Sign of the times of the day: From a report by the Public Religion Research Institute on religion and same-sex marriage.
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(Via: The Atlantic Wire)
Thursday, September 1, 2011, 11:30 AM
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September 1st, 2011 | 12:38 pm
Good grief! How can Catholics be so misguided?
September 1st, 2011 | 1:03 pm
[...] A Breakdown of Gay Marriage Support by Religion – Joe Carter, Frst Thngs/First Thoughts [...]
September 1st, 2011 | 3:01 pm
Trust me, that data on Catholics is not right…exit polls on marriage amendments show Catholics supporting them in every state except for VA; usually, they are supported by Catholics by larger margins than the overall voting population.
September 1st, 2011 | 3:12 pm
And support among white evangelicals is changing dramatically within the different generation:
“The poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 44 percent – nearly half – of young evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry.”
“…More broadly, the poll found ‘at least a 20 point generation gap between Millennials (age 18-29) and seniors (65 and over) on every public policy measure in the survey concerning rights for gay and lesbian people.’”
- The Times-Picayune, September 01, 2011
September 1st, 2011 | 3:18 pm
It would be interesting to see differences between more committed and more casual Catholics on this question. But that aside, I think it may be actually easier for Catholics to accept gay marriage than others, as the state already recognizes marriages the Church doesn’t. In other words, the idea that there are two kinds of marriage, sacramental and civil, is already accepted by Catholics, and so the idea of state recognition of gay marriage is less of a stretch. Just a thought.
September 1st, 2011 | 3:21 pm
Defenders of Catholicism would point out, I am sure, that a lot depends on which Catholics you are talking about. “Orthodox” Catholics who attend mass once a week, or more, are less likely to approve of same-sex marriage than Catholics who attend mass less frequently or rarely (or, I suppose, not at all, but still call themselves Catholic). My personal opinion is that if you self-identify as a Catholic when taking a survey, you are a Catholic (no matter how observant you are), but others disagree.
September 1st, 2011 | 4:31 pm
I’m an Anglican Catholic. We are, as usual, not on the chart. I’ve stopped caring about the “gay marriage debate.” Marriage is a sacrament. In our society, it is also a civil contract. These are separate concepts.
In much of the world, the Roman Catholic Church requires a civil ceremony before the Nuptial Mass, driving home the distinction between the nature of each kind of marriage. It is unfortunate that American churches don’t do this.
Instead, most States sort of deputize religious ministers, making them both religious and government officials when they officiate at weddings. I would think the churches wouldn’t want the responsibility or the interference. Those desiring marriage licenses for same-sex couples do the reverse; they sort of ordain the government officials who grant the licenses, enduing a bureaucratic act with spiritual significance.
Neither view really gives proper expression to marriage as a sacrament. Sometimes, I tend to favor same-sex marriage. I hope that making the civil marriage laws so very different from the natural and spiritual law of marriage, it might force everyone, particularly evangelicals, to reconsider that natural and spiritual law, instead of focusing on joint tax returns and estate plans.
September 1st, 2011 | 6:59 pm
Yeah those people aren’t Catholic. They clearly don’t even know what it means.
September 1st, 2011 | 7:33 pm
Didn’t ALL American Catholic Bishops swear absolutely and in writing that all forms of homosexual behavior are not sinful and actually are virtues to be admired, and that heterosexuals should turn from their ways and practice homosexualism? Well, from the poll results from Catholics on this issue, it sure seems to be the only explanation for the laity’s confusion.
September 1st, 2011 | 9:23 pm
I am affraid that Catholics aren’t any different from the secular culture. The Church has long ago stopped teaching faith and morals.
September 2nd, 2011 | 12:08 am
[...] First Things [...]
September 2nd, 2011 | 8:36 am
My personal opinion is that if you self-identify as a Catholic when taking a survey, you are a Catholic (no matter how observant you are), but others disagree.
That’s because there are two definitions of Catholic.
It’s not an ethnicity, but because people are recorded as being “Catholic” even when they lose their faith, you have the situation where people can be Catholic without being Catholic.
This is why it’s important to check the difference between nominal Catholics vs. practicing Catholics. Are they both “Catholic”? Well, yes, in some sense of the word – but in a poll like this, it reduces (destroys) the usable value of the results that they’ve counted these two groups together.
September 2nd, 2011 | 8:39 am
Note the sample size (N=3,000). I suggest there are limits to representation of such a sample. But then, the quick turn around on such polls makes good news fodder and earns the bucks for those doing it.
September 2nd, 2011 | 9:33 am
Tristian makes a good point. Does anyone know exactly how the question was put?
Those who identified themselves as Catholic should first be asked “Can there be a valid sacramental marriage between two people of the same sex?” and then asked if they considered same-sex “marriages” to moral and valid in the religious sense of marriage (believed that same-sex “marriages” were valid in a spiritual sense and not merely a civil contract).
That way the results could then be grouped into support for same-sex marriage
- among Catholics without a clue as to what the teachings of the Church are on the matter (those who answered ‘yes’ to the first question)
- among “Catholics” who wrongly identify themselves as such since they do not embrace its teachings (those who answered ‘no’ to the first question)
- among orthodox Catholics.
The results of such a survey would leave an entirely different impression and would much more accurately convey reality. The cited survey, without making any such distinctions, is of little value, although it may have value to those who did the survey if their whole point was to create the impression that the results create.
September 2nd, 2011 | 11:18 am
harry,
First, why do you believe there should be a different standard for those who identify as Catholic in polls? Shouldn’t white evangelicals, for example, be asked a series of questions to determine if they are “orthodox” evangelicals who believe everything an “orthodox” evangelical believes?
Second, you are criticizing a graph, not the study itself. Follow the link. You will find much more data, including the following:
When a study like this is done, it is not possible to go into great detail about the various subgroups unless the sample is much, much larger and the study significantly more complex. You say, “Those who identified themselves as Catholic should first be asked ‘Can there be a valid sacramental marriage between two people of the same sex?’ . . . ” If that had been done, some kind of equivalent question (and what would it be?) would have been required of all the various other groups to test their orthodoxy.
September 2nd, 2011 | 11:28 am
Please allow me to make the point in my previous post more clearly.
Supposing the question to be asked was something like, “Do you think the laws of the state should consider homosexual marriages in exactly the same way as it does heterosexual marriages?”
Such a survey should include a few preliminary questions to see if the person identifying themselves as Catholic has the slightest familiarity with the teachings of the Church on the matter. The survey results from those who obviously do not should be separate from the rest.
The results from those identifying themselves as Catholic even though they understand the teachings of the Church but do not accept them should also be a separate category.
And the last category of Catholic results should be among those identifying themselves as Catholic who understand and accept the teachings of the Church on the matter.
This method would be helpful also for other denominations that have a publication of their official teaching that defines what one must believe to honestly identify themselves as a member of that denomination (like the Catholic Catechism sets forth the teachings of the Catholic Church, which those honestly identifying themselves as Catholics accept).
By the way, is there some kind of official reference for, say, evangelicals, which one could refer to in order to determine if one could honestly identify themselves as one? I doubt there is, so please let me know if I am wrong in doing so. (And please, do not reply, “Yes. The Bible.” I am asking about the existence of an official evangelical interpretation of the Bible.) If there were such a thing, the survey results in regard to what “evangelicals” think about same-sex marriage would be more meaningful, especially if the survey was done as I suggested it be done for Catholics.
I remember the days when the abortion controversy was for the most part correctly described as a “Catholic issue.” It is rarely called that today. Orthodox Catholics knew immediately that Roe was a disaster because they knew the Church had consistently condemned taking the life of the child in the womb for two thousand years.
Had evangelicals had a “Catechism” they might have joined orthodox Catholics in the battle for life immediately. As it was — this is my recollection anyway — significant evangelical involvement began only after James Dobson started to promote the Pro-Life cause. Was it playing out this way a matter of evangelicals knowing immediately abortion was wrong but had yet to develop a sense of urgency regarding it? Or was it a matter of their changing their minds about it being wrong?
Are they eventually going to change their minds about artificial contraception (I should ask if they going to go back to the original view of it that all denominations had for the most part a century ago.) Where will they be on same-sex marriage in another fifty years?
The official teaching of the Catholic Church has always been and will remain the same on the issues of abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage. Maybe the evangelicals need something like a Catechism for the sake of consistency.
September 2nd, 2011 | 11:50 am
harry,
I think what you really want, and I agree it would be interesting, is an in-depth survey of people who identify as Catholics. Instead of trying to weed out various groups before asking the question about same-sex marriage, the survey could just ask all people who identify as Catholics a set of detailed questions about Catholic beliefs. Then you could find out, for example, how many Catholics who attend mass weekly/monthly/yearly believe in the Real Presence, how many Catholics who accept Humanae Vitae disapprove of same-sex marriage, and so on. It seems to me the appropriate group to do such a survey (or to commission it) would be the USCCB.
September 2nd, 2011 | 12:08 pm
Hi, David Nickol,
I agree, the results of a survey done like you describe done by the USCCB would be very interesting. (Maybe they are afraid of what the results of such a survey would indicate. ;o)
September 2nd, 2011 | 2:12 pm
harry,
You’ve hit upon a point here that most news organizations simply don’t really understand in reporting findings amongst “white evangelicals”. I can best illustrate it by my own example. “Evangelical” is (more or less) a ~theological~ description. While not entirely happy with the particular label of ‘evangelical’ I do no reject it. However, ~denominationally~ I am a pastor in the largish (albeit shrinking) mainline liberal to moderate Presbyterian Church USA. My ‘evangelical’ friends range from dear friend who is currently a Methodist but about to take his family on a swim across the Tiber to southern Baptists, to fellow Presbyterian pastors of varying stripes to those who attend various ‘independent’ megachurches. They can all be fairly called “evangelical” but in terms of where they actually go to worship of a particular Sunday, well, they’re all over the map.
Thus to treat “evangelicals” much less “white evangelicals” as some sort of monolith is a fools errand at best and the ‘information’ derived thereby is largely useless. The distinctions which you (fairly) wish to see made amongst Roman Catholics (or “Catholics” as they are rather ignorantly described in the poll) apply in spades to “evangelicals”.
September 2nd, 2011 | 3:01 pm
David, I had the same thought about “Black Protestants.” Is Jeremiah Wright really in the same category as the pastor of the Pentescostal storefront church downtown, let alone somebody like Anthony Bradley?
September 2nd, 2011 | 3:08 pm
I’m an Anglican Catholic. We are, as usual, not on the chart. I’ve stopped caring about the “gay marriage debate.” Marriage is a sacrament. In our society, it is also a civil contract. These are separate concepts.
The problem is, the civil contract is about establishing a new legally enforced cultural norm. It takes away certain rights, including most disturbingly the right to observe distinctions.
Gay people can only reproduce parasitically. I do not use that word for its shock value, but I mean quite literally: a gay family can only come into existence after a real family falls apart. And gays have already indicated that they are more than willing to deliberately create and destroy a family just to get the results they need – an abandoned child which they can use. The child is necessary to their emotional, social, and political needs, but what is lost in the transaction is the recognition that adoption is not supposed to be about children filling parental need – but rather it’s supposed to be about and for the children, and the well-being of the child is supposed to be the top priority.
Given the ways that gay parents need to use the child, it can be observed that there is a conflict between the child’s best interest vs. the parents’ needs on all three levels. The child cannot be allowed to mourn the losses because that interferes with the gay parents’ needs on all three levels: emotionally it disrupts the cognitive dissonance on which their “family” relies, socially it does the same thing only to an entire community, and politically – well, go to YouTube and check out the ways gay parents have used their children as political actors, filming these kids’ testimony about how happy they are to have gay parents.
The goal of gay marriage is to redefine family in a way that affects the legitimacy of all families.
Instead of adoption being primarily about the child’s needs, it will be primarily about what the adult wishes – and if gay marriage is legal, that is codified into law – and you could get into legal trouble for observing the distinction.
Instead of family being defined by kinship, it will be a definition that only the state can bestow. Instead of being legitimized by truth, it will be legitimized through state power – and if gay marriage is legal, that is codified into law – and you could get into legal trouble for observing the distinction.
Instead of marriage being many things to many people, the essence of its procreative functions will be off limits – because gay marriage is not about “expanding” the definition of marriage, but is about reducing it. Gay marriage requires that we remove and even criminalize all the definitions, purposes, and functions of marriage other than one: “marriage is a celebration of two peoples’ feelings for each other.”
September 2nd, 2011 | 3:22 pm
Pentamom,
Just so. Take, (just for grins) the fact that one could fairly classify both Jim Wallis and the Sojourners crowd and Jim Dobson and the Focus on the Family folks as “white evangelicals” but you’re certainly not going to find them at the same picnic…
And while we’re at it, doesn’t the current President’s expressed opinion that marriage is to be understood as “between a man and a woman” place him in the 60% of ‘black Protestants’ against category?
But why let stubborn facts get in the way of a good talking point I guess?
September 2nd, 2011 | 3:44 pm
All this talk about who is or isn’t a true Evangelical or Catholics misses the key point:
the poll found ‘at least a 20 point generation gap between Millennials (age 18-29) and seniors (65 and over) on every public policy measure in the survey concerning rights for gay and lesbian people.’
The impact of today’s seniors (and their view) upon culture or politics won’t extend more than a couple of decades. By 2030, public support for gay rights will likely be 2 in favor for every 1 opposed (if not higher).
September 2nd, 2011 | 3:54 pm
pentamom,
I understand people’s wish for more detailed information, and I would love to see it myself, but it is simply beyond the scope of a poll like this. I have been called a couple of times by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute to participate in polls, and if you have ever had a similar experience, you know it is all based on how respondents classify themselves. For instance, you may be asked, “Would you say you are very conservative, conservative, centrist, liberal, or very liberal.” If you answer “very conservative,” they don’t then ask ten or twenty more questions to verify that you really are accurately describing yourself by that answer.
So I agree with you and those above who see real limitations arising from lumping all respondents into very broad categories, but that is the nature of this kind of poll, and they make no effort to pretend they are providing data with pinpoint accuracy.
September 2nd, 2011 | 4:03 pm
Maybe I shouldn’t, or even haven’t, stopped caring. After all, I’m still reading and posting here. I still vote to keep the civil law in line with the canon law as much as possible on the issue.
It’s just I choose to care about the health of the ecclesia over the health of the polis. Over on a wedding planning website right now, there’s a bride complaining that there will be food and beds made available in the parish hall and gym for the homeless two hours after her wedding ceremony in the parish church. The irony of her complaint is lost on her and most of those advising her. To me, that’s a bigger worry than the parade of civic horrors set out by more active political opponents of gay marriage.
September 2nd, 2011 | 4:07 pm
R Hampton,
That’s a fair point. Certainly I see that difference in attitude in my own work (in my own family, in fact).
But why, then, break down the respondents by religious affiliation at all? Why not just say “the young are far more likely to support same-sex marriage than are seniors” and leave it at that?
The short answer is that the poll purports to measure “support for same sex marriage ~by religion~” not by “age”. As such, a more careful understanding and explication of the religious metrics used would (perhaps) make it a more useful poll.
And while your demography is destiny argument is an interesting one, aren’t there some other factors to be considered? What if, for example, “black protestants” and “white evangelicals” are demographically increasing as a proportion of the overall population? Wouldn’t that portend something different than your projection? Or what about the fact that attitudes towards hot button social issues tend to change over time? The opinions of today’s “Millenials” may look very different a generation from now. I know my own thinking looks a lot different from what it was thirty years ago….
September 2nd, 2011 | 4:07 pm
R Hampton wrote:
“The impact of today’s seniors (and their view) upon culture or politics won’t extend more than a couple of decades. By 2030, public support for gay rights will likely be 2 in favor for every 1 opposed (if not higher).”
Maybe so (I doubt it, though), but the Catholic Church’s official teaching will be the same as it always has been and will always be regarding same-sex marriage and homosexuality. God doesn’t change His mind about what is right and wrong, or about what is natural and unnatural every few decades or even every few centuries, or ever, so neither does the Church.
The reason I doubt it will be as you say it will be is because human nature will remain the same, and the truth about it will remain the same. When some government policy or some church’s teaching contradicts the truth about human nature, every generation must be “educated” into accepting that which goes against their very nature and which they don’t instinctively accept. This requires a huge effort and is why such ideas typically don’t last; they disappear from the history of humanity as fast as they arrived, only to resurface again when the fact that they don’t really work has been forgotten. This is another reason I am a Catholic – the Church has a very good memory, saving one from being distracted by ideas that have already been tried and failed miserably.
September 2nd, 2011 | 4:54 pm
The irony of her complaint is lost on her and most of those advising her. To me, that’s a bigger worry than the parade of civic horrors set out by more active political opponents of gay marriage.
That’s because you fail to understand two things:
1. the relationship between the breakdown of the family and poverty
2. that the narcissism of the young woman – and her ‘entitlement’ attitude – springs from the same root.
Looking at a woman who behaves in a disgusting manner, and comparing her against individual gays who are genuinely nice people, and making choices based on how those two images feel to you, is no better than its alternative – comparing the obnoxious gay couple with the nice hetero traditionalists.
It’s not a reliable or useful way of making informed choices on the issues that make or break society.
September 2nd, 2011 | 7:47 pm
Blake, do you think politics or religion is more capable of correcting the breakdown of the family and poverty and remedying narcissism and attitudes of entitlement? Do you think the breakdown of the family and narcissism is the greater evil or poverty and improper attitudes about entitlements?
Also, is it possible you missed the irony as well? What I find ironic is that the Catholic bride is complaining about homeless people at a wedding feast, when the Gospels record parables about just that.
September 2nd, 2011 | 8:52 pm
Also, is it possible you missed the irony as well? What I find ironic is that the Catholic bride is complaining about homeless people at a wedding feast, when the Gospels record parables about just that.
The Catholic bride is not behaving like a Catholic.
She is behaving like a narcissist: “This is MY DAY!”
She is behaving like someone who thinks HER DAY is about how special SHE is. She has no sense of what a marriage really is or why it matters.
It is the new definition of marriage: a celebration of ME ME ME ME ME.
September 3rd, 2011 | 12:31 am
Let me modify one thing I said. Let me add the words, “Assuming you are correct that this girl is being unreasonable, given the circumstances…”
I had assumed that the girl was being selfish based mostly on an assumption of good faith on the part of the speaker who obviously is contemptuous of her. Surely he wouldn’t be contemptuous without cause. Would he? (or she?).
But my initial assumption – that the original speaker is irate because the girl was being unreasonable under the circumstances, is now suspect: could it be that this person is simply holding Christians to unreasonably high expectations?
It depends on variables we don’t know – why are they bringing homeless people in? How much notice did each party give the other? And so on.
I’m not asking for details, because clearly it’s irrelevant to the debate anyway. To argue that gay marriage is justified because Christians are supposed to be so selfless that they welcome homeless people to their wedding feasts – but they don’t actually do so – is not a particularly impressive argument to begin with.
Even if this girl were being the most selfish, unreasonable person in the world, it still says absolutely nothing about whether we ought to change the definition of “family” from being defined by biological kinship except in case of emergency, to being defined by the state instead so that gays can pass for whatever it is they’re hoping to pass for.
September 3rd, 2011 | 9:40 am
Ugh.
On the one hand, it’s true that “Catholic” is a culturally sticky label/identity that includes lots of “lapsed Catholics” whose views are shaped pretty much entirely by the surrounding culture rather than by the teachings of any church. If you are an “Evangelical,” conversely, that implies a level of involvement and theological commitment not implied by “Catholic.”
OTOH, look at the advantages that Catholics should have: A living Magisterium that affirms historic Christian teaching with an authority claimed by no Protestant body. Authoritative teaching documents like the Catechism. A hierarchy that has actively opposed same-sex marriage propositions in states where ballot initiatives have been held.
Consider, too, that not a few churches in the “White mainline” category actively AFFIRM homosexuality as morally acceptable and would be willing to embrace same-sex marriage.
Seen in that light, it’s pretty shocking that the Catholic numbers are virtually identical to the white mainline numbers. Clearly, there is a catechetical failure here — and the largeness of the population of “lapsed Catholics” is itself a further indication of the catechetical problem.
September 3rd, 2011 | 6:39 pm
“OTOH, look at the advantages that Catholics should have: A living Magisterium that affirms historic Christian teaching with an authority claimed by no Protestant body. Authoritative teaching documents like the Catechism. A hierarchy that has actively opposed same-sex marriage propositions in states where ballot initiatives have been held”
Now that would make a worthy historical study. I’d like to know what was the best catechized generation of Christians in history. I’m betting that it was seventeenth-century Protestants. Their emphasis on preaching surely made them better educated in the particular claims of their faith than most Christians in any generation. I’m not sure that Counter-Reformation preachers placed as great an emphasis on the particular claims as they did on conformity, but these are wild, groundless guesses on my part.
When Harry says things like “The official teaching of the Catholic Church has always been and will remain the same on the issues of abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage,” I always wonder how many Roman Catholics actually knew these and other teachings? Does anybody know what pre-Trent preaching was about?
David Nickol likes to joke that he has a JD from the Google school of law. Who here has a history degree from Google U?
September 3rd, 2011 | 7:17 pm
Hello, SDG,
Yes. There is a huge catechetical problem.
It seems to me that once one has a grip on the belief and practice the Holy Spirit has preserved in the Catholic Church over the centuries, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to reject it and remain intellectually honest.
The problem is that getting that grip, for the most part, requires an adult understanding of things, and religious education ends for many when they graduate from high school. The “religious education” of those who go on to “Catholic” universities receive often causes them to lose their faith rather than help them appreciate the belief and practice the Holy Spirit has preserved in the Church for twenty centuries. This is especially true regarding the study of Scripture.
September 4th, 2011 | 12:45 am
A study that was primarily funded by a liberal normalize-homosexuality activist foundation…
Anyways, it would have a much better study if they had inquired what are the views on homosexuality from the people polled.
My guess is the more ignorant they are on homosexuality, and have a host of incorrect stereotypical views (“homosexuals are born that way,” “there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality,” “homosexuals just want to love each other,” etc), the more they will support homosexual “marriage.”
Another interesting set of questions would have been to see how many people who favor homosexual “marriage” are also in favor of pornography, promiscuity, sex outside a committed relationship, SM and prostitution.
My guess is that the more people are in favor of other degenerate and destructive sexual and relationship practices, the more they normalize homosexuality (and any behavior related to homosexuality).
And another interesting set of questions would have been to ask how well-informed (hah) those who favor homosexual “marriage” are regarding how violent, abusive and exploitative homosexuals are. I bet the bulk of those polled would only show enormous ignorance on the subject, having a completely idealized, unreal stereotype of people with a homosexual problem, fed mostly by their own denial and idealized stereotypical images they see on dominant liberal media.
September 4th, 2011 | 1:50 am
65%of millenials being okay if their church sanctioned SSM blessings? 73% of Catholics that attend church monthly/yearly would also be okay with that? (it’s noted that weekly church attendance corresponds with disapproving SSM by 17-25 points)
The percentages seem really high. If they are realistic, expect a lot of schism if the millenials get power. Support of SSM to me is impossible to unlink from hardcore theological liberal views.
September 4th, 2011 | 4:46 pm
Dblade,
“Support of SSM to me is impossible to unlink from hardcore theological liberal views”
I’m not sure what you mean by “hardcore theological liberal views.” Certainly, the people who get all the press, even in First Things, are those whose acceptance of gay marriage includes acceptance of lots of other liberal theological ideas as well as liberal social views. But there are many others, like me, who are rejected by “hardcore” liberals and conservatives alike. I support gay marriage but am pro-monogamy. I’m pro-family but think that most of the things eroding the family can be laid at the feet of economic and sociological changes, not culture. Thus, I find the culture wars largely mistaking cause for effect. I’m pro-life, but because I think third-way movements like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good are more effective, I’m not seen as pro-life in these pages. In theology, I think the early Fathers got most things right but folks like Wesley supplied much of what was missing.
In short, I think gay marriage is a pastoral issue rather than the political issue it is often treated as. For that reason, I am pleased to see people like Ron Sider writing more pastorally about homosexuality and sexual ethics or, more recently, last week’s piece by Saltzman. I thought the Dueholm essay that Carter misread last week was also more interesting than most of what I read here on the subject.
The issue of gay marriage is really a referendum on homosexuality, asking whether it is or isn’t harmful in and of itself. People who accept gay marriage aren’t necessarily accepting the entire “hardcore liberal” package (whatever that is); they just don’t see what precisely is so bad about homosexuality. For people like me, I can accept gay marriage and most of the rest of traditional Christian teachings on sexual morality. It’s not an all or nothing affair, which is the way that the press likes to treat it, including press like First Things.
September 4th, 2011 | 6:43 pm
Support of SSM to me is impossible to unlink from hardcore theological liberal views.
Dave,
Like Michael, I am not sure what you mean here. But I presume somewhere out there are theological arguments in favor of gay marriage or same-sex unions, although I have not encountered any. I don’t think, however, the vast majority of Christians who tell pollsters they approve of gay marriage are thinking of any theological arguments. Rightly or wrongly, they’re just saying that if two people who love each other, opposite-sex or same-sex, want to enter into a legally binding partnership, they ought to be able to do so. I think they are being empathetic and saying, “Why shouldn’t two people who want to commit to each other be allowed to marry?” I think probably most Catholics—the Christian group that most “theologizes” marriage (in my opinion)—do not make much of a distinction between “sacramental marriage” and “natural marriage” and civil marriage. Getting married is something that people who want to make a profound commitment to each other do. It’s a human thing, not a theological thing. Atheists and people aside from Jews and Christians get married, too, without having Adam and Eve in their creation stories (if they have any).
September 5th, 2011 | 3:11 pm
David Nickol wrote:
“It’s a human thing, not a theological thing. Atheists and people aside from Jews and Christians get married, too, without having Adam and Eve in their creation stories (if they have any).”
Many atheists I have conversed with do indeed have a creation story. It is very far-fetched — creation *myth* more accurately describes it.
The story is based on their atheistic “religious” beliefs. (They can’t prove God isn’t there so they must take that belief about God on faith.) The story is that the natural Universe had no beginning (this is necessary for them because the natural Universe, if it had a beginning, had to have been launched by the supernatural since nature wasn’t around to start it yet) and that the astoundingly complex biological nanotechnology of life, even though it is light years beyond the technology of modern science, came about mindlessly and accidentally.
The mindless, accidental formation of a prebiotic scenario that would have allowed that first reproducing life form to have been mindlessly and accidentally engineered is just as far-fetched as the notion it is supposed to make sound plausible. If it is absurd to think that functionally complex computer software could have been coded up mindlessly and accidentally, it is just as absurd to think that the computer that is necessary to provide the environment for that accidental development came about mindlessly and accidentally.
Modern science tells us the Universe did indeed have a beginning with the Big Bang; it has not demonstrated that the stuff that went “Bang!” had existed eternally. Mathematics tells us that it is virtually impossible for life to have come about accidentally. Authentic science (not “science” defined as that which affirms atheistic naturalism) and math are slowly turning the notion that God isn’t there into more than something one must take on faith, they are turning it into a notion one must embrace with a blind, irrational faith that rejects the findings of modern science.
“Jew and Christians” who believe God *is* there do so with a rational, reasonable faith that leads one to truth that science and human reason alone cannot obtain.
“Jews and Christians” quite reasonably believe that the Universe and the life within it are not mindless accidents. The essence of their “creation story” is that “In the beginning God created heaven and Earth” and “every living and moving creature.” Exactly how God brought about those living things will continue to be the subject of debate. That is a relatively minor detail in comparison to the basic truth that God intended them to exist and they wouldn’t have otherwise.
September 5th, 2011 | 3:31 pm
Michael and David:
To embrace SSM, as opposed to saying “It’s the secular world. It’s a sin, but if they choose it nothing we can do,” is to embrace some pretty radical theological ideas about the authority and inerrancy of the Bible and tradition. Or even more, but they don’t stop and realize it.
Like Michael is okay with homosexuality. I assume you’d extend it to God being okay with it, because it would be no good otherwise. But the Bible declares it a sin. Which means the Bible in some sense is errant, and the passage is not inspired of God.
Not so fast David N says, here are some arguments that it doesn’t declare it a sin. But those arguments tend to chip away at the same things-either the OT and NT authors had no idea what homosexuality was, or meant it in very absurdly specific ways. But somehow they avoided the same pitfall with things like prostitution. Or the arguments strain common sense, like no consensual homosexual sex existing at all in the pre-modern world. Then when pressed he mentions a belief that the bible is more or less illegible without a tradition to interpret it.
Okay, we can buy that. (Not getting into the role of the Holy Spirit to help us understand the text) But the tradition we have to interpret it is also against the behavior. So he is going to have to argue against that next.
Where does the idea that SSM is good come from though? From your own empathy, as David mentions? Is your own empathy greater than church and tradition, granting its ideas about sin and salvation you already accept? Is the Holy Spirit inspiring this, and therefore the revelation continues?
I’m not saying these to refute, but to show to accept it involves presuppositions which are really hardcore theologically liberal. Those can’t stay compartmentalized for long. The arguments work against other things too: the ultra-liberals Michael speaks of are just being consistent and are the natural outgrowth of those ideas.
TL; DR-It’s the suppositions that lead to the acceptance of SSM in a Christian sense that are hardcore theologically liberal, even if the holders don’t think much on it. That can’t be confined to one area of doctrine.
September 5th, 2011 | 7:14 pm
Dave,
I am not sure we will ever get anywhere on this, but I keep coming back to divorce. It seems to me there is no clearer statement by Jesus in the Gospels that divorce and remarriage is prohibited. I think, biblically, there is a better case to be made against divorce and remarriage than there is to be made against same-sex marriage.
Also, how many of the laws given in Leviticus do you follow? “Do not clip your hair at the temples, nor spoil the edges of your beard. Do not lacerate your bodies for the dead, and do not tattoo yourselves.” Is it a sin to get a tattoo?
September 5th, 2011 | 9:37 pm
David:
The thing about the laws of leviticus is we do have scripture in the new testament that modifies them for non-jewish believers. Peter’s vision of the sheet in acts and Paul’s explaining why circumcision isn’t needed for Christians. The position of the early church is that such things aren’t required, and it goes even further to when Jesus was active on the sabbath.
This may be debatable, but the change can be justified in the context of the book without really destroying the ideas of inspiration.
As for divorce I think you find there is a stronger scriptural case against it because you don’t try to explain those scriptures away. You don’t have the need for equality driving it-divorce at best is a necessary evil to people who take it, otherwise they’d never get married to begin with.
I know we wont agree, but I think Christian justifications of it spike such a firestorm of comment because of the deeper issues. The strongest case for SSM is purely secular, and I think on that we social conservatives have lost the argument in the public square similar to premarital sex and other secular ideas. But it would be fatal to take that inside the church as doctrine.
September 5th, 2011 | 9:52 pm
Dblade,
I’m on the same page with David on this one. I’m not being at all cynical when I say that the Church has been very good over the centuries of explaining the changes it has made as demonstrating in fact an unbroken continuity. It can do the same with homosexuality.
I’ve asked this question in a couple of threads, and I’m still looking for a good response.
The question of “what is wrong about homosexuality” takes me back to First Corinthians where Paul says, “the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites, thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”
In looking at Paul’s list, I see a difference between his condemnation of “idolaters” and his condemnation of the other sins he lists: “the sexually immoral, … adulterers, the self-indulgent,” etc. The difference is this. To convert idolaters, we must show them how only Christ leads to life; idols cannot. To convert the others, we must show that the life Christ offers can transform them, giving the strength needed to combat the sin and live this life more fully. We must show that sexual immorality, adultery, etc., in fact robs them of the fullness they can find in this life and the next.
For example, adultery offers excitement or the illusion of a new beginning, but the adulterer has to take the love and intimacy he has with his wife and split it, pouring some of his energy and attention into another woman. To keep his wife in darkness about his affair, he has to start keeping secrets and lying about how he’s spending his time. However much he may think he loves both women, his life is becoming a tissue of lies, deceit, and split energy. He might continue to be a good employee, citizen, and even churchgoer, but his lies will seep into these areas as well. His immorality in one area slowly infects the whole of his life.
The same is true about the other sins Paul lists, with the exception of idolatry. Idolatry is like failing to keep the Sabbath or denying the Holy Spirit. These sins divide us from God but do not result in the concrete harms the other sins on Paul’s list do.
I think it is clear when the Bible condemns homosexuality it thinks of homosexuality as something like adultery, something that has concrete harms. Homosexuality can be associated with concrete harms, such as AIDS. However, the problem with seeing homosexuality as a sin with concrete harms is that those harms are produced by something other than homosexuality. AIDS, for example, is the result of promiscuity, not homosexuality. Stop the promiscuity, and the concrete harm disappears. A faithful couple can continue in their homosexuality and not suffer any concrete harms.
The old prohibition against homosexuality just can’t be maintained, though the old prohibitions against adultery and fornication remain as wise as ever.
September 5th, 2011 | 10:00 pm
Dblade,
I just saw your reply to Nickol. The case against premarital sex remains strong, and it still resonates with many young people. This is part of the point that Dueholm was trying to make in the article that Carter misread. Even in hookup culture, kids are making a case for a kind of fidelity of a type not aired in the sixties. This desire for some kind of fidelity reveals a thirst for true fidelity. The Christian message about premarital sex remains relevant.
September 5th, 2011 | 10:22 pm
I’d like to see some kind of proof that gay couples “are more than willing to deliberately create and destroy a family just to get the results they need – an abandoned child which they can use. ” I doubt very seriously that there is one, nor any evidence that same-sex couples want to “use” children any more than opposite-sex couples do — including those who take their children to anti-gay marriage rallies and demonstrations. What’s bad for the gander is bad for the goose.
This is very little more than the classic ‘blood libel’ aimed at Jews. If there will be a schism in Christianity when the millenial generation is a little older, it will be long overdue.
September 5th, 2011 | 11:25 pm
Dave,
How do we know which commands in the Old Testament Christians don’t have to follow? What about Exodus 22:18—”You shall not permit a sorceress to live”?
September 6th, 2011 | 2:40 am
Marcia:
The point is more that to conceive, they have to get ova or sperm from someone outside the union, thereby depriving the child of knowing their biological parent. The language they used is inflammatory and not needed but the point is valid. The child will be the union physically of only one of the partners.
Michael:
It’s not that easy. G.K. Chesterton compared orthodoxy to windmilling your arms about, trying to avoid obstacles to both sides of you. It can’t do it for homosexuality the same way it can’t for gnosticism or arianism. The change really can’t be done organically in the tiniest sense. Even with a recent hot-button issue like women in leadership roles, you can at least point to the roles women had such as hosting churches, or in the past.
For your second point, you are saying the basis of a sin should be the harm it causes, moral or physical. Homosexuality causes no harm at all except due to promiscuity, and SSM takes that out of the picture.
But I don’t think we can base it on harm. Fornication for many people works due to birth control and while you mention Christian ideas on it are popular (which is kind of untrue-if you ever want to kill a conversation when sex comes up, mention a distinctly Christian idea on it, or admit you are a virgin) for some people, for many they aren’t.
I admit I don’t have a full answer to that question, but harm alone isn’t the criteria for sin, but separation from God. The bible is kind of realistic in showing that sinners often prosper in this life.
David:
You are not really catching the point. For “not suffering a witch to live” you look to the scriptures, such as the servant who was forgiven his debt, or the woman caught in adultery. There’s also Simon the sorcerer in Acts.
This means we look to what Jesus and the apostles positively did or said and see if what we believe is reflective of that. Catholics can also look to tradition as a source in itself. But homosexuality is prohibited in both, and there really isn’t a basis for sanctioning it. There is a basis for a lot of things like loving your neighbor, not being critical of wrestling with their sin, speaking soberly and not to wound, etc. There isn’t a basis for say preventing it among unbelievers as much as social cons want to.
You have to present your argument in a way that honors both scripture and tradition without breaking either. Jesus could break it because he was, well, Jesus. For us we don’t have that kind of revelation. Maybe the Pope could if he spoke ex cathedra, but we don’t have that kind of continuing revelation that would let both be broken and still maintained like the OT verses you mention.
September 6th, 2011 | 9:57 am
Hello, Michael,
You wrote:
“I’m not being at all cynical when I say that the Church has been very good over the centuries of explaining the changes it has made as demonstrating in fact an unbroken continuity. It can do the same with homosexuality. …. The old prohibition against homosexuality just can’t be maintained, though the old prohibitions against adultery and fornication remain as wise as ever.”
The Church has no “prohibition against homosexuality.” The Church doesn’t teach that a homosexual orientation is in itself sinful for the same reason that it doesn’t teach that a heterosexual orientation is sinful. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are conditions; it is what one wills, chooses and does that can be sinful.
It does teach that fornication, both heterosexual and homosexual, is sinful. It teaches that marriage between a man and a woman is the only valid context for sexual relations; sexual relations with one who is not one’s spouse is fornication, and adultery as well if engaged in by a married person. These teachings will never change, nor will the Church’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, so sexual relations between two men or between two women will always be considered fornication.
Again, God doesn’t change His mind about what is right and wrong, or about what is natural and unnatural every few decades or even every few centuries, or ever, so neither does the Church.
September 6th, 2011 | 2:41 pm
I’d like to see some kind of proof that gay couples “are more than willing to deliberately create and destroy a family just to get the results they need – an abandoned child which they can use. ”
I hate to break it to you, but gays can’t make a family.
They can only take parts of someone else’s family and pretend it’s the same as a real family.
But it’s not. There’s a difference between intact vs. make-believe.
Just like there’s a difference between having a stepfather vs. having a relationship with your own real mother. Or even an adopted mother.
And there’s a difference between “loving” parents and parents who are genuinely loving. You can’t use children in selfish ways and still be good people. It simply isn’t possible.
September 6th, 2011 | 2:45 pm
By the way: before you even say it – the difference between what gays do vs. adoption: a real adoption (as opposed to a parasitic transaction) is ruled, at each transaction and at every step, by what is best for the child.
Even the decision to put the child up for adoption is only justifiable because the evidence shows adoption does less harm than forcing a mother to raise a child she doesn’t feel ready for does.
Notice that wording: does less harm. Adoption is not harmless. It is simply less harmful than the alternative.
In the case of gay marriage, that isn’t the case. The alternative is for the gay couple to show to their child the same respect and love they would want for themselves – and that means not forcing the child to “live a lie”: no child should ever be forced to pretend he has “two daddies” or “two mommies” – every motherless child, fatherless child, and/or child severed from his biological origins has the right to grieve openly, without having to worry about emotionally needy parents needing him to play a role.
September 6th, 2011 | 2:46 pm
Blake they aren’t putting on funny hats and stuffing someone’s kids in a sack in the dead of night. It’s also anyone who uses IVF, not just sexual orientation. IVF/surrogacy requires a non-custodial biological parent, and in that sense you are right.
The language though is imputing evil motives when there aren’t any. It’s too inflammatory and simplistic.
September 6th, 2011 | 4:02 pm
Dblade,
But fornication does do harm. Sex always gives away part of the heart, and you can’t keep giving it away without consequences. Birth control may remove the chance of pregnancy, but the heart is always involved.
If homosexuality carries no concrete harm, then how exactly does it distance us from God and why does no other sexual sin distance us from God without also producing a concrete harm?
Yes, sinners prosper, but the Hugh Hefners and George Clooneys of the world are hardly whole. On the other hand, the homosexual couple that is fully committed to an otherwise fully Christian relationship does seem whole.
—
Harry,
That’s all very well and good, but you haven’t answered my question. What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
September 6th, 2011 | 5:08 pm
It seems to me there are two basic ways Christians can approach sexual ethics—a sexual act is wrong if it breaks “God’s law,” or a sexual act is wrong if it does harm. Thomas Aquinas classed masturbation as one of the “worst” sins, because it allegedly broke a law of God. In masturbation, something is used for a purpose far removed from what God allegedly intended it for. Having sex with a prostitute is more “natural” than masturbation. How many parents of teenage boys would be relieved to hear their sons were refraining from masturbation by relieving sexual tensions with prostitutes?
Bishop Jeffrey Robinson has written a book titled Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church in which he suggest sexual morality should be influenced most not by what are alleged offenses against God, but by how sex positively or negatively affects oneself and others.
Interestingly, the Catechism says regarding masturbation: “To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.”
This is, it seems to me, a good thing to say, but it also seems like the Catechism is trying to have it both ways. It is trying to say that in theory, masturbation is a very grave sin (against God), but in actual practice, it may not be very serious at all.
September 6th, 2011 | 5:10 pm
Blake they aren’t putting on funny hats and stuffing someone’s kids in a sack in the dead of night. It’s also anyone who uses IVF, not just sexual orientation. IVF/surrogacy requires a non-custodial biological parent, and in that sense you are right.
Anyone who uses IVF is guilty of one type of abuse.
Gays compound it in several ways.
For one thing: they don’t just want to exploit a loophole. They want the loophole redefined as a civil right. They want to change the rules of what a family is so that the state, rather than biology, decides what is and is not “kin”.
For another: gays don’t just irresponsibly sever a child from his biological identity. They also force the child to deny gender. Not only is it true that there is a BIG difference between male and female, but that difference is about parenting – it is in the procreative act that the difference exists and is relevant.
IVF people are selfish. Gay rights activists are selfish and also require other people deny reality itself so that they can play out their fantasies on a grand scale.
Please note that not all gay people do this (and not all people who want to force their androgynous fantasies onto society are gay). Some gay people are loving and devoted parents, and would never DREAM of using their children in such abusive ways.
September 6th, 2011 | 5:51 pm
Hi, Michael,
You wrote:
“That’s all very well and good, but you haven’t answered my question. What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?”
Take the time to read Humanae Vitae:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
to get an understanding of the Catholic understanding of God’s plan for human sexuality. Note that same-sex marriage can never be reconciled with the procreative aspect of that plan.
For a concise presentation of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2357-2359:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm
September 7th, 2011 | 5:43 am
Harry,
I take these references to mean that you don’t have a good answer. When an issue is so simple that all it requires is a simple “no, homosexuality is always and everywhere wrong,” then surely anyone adhering to such a cinviction should be able to explain why in a few sentences. I handled fornication in two sentences above.
By the way, I’ve read them, and they don’t answer the question.
September 7th, 2011 | 7:32 am
The problem though is who is the judge of harm? Michael and David, a sin is against both God and man, and when we judge the harm from it, we only do so from a limited human perspective. That’s not saying it’s invalid, but it’s kind of presumptuous to judge it solely based on our perspective.
It’s telling God what He should find sinful based on how it affects us, or how we perceive it doing so. I think David especially is not really allaying my fears when he uses quotes around “God’s law” for that purpose.
Again, some people do not find promiscuity as harmful. The actual physical harm can be limited by contraception, and while I agree with you on giving pieces of your heart away, some people simply don’t. By making how it affects us the standard of harm only, it’s just going to intensify that and make a conception of sin that is solely human-centered.
September 7th, 2011 | 10:28 am
It’s telling God what He should find sinful based on how it affects us, or how we perceive it doing so. I think David especially is not really allaying my fears when he uses quotes around “God’s law” for that purpose.
Dave,
I think it’s safe for me to make this generalization: It is a firmly held belief within Christianity that things are not wrong because God says they are wrong, but rather God says things are wrong because they are wrong. Otherwise, God could arbitrarily have classified rape as good and helping little old ladies across the street as evil.
Morality is, generally at least, not a matter of divine revelation. It is something human beings should be able to figure out from observation and reasoning. This is often called “natural law.” So if you are going to make a convincing argument against homosexuality, it is not good enough to say that God forbids it. It is necessary to explain why it makes sense for God to forbid it, and to make a really convincing argument, you would need to avoid references to God and religion.
September 7th, 2011 | 12:16 pm
Hello, Michael,
Your question was:
“What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?”
You then responded to my answer with:
“I take these references to mean that you don’t have a good answer. When an issue is so simple that all it requires is a simple ‘no, homosexuality is always and everywhere wrong,’ then surely anyone adhering to such a conviction should be able to explain why in a few sentences.”
I don’t see how “no, homosexuality is always and everywhere wrong” answers the question
“What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?”, but I will try one more time to answer your question, this time more concisely.
Homosexual orientation and especially homosexual acts are obviously contrary to nature; this is clearly indicated by the differences in the physical “plumbing” nature provides males and females; homosexuality is unnatural. If the truth about human sexuality extends beyond that of it being a means to experience pleasure, then we ought to live according to that truth.
September 7th, 2011 | 1:40 pm
Again, some people do not find promiscuity as harmful. The actual physical harm can be limited by contraception, and while I agree with you on giving pieces of your heart away, some people simply don’t.
First Thoughts posted a link to a wonderful argument about how a one night stand is inherently a lie – and how if one stopped up the disconnect between one’s words and one’s actions, the sex would become impossible. Lying is a necessary part of promiscuity.
Promiscuity does to sex what taking a Sharpie marker to a work of art does: it destroys something beautiful, for the sake of a fleeting, immature impulse-based pleasure that does no good and causes much harm.
September 7th, 2011 | 2:05 pm
Dblade,
“Again, some people do not find promiscuity as harmful. The actual physical harm can be limited by contraception, and while I agree with you on giving pieces of your heart away, some people simply don’t. By making how it affects us the standard of harm only, it’s just going to intensify that and make a conception of sin that is solely human-centered”
I understand that some people don’t find promiscuity harmful, but I’m talking as a Christian here, and I think it’s pretty easy for Christians to understand the harm in promiscuity. Christians know that pleasure is not the purpose of life, that something more is always at stake.
“Michael and David, a sin is against both God and man, and when we judge the harm from it, we only do so from a limited human perspective. That’s not saying it’s invalid, but it’s kind of presumptuous to judge it solely based on our perspective”
I agree with your logic completely; however, all the sins but one on Paul’s list have concrete harms a Christian can point to. The exception is idolatry, which is a sin that can’t be argued about using purely logic. Like keeping the Sabbath, the idea that idolatry is a sin is a matter wholly of faith.
Since you can’t point to a concrete harm, do you then think that homosexuality is like idolatry, a sin that creates “only” a spiritual division between God and humanity?
—
Harry,
“Homosexual orientation and especially homosexual acts are obviously contrary to nature”
In the ideal realm, perhaps, but not so in reality. The typical acts a lesbian couple practices to achieve pleasure differ not at all from those I employ with my wife. As for orientation, it is telling that the Church once used to recommend marriage because the Church thought homosexuality was a vice rather than an orientation. Now that the Church thinks of homosexuality as an orientation it recommends chastity.
“If the truth about human sexuality extends beyond that of it being a means to experience pleasure, then we ought to live according to that truth”
The truth about human sexuality is described in the second creation account in Genesis where we are told that humans seek someone made of their own flesh to end loneliness and find a helpmeet that can help them rule. This is the experience that longstanding homosexual Christian couples report.
September 7th, 2011 | 2:09 pm
harry,
But what does “contrary to nature” mean. Did you know that among giraffes, most of the sexual activity is anal intercourse engaged in by males? I will agree that we should not look to animal behavior as a model for human behavior, but in what sense can animal behavior be said to be “contrary to nature”?
If certain homosexual behaviors are adaptive in the animal kingdom, I don’t see how they can be said to be contrary to nature.
September 7th, 2011 | 7:11 pm
@David Nickol,
It doesn’t matter whether the behavior of animals is contrary to nature. The issue is what is contrary to human nature. Cannibalism has been practiced by humans. Does that prove humans eating other human beings is not contrary to human nature? If every aberration was considered proof that such behavior was not contrary to human nature, then there is no such thing as an aberration and nothing unnatural about sociopaths.
It is evident that homosexuality is a sad aberration that is contrary to human nature.
September 7th, 2011 | 7:47 pm
@Michael
Your comments carefully avoid the procreative aspect of human sexuality.
September 7th, 2011 | 9:55 pm
Harry,
I didn’t mention procreation because homosexual sex is never procreative.
But you knew that. Your point presumably is that procreation is the primary purpose of sex, or something like that.
Procreation is certainly the reason sexual reproduction was created, but it’s a mistake to reduce sex to merely procreation, especially in humans. Sex is not just an expression of love, but it binds couples more tightly, which is why Blake is right when he says that “a one night stand is a lie.”
In addition, humans are one of those rare species that has sex outside ovulation, which suggests that sex is always about binding, about love. Of the hundreds of sex acts my wife and I have committed only a couple of score had as their purpose procreation, and I’m sure the same is true for most married couples, now and in the past.
No, the most common purpose found in sex in healthy relationships is the expression of love. It binds couples together, including homosexual couples, and that truth is evident in one homosexual Christian couple after another.
September 7th, 2011 | 10:16 pm
And I should add, Harry, that your observation distracts from my question, which is whether homosexuality is a sin that has concrete harms like adultery or one that has “only” spiritual harms like idolatry. Unless you’re suggesting that sex that can never result in procreation is always a sin, in which case, we’ll have to alert the infertile and aged.
September 7th, 2011 | 11:06 pm
Procreation is certainly the reason sexual reproduction was created, but it’s a mistake to reduce sex to merely procreation, especially in humans.
If you believe that life can mean nothing more than feeding your own individual appetites – and that the individual pursuit of appetite-pleasure is the highest (maybe only) good – then sure, this is logical.
And, since this is exactly what humanists/Unitarian Universalists/atheists do believe (or at least teach) (though of course they dress it up some), then by the principle of freedom of religion you have to allow them the right to behave in whatever ways their faith dictates, just like every other type of freedom: restricted only by the inevitable clash where their rights come into contact with other peoples’ rights.
But of course when you detach any bodily pleasure from its purpose – whether it’s sexual appetite, gluttony, drink or drugs, gambling or adrenaline abuse, etc. – you are moving away from happiness, which is different from pleasure; you are also moving away from human dignity, and reducing yourself to a mere beast.
To be ruled by the body is not a good way to live. It is the essence of addiction.
September 7th, 2011 | 11:07 pm
@Michael,
My point was that procreation is an aspect of human sexuality that you didn’t mention because homosexual relations are sterile. The heterosexual relations of the infertile and aged are natural. Homosexual relations are always infertile and unnatural.
As for the immorality of homosexual relations, even though such relations are objectively wrong, one’s culpability would be based on one’s freedom in the matter, one’s understanding of morality and the extent to which one failed to live according that understanding.
Christians who have a grip on the morality that has been preserved in the Church by the Holy Spirit for twenty centuries and are free to live according to that morality would be culpable to a significant extent.
September 8th, 2011 | 12:28 pm
Blake,
“If you believe that life can mean nothing more than feeding your own individual appetites – and that the individual pursuit of appetite-pleasure is the highest (maybe only) good – then sure, this is logical”
You began your response with a quote from me, but I don’t see how you’re actually responding to what I’m saying. I think I’ve been quite clear that what you call “the individual pursuit of appetite-pleasure is the highest (maybe only) good” is mistaken about the purpose of human life. Perhaps you can clarify what you were trying to say.
—
Harry,
Can you answer the direct question I have asked, namely, is homosexuality a sin that has concrete harms like adultery, or is it one that has “only” spiritual harms like idolatry?
September 8th, 2011 | 2:14 pm
Michael, I don’t know. I think we can assume spiritual harm from the fact God calls it a sin: that’s a given. But the physical harms may be individual or social, visible or interior. I think being cut off from the feminine is risky unless done with the sole extent of worshipping God, as Paul says how the unmarried care for the things of God.
I also think that societies that embraced it tend to start skewing the straight side of it as well. I’m an anime and manga fan, and we both see things called Yuri and Yaoi-f/f and m/m comics designed for straight consumption. It’s lampooned humorously here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgaAzSFOvGE (should be sfw) but the acceptance of homosexuality can also spill into heterosexual relations between themselves.
It’s going to be interesting to see how a subculture of a generation of women that would rather see Harry Potter marrying Draco Malfoy than Hermione deals with men in general.
September 8th, 2011 | 4:21 pm
Dblade,
“I think we can assume spiritual harm from the fact God calls it a sin: that’s a given.”
This is a good general rule, though I think Jesus taught us to look very closely at what is called a sin and what is not, and we see the early Church doing just that in the Council of Jerusalem, for example.
“I also think that societies that embraced it tend to start skewing the straight side of it as well.”
I’m not interested in what societies do as much as I am in what Christian communities do. Much of the debate about homosexuality has pointed to social and public policy rather than looking at where Christian communities have succeeded or failed.
Now that the sexual revolution is long past and many can see the destruction left in its wake, the young are ready to embrace different models of life, and the Christian model is the only one that is truly and fully satisfying.
September 9th, 2011 | 11:23 pm
@Michael
“Can you answer the direct question I have asked, namely, is homosexuality a sin that has concrete harms like adultery, or is it one that has “only” spiritual harms like idolatry?”
Take a look at this:
The Health Risks of Gay Sex
John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D.
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html
September 11th, 2011 | 8:35 am
Harry,
Diggs is looking at homosexual sex in the aggregate. He’s not looking specifically at how homosexual Christians live. Diggs identifies five areas of risk: promiscuity, physical health, mental health, life span, and monogamy. Homosexual Christians who follow traditional teachings on monogamy don’t have to worry about two of these risks, namely, promiscuity and monogamy. Diggs identifies promiscuity as the culprit behind the shortened life span, so that is off the list, too. What remains are mental health and physical health.
On mental health, the Dutch study Diggs cites is asking the relevant questions, but it remains only one study. It also flies in the face of what I’ve seen. The gay Christians in our congregation don’t seem more depressed than anyone else in our congregation.
On physical health, Diggs correctly describes the physical trauma of anal sex and the increased risk of disease. While he provides numbers for the increased risk of disease, the diseases he discusses result from promiscuity, not from anal sex. He provides no numbers concerning how many men suffer from physical trauma or how bad or dangerous that physical trauma is. He does not mention the NIH study finding that nearly a third of gay men don’t have anal sex.
And of course, when Diggs discusses the physical health effects on lesbians, he has nothing. The harms all stem from promiscuity, not homosexuality.
To the question of whether homosexuality has any concrete harm, Diggs only provides this answer: Homosexuality leaves men with some unspecified risk of trauma if they practice anal sex. One single study suggests that homosexual sex leaves people depressed, but the study states that it’s not clear whether homosexuality causes depression or vice versa.
From Diggs, I conclude that lesbianism has no concrete harms and that gay men need to be careful about anal sex, avoiding it altogether or practicing it sparingly and carefully. There is no reason to disapprove of homosexuality based on concrete harms alone.
September 11th, 2011 | 1:24 pm
Hello, Michael,
Your response to Diggs was predictable but fascinating nonetheless. I am curious to know what you think of the following excerpts from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons. Maybe I will be surprised by what you think but I suspect that I won’t be.
If you take the time to read the entire document, which can be found here:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html
you will find that it explains very clearly the reasons for Catholic opposition to same-sex marriage.
Thanks
September 11th, 2011 | 9:32 pm
Harry,
Don’t rush it. If you can’t show that homosexuality is wrong, then there’s no point in arguing about homosexual marriage. So-called orthodox Christianity has staked a lot on its defense of ancient prejudices against homosexuals, and yet you can’t come up with a good answer for a simple question. I read Diggs as you asked, gave an honest assessment, pointing out where I think his argument is strong and where it is weak, and you change the subject. Maybe you’ve lost the fight against homosexuality for a reason.
September 12th, 2011 | 11:12 am
Hello, Michael,
You asked:
“What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?”
In response to which I provided reading material that makes the case that it is unnatural and that homosexual acts have negative consequences for homosexuals. I have also pointed out that the consistent teaching of Christianity, that consistency being the promised work of the Holy Spirit in the Church (the teaching you call “ancient prejudice” where you disagree with it), is that homosexuality is unnatural and that homosexual acts are sinful. If one flippantly dismisses such an essential teaching regarding human nature itself it is obvious one does not believe that Christ kept His promise that the Holy Spirit would be with the Church forever and guide its teaching. If you don’t believe Christ keeps His promises, you don’t really believe in Him.
You also asked, “whether homosexuality is a sin that has concrete harms like adultery or one that has ‘only’ spiritual harms like idolatry.”
In this this question you concede that homosexuality (I assume you mean homosexual sex because homosexuality and heterosexuality are not in themselves sinful) is a sin and has negative consequences and want an explanation of just what kind of harm is done.
You also concede that more than two thirds of gay men have an increased risk of disease:
“On physical health, Diggs correctly describes the physical trauma of anal sex and the increased risk of disease. … He does not mention the NIH study finding that nearly a third of gay men don’t have anal sex.”
I pointed you to a document that mentions the “concrete harm” homosexual unions do to children raised in such an environment, which further answers your second question. You may call that “changing the subject” instead of responding to the points made in the document if you like.
I had hoped for an increased understanding of your position on the matter but it sounds like you are declaring “victory.” If that is the case (which is certainly not obvious ;o) it is a Pyrrhic victory only, and in reality a tragic loss for you and those who think like you.
September 12th, 2011 | 7:48 pm
Harry,
I’ve been asking one, fairly simple question, and you keep coming back with bromides.
You’ve pointed to no concrete harms that come from lesbian sex. You’ve offered no rebuttal to the idea that lesbian practice is any more unnatural than the things a man might practice with his wife.
For gay sex, you point to numbers that apply in general to the harms of anal sex but don’t weigh specific risks—that is, what exactly are the odds of men suffering trauma and what is the range of seriousness of any trauma?
Since lesbians suffer no concrete harms, would you then say that “all” they suffer is spiritual division? If so, then lesbianism must belong to a category of sin that includes things like idolatry and failing to keep the Sabbath.
Arguments about how homosexual parents “do violence to their children” are fanciful, don’t answer my question, and betray ignorance of how successfully many homosexual Christian couples have raised their children.
Perhaps it’s time to consider whether you’ve really been listening to the Holy Spirit.
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