”, but no professional anywhere believes that a cure exists, and all the research just shows that those who attempt some sort of “conversion therapy” merely end up more depressed. Its just cruel to offer people false hopes.

Sir or madame, I’ll tell you from my own experience and that of every one of my gay friends: the kids who survive middle school and high school and come to terms with their sexualit will eventually look back at the religion that misunderstood and mischaracterized them. And they will recognize that that religion, in fact, lies, and it will be gone. Because they will no longer believe. They will recognize that those like you really don’t know what you’re talking about, that those religious leaders are just clueless frauds, and that is religion is false.

And you, sir or madame, have taken that away from them.

By: TJ Parker

TJ Parker — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:22:53 +0000

How shameful. No responsibility for your words? How about the years during which Mr. Perkins and his “Focus on the Family” has been opposing the “Day of Silence” – an attempt by kids to address bullying in schools – with a “Day of Truth”? Oh yeah, and the “Day of Truth” was all about preaching to your classmates about how the “Day of Silence” was an attempt to preach a “gay agenda”.

You folks have no shame whatsoever. And when you’re caught with your pants down, its the old “wide stance” defense.

Who was it who said “whatever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto Me” and “whatever you fail to do for the least of your brothers, that you fail to do for Me”? Someone in this conversation seems to have forgotten.

By: Rod Blaine

Rod Blaine — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:26:56 +0000

Fred: Indeed so. I once noted elsewhere on this blog that it doesn’t help the cause of getting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repealed for gay campaigners to claim every close male friendship (eg JH Newman) as homosexual with an emphasis on the sexual. I suspect it also doesn’t help that cause to argue that “Gays are horrendously traumatised, sometimes even driven to suicide, by people reading from Leviticus in public… but other than that, they’ll make fine soldiers.”

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:44:23 +0000

Has anyone other than me noticed that the whole “clear and present danger” nonsense is based on the notion that homosexuals are so hypersensitive and weak-willed that the opinion of others about their sexuality actually causes them to commit suicide? Isn’t that exactly the stereotype of the sissified “fag”?

By: Outside observer

Outside observer — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:17:22 +0000

Saying something is good and right — or affirming it or putting it into law — does not make it good or right, for society or for the individual. I remember being told by a mental health therapist that my depression-driven promiscuity was good and right, nothing to be ashamed of. I felt completely devastated. I was looking for help, not affirmation! I finally found help and healing in the Church.