I
get so tired of people who say that they love gays, and then go on to list the
ways we're immoral and damned to hell.
The Catholic Church
has made an artform of it. They also love to codify it, and will revisit the
issue to get it just right at an upcoming conference of U.S. bishops to be held
in Baltimore next month.
Zenit, a news service that reports
on "the world seen from Rome," says that the bishops will look at a pastoral
document to review guidelines aimed at helping those "homosexually
inclined":
This is particularly important because more than a few persons with a homosexual inclination feel themselves to be unwelcome and rejected. As baptized members of the Catholic community, persons with a homosexual inclination continue to look to the Church for a place where they might live in authentic human integrity and holiness of life ...
... The document says the Church teaches that persons with a homosexual inclination "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity," and it condemns all forms of violence, scorn, and hatred, whether subtle or overt.
That sounds so nice, so welcoming, so full of understanding. Until you keep reading.
The guidelines state that while the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, there is a distinction between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual orientation.
And my favorite:
The Church does not support the adoption of children by homosexual couples since homosexual unions are contrary to the divine plan. For this reason, baptism of children adopted by such couples presents a pastoral concern.
Is it really possible to hate the sin but love the sinner? If you love me but hate the very essence of who I am and who I choose to love, it doesn't really feel like love.
You can't tell a butterfly not to fly; It has to. Neither can you tell someone who is gay that you're OK with that as long as they never act on it. At least not those of us who want to live with our own "authentic human integrity."
24 comments:
You are telling me that who you are is wrapped up in your sexual identity? I am heterosexual, but that's not who I am.
In my opinion, sexuality is very fluid. I think all of us have potential to be hetero or homo depending on many factors, environment, relationships, etc.
Your sexual identify may be a factor in who you are... but surely it's not the core of who you are. Someone who is an alcholic or a workaholic could say that's who I am... and maybe I think that is wrong... but I can love them in spite of the fact that I think one aspect in their life is wrong. I don't think that being gay is who you are.. that's a factor in your life, it may affect who you are... but it's not all Kenneth. You are funny, although I disagree with some of your viewpoints, I would dare to say that you can be compassionate, etc. Your cores is MUCH more then your sexual identity. Sure, someone can love you and believe that homosexuality is a sin. I've known parents that love their son or daughter deeply, they'd walk across fire for them, they'd lay down their own lives for them, but they do not believe that that area of their life is acceptable. I had a friend that I loved very deeply, we ate lunch together, I listened to her, cried with her, loved her, she was a lesbian. I did not find it acceptable(or believed it a sin and she knew that), but I deeply cared about her and she I. I think of her often and smile, and although we have lost contact, I would love to sit down again and have a cup a hot tea. I think sometimes our definition of real love is a little shallow. I also think that sweeping generalizations about people draw us apart not together.
I was raised a very strict Catholic. I am a lesbian with a partner of one year. I do not practice my faith anymore simply because I am not accepted fully as the person I am. Until the day that the Catholic church accepts me and my partner completely..I will not come back.
Sincerely,
In Pride,
Bette Paz-Buchanan
Northern California
If you are not happy as a Catholic than go away...far, far away!
Harold Wills
I think the Catholic church and it's strictness, and many people in the evangelical movement have alienated many. In my mind, it is NOT about religion, but about relationship with Christ and with others. You can love one entirely, but not find acceptable some aspects of who they are. I mean, even my own dear husband, I love him with all of my heart, but there are some aspects of who he is that I don't find acceptable, and I'm sure he feels the same about me.
By the way, Bette, what a lovely pic of your daughter and you.
I think you look very much alike, and both are beautiful women.
Nancy
Love the bigot, hate the bigotry.
GAY PEOPLE ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually, Geref, yes that is exactly right. If you find someone to be a bigot, you can love them, and hate the bigotry. In fact, there are people I've met that I consider bigoted, some in my own family, I'm afraid, but I love them dearly and deeply. I find their prejudice against African Americans unacceptable. It makes no sense to tell someone they can't love just because they find an area of your life unacceptable.
To Kizpastor35: Hi Nancy--I find this a little problematic. In a general and abstract way we can say that we love humankind and that, in so far as each human being makes up the body of mankind, we love him/her. But when we talk about loving someone for the person they are, we are talking about their distinct character, actions and personality. If aspects of their "personhood" are repugnant to us, then we are not likely to "love" them FOR that "personhood." We might, as in some of the cases you mention, love them in spite of certain flaws. At what point, though, are we no longer able to separate the actor from the action? When do we stop loving an abuser because he abuses, a hater because he hates, a victimizer because he victimizes? In short, when is the character of a person actually divisible from his attitudes and actions.
In my opinion, loving the homosexual, but hating the homosexuality is a problematic but different proposition. Homosexuals are homosexuals because of an involuntary aspect of identity that tells them the gender to whom they are attracted. It is not dependent on any action or intention per se. In the same way, can we love the heterosexual but hate the heterosexuality? It is a categorical absurdity because a heterosexual is heterosexual by virtue of an involuntary characteristic of identity, not by as a direct consequence of a history of sexual acts. A virgin or a celibate can be either homosexual or heterosexual. A person's sexual orientation does nothing more than identify the gender to whom a person is attracted.
Gerelef,
If you can't love someone just because you don't find acceptable a part of them, that THEY find or believe is involuntary, then really loving anyone is a rare find indeed.
When you state that you can't love the homosexual but hate homosexuality than you are telling thousands of parents that don' t accept their son or daughter's homosexuality that they don't really love their children. I don't think that is true. You are telling me that I didn't really love my friend. I know I did, I know she loved me. She may have seen me as a bigot, but she loved me in spite of it, and i loved her in spite of what I believed to be unacceptable. That is a freeing type of love.
Homosexuality is NOT the core of you are. It is not your whole identity. In fact, like I said, I believe that sexuality can be very fluid. I think I actually have great potential to be lesbian given my life experiences, friends, etc. I think that is what scares many heterosexuals, that sexuality can be fluid. LOL I used to have a homosexual friend in high school, we ate lunch together every day. I'm almost the only person that would eat lunch with him. I really doubted his orientation at the time. At that time, he was the only homosexual I knew,so I used to tell him I didn't believe he was, in a teasing way. LOL Everytime I would say that he would say "I love you Nancy Dorn." I loved him too. And for some reason he was endeared to me. I think because he knew I did love him. Real love has a much deeper core then most even know.
You have a great day and evening.
By the way, when I say when "you" state, etc... I don't mean you personally, I mean when a generic you as in "when one states."
And as far as, when does one's character or actions become so marred that you don't love them... well. I believe never....
I don't believe hate ever has a place in one's life.
I am inspired by the Amish community that reached out to the family of the killer that murdered five precious children. Half of the people that attended the killer's funeral were Amish.
I know of a man that attended the death of the man that killed his sister. He had forgiven him, and was more concerned about the man's eternal soul then his grief.
It is very possible to love and find a part of someone unacceptable. In fact, it's almost a deeper kind of love. It's easy to love someone who is just like you, who lives like you deem appropiate. That doesn't take any moral fortitude or strength. Mother Teresa is my example of real love. Mother Teresa was opposed to abortion and the acts of homosexuality, yet she held in her arms those dying of Aids (undoubtedly some of them gay men), loving them, comforting them. That is real love. Not only homosexuals, but anyone who was hurting whether hurting because of the consequences of their choices or someone else's choices. May I be more like her and the Savior she loved. I've inspired myself LOL :)
I need to get off these blogs and get busy.
Take care of you,
Nancy
What the Catholic Church is doing with their anti-gay policy is to shoot themselves on the foot. A huge percentage of priests are Gay (I think mostly because they use the Catholic Church as a refuge). But between Gays being more accepted in society and the Catholic Church anti-gay policies, they may end up having to recruit under educated people.
I think that as the Catholic Church moves towards the Middle Ages again, they will become more irrelevant to most people, and sooner or later they will have to turn around.
Who needs them?
To kidzpastor35: Some of your points are well taken, particularly in regard to the Amish and Mother Teresa. No one could ask for better role models. At the same time, no one needs to passively accept personal abuse or social inequality as an expression of love. It rarely (if ever) is. If women didn't stand up for themselves along with other fair-minded people, they might still be without the vote and unwelcome in the work place. Yet people were (and still are) convinced that women were not the equals of men--sometimes using scripture as a rationale. A spouse does not need to accept abusive treatment from his/her partner and believe that it is an expression of love. The thing I find remarkable about the Amish and Mother Teresa is that they did not allow their feelings and beliefs to become the justification for victimizing others.
I agree. The interesting thing is that in our society we are very concerned about equality. As a woman, I am equal in worth , but I'm not equal as in my gifts. Men in general are stronger then I am, have more muscle mass, and there are many other differences.
I agree with you that no one should have to take abuse. I would never encourage someone to live with an abusive spouse.
There are already laws that prevent abuse and firing without a just cause for all.
In fact, I'm not so sure that the women's rights movement didn't go overboard. Especially, in the work force. I have known of instances where a women got the job just because she was a woman, and couldn't do the job as well as a man. And the men around her ended up doing a lot of her job.
I like what George Washington Carver said when they asked him if the discriminatoin bothered him, he said, "Well, if I worried about that so much, I wouldn't have time for my experiments would I?" And the irony of George Washington Carver is that in essence, he saved the South's economy, the very place where he was enslaved as baby. His mother was stolen by slave traders during the Civil War. She was never recovered, and they thought he was going to die as a baby. He's another one of my heroes. If anyone had a right to give up, it was him. But he used his gifts to better the lives of everyone, including the white men who had enslaved his family. I could go on about him, but I won't. LOL
I'm not saying no civil rights movement was needed. I guess there is a balance, and we humans have a very hard time of finding it. In fact, the only time we're in the middle of the road is when we're crossing to one side to the other. LOL
Peace to you gerelef. I always have a hard time spelling your user name without looking. LOL
Take care,
Nancy
To kidzpastor35: I think there is an important difference in "sameness" and "equality." Women may not be the same as men, but they should be equal to them in terms of civil law and rights. It is common to allege that gays and straights have the "same" right to marry someone of the opposite sex. In just the same way, I suppose, that before the legalization of interracial marriage, that all people had the "same" right to marry someone of their own race. In Loving vs. Virginia, the SCOTUS determined that this was not the same thing as an "equal" right. To accord "equal" rights, everyone would need to be able to marry the person of his/her choice. Using a similar same analogy, fish have the "same" right as birds to fly. The problem is that it is a meaningless freedom. For fish and birds to have "equal" rights, they would both need to utilize the form of locomotion that best subserves their life needs. Individuals need to be able to make their own adult choices without the interference of others provided that there is no compelling legal reason to deny them.
Don't worry about the spelling of my SN. :)
I don't think the fish analogy stands... as fish don't naturally have wings.
LOL
I don't see a legal right withheld from gays as far as the benefits of marriage except dependant status, and perhaps filing income tax together. (and some places adoption) In order to be fair to everyone, if one had a roomate of the same sex and they were living together sharing expenses, etc, they could be considered a family, therefore, they should get the benefits of that relationship. Perhaps we should introduce civil unions, in which you can have benefits if you live with someone for X amount of time. This whole thing is a very murky area.
I'm not sure it's just the benefits of marriage that gays want.
Is basing benefits on who you are attracted to sexually, fair? Maybe we should just do away with marriage all together legally. Heterosexuals have made a mockery of it anyway. When the no fault divorce was allowed, that was the start of the demise of marriage as we know it and instability for the kids in our nation.
Traditional marriage has deep roots, (even though, yes there have been some deviations)but by and large it has been heterosexual marriage that has stood the test of time.
Maybe the government should get out of our bedrooms altogether. Personally, I think a traditional, functional family, (mother, father, stable relationship, ) is where children fair the best. (because they get the benefit of having the influence of both male and female and experiencing the gifts of both) So I think it's worth trying to preserve some means of the traditional family. (I'm not saying that there aren't kids that have turned out fine and done well in a non-traditional family)
Is the ideal always possible? NO I work with children, (I've worked with ones from heterosexual and homosexual homes), and a LOT of them have been angry, hurt l
It cut off the last part of my post.
It said, I wish I had ALL the answers, but I don't. I like to think I do, but the older I get the more I know how much I don't know. LOL
Peace to you and thanks for being understanding about my spelling woes.
Sincerely Yours,
Nancy
To kidzpastor35: I think the very essence of wisdom is the realization of what one DOESN'T know. Socrates said (I'm paraphrasing) that his wisdom consisted in not thinking he knew what he did not.
Civil marriage (which is what gays are asking for--I don't care if is called a "civil union" or "a code 25730436") confers next of kin status with all of its rights on someone who is not a blood relative. There are no doubt considerations beyond the purely legal such as the public declaration of commitment which, in my opinion, are estimable things that contribute to the stability of home life and society.
Grelef, ( I spelled it right)
Love your birds. Would love a bird, but hubs doesn't like their mess and noise.
Ok, I suspect you are gay? What a waste for the ladies. :)
We have to do something about this gayness stuff, I mean there's already more ladies then men, I mean it really is discrimnation. We don't need men taking other available men. :)
Have a great evening.
Nancy
To kidspastor35: Was it my "s"-es? LOL But still, I LIKE your attitude! :)
It was the "s" es!!!! :) Are you sure you're gay? :)
I used to pound my friend Michael about being gay. I think secretly he had a crush on me. :) He gave me his milkshake at lunch. Definitely a crush.
I like your attitude too! :)
Behave! :)
I reread my post. Too many smiley faces for one post. Sorry. :(
Oh, don't apologize! It's so much BETTER than the contrary!!! :) :) :) :)
Dear Friends:
Greetings:
I am a Catholic convert. I was raised a Pentecostal, when to Biblical College in the Kansas, and have been active in Christian Ministry for over 30 years.
Homosexuality from a Biblical Basis is seen as a Psychological Disorder. People can be cured from this disorder as in other kinds of disorders. Having the disorder does not make the person evil, so yes I agree with the Bishops when they say they love the person and hate the sins. The Practicing of gay sex is prohibited not only in the Christian Churches that are still follwing the Word of God ( many are not), but also in the orthodox Jewish Temples, and most certainly in the Islamic Faith. For the Scripture Believing Christians, it is impossible to condon what God has called an Abomination as fine. Truth doesn't mutate but remains objective as received from God. That is our Faith. One is free to believe what they wish and will.
But don't force that down our throats and call us names because we choose to follow our beliefs. Part of our faith tells us to admonish the sinner which is in the Catholic Church called an act of Spiritual Charity. It is with great love that we must oppose the term, Alternative Lifestyle, because it is a very Sinful lifestyle.
It would be just as bad to say that Adulters or muderers are ok either.
Evil actions are evil actions no matter what you many choose to call them.
Peace,
SongNtheNight
Gays:
you people are as sick as they come....until ur with me.
im a southern baptist homosexual and believe God created me the way he wanted me! so leave me alone and let me be! Let me believe my beliefs and sleep with who i want to...Peace and God Bless!
garden kiss to all of you(gay or str8)
Sonar Technician Submarines 3rd class Petty Officer Justin S. Taylor, US Navy
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