www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Here we go again

I am more concerned that Marriage won't exist at all for my children but as a hidden sacrament in the Church. Do you know that at least 2 states have had bills introduced abolishing all marriages? Obviously they were not voted on, but the intent was there...Up here in CT, when the civil unions debate was ongoing, one of the homosexual groups actually did admit that once gay marriage is accepted-there is not logical reason to bar polagymy or polyamoury! How nice...Too bad, the news media ignored that quote.

In college, I was for various reasons surrounded by homosexual men-probably because I was a dancer...I find the pyschology of the gay man to be stunted in early childhood...ie..I think that I am different and don't get along with normal guys...therefore I will surround myself with guys who think like me...I start out relatively normal...but within a few years of coming out I have become fully morphed into a stereotype with the lisp, and affectations (which coincidentally I can lose at will while I am out in the work world and pick back up when I am with the "folk")...I make my world so obnoxious so that the only people who can possibly love me have to accept me entirely for what I am and therefore I don't have to handle rejection issues...and then I scream and holler when people don't take the whole package obscene, obnoxious, and infantile and call them intolerant hateful bigots...Just exactly like my 6 year old...He knows I won't accept some behaviour, so he magnifies it 10 fold in order to get me to prove that I really do love him....when I still show disapproval, they break down and say that I love such and such better...

It is very difficult to love someone in those circumstances but we have too! Obvious distate on our part, automatically provokes their defense mechanism and they step up the bad behaviour. Of course, I have to wonder if the flamboyant behaviour would be so extreme if their weren't equally obnoxious groups out their like that Baptist church who protests the funerals?

Holly

Dear Holly,

Your thoughts are most interesting and insightful....

Generally, I like gay men, and most women I know, also do. When one is in the arts or artistic and/or fashion fields, one does meet many of them. They are like a girlfriend to talk about 'girlie' things with, without the jealousies, cattiness and other hang ups involved in real woman to woman relationships and the possible sexual discomfort and misunderstandings of male/female friendships.

Your points about the 'lifestyle' affectations are interesting. I know one family friend from his high school days, who did not have them, and then after meeting him ten years later when he was single and living in a gay area of a certain city-- had them (leading to my presumption that he was gay), and then at a family affair, he, yet again, didn't have them--as here he was around a group of fellow lawyers and men that would not have approved. I still don't know if he is gay or not, and I don't really care, but I did notice a distinct difference in his demeanor on seperate occasions.

Alice

Frederica Mathewes-Green commented on her website that after spending a year reading the lives of the saints she was convinced that modern man, for all the sexually titillating clothes and song lyrics, etc) had lost the understanding of sexuality. We've forgotten that it is goes deeper than displaying masculine or feminine traits and as Pope JPII taught, our bodies tell us who we are and how we are to give ourselves (forgive me if I've oversimplified this concept)Mathewes-Green felt that the saints were very aware of their sexuality and treasured it well. They expressed it through their chastity!Tht's powerful.
Even if a man or woman believes they are otherwise, or attracted to the same sex their bodies say differently,and though it may be extraordinarily challenging, they (and everyone else) would do well to follow their bodies and learn about their sexuality in the way the saints do. But, as Holly rightly observes, emotional stunting would cause most gays to avoid really learning what sexuality is and how it is to be expressed. It would be too painful and confusing for emotionally stunted and traumatized people.
For that matter, most straights are clueless about sexuality also, and it is for that reason that gay marriages and homosexual behavior is given the green light.
I'm sure everyone here has a relative or friend that is gay;how do you deal with their lifestyle?Do you visit them and their partners, or only deal with the friend/relative alone? If you don't socialize with their partners how do you explain yourself without coming off like a self-righteous, judgmental,um,Christian?

Indigo

Indigo,

I mostly agree with you except for possible implications of the last question. Before I offer an opinion let's see your answer. Perhaps you have a helpful insight.

CDL

Let us pray for the end of prejudice and discrimination against all including gay people

Brian,

I will share your prayer so long as we are not praying for the end of reason and Judeo-Christian norms for society, which "gay pride" unfortunately represents.

God bless,

Gordo

John,

You're right about my intention, but you have presented us with a wonderful elucidation of it. But the whole thing really does boggle my mind.

In the really big picture, the really long view, I think its obvious to me, at least, that we are witnessing (again) St. Paul's diagnosis in Rom 1-2. The blindness of our culture is not natural, although the upshot is as "predictable" now as it was for St. Paul.

"I want to be gay, but I want to be a gay Catholic, and I want everybody to acknowledge that I am both. And if they won't, then I'm going to just throw a fit, and accuse them of evil, until I get what I want. And so that they won't be able to disagree with me, I want 'hate laws' passed so that their execrable doctrines will be illegal, and I can live in all the glory that is me."

I think the ladies who have contributed to this thread subsequently to your post have made some strong, valid points about the long-term effects of succumbing to SSA, i.e., "adopting the 'gay life-style'".

The pure willfulness of this attitude, to the point where they will adopt orphans, and subject them to God-knows-what kind of nonsense, just to be able to "say" that "yes, I can too be a good parent"! It's one thing, I would say not in their own best interests, but certainly legal, to subject themselves to this darkness, but then to subject others to it?

But it all started for us when we abandoned our God, found "good reasons" for not worshipping Him publicly, and then went off to live our lives as if God didn't exist. And by us, I mean the heterosexuals.

God have mercy on us all! (Because Nature surely will not!)

Michael

As long as sin is recognized and shunned.

I would also question how personhood is defined in such a case. Human sexual preference is an accidental quality and not an essential one.

Terry, this is an excellent point. While I think that it is a plausible hypothesis that biology has something to do with homosexuality, I also think that we are too quick to hypostasize sexual preference into the substance of humanity. For one thing, we can condition ourselves to sexual desire just about anything. If I condition myself to lust only after a grapefruit, then does that become my orientation and is that a part of my personal essence?

Joe

To follow up a little on a train of thought I was just pursuing. If homosexuality is a fixed "orientation," that is identified with the substance of a person, then what about bisexuality? What about those attracted to goats? What about pedophiles? What about young children (if there are any) that might have some strange attraction to adults?

Should these people all be allowed to marry? Shouldn't a bisexual person be allowed to have two spouses, one male and one female?

Joe

Dear Joe,

In a society where the limits are pushed more and more by Hollywood and the morally liberal 'powers that be' (whomever they may be), and in a society where we have been desensitized to just about everything, I am afraid that you may be giving our society yet a new idea to thrust upon us!!!

(I am NOT joking, either)...

Regards,
Alice

Carson, I reread that last line and realized it could be taken as an accusation, and that wasn't my intent. Thanks for calling my attention to it. In other words, should we refrain from socializing with a loved one and his/her partner and if so how to do so without appearing to be self-frighteous.

As mentioned,biology may very play a role in homosexuality, but I agree that much of preferences are the result of either trauma or,literally, boundless and uncontrollable lust;trying something 'new' and different just for pleasure's sake.That's true enslavement to lust.
I used to read artists biographies (Anais Nin and Henry Miller)and was always troubled by the tendency of some artists frightening openness to any and every imaginable sexual practice in the name of 'experimentation' and'throwing off bougie hypocrisy.The result of extreme subjectivity and making a God of one's feelings.

INdigo

Indeed, the mind is a powerful component to behaviour. That is why the mores of society, and what they will shun, and what they will accept, have always been important in keeping morality intact.

So, as not to be nit picking on homosexuality, one need not look further than societies in every nation, every hemisphere, every religion and every culture, allowing and condoning heterosexual male promiscuity, when not wedded. There have always also been those cultures worldwide that also silently allow and condone male extra-marital affairs.

Alice

Alice, you're right,heterosexual male promiscuity(in the US,prisons) and extramarital affairs are a silent scourge in many, many cultures including the US.Unfortunately, it is tacitly approved of, but this must wreak psychic,spiritual and psychological havoc on the men as well as their women.Though all this seems far removed from homosexuality, I suspect that on some level they are (not all forms of homosexuality)symptoms of enslavement to lust. We don't know how to channel sexual energy properly so we say instead that "they can't help it, that's how men and some women are."

INdigo

Good observations. I am uncomfortable around people who do things that are driven by lust and then seem to brag about it. I can discuss almost anything with almost anyone but if they insist upon promoting a perverse behavior as God's gift then I will more than likely challenge that to their face and try to show a better way. That is not self righteousness, but it is righteousness.

When a laborer who did some work for me spoke matter of factly about having children with four different women I challenge him not only about his disloyalty to the women but about his neglect of his children. I did not hire him again.

When I finally got to visit a member who was dying of Aids because of his homosexual lifestyle I shared the Gospel with him, prayed with him, and embraced him.

I won't tell you what his homosexual friends did at the funeral. Suffice it to say that it was a desecration.

So, I do understand. I believe that it is quite possible to be righteous without being self righteous.

CDL