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Pray for Benedict XVI!
I hope I’m wrong, but if some magistrate in Europe doesn’t order Benedict to jail until there is a change of policy his successor will likely get the honor.
I've been following the Canadian situation through Kathy Shaidle (reLapsed Catholic) for some time. It is chilling, indeed.
There are some great differences between us and Canadians but not on the Left, and not in political correctness. If we become the mere pawns of our courts, we will be as Canadians in the not too distant future.
Makes you sick at heart.
How ironic that the liberal propagators of tolerance turn out to be the new inquisitors.
I believe Pope Benedict has diplomatic immunity as the head of a sovereign entity, The Holy See.
I believe Pope Benedict has diplomatic immunity as the head of a sovereign entity, The Holy See.
Diplomatic immunity does not apply when there is a human rights violation, as illustrated by the Pinochet case. All that is necessary for the Pope to be stripped of diplomatic immunity is for a European court -- any European court -- to rule that the Catholic position on homosexuality is such a human rights violation. Is there anything the least implausible about this scenario?
Paul, I think your analysis does not go deep enough. Tolerance as understood by the Left is simply the rejection of all values -- the ultimate consequence of which is the abolition of Man, as outlined by C.S. Lewis in his monograph by that title. Genuine tolerance is itself a value, and you cannot reject values in general while long retaining tolerance in particular.
Canadians are indeed both more secular and more politically deferential than Americans, but it is also easy to overstate the differences, a tendency of both the Canadian left and American right. It is also worthwhile to remember that the left in Canada gets most of its philosophical inspiration from below the 49th parallel. We don't think this all up ourselves and the notion that we drink a daily dose of European modernist thinking is pretty fanciful, at least in my experience.
What strikes me about this whole issue is 1) how fast it all happened; and 2)how dissenters and even the confused, well-meaning majority have been effectively silenced. If you read the article, you will see that the mayor who was slapped down by the human rights commission stood down, ran for re-election and won in a landslide. But that didn't change a thing and the drive to whatever the gay lobby was demanding didn't miss a beat.
Paul's analysis of tolerance is bang on, but how many ordinary folks could articulate it? The reality is that in huge areas of North America people have internalized the secular definition, even if they resent it and oppose where it leads. And people will march on legislatures with pride and gusto, but the judiciary always gets a free pass. After Terri, who can realistically believe that will change?
Who can indeed, Peter.
Scary stuff, but it gets scarier. If I'm not mistaken, a couple of months ago in Seattle a women who owned a private print shop was forced by the city to print up materials for a gay couple's "wedding".
This is a long and portentous list, and hardly exhaustive.
But, I notice, you could provide no examples whatsoever of the hypothetical instance you began with: churches being forced to marry same-sex couples.
All the examples you offered were of secular institutions recognizing the reality that same-sex marriage, in Canada, is a legal fact.
(Further, I notice that when you point out "the nominee for justice commissioner was rejected because, being Roman Catholic, he cleaved to Catholic teaching on human sexuality" - you don't say that his "rejection" was purely symbolic: the civil liberties committee that won a narrow majority to reject him has, in fact, no power to reject individual commissioners.)
The question of whether or not gay couples should be able to get married under civil law is not a religious question, nor should it be.
Religions have their own rules and guidelines about who can get married, to whom, under what circumstances. But these rules and guidelines apply only to the people who follow those religions. The Catholic church may validly require that at least one participant in a marriage to be celebrated by Catholic ritual must be Catholic, and that both promise to bring up any children as Catholics: but such a rule cannot apply to civil marriages. A Catholic and a Jew may find it impossible to be religiously married, either in a church or a synagogue, but that does not mean that they should be prohibited from civil marriage.
Equally, while I support the right of any religion to uphold the rules of religious marriage for the believers in that religion - I do not support any religion in attempting to enforce those rules on people who do not wish to obey them. A Jewish woman who decides she prefers not to have her son circumcised: a Catholic priest who decides he wants to get married: a Muslim man who wants to marry a Christian man: all have a right to live by their own beliefs, and not to have the tenets of any religion imposed on them by force.
I'm surprised that you don't comprehend this. I'm surprised, in fact, that so many people who have commented seem to find freedom of religion, and the right of an individual to be supported in their freedom of conscience by the state, scary. It's a basic principle of the US constitution: if it's that scary, what are they still doing in the US?
a Muslim man who wants to marry a Christian man: all have a right to live by their own beliefs, and not to have the tenets of any religion imposed on them by force.
…or a Moslem man who, besides a Christian man, wants to marry his own sister (who once was his brother) plus a Marxist Inca and his pet lama – both of unidentifiable sex. Wouldn’t such fascinating quintet, too, have a right to live by their own beliefs?
No??
Why not?!
plus a Marxist Inca and his pet lama – both of unidentifiable sex.
*blinks* If you want to know what sex a Marxist Inca is, I presume you ask him or her. If you want to identify a llama's sex, I presume there are llama experts who could tell you how. If you want to marry your sister, I suspect there would be more widespread legal and emotional resistence to that.
But none of that seems at all relevant to the right of same-sex couples to have the same civil marriage rights as mixed-sex couples.
Presumably you bring up the issues of multiple-marriage, bestiality, transgenderism, and incest, because you find all of them exactly as shocking and appalling as you do homosexuality.
1. Multiple marriage: I admit I see no reason why marriage could not be extended to apply to groups of three or four people, instead of couples. But I've never looked into this issue: should someone present a case for it, I'll certainly consider it on its merits.
2. Bestiality: Here is the simplest issue of them all. An animal cannot agree to a legal contract, therefore proposing that marrying animals should be legal can only be considered a joke. An animal cannot consent to sex, therefore it should be illegal for a human to have sex with an animal - cruelty is also an issue here.
3. Transgenderism: Again, simple. Some people appear to innately believe that they are women in men's bodies, or vice versa, and wish to live as and be recognised as people of the sex they feel themselves to be, rather than the sex they physically are. It seems only reasonable that after someone has gone to considerable and irreversible trouble to live as a member of the opposite sex, the law should consider them to be a member of the opposite sex.
4. Incest. Cross-generational incest brings up consent, statutory rape, and actual rape, neither of which I believe should be legal. Incest between related adults treads a grey area of legality. But as far as I know, there exists no widespread wish for siblings to be able to marry each other: were such a change in the law to be presented, it ought to be considered on its merits.
Whereas same-sex couples have a clear need for the same legal rights as mixed-sex couples, and in fact have been granted these same rights in many countries without any noticeable damage to mixed-sex marriage.
Presumably you bring up the issues of multiple-marriage, bestiality, transgenderism, and incest, because you find all of them exactly as shocking and appalling as you do homosexuality.
Your presumption is quite correct!
Yes, I do find the practice of homosexuality as unnatural, morbid, sick and morally corrupt as “all of them”.
Now if, despite of that, homosexual couple “right to live by their own belief” must, as you imply, override thousands years old societal norms, mores and agreements then why shouldn’t the same right be claimed by the hypothetical quintet I suggested before?
You “see no reason why marriage could not be extended to apply to groups of three or four people, instead of couples”. And that “should someone present a case for it, I'll certainly consider it on its merits”.
If you have a few minutes to spare, could you please try to meditate over what merits different from the hallowed “right to live by their own belief” would be the case here and then let us know? I am quite serious.
Bestiality: Here is the simplest issue of them all. An animal cannot agree to a legal contract, therefore proposing that marrying animals should be legal can only be considered a joke. An animal cannot consent to sex, therefore it should be illegal for a human to have sex with an animal - cruelty is also an issue here.
Neither can an animal consent to being raised, fattened, slaughtered and consumed by the humans. (No, I am not a vegetarian). Speaking of cruelty; I have seen poor lamas, donkeys, camels treated so abominably that had they been given a choice between their wretched life and being married to a Marxist, or Moslem, or both, they would have surely opt for the safe marriage and gladly endure the amorous advances of their spouses.
Also, in many islamic societies a woman can not disagree to a legal contract marriage without risking death. How much different is her situation from animal’s?
About transgenderism: you misunderstood me here. I admit a person has a right to do to his body what he fancies, including total remodeling. Rather that than abortion. I included the transgender member of the quintet for purely esthetic reasons.
cont.
Incest: were such a change in the law to be presented, it ought to be considered on its merits.
I again am curious to hear if such merits be different from “right to live by their belief”.
Whereas same-sex couples have a clear need for the same legal rights as mixed-sex couples, and in fact have been granted these same rights in many countries without any noticeable damage to mixed-sex marriage.
There is no damage? You are wrong. The society is being affected in much more serious way and much wider scope than simply“damage to mixed-sex marriage”.
I can easily see why two sexual deviants would want to have “the same legal rights” as a normal married couple. What I can’t see is why it should be granted to them.
A marriage is per definition a union of man and woman. It is the most fundamental cell of human society - its microcosm. It reflects the nature of society infinitely more accurately than two, or two million sodomites. It is in fact a society on its most basic level. Its vital importance has been recognized and celebrated in every civilization for countless ages. It is rightly regarded as a holy, life giving institution without which a society degenerates and perishes. Therefore it can not share its unique place with the union of two, or more sodomites without losing its meaning, its holiness, its beauty and its truth.
It is only to be expected that when an organism is being assailed on its “cellular” level the effect must eventually spread over its total being and express itself in sickness of the whole. When two homosexual are pronounced “married” the difference between normal and abnormal, natural and unnatural, moral and immoral is being obliterated. These most basic concepts which sustain society’s sanity are getting diffused and confused and the damage spreads to other areas of life just like cancer.
To illustrate: Not so long ago a Swedish pastor has been charged with “hate” crime for telling the congregation of his church that homosexuality is the most lethal form of social cancer ravishing the Swedish society. He was backing that with quotes from the Bible. The case went in, out and in again to the court, so now he, again, faces jail time for preaching against homosexuality. Sweden’s Homosexual and Lesbian Organization is quite influential and it has the power to tip the scales of justice the right way whenever homosexuality clashes with citizen’s freedom of speech. It is not really important if the pastor will get convicted this, or next time. What is sickening and truly scary is that an average Swede knows that his democratic rights are getting increasingly curtailed and there is less and less opposition to that development which would be impossible only two decades ago. But when marriage becomes a sick farce - a legally upheld falsehood, it is only inevitable that democracy and freedom must become caricatures too. If this is not cancer then nothing is.
Yes, I do find the practice of homosexuality as unnatural, morbid, sick and morally corrupt as “all of them”.
And you're entitled to your own personal opinion, so long as you don't inflict your feelings on others. That's what tolerance means.
Now if, despite of that
"despite" of your own personal feelings? But why should your personal feelings about homosexuality affect anyone but yourself?
homosexual couple “right to live by their own belief” must, as you imply, override thousands years old societal norms, mores and agreements
Which ones? There aren't that many societal norms, mores, and agreements that are thousands of years old, and very few of them involve homosexuality.
(If you're planning to cite Mosaic law at me, I will agree that there is a specified prohition under Mosaic law that says two men may not have sex with each other. This would apply to all Orthodox Jews, who religiously keep all elements of Mosaic law. It would not apply to anyone not an Orthodox Jew.)
then why shouldn’t the same right be claimed by the hypothetical quintet I suggested before
If there is a serious and thoughtful argument made why marriage should be extended so that three to five people can get married, instead of limiting civil marriage rights to two people, I can see no reason why that argument should not be considered on its merits. However, that is not the topic under discussion, is it?
Also, in many islamic societies a woman can not disagree to a legal contract marriage without risking death. How much different is her situation from animal’s?
Are you arguing in favor of this situation? Because if not, I can't see what point you're making.
You are wrong. The society is being affected in much more serious way and much wider scope than simply“damage to mixed-sex marriage”.
And yet, no one has been able to prove that. Though many have tried, no one has come up with any actual facts. It's an unscientific fantasy that same-sex civil marriage "damages society".
Not so long ago a Swedish pastor has been charged with “hate” crime for telling the congregation of his church that homosexuality is the most lethal form of social cancer ravishing the Swedish society
Can you cite the context in which this occurred? If the pastor had been telling his congregation that black people are a lethal social cancer ravishing Swedish society, backing this with quotes from the Bible, would you have felt he ought to have been allowed to have his say even when Swedish law forbids hate speech? Is it just gay people you think pastors ought to be allowed to stir up hate against, or any group of people a pastor doesn't like?
Though many have tried, no one has come up with any actual facts. It's an unscientific fantasy that same-sex civil marriage "damages society".
You have limited the acceptable evidence in such a manner as to nearly insure that your position will prevail, in the first place because sociological facts of the kind you require will be years if not decades in coming (it took 30 years for the alarm sounded by Daniel P. Moynihan about the deterioration of the black family to really enter the public mind), and in the second place because you have preemptively ruled out of order any assessment of the moral climate of society.
Thus, if we say that the very fact that, because of gay marriage, we now have to reassemble the arguments against polygamy, bestiality, and incest from scratch, and present them to the public only in the narrow language of legal rationalism; if we say that this alone indicates the damage sodomite "marriage" has inflicted on our society, you will reply that such evidence is unscientific, and that is that.
When men cannot see that forcing a society to make a dramatic reappraisal "on the merits" of such patent moral and social deformities as polygamy and incest, is evidence of dreary regression and decay, then they have abandoned the virtue of discernment.
As always, the Conservatives are not opposed to objective progress -- they are simply opposed to decline masquerading as progress. Our civilization made great progress -- progress that many societies never made -- by driving polygamy and incest out of our society, (to the extent that we could); and now the "progressives" want to revisit it, all in the name of progress.
The broader question here is, of course, whether any form of moral values can exist outside of a religious structure. In "Abolition of Man," previously referenced here, C S Lewis argues that there are innate values, and offers a cross-cultural comparison to demonstrate them.
Jerusgislac,
..you're entitled to your own personal opinion, so long as you don't inflict your feelings on others. That's what tolerance means.
Not inflicting my feelings on others? Is that what tolerance means? If tolerance means muzzling, intimidating and censoring people one hates to hear then it is as phony and corrupted as sodomite “marriage” - or “gaiety” of buggery.
But why should your personal feelings about homosexuality affect anyone but yourself?
If my feelings about the corrupted nature of homosexuality has been shared by virtually all civilizations through many millennia then it is quite disingenuous of you to dismiss them as “my personal” and disregard their universal validity. Homosexuality has been decriminalized, historically speaking, only a few minutes ago. But only extremely few and usually homosexual people argue for its being normal. And even less than extremely few believe it is.
Which ones? There aren't that many societal norms, mores, and agreements that are thousands of years old, and very few of them involve homosexuality.
How many and how old they must be for you to respect them?
As said before virtually ALL cultures and societies, regardless how primitive or advanced, view the practice of homosexuality as aberration, abomination – something sick and shameful. Not all of them punish the practice as harsh as Moslems, but none of them ever proposed equality of sodomite couple and a normal marriage. Not even the relatively tolerant of it ancient Greece.
Continued..
cont...
(If you're planning to cite Mosaic law at me, I will agree that there is a specified prohition under Mosaic law that says two men may not have sex with each other.
No, I was not planning citing Mosaic, or other law. Mosaic Law concerns itself with the moral, not with natural. It presupposes man’s ability to discriminate between natural and unnatural. But you flaunt your rejection and contempt of reality of that difference when buggery is concerned (I wonder why) so why should I want waste time “citing Mosaic law” at you?
And yet, no one has been able to prove that. Though many have tried, no one has come up with any actual facts. It's an unscientific fantasy that same-sex civil marriage "damages society".
You must be bloody joking!
Is not the fact that one goes to jail for publicly expressing his opinion that ”same-sex civil marriage damages society” THE proof that same-sex civil marriage damages society?
The proof is in the pudding.
But I doubt you will be troubled by that “pudding” if you were not bothered by the examples of coercion and intimidation provided by Paul Cella.
If the pastor had been telling his congregation that black people are a lethal social cancer ravishing Swedish society, backing this with quotes from the Bible, would you have felt he ought to have been allowed to have his say even when Swedish law forbids hate speech?
How predictable that you should resort to that pathetic and shameless distortion. I knew it!
The pastor condemned the homosexual practice not homosexual people. He actually asked his congregation to pray for the homosexuals. Do you want to compare the criticism of unnatural and sick sexual behaviour to the wickedness of reviling a whole category of people based on their skin colour? I think your comparison is deeply insulting to the dignity of the black people and their long history of suffering and struggle for equality. But it seems for some people the blacks will never cease to be just a chattel: sometimes useful for cotton picking and sometimes for promoting their diseased agenda.
T. Hanski: Not inflicting my feelings on others? Is that what tolerance means? If tolerance means muzzling, intimidating and censoring people one hates to hear
No. It means that you, as a private individual, are entitled to express your feelings as bluntly as you like. You are not entitled to inflict your feelings on others, by (for example, if you had the power to do so) forbidding gay marriage because of your feelings about homosexuality. If you had a position of responsibility, you might well be required (by the responsibility you held) to refrain from hate speech that you would be free to use as a private individual. Is this clear?
If my feelings about the corrupted nature of homosexuality has been shared by virtually all civilizations through many millennia then it is quite disingenuous of you to dismiss them as “my personal” and disregard their universal validity.
It would be, if that were so, but as your feelings about "the corrupted nature of homosexuality" have not been shared by "virtually all" civilisations - let alone "through many millennia" (the concept of homosexuality is a 19th century invention: prior to that, it was only specific sexual acts that were or were not condemned) so it is disingenous (or perhaps merely ignorant) of you to claim a universal validity for a local prejudice.
As said before virtually ALL cultures and societies, regardless how primitive or advanced, view the practice of homosexuality as aberration, abomination – something sick and shameful.
Nonsense. That is simply not true.
but none of them ever proposed equality of sodomite couple and a normal marriage. Not even the relatively tolerant of it ancient Greece.
Actually, there are multiple examples of cultures (in China, North America, and elsewhere) which had the direct equivalent of same-sex marriage. But in any case, even if same-sex marriage were a brand-new concept, what of it? Marriage changes through the centuries, in different cultures/different places. Marriage has changed, in many countries, to include same-sex couples. No evidence has been shown that this has damaged family life in these countries.
Is not the fact that one goes to jail for publicly expressing his opinion that ”same-sex civil marriage damages society” THE proof that same-sex civil marriage damages society?
Since you have yet to cite any actual instance of anyone going to jail for publicly expressing the opinion that ”same-sex civil marriage damages society” I think that point is moot. Should you be aware of any incident where someone has been imprisoned merely for expressing that opinion, feel free to cite it.
Do you want to compare the criticism of unnatural and sick sexual behaviour to the wickedness of reviling a whole category of people based on their skin colour?
Given that a lesbian or gay person can no more change their sexual orientation than a person can change th
Oops. Continued:
T. Hanski: Do you want to compare the criticism of unnatural and sick sexual behaviour to the wickedness of reviling a whole category of people based on their skin colour?
Given that a lesbian or gay person can no more change their sexual orientation than a person can change their skin color, I consider it equally wicked to revile either.
Indeed, I consider it especially wicked for a pastor to revile a group which almost certainly included vulnerable children and teenagers listening to him, with the authority of the pulpit, telling them that their natural and normal feelings for people of the same sex were "unnatural and sick". It is repellant for a person in authority to use his authority to verbally abuse vulnerable young people.
Examples of same-sex marriage accepted in other cultures.
Given that a lesbian or gay person can no more change their sexual orientation than a person can change their skin color, I consider it equally wicked to revile either.
The idea that homosexuality and skin color are equally innate is sophistry of a very low order.
There are still legitimate scientific dissenters from the homosexuality-as-wholly-innate school of thought, but even if it is eventually demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that homosexuality is largely innate or genetic, it doesn't follow that a man must indulge his sexual inclinations. The comparison is bogus. What Mr. Hanski and myself and many others find unnnatural and sinful is not the fact of homosexuals, but the willed action of homosexual sex. And contrary to the propaganda of modern culture, the sexual appetite can be tamed. Indeed it must, for everyone, not just homosexuals.
There is no willed action in skin color, and to efface this distinction between immovable fact and willed action is tedious unreason.
(As a sidenote, I think it must be at least considered by all parties here that male homosexuality and lesbianism are so different as to preclude any easy comparison.)
Paul: The idea that homosexuality and skin color are equally innate is sophistry of a very low order.
No, not really.
I do not pretend to know whether sexual orientation is genetic, is an acquired physical characteristic, or is an acquired behavioral characteristic, or some combination of the three - or another factor that does not right now occur to me.
What has been determined, quite definitely, is that by the time a person is old enough to know what their sexual orientation is, their sexual orientation is fixed for good, as definitely as their skin color.
What Mr. Hanski and myself and many others find unnnatural and sinful is not the fact of homosexuals, but the willed action of homosexual sex.
It is unnatural to demand that a large proportion of the human race shall live celibate their entire lives, against their natural/normal inclinations, to satisfy someone else's prejudices. (If someone chooses to live celibate, that's another matter, of course.) Sinful is a matter for your own personal definition: I define sin as deliberately doing harm, and I consider that using religion to abuse lesbian and gay teenagers by telling them that their normal inclinations are "unnatural and sinful" is truly sinful. (Adults generally have or acquire their own resources to defend themselves, but teenagers are often horrifyingly vulnerable to abuse of this kind, especially if they are isolated and dependent on the very people who are thus abusing them.)
And contrary to the propaganda of modern culture, the sexual appetite can be tamed. Indeed it must, for everyone, not just homosexuals.
However, I do not believe you are proposing that everyone should be 100% celibate, never indulging their natural sexual inclinations - not even with their wife or husband. Yet that would appear to be precisely what you are advocating for lesbians and gays.
(As a sidenote, I think it must be at least considered by all parties here that male homosexuality and lesbianism are so different as to preclude any easy comparison.)
Certainly straight men appear to find it much easier to contemplate lesbians living together and/or having sex than they do gay men living together and/or having sex. Outside perceptions aside, though, politically our interests are identical: especially where people wish to deny us our civil rights in the name of a form of Christianity.
It is unnatural to demand that a large proportion of the human race shall live celibate their entire lives, against their natural/normal inclinations, to satisfy someone else's prejudices.
Who said celibate? I did not. This is another convenient elision.
Anyway, it is a harsh and difficult fact, but a fact nonetheless, that a "large proportion of the human race," both hetero- and homosexual, must live celibate lives, against their inclinations, because they are never able marry.
I imagine the obligations of the virtue of chastity are no less difficult for the very unattractive (whether of appearance or of personality) than they are for homosexuals.
No. It means that you, as a private individual, are entitled to express your feelings as bluntly as you like. You are not entitled to inflict your feelings on others, by (for example, if you had the power to do so) forbidding gay marriage because of your feelings about homosexuality. If you had a position of responsibility, you might well be required (by the responsibility you held) to refrain from hate speech that you would be free to use as a private individual. Is this clear?
Clear?
It is as muddled and phoney as everything you ever wrote on the subject. The only thing which is clear is your intention to keep things as unclear as possible to suit your agenda. I think Paul Cella shows eminently clear and elegantly in this posting what a total sham your so called “tolerance” is. I don’t imagine I can improve on his writing, so if you have not been satisfied by what he said there is not much sense for me to debate you on that.
It would be, if that were so, but as your feelings about "the corrupted nature of homosexuality" have not been shared by "virtually all" civilisations - let alone "through many millennia" (the concept of homosexuality is a 19th century invention: prior to that, it was only specific sexual acts that were or were not condemned) so it is disingenous (or perhaps merely ignorant) of you to claim a universal validity for a local prejudice.
According to my Random House “virtually” means almost, or nearly, but it allows for exceptions. How in the world can you hope that these few exceptions you picked up from the freak show of history or ethnography may overwhelm what Judaism, Christianity, Islam rejects totally and what other major civilizations treat as inferior at best?
And what does the fact (or myth) that the concept of homosexuality was invented in 19 centuries somehow nullifies the real fact that buggery was explicitly mentioned, condemned and harshly punished since many centuries before that?
But in any case, even if same-sex marriage were a brand-new concept, what of it? Marriage changes through the centuries, in different cultures/different places. Marriage has changed, in many countries, to include same-sex couples.
The only way the marriage changed is from polygamy to monogamy. And if I may remind you; the recent development marked by sodomite marriage happens to be the subject of our discussion about the rightness and morality of it. You must be quite desperate for arguments if you choose to resort to such a crude form of tautology.
No evidence has been shown that this has damaged family life in these countries.
Again, that claim has been countered by me before and devastated by Paul Cella. If you are serious, or sincere, than you should argue P. Cella counterarguments instead of tediously repeating the same line over and over again.
cont...
Since you have yet to cite any actual instance of anyone going to jail for publicly expressing the opinion that ”same-sex civil marriage damages society” I think that point is moot.
The Swedish pastor you refer to is awaiting the ruling of the Court. He may, or he may not go to jail. What is fantastic and scary is the fact that he has been charged with felony for speaking up against practice of homosexuality (not homosexuals, as you are dishonestly suggesting) - something inconceivable only a few years ago. Somehow you kind of “tolerance” for sodomites translated here to harassment and aggravation and possible jail for him. So how moot exactly is that point?
Should you be aware of any incident where someone has been imprisoned merely for expressing that opinion, feel free to cite it.
I just did. And, again, so do the examples provided by P. Cella in this posting. But I think they don’t make much impression on you since you’ve never referred to them. If you will address them one by one honestly I then I might take you seriously.
Given that a lesbian or gay person can no more change their sexual orientation than a person can change their skin color, I consider it equally wicked to revile either.
Well, again, I don’t think I can improve on the comment supplied earlier by P. Cella:
”The comparison is bogus. What Mr. Hanski and myself and many others find unnnatural and sinful is not the fact of homosexuals, but the willed action of homosexual sex. And contrary to the propaganda of modern culture, the sexual appetite can be tamed. Indeed it must, for everyone, not just homosexuals.
There is no willed action in skin color, and to efface this distinction between immovable fact and willed action is tedious unreason.”
Indeed, I consider it especially wicked for a pastor to revile a group which almost certainly included vulnerable children and teenagers listening to him, with the authority of the pulpit, telling them that their natural and normal feelings for people of the same sex were "unnatural and sick".
That the “pastor reviled a group” is patently not true – and you know it. It is your own “invention”. He condemned the practice of homosexuality and asked the faithful to pray for homosexuals. But I mentioned it before. Really, it is increasingly difficult for me to respect someone who keeps on misrepresenting my words.
Natural feelings for people of the same sex? Homosexuality is not going to be natural just because you, or a million of sodomites, declare so. That what the pastor was saying to young people; “don’t believe those who tell you it is natural”. Is that why you detest him so?
Paul Cella: Anyway, it is a harsh and difficult fact, but a fact nonetheless, that a "large proportion of the human race," both hetero- and homosexual, must live celibate lives, against their inclinations, because they are never able marry.
If you consider this a "harsh and difficult fact" why oppose making it more possible for same-sex couples to get married if they wish? If you only support sex inside marriage, and you are not calling for all gay people to remain celibate, the only possible non-contradiction is for you to support gay marriage.
T. Hanski: How in the world can you hope that these few exceptions you picked up from the freak show of history or ethnography may overwhelm what Judaism, Christianity, Islam rejects totally and what other major civilizations treat as inferior at best?
Do you want more exceptions? For example, it is easier to find a Reform Jewish rabbi to marry two Jewish men to each other than it is to find any rabbi to marry a Jewish man to a gentile woman. For example, there are many Christian sects that fully accept same-sex marriage. For example, I can find you a good array of 14th-century Kufic love poetry - or you could read an unexpurgated translation of the Thousand and One Nights. No, neither Jewish, Christian, nor Islamic tradition rejects totally love or sex between same-sex couples.
I just did.
No, you didn't. You offered an instance where (you asserted) a Swedish pastor had been imprisoned for using hate speech from the pulpit, and you did not provide any link to any account of this. If you want to be convincing, (1) provide a cite (or at least a name so that I can provide a cite), and (2) be consistent in your claims. It does not appear from your initial account that the Swedish pastor was arrested for publicly expressing the opinion that ”same-sex civil marriage damages society” but for using hate speech.
That the “pastor reviled a group” is patently not true – and you know it. It is your own “invention”. He condemned the practice of homosexuality and asked the faithful to pray for homosexuals.
Actually, since all I have of this affair is your own shifting account of it, I have no idea what was said, and won't unless you can provide at minimum a name to google on.
But from your account of it, it appears that the pastor did indeed revile a group who were almost certainly present in his congregation - any lesbian, gay, and bisexual teenagers who were present. I hope that he did not too much damage.
Natural feelings for people of the same sex? Homosexuality is not going to be natural just because you, or a million of sodomites, declare so.
Natural, because it exists in nature. Any species of bird or animal advanced enough to have sexual choice, will exhibit homosexual as well as heterosexual behavior. That's just a scientific fact. You can wish it
[cont'd]
That's just a scientific fact. You can wish it weren't so, but you can't wish it away.
I do not support any religion in attempting to enforce those rules on people who do not wish to obey them. A Jewish woman who decides she prefers not to have her son circumcised: a Catholic priest who decides he wants to get married: a Muslim man who wants to marry a Christian man: all have a right to live by their own beliefs, and not to have the tenets of any religion imposed on them by force
Just to be clear - you are saying that, for instance the priest should have the right to marry civilly, but you are not saying that the Church could not kick him out of the Church if he does so w/o the Church's permission, are you? Sure, they have a right to live by their own beliefs; but the Church or other groups have a right to protect what they teach, and require those who want to be members live up to the rules of membership.
No. It means that you, as a private individual, are entitled to express your feelings as bluntly as you like. You are not entitled to inflict your feelings on others, by (for example, if you had the power to do so) forbidding gay marriage because of your feelings about homosexuality
This is where you are mistaken - in a democracy (or democratic republic) you ARE free to inflict your views on others to the extent your political pull allows you.
c matt: Just to be clear - you are saying that, for instance the priest should have the right to marry civilly, but you are not saying that the Church could not kick him out of the Church if he does so w/o the Church's permission, are you?
No, of course not. A Catholic priest who wants to get married must be allowed to enter a civil marriage by the state: but the church is fully entitled to tell him that he can't be a priest any more. The Church is entitled to set rules which Church members must obey if they want to remain Church members. (As the example I used above: a rabbi is entitled to refuse to marry a non-Jew to a Jew. She or he is not entitled to ensure that the Jew and the non-Jew can't have a civil marriage, valid under secular if not Jewish law.)
This is where you are mistaken - in a democracy (or democratic republic) you ARE free to inflict your views on others to the extent your political pull allows you.
Fair point. Okay: put it that I believe someone in a position of responsibility should not use the power that position gives them to abuse those for whom they are responsible. For example, a pastor should not try to make lesbian/gay teenagers in his congregration feel self-hate: a teacher should not try to make other students in their class despise/hate a lesbian/gay student: a parent should not make their lesbian/gay child feel inferior or wrong.
In all those examples, I'm fully aware that it's very much a "should not" rather than a "cannot": a moral responsibility, not a legal one.
Here is delicacy from the May issue of the First Things.
According to Reuters, gay and lesbian organizations are in an uproar. It seems that male penguins in the zoo of Bremerhaven, Germany, have been attempting to mate with one another and to hatch offspring out of stones. The zoo has imported some female penguins from Scandinavia. In response to protests, the zoo’s director, Heike Kueck, says, “Nobody here is trying to break up same-sex pairs by force. We don’t know if the males are really gay or just got together because of a lack of females.” The protesters are not appeased. Giving the penguins a choice would deprive them of the choice of being gay. And who knows whether, given time enough, the stones might hatch?
Don’t you gentlemen just love it? Well, some of you at least.
It proves clearly that, indeed, homosexuality is natural among animals - as long as humans provide them with abundance of unnatural conditions. Naturally!
Otherwise the occurrence of the phenomenon would have been as frequent as birth of double-headed calf. Well, virtually so.
Ah, but I heard of a tiny bug that is, or rather was, entirely homosexual. There are no specimens of the bugger, oops - I meant bug, available for scientific inspection because being homosexual it became extinct immediately after good Lord created it. Some scientists believe that the Earth once teamed with homosexual bugs. And some believe it still does.
"The idea that homosexuality and skin color are equally innate is sophistry of a very low order."
Cella's got this one right, for a change. Case in point, Michael Jackson.
What Cella doesn't know, (where to begin?), is the number of children that were and still are assigned genders at birth, sometimes a bit too arbitrarily, because we don't all just pop out perfect. Case in point, Cella. But he probably thinks liberalism is a congenital condition.
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