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Glory to Jesus Christ!

The burden is on those who would defend same-sex "marriage" to explain why the state ought to grant privileges to such unions and why it should be restricted to "two". Good luck.

As for healthcare: there is no "right" to healthcare, nor should there be. That said, it is our duty -- as members of the same body politic -- to serve, as best we can, our fellow citizens and enable them to flourish. If we cannot ensure basic medical services for our fellow citizens through the private sector, then the responsibility falls to government (local, state, or national). I, for one, would be much happier knowing that my tax dollars were being used to care for those in need than to provide tax abatements, price supports, and the like to giant multinational corporations.

And, on the subject of keeping the government out of the so-called "marriage business," I am reminded of the following passage from the blessed Augustine's De Civitate Dei, II.20:

"But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious.

"Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes.

"Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride.

"Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden.

"Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear.

"Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man's property, than of that done to one's own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbor, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him.

"Let there be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use.

"Let there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit,28 dissipate.

"Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre; let a succession of the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement.

"If such happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy; and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it let him be silenced, banished, put an end to.

"Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind."

Sound familiar?

In Christ,
Theophilos

"Benefits are not responsibilities."

They are by contract if contract there be!

It seems to me that many people assume that when sick someone with some degree of expertise will be there to care for them, assit them to maintain or regain health, or to assist them as they die.
For those who have reached the level of financial comfort to be able to provide those things, the issue is not a problem and proabaly not an issue. For others, contracts with employers are assumed to be guarantors of those benefits. For still others, including some members of the executive branch, we the people guarantee health care.

It is those who have not the resources or whose employers remove the benefits that are my concern.
If I understand it correctly, there are a great number of workers, active or laid off, who have no access to such care.

What do we as a society do bout that? As Christians in this society do we not have some responsiblity to care for the least of our brethern. The behavior of the Churches indicates that we do. If we do, then why do we not work to change things so that rather than create a government that is the moral guardian of society we create a government that is the guarantor that there will be a degree of help to maintain or regain health or to assist in our dying to some acceptable degree.

That effort will keep us busy!

The reason that we have come to expect the hospitals that we have and the nursing treatment in old age that we have is because previous generations did not have them. Our forefathers and foremothers fought and sometimes died to get basic minimum amounts of income to raise families with dignity.

They negotiated with companies and arranged that some of the profits that they produced for the company be used for the benefit of the worker and his or her family.

They worked hard to ensure that the government protected those hard earned benefits. 40 hour week? Vacation? 8 hour day? Health benefits. These did not come from the good will of the companies or those who had the resources. All resulted from hard work to arrange society so that those who produced the profit of the owners would receive benefits funded from some of those profits.

Joe, you're right. Nothing comes free except God's love for us and the love of our brothers and sisters for us. If the love of God for us were shown by everyone for everyone else, it seems to me that we wouldn't have a problem getting medical attention or medicine for our elderly or time to heal in a hospital or to die with dignity in a hospice.

That would be a priority. We'd make it happen.

Part of the reason I get so frustrated is that I believe that we're watching the beginning of the dismantling of the system built for the regular man and woman over the years. We can't have it all we're told.

AND WE CAN'T!

But, it seems to me that if we prioritize so that human health and the right to life are front and center, much of the discussion about discrepencies in how people are treated could be eliminated in talking about homosexual unions.

You already know that I think that it is poor practice for Church in a secular society to get state to make civil law on the basis of revelation alone. The question becomes on whose revelation do we legislate? I believe in the long run that that will endanger the Church more than who enters into union with whom.

Making available food, health care and medicine, and other things are responsibilities, don't you think?

But, I digress once again.

I want to apologize for inserting social justice issues into the discussion of the topic of this thread and for making it my focus.

I think that many do not think that it is germaine to the topic under discussion.


I still think that Sharon is right!
:rolleyes:


Steve

An interesting sidebar is that years back, when many of our hospitals were originally built, they did it with money from a Federal appropriation called the Hill-Burton Act. A requirement under Hill-Burton was that those hospitals provide care for folks who couldn't afford it - for a good long time - I think it was something like 20 years or so. There were means tests of course, but an awful lot of good care was provided to folks who otherwise would not have been able to afford it. Most Hill-Burton obligations have long since expired - and there really hasn't been anything to replace it. At the same time, managed care, Medicaid and Medicare (which incidentally is one of the most efficient organizations in business - it operates on about 3%) are reducing reimbursement rates, so hospitals can't really afford to give care away any more.

Oh - and please forgive me for using the word "responsibility." I should have said "cost."

Steve, I'm with ya 100% (but most US workers don't have contracts.)

I don't think it's possible to discuss marriage in this society without also discussing the things that come with the civil recognition of marriage - and that puts us sqaurely in the realm of social justice. I am not in favor of gay marriages, but I also think that people of any stripe should be treated justly and compassionately.


Sharon

Sharon

Dear Theophilos,

I love what you posted by St. Augustine. How sadly contemporary it sounds.

I have always believed that what society says is the norm, is what people, and most especially children will accept is the norm. I believe that the media dictates what the norm should be. Every form of sexual license is imposed on our youth today.

How far we have come from the innocent sitcoms of the fifties and sixties, and even seventies, where in most, there was a righteous lesson to be learned...to the smut and occult that is on television and in the movies today. I have a seventeen and twenty-one year old and because I am still fairly young(...45), I know what is going on in their world. As Pat Robertson, the famous Evangelical minister recently said so correctly, "they (our youth) are living in an alternate universe".

I am furious that teaching Christian morality and ethics has become counter-culture nd soooo difficult,(even for teens in RC High Schools like my daughter's). And now...as if overt promiscuous sexuality and its after effect of abortion weren't enough to fight day in and day out, now any future grandchildren will face accepted homosexual lifestyles and images in all facets of society as well...Just great! ...and the worst thing about it is that where once people banded in activism to clean up popular culture, it seems those groups have been totally overwhelmed into submission. Is there reallly anything any one of us can do to neutralize the demons of lust that have taken over our county, but pray, pray, pray?

Forgive my rant, but our culture, and its rapid moral deterioration, really scandalizes my Christian sensibilities, and truly brings me to despair. Thank God, atleast for the truths of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church; truly islands of hope in an otherwise sea of despair.

Alice

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for your postings here. You are a constant, a voice to be listened to.

Something that you said rang a bell.

"At the same time, managed care, Medicaid and Medicare (which incidentally is one of the most efficient organizations in business - it operates on about 3%) are reducing reimbursement rates, so hospitals can't really afford to give care away any more."

In Pittsburgh, at the St. Francis Health Care System, the sisters gave away much service free to the needy. They consistently had the lowest rate of "profit" if what they got could be called profit. They had great programs for treating the mentally ill and drug abuse. They had a land office business from the poor. I'm told that it was the 13th largest health care system in the country.

In the drive to "contain the costs" the federal government and the managed care insurance programs did what you talked about above. They lowered reimbursement for treating the mentally ill and drug abusers. The upshot of this was that St. Francis liquidated after almost 150 years of service to the community.

I wonder how many bombers, or subsidized business lunches, tax abatements, or price supports it would have taken to permit St. Francis to continue what it was famous for doing? How many golden parachutes for executives would it have taken to ensure that the retired St. Francis employees would receive the relative pitances that they had earned for their later years?

Those things are enshrined in the country's list of priorities through military funding and the tax codes for business for us by those who legislate for us. Do we have a responsibility for that?

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't easier for politicians to divert our attention to the danger of civil unions. That way we won't notice or think about the greater injustices that they perpetrate in our name. If we did we might get together and figure our what our priorites are and how we should arrange to get them.

Seems to me that that's a greater danger to the body politic than who marries whom!

I'd really better stop this.

The Spanish Inquisition might come for me!

Steve

Cleaning up popular culture strikes me as an excellent and worthwhile endeavor. So does a much greater stress on providing care for those in need. Mother Theresa of Calcutta famously - and successfully - insisted that the Archdiocese of New York provide effective practical support for AIDS patients. When the then Cardinal tried to duck the issue on "moral" grounds, Mother Theresa responded that "when people are ill, we do not immediately ask how they got that way; we ask how we can help them". The repeated discussion (on this thread) of access to health care brings those words of Mother Theresa to mind. Incognitus

Dear Incognitus,

The Roman Catholic Church has done more than any other body or group to treat the suffering of AIDS throughout the world and every Roman Catholic should be proud of that. (..and I am not even Roman Catholic myself!)

The Church universal (East and West, albeit in schism) teaches, 'it is not the sinner that is despised, but the sin.'..and so it should be...

And no one ever expects . . .

I guess that I did not accomplish a clear explanation of my point about different "forums" in public life, since J Thur found my posting "absurd".

I live in American society in the year 2003. I, and my fellow human beings, have both benefits and responsibilities. I don't run red lights in order to gain the assurance that it's safe to proceed on green. It's a social compact and covenant. We encode laws that we all are supposed to follow and, as the Supreme Court has expressed it: the law must fall with equal weight on all.

I also live in a Church society. I and my fellow communicants have both benefits and responsiblities. I participate in my parish when I am not out of town on business. And I fast and abstain from meat products on Fridays, in or out of town. I pray.

But the rights and responsiblities of my Church life are separate from my rights and responsiblities in American society. How I choose to integrate the two segments of my life is an ongoing process of decision making. And the same is true of everyone else.

When the rights and responsibilities of my American life coincide with the rights and responsibilities of my Church life, it's smooth sailing.

But when there is a conflict, I make use of my civil rights (and responsiblities) to practice my religion without government interference.

Those who are not of the 'household of the faith' also expect to live their lives without government interference. Thus, when folks who are in (valid?) marriages obtain certain benefits by being married, those who are not married should feel that they too are entitled to these benefits, e.g., health insurance resulting from employment, or access to mortgages, etc.

While the Church society may disapprove of non-marriage unions or covenants or whatever, if the law is to fall with equal weight (in the civil code), then the Church society perspective cannot be imposed through civil law.

There are those who are chomping at the bit to use Church directives/perspectives to mold civil law. This is both dumb and dangerous in a pluralistic society. Because there is no guarantee whose Church directives/perspectives are going to prevail.

There is, of course, the straw-man argument that once we ignore the Church directives/perspectives, the whole country is going to hell in a handbasket; everything will be possible from murder to incest, from robbery to rape and there will be total license to do whatever one wants. This is patently absurd.

The Greco-Roman civilization which we point out as a marvel survived quite nicely without the benefit of Christian morals and ethics. So did the empires of China.

So: what we do/allow in Church, is what we do/allow in Church and in our personal lives. What we do or allow in society is what we do or allow in society as outlined in our laws. It is the red light analogy all over again:

I don't impose my religious obligations or sensibilities on you to avoid you imposing your obligations or responsibilities on me. This is one reason why most of our ancestors left their old countries; they were being told what to do by "them". And that was intolerable.

Blessings!

Dear Theist Gal - you forgot the:

Bahm - bahm - BAAAAAHHHMMM!!!

(You snuck in and posted while I was composing!)

Blessings!

Not to mention the Spam (spam, spam, spam)!

This is not absurd. Murder is already a constitutional right for women who conceive children they do not want. States are now establishing right to die laws and, in Europe, there are already problems with the euthanasia of the elderly and terminally ill. If the Supreme Court has created a right for homosexual behavior based upon the right to privacy it cannot deny that same right of privacy to other chosen forms of deviant behavior, be it adultery, polygamy, incest (sex between parents and children and/or brother and sister), and pedophilia.

It�s just weeks since the Supreme Court created a constitutional right to homosexual activity. Polygamists and polyamorists (those advocating civil unions and marriages among groups of people of different chosen sexual orientations) are already mounting a legal challenge against laws prohibiting their chosen lifestyles. They are basing it upon the same arguments the homosexuals used to create their right to their chosen form of sexual activity. The ACLU seems to be taking up the cause and when it finally gets to the Supreme Court there will certainly be new rights created for polygamists and polyamorists. Right behind them is NAMBLA and other such groups also demanding constitutional protection for their chosen forms of behavior. Anyone who believes that a constitutional right to homosexual and other sexual activity is not a direct assault on the family has his eyes closed. Anyone who thinks that there is no connection between all of these deviant behaviors is just fooling himself. The Church may have to tolerate these forms of behavior in society but Christians must always oppose them.

Every day our society imposes behavioral obligations upon each of us. Tolerance now exists for all forms of behavior except for proclaiming the Gospel and calling people to live a moral life by following the Ten Commandments.

Dear Administrator,

Thankyou very, very much for your post.

I have to say, that I felt a bit like 'a voice crying out in the wilderness' on this thread, and am surprised that so many devout Christians have fallen into the 'politically correct' mindset, which is often nothing more than the guise of the Evil One ready to devour and destroy us through any and all means possible.

We Christians, Eastern and Western, Catholic and Orthodox, who hold fast the unchanged ancient truths of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostles and Church Fathers, must face the fact that we are now, once again, in these post-Christian, and increasingly neo-Pagan times, being called by our Lord to follow Him and shine the light of His Eternal Truth.

May God bless us with the spiritual fortitude to face the awesome and fearful task ahead of all of us, as we are being called upon to be more and more counter-culture. May He hear our individual and collective prayers and 'have mercy on us and on the whole world'.

With profound love for Christ,
Alice

Again, let us not misuse the word "Politically Correct" which has become so hackneyed now as to become almost meaningless having been hijacked by both social conservatives on the right and extremes on the left. It is a word Christians really shouldn't fall for using.

Certainly greater tolerance for individuals who are discriminated against (one cannot deny that bigotry still exists and not only in the US) is something to be glad about.

Dear All:
Don't think for a minute that the younger generation accepts homosexuality as normal. The day after a new show aired "Gay Eyes for Straight Guys", or some such, the kids were talking about whether anyone had watched it. All the kids verbalized that they just don't get homosexuality. That it is NOT normal. Although I think this younger generation's attitute is "what they do in private is their business", they just don't want to know ........
denise