Feb 18, 2011 -- 9:09AM, darcamani wrote:

Dj, it is not your job to spread your catholic stuff to others here. It is hate speech, plain and simple hate speech, thinly veiled under the weak disguise called holy writ. gag!

There is nothing bad about being gay.

This is a very natural phenom.   No one asks to be gay or trans, it simply is a variation, a blessed variation on an already perfect creation. 

Telling a gay person they are wrong and need to change is like asking a daffodil to turn into a rose.  Both are perfect.

Dar 

Once again, Dar, no has said that there is something bad about being gay. You've not been paying attention. At the same time you have not looked at the copious evidence (from both sides here) that the last thing being gay is, is a "natural phenomena."

You have every right to believe that you and your partner are "perfect" but no right to assert that in a Catholic Church where the Teachings run counter to your beliefs. Another one (of your beliefs at odds with Catholic Teaching), for example, is that creation is "perfect."

Walter Brueggemann has written: "In chapter 3 [of Genesis], the key character alongside the man and the woman is the serpent who utters the “sly voice” of temptation that triggers disobedience and, consequently, exclusion of the human creatures from God’s garden. The particular dramatic development of the narrative is possible only because of the “commanding voice” of the serpent; and yet the narrative expresses neither curiosity about the serpent nor explanation for it. The serpent is a given in the narrative and consequently in the garden. . . a voice that seeks to contradict and counter the compelling, commanding voice of the Creator God.

The serpent, by verses 14-15, stands under a curse. What interests us, however, is the narrative affirmation that the serpent belongs to the creatures of the garden. Rendered theologically, this affirmation means that the seductive voice of evil is intrinsic to the creation; that is, the creation in principle is under siege from evil that contradicts the intention of the Creator. And this in a world called “good” many times in Genesis 1. Taken all together through a combination of antecedent sources, Genesis 1-3 asserts that the good world of God is in potential contradiction to the Creator, a reality sketched more fully in what follows in Genesis 4-11.

As many church people will know, Genesis 3 is the denouement of the creation narrative of Genesis 2. That narrative is understood in Christian interpretation as “the fall” whereby human creation (and ultimately all of creation) has fallen hopelessly and irreversibly into the power and into the habits of sin, so that human persons are irreversibly alienated from God and helpless to alter that condition. In this classical interpretation, human sin is not a series of specific, discrete acts, but it is a continuing strand of related decisions that cumulatively produce alienation from God and helplessness."

I don't think these scholars, nor myself, are diseminating "hate speech" and to view Dogma in that way is profoundly wrong on your part. If you step back and regain some composure, you might see that this is theological talk and has little to do with you or your partner. Were you to become Catholic or want to be part of the Church, it would have immense significance and you would need to come to grips with it as countless numbers of gay Catholics have. To call all of us (gay and straight alike) purveyors of hate speech is to misunderstand who we are. Give it a rest.

dj

Feb 18, 2011 -- 12:59PM, darcamani wrote:

Derekj;

I have been paying VERY close attention.

If my being was not natural I would not be!

Got it?

I would have never been born, offered life, love, children and happiness.  This is available to almost all from birth.  Perfect. It is after birth where things tend to go ary, from well meaning folk who try to make their perfect young,  mistakes.

We are all born perfect, whole and embodied with LOVE, it often goes down hill from there.

As humans we are also offered chioces, all having consequences. none good, nor bad, simply consequences.

I chose to follow my heart, mind and soul and fell in love with a woman, ditto for her.

I did not go looking for her, she simply walked into my life and I said, "yes". There are indeed consequences.   Mostly great ones. I love waking up in the morning next to her, and we all enjoy eachother at table, and through life's little oops we are always close.  

On the other hand...

 Domestic partnership, health care and custudy is a bit strange and extremely unequal as far as rights go, even though I pay taxes and vote and am even a vet.  I remain  second class.

That sucks.

I chose to become a mom, that did require hetero sex but no marriage, simply a commitment to co parenting, my sons' dad is also gay, he also is long time partnered, over 30 years now, happy and healthy and not christian, nor catholic. 

That fact alone makes us a very functional family! The consequences? healthy happy children a united family involved in co- parenting, honest communication and a great deal  of fun.

I am glad you are happy with your catholic dogma.  I choose to not follow that very dangerous path. It leads to great pain and is not worth the lies and deceit and self loathing that I know many feel forced into by well meaning folk like you who prefer dogma to reality.

FYI, I was born and baptised and confirmed both catholic and mormon, raised in churches not friendly to any living female .

I left them both and will never return.  Man made idea, even the notion of god!  very violent and filled with lies and nonsence.

My understanding of  Spirit and all creation is  perfection . No need to "fix",   There are no errors, not even earth quakes and human misery. 

Even you are perfect, it is how you choose to be each moment that makes or breaks the perfection within.

IMO, then you get to try all over again, sometimes.

Being on the gay end of this earth journey is not bad at all with out all the crap.

Dar 

I'm happy for you Dar, but I will remind you again that the content of my posts have been theological in nature and really not intended for anyone not of the Catholic faith or interested in homosexuality and the Church.

I'm very sorry if you encountered anything but loving concern from anyone from my Church. Just because your personal beliefs do not coincide with those of the RCC should not be cause for you to oppose them. I hope you can leave them be in peace.

The Church does not condemn GLBT and works to "accept with respect, compassion, and sensitivity" all homosexuals. "Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."

dj

DJ:  Not really. Dogma is dogma and reflects Theological Truths and Natural Law. The sciences are something else, don't you agree? Science is only what, 4-500 years old but Church Dogma and Teachings stretch back 2000 years. Is the Assumption of Mary accurate? It is within the context of the Truth that the Catholic Church teaches. I don't think religious thought considers science, psychology and biology. It's sort of like apples and oranges.

Natural Law is another name for scientific law. Ergo, you cannot compare religious thought to natural law because one has nothing to do with the other. One is a provable, measurable, recordable and repeatable science and the other is your Pope Urban II telling you to wipe out the evil infidels because God commands it.

Now in this case (homosexuality) anyone familiar with the struggles of same-sex sinners implicitly understands what is at stake when someone declares themself "gay" or "lesbian." It runs into the wall of Natural Law: cut your hand and it bleeds.

Homosexuality is not a sin. The only struggle is to deny one's self. The clash with natural law, is that trying to force homosexuality into the idea of sin creates the problem. Trying to force people to be something they are not, that declaring a gay or lesbian a "sinner" is the futile act.

"Homosexuals of both sexes remain fourteen times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexuals⁴⁷ and 3½ times more likely to commit suicide successfully.⁴⁸ Thirty years ago, this propensity toward suicide was attributed to social rejection, but the numbers have remained largely stable since then despite far greater public acceptance than existed in 1973. Study after study shows that male and female homosexuals have much higher rates of interpersonal maladjustment, depression, conduct disorder, childhood abuse (both sexual and violent), domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse, anxiety, and dependency on psychiatric care than heterosexuals.⁴⁹ Life expectancy of homosexual men was only forty-eight years before the AIDS virus came on the scene, and it is now down to thirty-eight.⁵⁰ Only 2 percent of homosexual men live past age sixty-five.⁵¹

Do you know why LGBT persons are more likely to commit suicide? People [who tell others that they are sinners or intrinsically disordered], plain and simple. [They] may even contribute to someone's suicide because they read those words here and fell into despair and anguish. They finally gave into the lie that they were sinning and could not change that they were gay or transgender, not if given all eternity to do so. There is no overall "public acceptance". People may be born into any household, even yours. For LGBT persons this means that they are still consistently subjugated to the archaic and evil ideas that people put into their heads.

The substance abuse and physical abuse bit is a lie.

The greatest growing group to suffer from AIDS is heterosexual women. Gay men have been on the decline. Your life expectancy line is an outright lie. Do you actually expect people to believe that only two percent of gay men reach old age? We must have a large portion of that two percent here on Bnet then! Praise God, it's a miracle! We've attracted an endangered group en masse!

Your statistics are garbage. RE and I actually work in medicine. We work with people first hand.

Male homosexuals are particularly prone to develop sexually transmitted diseases, in part because of the high degree of promiscuity displayed by male homosexuals. One study in San Francisco showed that 43 percent of male homosexuals had had more than 500 sexual partners.⁵⁵ Seventy-nine percent of their sexual partners were strangers. Only 3 percent had had fewer than ten sexual partners.⁵⁶ The nature of sodomy contributes to the problem among male homosexuals. The rectum is not designed for sex. It is very fragile. Indeed, its fragility and tendency to tear and bleed is one factor making anal sex such an efficient means of transmitting the AIDS and hepatitis viruses.

Prevalent stereotypes about male homosexuals are they are licentious, have substance abuse problems, and have trouble staying in committed relationships.^[12] Another prominent misconception is that gay men are always easy to identify with the "pretty" effeminate or hypomasculine image, and speaking with a gay lisp.^[13] Many gay men are indistinguishable from their straight counterparts, especially in professional fields. - Wikipedia

Because you choose to target a subculture, may I also assume that all heterosexual men disregard women? That they are all philandering dogs who are incapable of embracing their feelings or loving their wives?

If all you can do is parrot stereotypes, you cannot be taken seriously by any reasonable person.

Lesbians, in contrast, are less promiscuous than male homosexuals but more promiscuous than heterosexual women: One large study found that 42 percent of lesbians had more than ten sexual partners.⁵⁷ A substantial percentage of them were strangers. Lesbians share male homosexuals' propensity for drug abuse, psychiatric disorder, and suicide.⁵⁸

Really? You watch the L Word too? It's a tv show. If you think life is the same for gays or straights in LA or NYC as it is in Iowa or Oregon, think again. People, cultures and behavios vary based on geography. You should've learned this in social studies or by actually going someone once in the real world.

Do you know how many partners I've had? Two. My husband, then my wife. I have never even kissed another person. I have not even held hands with another person. I do not drink, I do not do drugs, I do not smoke and I never have. Oh sure, I'll have a glass of wine once or twice a year, but if you think that's a problem I'll look up my local AA chapter imediately.

Sorry, no pyschiatric disorder. I have a hard enough time with my busy schedule to fit one in.

The statistics speak for themselves: If homosexuals of either gender are finding satisfaction, why the search for sex with a disproportionately high number of strangers? In view of the evidence, homosexuals will not succeed at establishing exclusive relationships. Promiscuity is a hard habit for anyone to break, straight or homosexual. Promiscuous heterosexuals often fail to learn fidelity; male homosexuals are far more promiscuous than heterosexual males, and therefore far more likely to fail. Lesbians are more promiscuous than heterosexual women. There is little good data on the stability of lesbian relationships, but it is reasonable to speculate that their higher rates of promiscuity and various deep-seated psychological problems would predispose them to long-term relational instability. Existing evidence supports this speculation.⁵⁹

The statistics are made up, but we'll keep moving on. There is no disproportionate sex with strangers. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in one night stands. I'm monogamous.

I don't know many promiscuous lesbians. It's a bit of a rarity. Lesbians are actually more likely to form faster, closer emotional bonds and remain committed. So much so that jokes and stereotypes form about it in the LGBTQIA community.

Your article is honest for once! Speculation! Though it isn't based on facts. There are many people here that have been committed and fulfilled for decades. I'm sorry, but that's what Al Gore would call, "An Inconvenient Truth".

Existing evidence DOES show that two moms make for excellent parents!

www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,...

The more radical homosexual activists flaunt their promiscuity, using it as a weapon against what they call "bourgeois respectability."⁶⁰ But even more conservative advocates of gay marriage such as New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan admit that for them, "fidelity" does not mean complete monogamy, but just somewhat restrained promiscuity.⁶¹ In other words, they admit that exclusiveness will not happen. And without exclusiveness, their "marriages" will have little meaning.

You mean like those radical heterosexual hippies in the 60s, man?

Sullivan argues that marriage civilizes men, but anthropology would counter that marriage to women civilizes men. Male humans, homosexual or heterosexual, are more interested in random sex with strangers than women are.⁶² Men need to be civilized, to be taught the joys of committed sex, and that lesson is taught by marriage to women, not by other men who need to learn it themselves. The apparent instability of lesbian relationships suggests that lesbians understand that lesson less well than heterosexual women do. Exclusivity will not happen, and without exclusivity, marriage does not exist.

I think that men are either civilized or not. Your stereotyping is grossly offensive to both men and women of any orientation.

I'm sorry, what instability of lesbian relationships? Prove it with facts, not made up statistics.

Without exclusivity, permanent and unconditional relationships will not happen, either. By definition, a relationship that allows for "cruising" will be shallow and mutually exploitative, just as sex with strangers is shallow and mutually exploitative. So far, same-sex marriage is 0 for 3: likely to be neither exclusive nor unconditional nor permanent."
The full statement on gay marriage and the Catholic Church is here.

Your first sentences are true, for monogamous people of course. Sex with strangers may not actually be shallow though and can occur from mutual emotional need. It's called the human condition and applies to both sexes and all orientations.

Same sex marriage is just as exclusive, permanent and unconditional... actually it's probably more so.

Tell me, when did the Catholic Church become an accredited institute of science that makes it an expert on any of these things?

I didn't include the footnotes but you can see the above statement is assiduously documented. What that means is when your best friend, your son, daughter or other family member tells you he thinks he's gay or she is lesbian -- you should find a good counselor for a nice quiet talk. It's not some occasion for a Hollywood sitcom celebration.

Yes, it's very well documented. So are the Crusades. Do you agree or disagree with the aforementioned quote by Pope Urban II by the way?

They do not need a counselor, but they DO need to get away from [people who tell them they are intrinsically disordered] before they cause them emotional or physical harm.