www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Let's try this again, with proper Christian focus this time

On another thread, a poster stated:

Forum participants need to review the other thread:

All it said was that 6 counterprotesters were arrested, no where has ANY Christian been identified as one of the protesters throwing the eggs, and not a single forum member has advocated throwing eggs OR epithets at "gay pride" marchers!!!

On the other hand,
and

In other words, the citizens of this region of Latvia had enough common sense left to know and act on the fact that sodomists, pederasts, prostitutes, incest advocates etc. have no inherent "right" to use their streets and neighborhoods to push their sodomist agenda.

Now, let's focus on the real issue:

1)whether Catholic social teaching recognizes any "right" to deviant behavior and the public expression or promotion of same, and

2) whether liberal judicial activists have the right to overturn the express desires of a society to prevent this kind of lewd "march" and public promotion of mortal sin, and

3) what culpability lies with the "gay rights marchers" themselves, in precipitating this public unrest by forcing their march, via judicial fiat, upon a neighborhood diametrically and expressly opposed to their public promotion of sexual deviancy.

Without stipulating that these are the "real issue[s]", I'm happy to play.
Wouldn't think so, but hardly see the relevance. Catholic law is not civil law in the US, or, AFAIK in Lativa.
I don't know about Lativa, but in the US the answer is a qualified yes. We don't live in a democracy subject to the tyranny of the majority. We have statutoray and constituional law that regulate our affairs and judges are sworn to uphold - even against a putative majority opinion. Such conduct is not judicial activism; indeed caving into a popular view against law, that would require activism. The qualifications: AFAIK "mortal sin" is not a concept in law in the US (or Latvia), but lewdness presumably is. THe problem has to do with "prior restraint". As mentioned dozens of times there are remedies for lewdness - after the fact. But the idea of denying a permit on the presumption that lewdness will occur probably wouldn't pass judicial muster. Thus the characterization, "this kind of lewd march" lacks substance.
Culpability? That's an odd word here. I would guess that the paraders were aware that they might suffer some kind of attack, and proceeded to parade anyway. Perhaps, they might have even felt, like Martin Luther King Jr, that such attacks, born patiently, might provoke the conscience of the nation and lead to an alleviation of ill-treatment.

There are, of course, limits to speech and to assembly. No yelling fire in a crowded theater etc. I would guess that in the US you would have a tough time finding a judge who would find such parades as inherently incendiary (cf Nazi's in Skokie). Apprently the same was true in Latvia. With a valid permit - and barring undisclosed evidence of explicit provocation, I give it a zero on culpability.

DJS - please accept my appreciative thanks for your excellent posting.

Incognitus

Thanks, incognitus, for the compliment. If only I could avoid all the typos...

DJS - as always, you are most welcome. I wish I had a magic recipe to avoid typos, but I don't.

Incognitus

Why are you two insistent upon making a political system authoritative over the Kingdom of God? Do you write these things in an attempt to inflame passions? Do you write such things because you are really opposed to the Church? Do you write these things because you disagree with common decency? In most other areas you seem to care about the Church. Why in this area do you think that a governmental system is more important than the Gospel and common decency?

I noted earlier that there is something rotten or at least not quite right here. You have expressed it again.

Doc, I doubt that I need to say this, but I believe you have stated the essential issues quite admirably and accurately. I do believe that for whatever reason, Incognitus and djs are intentionally trying to again derail the discussion.

Dan Lauffer

This, from one who asked the famous question about wife beating question on another thread! :rolleyes: So good as spotting begging the question in others.

Dan, the political system has no authority over the kingdom of God, it merely provides a way to order the affairs of a diverse people, some of who are working to that end. We have disagreed on this point before. I know that your stated preferences are different than mine. But I say again, the idea of establishing church law as civil law raises a clear problem in America. I don't want to live under Protestant law, whatever it would entail. So we protect diversity to, among other things, protect our own ability to work out our salvation as Catholics.

:rolleyes: I am not the one posting ads from the Advocate. But, no. I respond to flame throwers.

No and No. And the suggestion is excrable, since we've talked on this before and you know what the issues are that infom my perspective. Moreover, I have firmly supported application standards of decency, but not via prior restraint on the basis imagined future behavior. And by the way, how does support of the Consitution of US represent opposition to the Church?

More wife beating.
:rolleyes:

Dan, how on earth did I derail the discussion. Doc posed questions. I responded directly to them. You in turn write nothing about the question or answers, just a series of questions that are rather viscious in what they suggest.

I gladly associate myself with the posting from djs, but with one addition (with which I trust djs will agree): I am opposed to split infinitives.

Incognitus

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/cyc/s/split.htm
I admit that I among among those who need to carefully review first drafts in order to comprehensively find and scrupulously remove split infinitives. Even "deafening" ones like this from the Fowler passage:

This reminds me of the folly of applying the standards of the school- and prison-yard for determining proper usage in liturgical texts - an idea advanced in a link from Apotheonon.

Thanks Dan. I've learned what I needed to learn from this Forum, so I'm probably going to be moving on.

I now grasp its tenor, the type of moderation one can expect, and the level to which dissent is tolerated and orthodoxy is defended, or mocked, as the case may be. I now understand the hierarchy of priorities in the Byzantine posters' minds. Most don't care enough about fighting the Culture of Death to post on threads where the Culture of life needs defending or promoting.

It is obvious to me that I'm going to have an uphill battle as a Byzantine Catholic, and at least from my experience here, I'm not going into it with my eyes closed.

Bottom line? Byzantine Catholics here appreciate a good liturgy, but they're more concerned with unessentials than essentials. They're not, on average, any more concerned about orthodoxy than American Roman Catholics.

And that is a real disappointment.

DB,

with a click of a mouse you certainly malign Byzantine Catholic posters of the forum. Unless you have visited our parishes and ministered side by side with us you cannot speak to a particular poster's care about fighting the Culture of Death. In fact, other than labeling homosexuals as sodomites, you've elaborated no ministry with which you are involved to bring the freedom that comes with Christ from such a lifestyle. How are sinners to respond to the love of God when the righteous promote hate and bigotry? Promoting hate and bigotry against any type of sinner will not lead that sinner to become reconciled with God. That a sinner would not be reconciled to God is a real disappointment.

One need only peruse the website of Courage [couragerc.net] , a ministry of the Church to homosexuals, to notice the absence of the term "sodomite". In fact, I am not aware of any Church teaching that uses that hate-filled term.

Having been involved in the political process during college and my early married life, I am conviced the "Culture War" is not going to be won in the political arena. As a happily married man to my bride of 20 years and as the father of 7 children, defense of the Culture of Life is passed on to our children within the home, i.e., the domestic Church. This begins at the cradle, not on this forum.

As a parish faith community, we have reached out to a local ministry, Maggie\'s Place [maggiesplace.org] , which provides shelter to unwed mothers. I invited some of the mothers-to-be to our Divine Liturgy and to be our guests at a breakfast benefit after the DL. During the homily I applauded these unwed mothers for courageously defending the lives of their pre-born children. Their presence also afforded the parish community to interact with these mothers in a more personal way. The faithful of our community raised about $1400.00 for Maggie's Place that morning. This we accomplish with the love of God.

Bottom line, yes we love and appreciate good liturgy because out of that love and appreciation we find the source of developing a truly human identity- the Trinity. This then equips us with the resources we need to live the life in Christ. In the same way that this life in Christ advances, the Culture War is won- one soul at a time. The Culture of Life needs no defending on this forum, it needs defending in the place we call home.

My thanks - and not for the first time - to Father Deacon John. Your initiative as described sounds laudable and worthy of much support. Better yet, it deserves to imitated as widely as possible.

Incognitus

Dear DocBrian,

Please be aware that these subjects have come up many times before your arrival here, and they have been argued, debated and beaten to death. Furthermore, many of us have participated and said our peace, and simply have nothing more to add without repeating ourselves.

Most of us are also in the midst of the beautiful days of summer, a gift from God for us to enjoy, and quite frankly, alot of us are not on board as much as we were or will be during colder weather.

Please note that our esteemed Administrator, a model of Christian integrity and compassion has dealt with these past threads in quite an orthodox and firm, yet also charitable and persuasive manner.

That homosexuality is seen as an intrinsic disorder and is a sin according to Catholic and Orthodox teaching has also been confirmed and affirmed many, many times on this board.

You are correct in that there may be some here who seem to be defending homosexual agendas. Often they are brothers from Europe, and Europeans have become far more liberal in their mentality than us.

On the other hand, perhaps they are struggling with problems of their own or one of their close friends or loved ones is struggling, and they are trying to come to terms with it according to their faith?

In such case, I will have to agree with DJS that Church teaching coupled with Christian compassion and charity will go much farther in convincing them to turn away from this lifestyle than other methods.

We are living in what I like to call, a universal culture of sex. It doesn't matter if it is homosexual, heterosexual, married or unmarried, it bombards all of us, young and old, from morning until night through every possible venue, even those that were formally 'safe'. (Good Housekeeping Magazine comes to mind, for instance) It is all about how to have good sex, better sex, great sex... sex, sex, sex. :rolleyes:

We have become a sex obsessed culture.

I firmly believe that unless we FIRST address and fight the culture of sex which permeates our culture, we will never be able to fight the culture of death because they go hand in hand.

Just some thoughts.

In Christ our Lord and Saviour,
Alice

I forgot to add that "I will have to agree with DJS AND Incognitus...."

In Christ,
Alice

I am sorry that it is probably lost on Doc that it is a truly amazing moment when Alice, incognitus, and djs find common ground. And I apologize to anyone whose reputation may be tarnished by agreeing with me.