Those Gay Hatin’, Chicken Lovin’ Bigots!
42August 1, 2012 by mattfradd
Yeah, because that’s what they said…
You’ll remember a few weeks ago I posted an article on logical fallacies. One of the fallacies I mentioned was the straw man fallacy where one, often intentionally, misrepresents his opponent’s position in order to refute it. Okay. Exhibit A:
Really? I mean, really? President and COO of Chick-fil-A, Dan Kathy, says, “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.” And that makes him an intolerant bigot?
This inflammatory language is a straw man which misrepresents a position entirely, making it easier to knock down. It’s unhelpful and juvenile…and unhelpful…and juvenile.
p.s. Speaking of haters, how about this guy!: “If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” Oh wait, that was Elton John. Never mind.
Anyway, those are my narrow minded, hateful thoughts. What are yours?
matt fradd 
I’m leaving it up to God!
I agree! How come we don’t hit them with charges of hating Catholics, “Catholic-phobia” and bigotry when they attack our beliefs? Doesn’t toleration go both ways? If they want us to tolerate “gay marriage,” don’t they also have to tolerate our belief that marriage is betwen one man and one woman? Why are we the intolerant ones when they are the ones throwing the hate speech around?
Pretty sure it’s the funding of hate groups that people are upset about. It’s not a straw man argument if there’s a money trail of proof.
Hi Thad, are you saying that Chick-Fil-A are pumping money into “hate groups?” Give me the evidence Thad. If you are right I will cease eating there. If you are wrong, learn to speak with moderation and cease making outrageous claims.
Let me ask you – how does gay marriage in any way, shape or form, affect traditional marriage? In NO way at all. Traditional marital rights have been the societal norm for millenia and have never had to be fought for. But times have changed and so too must the church; the world is evolving as has the definition of marriage and family. You are entitled to your beliefs just as the LGT communites are to theirs. No one is trying to convert you; they just want the same rights and privileges as you have, like any other citizen.
And Father Carrozza….the “if we have to, why don’t they” comments border on juvenile. It’s indicative of the petty mindset that has this world in such a mess. There must be acceptance and acknowledgement Sir, that religion and the church sometimes gets it wrong; the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witchhunts, St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre are but only a few examples of that.
True Christians don’t ostracize or judge others who are different. And I am blessed and grateful to know several. I only hope that there are more of them out there because they’re the ones who should be the true spokespeople of faith and values and their true meaning.
Respectfully,
No, I’m sorry. It is not juvenile – it is a blatant double-standard. No the Church does not have to change with the minds of people – THAT’s where the problem lies! We’ve reversed the teaching order. The Church was created by Jesus to guard the deposit of faith. His final command was to “teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you,” not “take a poll and give the people whatever they want.” God is teaching and guiding us; we are not guiding Him! Your argument reverses the roles of God and us. We are here to follow God, not to correct Him! He’s saving us; we’re not saving Him!
Here here!
And YOUR argument, sir, reverses the roles of Cesar and the followers of Christ. Cesar has the right to rule by taking a pole and instituting laws according to the will of his people. If the followers of Christ have different laws unto themselves, so be it. But God has not charged Americans with creating a temporal, earthly government in His image, and history only proves more and more just how spiritually dangerous it is to attempt such a thing.
Now we see the crux of the whole problem: A law of God contradicts a law of Caesar. Apparently you want to tell God he’s wrong because Caesar said so. Are you willing to live with the consequences of that? Whom will you follow, Caesar or God? “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”
Yes He has. No government is free from the Divine Law or from supporting the Church. The Catholic Church has always taught this.
I don’t think it’s a double-standard until those people who are pro-gay marriage propose a law that prohibits you from being a Catholic. I respect your decision to not get gay-married, and I’m sure whoever made that picture would agree. I even respect your right to give advice to others on the subject. What I don’t think you have a right to do is to appeal to the state, which everyone needs to share, to help you save souls who don’t want to be saved, and who should have the right to make that choice for themselves. I was under the impression that free-will was kind of a big deal?
It’s not the souls who don’t want to be saved that I’m worried about; it’s the ones that do or don’t yet know it. It’s all the people being forced to believe they are intolerant and uncharitable because they believe God says this is wrong. I’m concerned about all the people who will be negatively affected by altering the definition of marriage without thinking very carefully of the ramifications of doing so. Ultimately, I ask, “When did we become so enlightened that we can tell God he’s wrong?”
What a wonderful answer, Father–and right to the point!
Granting one more minority their wishes just waters down any moral fabric that this society still has–this is why they’re about to start teaching beastiality in school, because there’s apparently no end to the perversions that one group or another feels they must participate in, and feel that the rest of us are crazy if we don’t find it acceptable.
It’s like the abortion argument–the cry was origianally for the poor women killed or damaged by back-alley abortions, which sounds so compassionate, until you realize that legalizing it led to the deaths of innocent millions–it’s a “fix” that was way more damaging to more individuals than than the comparatively few back-alley abortions could have ever been.
Gay marriage fits into the same catagory–it initially looks compassionate, but it only leads to other, often even worse errors being considered acceptable, even though those who are for it don’t intend for it to have this effect. Good intentions, but a bad over-all effect.
Tell you what Leslie, one day when I write on, “the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witchhunts, St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre” and whether or not the Church needs to get with the times, I’d love your feedback. Given that the blog was strictly limited to the inflammatory language some are using to demonize Chick-fil-A, why don’t you address that first.
Hi Leslie, what are your thought on the actual article? Do you believe that the statement Chick-fil-a made is “hateful” or?
Matt, thanks for the visual. Since the “God Hates Fags” Phelps clan are from right here in my hometown of Topeka, Kansas, it’s hard to support traditional marriage without being automatically painted with the same “neon protest sign” brush. Nonetheless, I was in line 75 minutes yesterday at the Topeka Chick-fil-A for lunch for my family. God’s Truth, Free Speech, and a tasty chicken sandwich. What’s not to love?
I don’t even have any particular problem with gay marriage, but I do have a really big problem with the precedent that it sets, where every sexual minority sees itself as being victimized by the “narrowmindedness” of society–on the CNN News website, a recent article calls for the normalization of child-adult sex, and f course these folks are also sick of being labeled “perverse”, too, so it’s not so much the gays asking for the ability to marry that worries me, but the rest that’s standing in line behind them to tell us what we should see as perfectly ok.
Did Mr. Kathy have the right to say what he said? Of course he did. Was he very wise with his words? No, and his Public Relations staff are surely letting him know. After all, he is the leader of a business that serves the general public. That means everyone, and his words have not only alienated those in the LGBT community, but those who have remarried or have had a divorce or annulment.
Why do many businesses do the opposite of what Mr. Kathy did, which is appeal to the LGBT community with messages of inclusion and acceptance? It’s really not because they care. Sure, the people in charge may personally share in those values, but in the end, business is business. The LGBT community, who tend to be an educated, discerning, and often affluent population, is of high value to marketers. There are many examples of companies making no secret of the faith of its founders (In-N-Out Burger, Forever XXI, Marriott Hotels), but they seem to understand better than Mr. Kathy that only showing acceptance to the straight and the once-married doesn’t result in the business success Mr. Kathy and his family enjoys today.
Bigotry is inherently reflexive, and in large diverse communities, like the Catholic community and the LGBT community, there will sadly always be people hurling insults and intolerance from both sides. My. Kathy was simply talking about what he personally believes, and his position not as a religious figurehead but the figurehead of Chick-fil-A has touched off this controversy.
I personally wonder if Mr. Kathy has attended a gay wedding. Or if he has considered his reaction if one of his two sons, who he surely loves unconditionally, were to come out of the closet, and later ask his father to walk him down the aisle to his amazing husband and soul mate. I think it would certainly shift his perspective, and challenge him to show his son God’s love through empathy.
If his son were to say he was gay and attempt marriage, I would hope he would still love his son, but at the same time the most important duty of a Catholic parent is to teach his son to love God above all things and follow everything He teaches us. That includes even loving God and obeying His law over loving another man. No parent who is fulfilling his duty as a Catholic parent encourages his son to violate God’s law, no matter how much he loves him. There is such a thing as living a celibate, chaste life, and it is very fulfilling. Trust me! I know what I’m talking about. I live it every day!
I am confused about how one group of people saying that they do not support the rights of another group of people is not, in some way, discrimination.
People have every right to feel that way and, as a Christian, I do understand the logic behind it (although I disagree with it.) But I think a spade has to be called a spade. If you do not support the rights of a group of people to live in the same way as the majority, than you are discriminating against them. And that IS intolerant. I don’t see a way around that.
Tyler, thank you for your comment.
It is not the case that people do not have the right to have their say, or even boycott another company due to the opinions they hold. This is a free country.
What is objectionable is to intentionally misconstrue the position of your opponent in order to seem triumphant when you refute his position – the position he never held to begin with.
Tyler, by your logic, any discrimination is wrong. We in fact discriminate all the time in laws, and not all discrimination is bad. For example, we discriminate when we tell people you can’t marry your sister; we discriminate when we tell people you can’t have more than one spouse at a time; we discriminate when we tell people all sexual encounters must be limited to members of the human race and not engaged in with animals. Law in general is a code of discriminating for the purpose of a well-balanced society. It is the duty of society to protect individuals from precisely the idea that “I have the right to do what I want, and who are you to tell me what I want to do is wrong.” When it affects the well-being of others and of society, we have not only every right to discriminate but also the duty to do so. After all, what is more discriminatory than the Ten Commandments? It is unjust discrimination that cannot be tolerated. If the debate were that the prohibition in marriage of marrying someone of your own sex is an unjust form of discrimination, there can be valid debate on the issue. But to say that all discrimination, including lawful discrimination, is intolerant and therefore wrong, that is dangerous! We in fact often have to be intolerant: we don’t tolerate racism; we don’t tolerate murder; we don’t tolerate unjust discrimination, and we don’t tolerate someone trying to alter the God-established definition of marriage simply because that definition excludes him. That is an extreme danger.
Any Google search will reveal the many studies that have shown genetic predisposition to homosexuality to be a very real thing (if not as cut and dry as a simple ‘gay gene.’) I would agree that homosexuality is an outlier, but to group it with bestiality or incest is simply beyond the bounds of science.
Regarding the New Testament, I would say it also teaches many practices (slavery and women come to mind) that we have regulated to the culture of early Rome and no longer follow. I’m not a Roman Catholic, so I will not comment on the Magisterium, other than to say that I do not think that the teachings of the Church should dictate the laws of the United States of America. Things got dicey the moment the sacrament of marriage became a legal issue. Now, we’re paying a heavy penalty for it.
Regarding “This slippery-slope argument exposes two types of dangerous thinking. The first being, “well, if we give one group rights, then do we have to give them to everyone else too?” as if the issue isn’t whether or not legalizing same-sex marriage is okay, but that there could be ensuing complications”: you seem to have missed the whole point of the argument against gay marriage. It is in fact setting up the slippery slope, and there’s no getting off it. Everyone admits that there have to be impediments to marry: you can’t marry your sister, two people at the same time, your dog, etc. Being of the same sex has always been one of those impediments. If the gay-marriage community were proposing the argument that this particular impediment needs to be removed for reasons x, y, and z, it would avoid the slippery slope. BUT THEY DIDN’T! Instead, they claimed that marriage is a civil rite and the prohibition against gay marriage violated their civil rights. By accepting it, the courts have established that no one can be denied marriage to anyone they wish. Already there are lawsuits filed in California to allow polyamory (a marriage of more than two people), and they are arguing that it is their civil right! So you see, you dead wrong when you say the slippery slope argument is dangerous – it is real!
Where did anyone claim the Catholic Church is dictating the laws of the United States? Other people besides Catholics oppose it. Mitt Romney, for example, is a Mormon, and many people oppose it as well, not for any eligious reason, but because they’re smart enough to see the serious danger involved. Marriage is the backbone of the family, and the family is the backbone of society. Redefine marriage and you redefine society. It is unavoidable.
As regards the “gay gene” theory: I’m sure there’s no one cause for homosexual orientation any more than there’s one single cause for all car crashes. Perhaps there is a genetic factor involved. (The gay gene theory is only a theory and by no means established fact.) Does that automatically make it lawful? Suppose we discover alcoholism is genetic? Does that mean we should allow people to drink until they puke because it’s in their genes? And suppose child abuse or bestiality is discovered to be gene-related? I guess we allow that too! -slippery slope again!!!
Morality is not determined by genetics or people’s opinion; it is determined by the God who made us in His image and likeness and called us to be holy, which is, to think, believe, and act in all things in accord with what He has made us to be. We have an obligation to obey God before an obligation to obey Caesar, and we must never violate the call to holiness by God for state matters. When Caesar disagrees with God, we follow God. Secondly, Caesar has no right to get in the middle of redefining what God has defined. The problem is not that churches are opposed to gay marriage but that the state has overstepped its bounds by daring to decide what constitutes a marriage. Marriage more properly belongs to churches than to the state, and when the state tries to force religions to embrace its own redefinition of marriage, the state is out of line, and it is the duty of the Church to fight back. And that’s exactly what I’m doing!
The difference here is is that homosexuality is an orientation. Your examples (incest, beastiality) are about genuine perversions. We limit people from those activities because they’re harmful to the individual and to society as a whole. Homosexuality has no more in common with them than heterosexuality does.
And, Father, I know this is an old hat, but it’s one I’m going to air out again: we’ve been changing the Levitical definition of marriage for ages. We do not require a widow to marry her husband’s brother. We do not require a rapist to marry his victim. We frown on polygamy. These are biblical norms that we have deemed are not part of the broader message of the Gospel because they were culturally relevant in ways that are no longer necessary to our lives. I have yet to hear someone give me a good, solid reason for why same-sex marriage should be different than those (although I have heard a few bad ones.)
You have decided that homosexuality is different from bestiality and other perversions. What is your evidence to prove so? I would think the burden is on you to prove that homosexual orientation is different from other addictions and perversions before you make the assumption you do, and not on me.
If you want a good argument against homosexual acts and you won’t accept the Old Testament, how about St. Paul:
Romans 1:26-27 – “Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals…will inherit the kingdom of God.”
1 Timothy 1:8-11 – We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.”
And finally, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, operating under the authority which Christ Himself gave to St. Peter, which consistently condemns homosexual acts as contrary to the order of human sexuality toward unity and procreation.
Those seem pretty sound to me, far more than one person’s undocumented opinion!
Another thing to remember: our definition of marriage is not based upon the levitical definition but on the New Testament and the Magisterium of the Church. That teaching has never been altered.
It breaks my heart to read the accounts of gay Catholics who are made to feel like they’re ill. Like they’re simply in a line up ahead of those who practice bestiality to have their “defect” normalized by society. From the encouragement to remain closeted right down to the language of saying “you HAVE same-sex attractions”, it’s incredibly damaging, especially for vulnerable gay teenagers who feel like lepers in their peer groups as it is.
We are not ill. We are human beings, and knowing someone who’s gay, loving someone who’s gay, brings this into much sharper focus. In the long existences of the Catholic Church and the human race, both have evolved tremendously, and will continue to do so in the centuries ahead. I have hope that part of that evolution will be the church’s acknowledgement that love between two men or two women is not something perverted, but something beautiful.
I can certainly understand that someone with homosexual orientation is experiencing something painful. But instead of holding your breath waiting for the Church to change her teaching – which will never happen, as morality is based on the very essence and nature of God, who can never change – may I suggest a better solution: accepting that you have a condition that is not your fault but is in fact disordered. A passion intended for the opposite sex somehow got dis-ordered to your own. While it is no sin to feel that way, we know that God has revealed that the sexual act is the seal of the covenant of marriage for the purpose of reuniting what was separated at creation – the woman from the side of the man – thus completing each other and leading to procreation, which is a very participation in the loving creation of God, and only a man and a woman capable of entering into the sacrament of Holy Matrimony have the right to exercise the sexual act. Those who never meet the right person or who cannot enter marriage because of same-sex attraction or any other reason do not have the right to steal for themselves what belongs only to marriage. They are therefore called to live a celibate, chaste life. Can that be difficult to accept? Yes it can! But that’s why we call it a cross. We all have a cross to bear, and that is yours, but Jesus warns us that “anyone who will not take up his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Matt. 10:37). I know that can be hard to accept – the call to discipleship always is – but I can assure you, a celibate, chaste life is not as bad as people make it out to be. I live it every day and am quite content with it. Sex is not the key to happiness; if it were, New York City would be Shangri-La!
That’s fair. But I suppose you have to come at it from the perspective of someone who supports SS marriage: you’re denying rights to a group of people on the basis of their being different from you. That certainly looks hateful and homophobic. Christians who oppose SS marriage will mostly say that they love the sinner/hate the sin, of course, but that looks mighty toothless when it turns into hate the sin/deny equal rights to the sinner. You know? I’m not saying lots of people didn’t fly off the handle on both sides here (the reactions from Boston, Chicago and SF were childish and petty, as was Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day) but I’m saying that both sides’ perspectives have legitimacy.
Your arguments, Father Carrozza, are understandable ones coming from a Priest. What they are devoid of are two things at the heart of Jesus’ teachings: Empathy and Love.
Try to Empathize, for a moment, with a father whose brilliant, kind, and compassionate child has just come out to them.
So you, the father, believe that your child should “accept that they have a condition that is not their fault but in fact disordered.” That you aren’t convinced what they told you they are is different from being incestuous, perverted, or sexually attracted to animals.
If you believe this is what you should tell your child, that’s fine. But I hope you believe also that the consequences of your message are worth it. Your devastated child has left you. Your other children, wife, siblings, nieces, and nephews are bitterly divided. In your effort to defend “the family,” you may have torn your own apart forever.
Empathy and Love.
You are describing a person that is not me. If you knew me, you would know that your assessment of me is not true.
“Empathy” is not at the core of Jesus’ teachings: love of God is. What did Jesus say was the greatest commandment? “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”Therefore, loving obedience to God is the first rule of Christian life. If I were a parent and this were my son who just told me was gay, I wouldn’t love him any less! He is still my son and I would still die for him. But at the same time, any parent who loves his child can never counsel the child that in his situation it’s okay to disobey God. The loving thing for a Christian parent to do is to promise to help his son in any way possible to carry the cross that has been laid on his shoulders and be faithful to what God has clearly taught. Let’s imagine it this way: suppose the son was not gay but instead was a homely young man that no woman has ever found good enough to love. He knows his appearance is so horrible that the chances of anyone loving him for whom he is are slim. The son did nothing to cause or deserve his homeliness, but there it is nonetheless. Does his father, in an attempt to show empathy, tell him that there really is nothing homely about his appearance, that he’s just as good looking as the most attractive of Hollywood heartthrobs, and that therefore he should go out and demand everyone admit that he’s good looking? Of course not. Or does he say, “well, since no girl will have you and you have the right to sex, go find a prostitute- here’s the money!” Absurd! No, if he truly loves him, he tells him the truth and helps him deal with it. Perhaps he might tell him not to despair, that there may yet come a girl who will love him for the person he is, but he doesn’t give him a false hope by telling him she will eventually show up. Instead, he would prepare him for the life outside of marriage that he will end up living and show him how happiness can be found there just as much as in marriage. You see, we as a society are so caught up in the concept that sex is the key to happiness and that everyone needs good sex to be happy and has a right to it. That does a tremendous disservice to scores of people, even those who are perfectly straight but simply have no desire to marry. Marriage does not possess the monopoly on happiness. I am celibate and chaste and am enormously happy with my life. Ultimately, we can never find true happiness until we are living a life that reflects the image and likeness of God, in whom we are created. If my son were gay, I would counsel him not to continue to try to convince God and the Church that they have erred in saying that homosexual activity is sinful (which is never going to happen and is a lie), for that would only set him up for a lifetime of struggle against God in a battle he will never win. Instead, I would tell him to prayerfully ask God how He wishes him to serve Him and how to use his condition to do His will. Only that would bring my son happiness. And that is what I wish for you, my friend!
I didn’t describe you or make an assessment of you, Father. I simply invited you to put yourself in the shoes of another person and try to feel the gravity of their situation. To Empathize.
Why is it okay for other companies to support homosexuals, but not okay for a company to support hetersexuals? In our society, tolerance only seems to go one way. And there has been plenty of “hate speech” from the homosexual side toward Mr. Cathy and his business. I thought the homosexuals did not like “hate speech”? I thought they did not like “haters”, but they certainly seem to be dishing out plenty of “hate”.
I wouldn’t phrase it like that. It’s not as if Starbucks or other such companies who support same-sex marriage do not also support heterosexuals.
Daniel–
But that IS exactly what happened, though, that those who want to see bestiality normalized and child-adult sex normalized ARE in line behind homosexuals because they want everyone to see their orientation as normal, too—I noticed you mentioned the bestiality, but not the child-adult sex—like the poor misunderstood, put-upon porn addicts, the gays also don’t care if the acceptance of their proclivities leads to the victimization of children as it’s inevitable, natural result, either.
I think it’s sad that someone who’s gay would let their BEING gay keep them from accepting Christ, His Church, or even worse, God Himself—just because their ego refuses to see what they’re doing as disordered—and that this would also make them so selfish that they would also refuse to see it’s eventual bad effect on children, too. THAT’S what I see as really sad and heart-breaking.
This slippery-slope argument exposes two types of dangerous thinking. The first being, “well, if we give one group rights, then do we have to give them to everyone else too?” as if the issue isn’t whether or not legalizing same-sex marriage is okay, but that there could be ensuing complications. It’s like saying “Maybe gay marriage isn’t so bad, but it’s not worth the hassle.” or even “if we free slaves, what next? Will cats and dogs start lining up demanding their freedom too?” The issue is not whether some groups will see same-sex marriage legalization as an opportunity for them to normalize their own lifestyles. The issue is, should gay people be allowed I get married?
The second, more dangerous line of thinking is that “the gays don’t care if their proclivities lead to the victimization of children.” That sort of sweeping generalization is not only impossible to prove, but it lumps all gay people together as one monolithic entity. I would guess if you had definitive proof that same-sex marriage would be a direct cause of victimization (which is not something I can find), almost all gay people would care very much about that. Maybe some wouldn’t! I don’t know! There are a lot of members of the LGBT community and they’re all very different from one another because they’re human beings. Saying “gays don’t care if children end up getting victimized” is NO DIFFERENT than saying “all Christians are hateful bigots.” Life is more complicated than that.
That all sounds reasonable–until you realize that, like I already said, that these two other groups, the bestiality proponents and the child-adult sex proponents ARE the next in line to ask for their rights to be seen as necessary and right–and you do sound like the porn addicts, who refuse to believe that their interests endanger children, eventually.
I don’t need “proof”–I can see for myself what the writing on the wall is, because I’m not trying to defend disordered thinking to begin with, and I’m perfectly capable of seeing what the current trends are, and making up my own mind what it is that they indicate, without being brainwashed by one group or another who want to see themselves as the victims of a “narrow-minded” culture.
I’m not what you’d call a homophobic person–I’m someone who cares about the morality of this culture being completely eroded by one group after another needing to be seen as legitimate. Did you know that there are people who actually think that humans should be able to marry animals, too? If you can’t see all of this dissolution of traditional morals as a bad thing, that will ultimately be bad for gay people as well, since they also either are children or will have children themselves, then that’s your problem.
I can see the lack of compassion in someone thinking that gay people have no right to live together, etc.—but that they can’t get married? That goes just a little too far, and the end results aren’t going to be good, for people who are gay or straight—and you shouldn’t need a crystal ball to see that.
I’m sorry if I’ve offended you or painted you as homophobic and narrow-minded. That is how these conversations are often derailed, and I have no intention of falling into ad hominem attacks on people’s character. I do feel that many of your claims require proof, as those are some awfully big predictions to be throwing around. I think you DO need a crystal ball to show me just why legalization of SS marriage would be so harmful to society, because that’s not self-evident to me at all (countries that have legalized SS marriage have not experienced any catastrophic explosion of people marrying animals, so far as I can tell.) And, I’d say again, we are not responsible for how certain groups may see SS marriage legalization as an opportunity for them to normalize their own, unrelated lifestyles. If every liberty we granted was denied for fear that someone might abuse it, there would never be any liberties granted at all. The burden is on us to do the right thing with the issue at hand, and maintain those laws that protect the innocent from those who abuse the freedoms we grant. But that, as we see, is where we are just not in agreement.
I don’t know what the effects of SS marriage are on other societies—I only know that in this country there has been an explosion of exploitative activities concerning sex of all kinds in the past 40+ years, and that the gay position is like a “buffer zone” between straight society and the perverted rabble that will no doubt eventually be crying for the right for 45 year-old-men to marry 8 year old girls. If being gay was the “worst” thing that you could honestly say could ever happen in the sexual arena, and that it would magically stop right there, then I wouldn’t even be commenting here on this topic, because like I said, I’m not homophobic–and thank you for not wanting to paint me with that brush.
Obviously the sexuality of many people demands that it be seen as normal, no matter what it is—now with the internet, if you’re a pedophile you have PLENTY of company, and child pornography is going through the roof—with more children being filmed by their own parents than ever before, and the children are getting younger, too, right down to little babies—this unfortunately isn’t going away, and those addicted to porn of any kind are unilaterally unable to regulate themselves—this is why you literally never hear anyone say that they stopped looking at it because it’s gotten too rough and disgusting, which if it wasn’t as addictive as meth you certainly would have heard by now, considering what a horribly degrading circus it’s developed into. I see pornography as being way more of a threat to decency than homosexuality has ever been, and it’s an unfortunate by-product of the rights of homosexuals that the pedophiles (who have now declared that they wish to be called Minor Attracted from now on, according to an article posted recently on the CNN News site), and other mal-adjusted people consider what they’re doing as being no worse.
All of the harder varieties of porn are getting more and more main-stream, and the fact that women now seem to be all but unable to even criticize it for some reason totally stumps me, considering it’s their dignity and right to be seen as a human beings who have the right to be treated with respect that’s being obliterated by it. Why is degrading pornography not “hate speech” against women, if pornography is ostensibly all about free “speech”, to begin with?
[…] came in that just because you oppose same-sex “marriage” means you hate homosexuals, I’ll never fully understand. In a very condensed nutshell and for the sake of the Cardinal’s article, we do not support […]