Posted on 11/26/2008 4:27:06 PM PST by goldstategop
The writer Andrew Sullivan sits across the table from you on Chris Matthews' Hardball praising gay-marriage as a symbol of the homosexual community's desire to join the mainstream. He is a Catholic, conservative in many things, and a highly articulate spokesman for his point-of-view. What do you say?
The requisite conservative on pundit panels usually falls back on citing heterosexual marriage's 5,000 year history as society's basic building block. Marriage has always been between a man and a woman. 65% of the American people are against homosexual unions. Etc.
That's not going to get it. It's a way of brushing off the Andrew Sullivans of the world, and if nothing else Mr. Sullivan and the homosexual community have shown that they will not be dismissed.
The reality of a concrete person, of a friend who is gay, makes claims upon us.
First, I think it's necessary to deal with how uncomfortable the whole discussion makes heterosexuals feel. Not because of homophobia, either. The reality of a concrete person, whether it's Andrew Sullivan or my friend who is gay, makes claims upon us. There he is with his desire to be accepted, to be loved, to enjoy the comforts of home, family, and community. Why should he be denied these things? More particularly, how can I justify putting legal obstacles in his way?
So many conversations that have gone on in the last forty years have seemingly boiled down to a person before us, who says, Here I am in this predicament—a marriage that's not working, an unwanted pregnancy, a sexual orientation that's not the norm. Here I am. See me. Why should I have to suffer unnecessarily when a suitable remedy is close at hand?
In this situation, anyone's first response is, "No problem. Be well and God bless!" The person before us elicits our empathy and should.
Unfortunately, there's a vast difference between love and the merely nice response that empathy often inspires. We are called to love our neighbors, and love can only be real when it's grounded in truth.
What the advocates of gay marriage are asking society to agree to is a lie. They are asking us to say that homosexual unions and heterosexual ones are morally equal.
Gay marriage advocates want us to pretend that heterosexual marriages and gay relationships are the same thing.
Gay marriage is not a civil rights issue, it's a moral issue. Certainly homosexual people have been treated unfairly in the past in certain contexts—housing, health care, rights of inheritance. All of these areas admit straightforward remedies that do not involve marriage. The dissatisfaction of gay activists with this approach speaks to something that's even more important than civil rights: blessing. Gays want their relationships blessed. They want society to honor their relationships as fitting, purposeful, and happy expressions of their identities.
That's why hundreds are rushing to San Francisco's court house to receive marriage licenses. The joy of an authority's recognition and validation. Your relationships are OK! They are just as good as anyone else's!
Catholics and all other faithful Christians know that as much as we might like to agree in this (Be well and God bless!), we would be agreeing with something manifestly untrue. I could speak theologically about these things, but that's not necessary. A man and a woman possess complementary sexualities whose differences make heterosexual relationships unique both in their affective and material dimensions. The two sexes’ complementary natures join together to make new human beings. Babies are the love of the couple incarnate. This sets the union of a man and woman apart-hallows that union, makes it sacred by virtue of its participation in the life-giving process itself-in a way that all non-procreative relationships never can be. This is not an emotive statement. It is factual—the nature of the case.
To enter into the mystery of life-giving, in all senses from the biological to the affective, is the reason for marriage. Entering into relationships that do not possess heterosexual marriage's life-giving potential makes these relationships something else besides marriage, whether they are friendships or same-sex relationships that entail sexual-gratification. So, let's just not pretend.
But that's what gay marriage advocates want us to do—pretend that heterosexual marriages and gay relationships are the same thing.
When societies accept collective lies, devastation always follows. The only hope for cultures—how often do we have to learn this lesson?—is to live in the truth.
What I would say to Andrew Sullivan then is, I love you, but don't ask me to lie.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
He's a Catholic in name only.
An apostate.
Funny, when bacteria joins the manstream, it’s called a bladder infection.
The homosexual lobby really needs to take care. If they, through liberal (extra-constitutional) jurisprudence force homosexual marriage on America at large, I can anticipate a serious backlash.
Wars have been fought for far less than the redefinition of a timeless institution. Everyplace is not like California...even, as we’ve seen in Prop. 8, California.
The best explanation and reasoning for traditional marriage is by Dr. Alan Keyes. Has anyone seen this Youtube of Alan Keyes v. Obama in 2004. He is on point. Listen intently to his arguments and it is so precise. Obama and moderator are tied up and they go after transient argument to derail his line of thinking. This is notetaking time. He is like a professor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG5u04Gbg0A
it’s a scam. Like somebody setting a rock up in his yard, claiming he’s a Druid and wanting his property tax exempt like any other church. Nobody’s feelings need to be hurt, it’s just the answer is, “no, you don’t qualify. “ I can’t collect Social Security checks like the lady that retired last year, it’s not agism, I have no right to be offended , even though I’m sure I’ve paid more in over the years and she’s probably got a much higher chance of collecting a lot more over the years than I ever will when I, God willing, retire much closer to my actuarial projection. I don’t qualify. I can develop a grievance mentality about it or not. I still don’t qualify.
I know this is a serious article, but I'm not sure if that's the best thing to say to Andrew Sullivan. He might take it the wrong way.
Keyes is one man who is not scared to speak the truth and get his point across while others in the party fall flat and go all timid
It is high time that all of us including our party officials stop beating around the bush and actually go after homosexuality
we can not stay silent and expect to win this.
They go around and are instructed to do so on their websites to get people to like them and then give them the sob sympathy story of how they just want to love and be alone as a family bla bla
we have to speak up to friends family ,neighbors instead of just being quiet on the issue.
Time for the party to realise that those who do not like the truth are not going to vote republican anyway .
Screw the name calling it is old and time for RINO’s to get out
Conservatives always get pushed into the moral argument on this issue. While I agree wholeheartedly with the moral difference, it would be a just and stronger position to argue that any society has right to promote the nuclear family. It is the best way to produce and raise future generations.
This is unequivocably true. A society which ignores or circumvents this truth is destinied to lose demographically.
Seeking our own destruction is fine with some but a weak point to make to the majority, I hope.
The gay movement was long ago co-opted by liberals who wish to attack the American family for their own reasons.
“We don’t need families, we need a village.”
We do need the family unit and there is plenty of evidence around that it needs support and promotion. If we don’t defend it we’ll end up like the rest of non-reproducing western world.
Again, that probably sounds wonderful to liberals but not yet to the average American.
Nuclear families, traditional families should not be dirty words and if we don’t draw a line then we will become a village of God knows what, with our primary allegiance to the state.
>>”He might take it the wrong way.”<<
LOL
My recent letter to the editor on this same subject:
I had to laugh at your Speaking Out question: “Should states allow or ban gay marriages?” You may as well have asked about banning unicorns or allowing dragons.
So called gay marriages are a fiction, a clever fabrication to achieve a political end.
People are born either male or female, and each sex is obviously designed for the other. Furthermore, every adult already has the right to marry.
The primary purpose of marriage is the generation and nurturing of children followed closely by the companionship and mutual aid of husband and wife.
These principles can be arrived at by common sense, and they show marriage to be a natural institution of great value to the individual, the family and the nation.
The carnal activities of men with men and women with women are the culmination of unnatural desire and simply represent capitulation to sexual vice.
Such unions can never be marriages, and the yelps and rallies of the few, the proud and the sexually deviant should not influence citizens to debauch marriage.
In countries where it has been tried, fewer people marry; demands for legalization of polygamy grow; schools teach children that homosexuality is normal; and freedom of conscience and speech are threatened.
Consenting adults should be allowed to form domestic partnerships, whether they involve sexual activity or not.
Marriage, however, as affirmed by the citizens of all 30 states that have allowed a vote, is the union of one man and one woman.
A Catholic is anyone who declares himself to be a Catholic.
Gays claim there is no qualitative moral difference and if you insist that there is, then you will be called a homophobic bigot.
It IS enough for conservatives to say that it is the constitutive unit of society and that same sex marriage is not the biological equivialent of heterosexual marriage and never can be. They can’t call you names over an obvious scientific fact without looking like the deranged thinkers they are.
They want us to ignore biological reality and pretend to a lie for their own moral comfort. I’m not going to give up reality for Andrew Sullivan no matter how much he stamps his feet.
I don’t know about this guy. I have known homosexuals who do not practice it, are basically what you’d call “abstinent”. They would not qualify as “apostates”. If Sullivan is arguing a political position of civil law, I’m still not sure he’d be apostate. If he’s arguing that the Church be required to perform their weddings and recognize their “marriages”, then he probably would be apostate.
Maybe he’s “Taking it like a man”....
bfl
And if some guy declares himself to be a woman, does that make him one?
Based upon the (lack of)actions of the Bishops, it is logical to conclude that a Catholic is anyone who declares himself to be a Catholic.
Well, in that respect........
Homosexual militant activists like Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage are ratcheting up their threats against traditional families. They are no longer even pretending to be open-minded, but are instead openly spewing the most vicious bile against normal heterosexual people:
Dan Savage: “run and hide behind ‘Nothing personal—just my private religious beliefs!’ That game’s over.”
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/11/26/when_are_your_privately_held
There you have it. The homosexuals militants have literally declared war on all religion. I have a feeling their threats are only going to make them a more outcast alternative deathstyle community.
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