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Posted on 08/05/2012 7:18:57 AM PDT by scottjewell
A CATHOLIC bishop has sparked controversy by suggesting that, if the Scottish Government truly believed in equality, it could extend legislation on same-sex marriage to encompass bigamy and even incest.
Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen asked why equality did not extend to "nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles" and why men could not have two wives, adding such scenarios were not freaks of nature but might in fact occur in Scottish parishes.
...
In an interview with the Scottish Catholic Observer (SCO), Bishop Gilbert, the first to be appointed in Scotland by Pope Benedict, said: "You can't have a meal without food and you don't have marriage without a man and a woman. This isn't just social convention. It's not something any Government can change. It's a fact of life.
"The truth is that a Government can pass any legislation it likes, it can legislate to say everything with four legs is a table, even when it's a dog and not a horse, but that won't make it so. Why is it all right for a man to marry another man, but not all right for him to marry two women? If we really want equality, why does that equality not extend to nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles? And, if you say that such things don't happen, that they are mere freaks of nature, extreme examples dreamed up for the sake of argument, I say you need to spend more time in the parish."
He added: "As Bishop of Aberdeen, I know there are gay people among the community of the Church. I promise I will always respect and love them and uphold them in their relationship with the God who loves them. But I won't marry them. It just can't be done."
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldscotland.com ...
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Certainly the call for more and more acceptance of sexual contact we now consider to be abnormal will come as we accept more and more Homosexual sex.
The old saying is that there is nothing new under the sun, and these aberrational acts have been performed for thousands of years, but accepting the perverse because Caligula did it , does not make it right.
Good for His Excellency!
We need more clergy that speak their minds!
Hell is for homos.
Pass the Chic-Fil-A’s!
“But I won’t marry them. It just can’t be done.”
What a wonderful, logical and concise summary.
BXVI obviously realizes that this issue is going to be the one that the forces that hate the Church and Christianity are going to use for their immediate legal attack in European countries and the US, because he has appointed a raft of new bishops (even to San Francisco!) who are very clear and outspoken about the issue, no matter the reaction.
This comes after years of earlier bishops who either seemed to tacitly approve of it, or were too scared to say anything about it. All that did was weaken the position of the Church.
Good luck and many years to your new bishop!
Well said...It’s almost as if all these consequences must happen in order for the reversal to come. I don’t feel like waiting for it, though, just because liberals don’t know how to engage in deductive reasoning.
Yeah, but people don't think that way. They merely feel.
It should be obvious that if a form of argument leads to some absurd conclusion then something is wrong with the argument and any conclusions that result from its application should be questioned.
Almost no-one gets that though, except those that have some background in mathematics or logic.
Logic doesn’t work with the mentally blind... but we try it anyway... hopefully some will listen.
But some words seem so true: “He who corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.” (Proverbs (RSV) 9:7)
As I often say, you can’t reason somebody out of a position reason didn’t get them in to....
Of course, I love and approve of the Bishop’s statement fully!
You do not favors gorgeous anyone by saying things like “he’ll is for homos.” How long ago did you join the Westboro Baptist Church?
You do not favors gorgeous anyone by saying things like “Hell is for homos.” How long ago did you join the Westboro Baptist Church?
Of course he’s right. But this argument will be called “hateful” and soon there will be “laws” passed against “hate speech”, and a man like this will face fines and imprisonment.
Don’t kid yourselves...Progressivism is most of all a fascistic doctrine...go back and read about Woodrow Wilson and even Theodore Roosevelt...they viewed their opposition as not only wrong...but evil.
Well, obviously I’m having problems typing coherent sentences on my phone this morning.
FR’s comment entry page needs revamping. It’s very difficult to see what you’re typing on a mobile device.
Your suggestion that marriage is simply about sex only supports the idea of same sex marriage-equality. It's a shallow view, IMO, and it plays into the hands of those that want to devalue marriage.
We're not talking about just sex. We're talking about a complicated relationship between people and their relationship to the rest of society.
Proper family formation is essential for the healthy continuation of society and civilization. A special social recognition and support of those people that wish to begin families is important.
Your suggestion that marriage is simply about sex only supports the idea of same sex marriage-equality. It's a shallow view, IMO, and it plays into the hands of those that want to devalue marriage.
We're not talking about just sex. We're talking about a complicated relationship between people and their relationship to the rest of society.
Proper family formation is essential for the healthy continuation of society and civilization. A special social recognition and support of those people that wish to begin families is important.
100% on the money! Good to hear it from a bishop.
And of course this argument would apply globally. But in this era someone who uses logic is simply drowned out by the voices of political correctness.
Not complicated but complex. And your premise is 100% correct. Lose this and the foundations of our society are transformed. We are a tolerant people but we have had enough transformation.
Absolutely! The Bishop is asking a very logical question, one that I've asked my liberal friends. The reaction is the same, they have no answer so they cry "Homophobe". Every argument they put forward to justify homosexual "marriage" can be used to justify all types of unions. IMHO thanks to this gay marriage legislation, in 20 years or so, we'll be fighting to keep polygamy illegal. Especially given the rise of sharia in the west.
When you strip it all down, marriage was created for the production and the protection of the next generation period. That's why you have inheritance, child support obligations and until recently, adoption only to married couples. Progressives with their "gay marriage" are destroying the core of society, the family.
Eventually, the conservative churches might again take control of marriage as a religious rite, outside of the realm of government control and influence.
The reason that government got involved in the first place was seemingly legitimate, that society had an interest in promulgating marriage and children, so it should “help them out” married couples with largess. However, overnight this turned into a situation of furthering government power and control.
The first step in doing this is the hardest, that from a given time, couples that wish to be married will only be recognized in that denomination’s churches as married, not getting a government license to marry at all.
As far as the government (typically the IRS) is concerned, they will be called POSSLQs. Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. They will keep their unmarried names in public, and known as Mr. and Mrs. only in their church and to friends and family.
Another hard step will likely need the agreement of many conservative churches, to *not* recognize marriage outside of their conservative churches. This will have to be “grandfathered” for those couples married previously, of course.
After some years, when this comes into effect, those couples married in civil services will have to officially no-contest divorce, before they can be married in church or have their marriage recognized as legitimate.
Government wants its control, however, so will not appreciate the effort to restore marriage to a religious rite. They will continue to try and force churches to marry anyone and everyone, and force couples to be government married and licensed.
So this is not just a glib exercise, but a very serious decision by the conservative churches, to separate “the state” from “the church”.
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