So why are certain things like abortion and gay marriage dangerous to society as a whole?

-- John Stamos (contenduhkid@hotmail.com), April 14, 2004

Answers

Response to Abortion a threat to societ?

They perpetuate the sad state that our country is in - the "culture of death".

-- (culture@of.death), April 14, 2004.

Response to Abortion a threat to societ?

Stable families are one of the cornerstones of any society. It has been scientifically shown that the better the family unit, the more stable the society (less crime, drug abuse, sexually transmitted illnesses, etc.). Anything that underminds the institution of the family, undermines the society as a whole. This is basic sociology. Abortion is the act of mothers being co-conspiritures of the murder of their own children. How can it not affect the institution of the family?

Homosexual 'marriage' which encouages homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. It places at a par with marriage lustful urges of all sorts (there is no one definition for homosexual marriage, it pretty much opens up the gates to any kind of sexual license.) For more see: Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to unitions between homosexual persons

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), April 14, 2004.

Response to Abortion a threat to societ?

Abortion is the Murder of the Unborn. Any act of Murer is morally unacceptable, and makign it acceptable is in and of itsself rather dangerous. You may want t pretend that abortion is NOT Murder, but it is.

Homosexual marriage, which is a seperate topic, Undermines a healthy inmstitution designed to promote sdtable families and creates anarchy and confusion over roles in society.

I will elaborate if need be, but Bill hanlded most of this.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), April 14, 2004.

Response to Abortion a threat to societ?

Abortion, especially as a form of birth control is a kin to murder. This cannot ever be a viewed as a "positive" for the state of our society. Its not good for us, let alone the unborn child. I'm opposed to snuffing out innocent life. A no brainer.

I've finaly come around to opposing the death penalty. Both (death penalty and abortion) are barbaric, and bring us down to a horrifyingly low level. Truely not the direction we should be going.

Most will strongly disagree with me on this point,... this is my personal feeling and I certainly do not speak for the Catholic Church. For me, I do not see how homosexual union damages society. Its been going on for millenniums anyway without the word "union." It can't be "stamped out." They will, and have done it anyway for years, and society has not collapsed. Of course every generation thinks their own times are going to "hell in hand basket." This is nothing new.

I'm open to the fact that these people wish to commit to each other. I believe two people can genuinely love each other... gender aside. I think its better than simply "doing it anyway," with no commitment. Commitment seems morally superior to the lack there of. Commitment and being true to one another is something that was engrained in me throughout my Catholic up bringing.

I just don't believe they should go through their short often painful and lonely lives alone. We (heteros) don't have to. I don't believe they can be "cured," and that they can simply ignore their orientaion, any more than I as a heterosexual can ignore mine. I knew I was attracted to girls even when I was a child and was told they had cooties. Still liked them very much in spite of the cooties. I'm intuitively sure, and have been told it is the same for homosexuals. Again... not the Catholic viewpoint, just mine.

P.S. I accept the Catholic teaching about this issue, because thats the way it is... its just that this one, is hard for me personally to swallow...but who cares?

-- Jim Furst (furst@flash.net), April 14, 2004.

Response to Abortion a threat to societ?

Dear Jim

I accept that this is your "personal feeling", but a great deal of damage has been done by people legislating based on "personal feeling" rather than facts. Drunkenness, stealing, murder and any other sin you can name have been "going on for millenia" and I don't believe anyone thinks they can be completely "stamped out". However it is a totally different issue to propose that the State support and promote these sins in a State-endorsed institution. No matter whether a different term such as "civil union" is used, what these people are demanding is in effect marriage. It won't stop there. There are already demands that homosexual "couples" be allowed to adopt children and be given IVF and similar treatments for "social infertility". State-endorsed unions mean marriage and marriage means families. If the family is undercut in this way it WILL damage the very basis of human culture and society (see replies above).

Before anyone can be "true" to another person, he must be true to himself. Homosexual acts are against true human nature and pervert the purpose of sex. To be "true" to a person of the same sex would be to have a platonic friendship, which would be far more productive and less damaging to the two people involved and to society.

Going without sexual activity does not mean being "alone". It is generally accepted that the (male at least) sex drive is at a maximum between the ages of about 16 to 25. Most people in Western countries do not marry until their late 20s. Sexual morality does not ask any more of a homosexually inclined person than it asks of an unmarried heterosexual. It is insulting to homosexually inclined people to imply that their sexual impulses are beyond their control, that is that they are no more than animals at the mercy of their instincts. Anyone whether hetero or homo, knows that sexual impulses are strong but we do not perform any sexual act unless we consciously make a decision to do so. Contrary to the barrage of propaganda from the unrepresentative "gay lobby", less than one per cent of the population identifies as homosexual (much less in non-Western countries). Of this 1%, very very few (possibly none) of them have the condition you imply, namely that they would find it impossible to engage in normal sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex. In fact many of the most vocal so-called "homosexuals" have announced themselves as such to the amazement of the husbands and wives they were happily married to for years. To many others, homosexual acts are just another sexual variation they try as they become blase in the pursuit of all manner of sexual activities outside of their natural and divinely ordained purpose of marriage and procreation. These latter types of "homosexuals" can be "cured". We must repect and support and pray for those who have homosexual inclinations despite their honest efforts, and remember that God never allows anyone to be tempted beyond their strength.

-- Peter Kennedy (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), April 15, 2004.

I agree , abortion is murder !!

About homosexuals , what give other people the right to discriminate or attack them ?? __ What you gonna do about it , suppose your neighbour , or someone at your work is gay ??

Salut & Cheers from a NON BELIEVER:

-- Laurent LUG (.@...), April 15, 2004.

Who suggested that homosexuals should be attacked or discriminated against? There are already laws in place protecting all citizens, including homosexuals, from discrimination and violence. Under the law they have the same human and civil rights as anyone else. What they want however is for society to abandon reality and live with them in a fantasy world, and that is not going to happen.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 15, 2004.

Abortion is a threat to society because it signifies that the government has the power and right to legislate which of its people have the right to live and which do not - a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States. Once a particular subset of society is officially designated "expendable", it is inevitable that other groups of people will be likewise labeled. Now that abortion is legal, attempts have already been made to introduce legislation allowing parents up to two weeks AFTER the birth of a child to decide whether to "accept" the baby or allow him/her to die. As horrifying as that may sound to any reasonable person, it is actually a perfectly logical extension of our current abortion law. Really, what difference is there between killing a child a week before he/she is born, or a week after? He/she is the same child, and virtually the same age.

Legislation has also been proposed to allow the "euthanasia" (murder) of severely handicapped newborns, as well as severely handicapped persons of any age. It will be a cruel twist of fate if the young liberal activists who are pushing for such legislation discover that when they turn 80, being 80 is officially designated a severe handicap and a burden on society.

When we think about such things there is a natural tendency to say "that couldn't happen", or "it could never go that far", which interestingly is exactly what Americans said about abortion in 1960. But in 1970 it happened. Thousands of people in our country were officially designated "non-persons" and stripped of their human and civil rights (not entirely though - someone who kills a pregnant woman can still be charged with double homicide, and someone who causes a miscarriage as a result of a non-lethal attack on the mother can still be charged with homicide).

The situation in the Netherlands should serve as fair warning to all of us. They were the first to legalize abortion. Not surprisingly they were also the first to pass "death with dignity" (legalized physician-assisted suicide) legislation. Today elderly people in the Netherlands are afraid to go to a hospital regardless of what medical problems they might have, because they can be "euthanized" by doctors with or without their knowledge or consent, by the decision of their family members, or in some cases by the decision of medical staff even without the consent of the family. In a country which does not regard human life in ALL its stages and conditions as inviolable, NO-ONE is safe. The United Sates is already well down that slippery slope.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 15, 2004.

I wonder if the "doctor" gets to charge for a euthanisation? Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony? Euthanise someone against their will and charge their estate afterwards for the service? I bet you don't get many patient complaints though...

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 15, 2004.

I'm not picking on you Jim, but I omitted to mention that you and many other Catholics have fallen for a particularly insidious threat - the use of the word "gender" in place of "sex" to mean "the state of being either male or female". This may seem trivial but it is not. "Gender" is a grammatical term only. WORDS are the only things that may have a gender. People, most animals, and some plants, have a "sex". I understand that some people are so put-off by the constant use of the word "sex" as a slang abreviation for "sexual intercourse" that they try to avoid using the word "sex" even in its perfectly proper and non-controversial sense. But please don't fall for the trap of using "gender" instead. This implies that a person's sex is not a basic part of his/her genetic nature, but something that is purely cultural and can be changed at will by popular usage, like the rules of grammar.

-- Peter Kennedy (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), April 15, 2004.

Hi Peter,

Thank you for pointing out my misuse of the word "gender." Went back and looked, and while I think it conveys to most, the meaning I intended, it not really the correct usage. I often just write off the top of my head and try to be "mostly" right.

The points you made are good ones, and I understand the logic. Still for me personally, I don't think this issue is as crucial as many think. It seems to come down to recognition of a lifestyle, or non-recognition of something thats happening anyway. Again, I can't change the way I feel about this. Its not something I'm even passionate about. I wouldn't start a petition or anything; its not an issue thats in any way a central part of my life. Also, since I believe that most agree with your point of view, I don't think gay marriages or unions are going to become a widespread reality in our lifetime. If I'm wrong and they do, I guess I don't think it will be a major calamity for society. I know everybody disagrees with me about this with good reasons.

I'm thankful I'm not gay; I've never had to personally deal with those types of issues. I've never had to question the morality of my orientation, or have others do so. Never had to stop being the way I am. It seems to be a rather dismal predicament.

-- Jim Furst (furst@flash.net), April 15, 2004.

Peter,

While I agree you have a point, to a point :-), the American Heritage Dictionary does define "gender" (second definition, following the grammatical one) as "sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture".

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 15, 2004.

David, I have deleted your fictitious article on Kerry. It only helps to do harm to an individual (albeit a public figure) and does nothing to promote the good in him while based on pure fiction. This is unfair. If one has issues with Kerry as a Catholic, one should at least use concrete information to advance one's point.

-- Ed (catholic4444@yahoo.ca), April 17, 2004.

Paul

What I'm saying is that we should avoid using "gender" to mean "sex" because others will twist our meaning to "sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture" as the dictionary shows they mean by "gender". It has even been suggested that there are 3, 4, 5 or more different human "genders".

Jim, you refer to having to question the morality of one's orientation. Contrary to the "gay lobby" propaganda which continually pumps out headlines like "Church condemns homosexuality" or even "Church condemns homosexuals", the Church does not say that homosexual ORIENTATION is immoral, nor that those with this orientation are immoral simply because they are tempted in this way. Homosexual ACTIVITY is immoral. (See the thread named "homosexuality- where is it?")

Yes you're probably right that only a small number of homosexuals would "marry" each other if this were legalised. But this issue is important because it is NOT just about homosexuals. The State, and society are built on the family, which predates the State - the family formed by the marriage of a man and a woman exclusively, which all human cultures have found is by far the best way to raise children and the only way to perpetuate a stable and healthy society. If the State were to abandon this principle, then there would be no reason why a man and 5 women, or a father and daughter, or a man and his dog, could be denied State-sponsored "marriage" if they all consented and claimed to "love" each other.

Of course the seeds of this crisis were sown many years ago when contraception was legalised, leading to the idea that love and companionship, not an openness to fertility, were the only essential requirements for marriage.

-- Peter Kennedy (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), April 17, 2004.

In my ref to the other thread I was referring to the link at the end to www.catholic.com/library/Homosexuality.asp

-- Peter Kennedy (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), April 17, 2004.

David, sorry but I've had to remove a second post of yours due to the profanity you used in the first line of it. Please be guided by our Christian rules which advocate charity toward others.

-- Ed (catholic4444@yahoo.ca), April 17, 2004.

I did not use any profanity I used blanks but I apologize as I was unaware of that being a rule infringement. I will leave old man Kerry alone then.

The article I had was about how homosexual marriage has already harmed societies that have legalized it.

Gay marriage imperils marriage, period Family Research Council article comparing lifestyles of homosexual and married couples BY STANLEY KURTZ Stanley Kurtz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a contributing editor at National Review Online.

April 16, 2004

In a move that will force a fundamental decision on the nation, Massachusetts is slated, under court order, to legalize same-sex marriage on May 17. Americans must now either act to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, or see the institution redefined.

In making the decision, Americans need to consider the experience of countries where same-sex unions already exist. Scandinavia has had a system of same-sex registered partnership for over a decade. And marriage in Scandinavia is dying.

Even before the enactment of registered partnerships in the early 1990s, Scandinavian marriage was in trouble. Many Scandinavians were becoming parents without getting married, although couples did tend to marry before the birth of a second child.

Unfortunately, cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So, as the birth of the first child was increasingly treated as a test of the cohabiting relationship, family dissolution rates increased. And, as the idea of marriage grew more distant from the idea of parenthood, it became increasingly difficult to say why same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry.

Once put into place, however, de facto same-sex marriage only served to lock in the separation of marriage from parenthood. Today, in areas of Norway where de facto same-sex marriage is most accepted, not only 80 percent of first-born children, but nearly 60 percent of subsequent children are born outside of marriage.

And in conservative and religious sections of Norway, where relatively few children were born outside of marriage in the early '90s, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen substantially.

Scandinavia's system of same-sex registered partnerships is by no means the only cause of marital decline. Causes such as contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, individualism, secularism and the welfare state also play a role.

Of course, these factors are present throughout the West. Probably because of Scandinavia's large welfare state and strong secularism, patterns of family change show up there first. And scholars agree that family change tends to spread from Scandinavia throughout the developed world.

De facto same-sex marriage has accelerated family decline in several ways. Norway's Lutheran church has been riven by disputes over registered partnerships. In socially liberal Nordland county - where marriage is now rare - churches fly rainbow flags. These flags bid welcome to clergy in same-sex registered partnerships, and also indicate that clergy who do not approve of homosexual conduct are forbidden to preside. The purge of conservative clergy in Nordland has removed a key cultural check on out- of-wedlock births.

Opinion leaders in Scandinavia have not held up the example of gay marriage by way of urging heterosexual parents to marry. On the contrary, radical intellectuals, like family scholar Kari Moxnes, have cited registered partnerships as proof that any family form is acceptable. In 2003, Sweden allowed same-sex registered partners to adopt. Yet instead of using adoption by gay partners to cement the connection between marriage and parenthood, advocates associated gay adoption with the need to accept single parenthood.

Most Americans still assume that parents ought to be married. Yet the influential American Law Institute proposed an equalization of marriage and cohabitation on the Scandinavian pattern in its 2000 report, "Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution." And middle- class parental cohabitation is becoming more common in America. Gay marriage would draw out these trends and set us on the road to a Scandinavian-style distinction between marriage and parenthood.

The spread of the Scandinavian family pattern to America would have serious consequences. Scandinavia has no underclass. Yet a middle- class ethos of parental cohabitation would echo throughout our social system, reversing the welcome turn away from underclass single parenting we've seen since welfare reform.

When it comes to the social consequences of same-sex marriage, Scandinavia has already run the experiment. The results are in. In the part of the world where gay marriage has gained substantial acceptance, marriage itself is dying. We can either define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, or we can stand by watching as the institution endures further decline - and eventual disappearance. Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options

-- David F (notanaddress@nowhere.com), April 17, 2004.