![\"Julie](http://29925a093c.nxcli.net/wp-content/uploads/Julie-Machado-Same-Love-480x270.png\")
I hate the fact that I have to change the radio stations that keep playing the song “Same Love” by Macklemore. What bothers me most is that these seemingly natural lines are sung along to by people bopping their heads in their cars… as if they were universal and obvious truths:
“The right wing conservatives think it\’s a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
[…] And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago”
“Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It\’s the same hate that\’s caused wars from religion
[…] It\’s human rights for everybody, there is no difference!”
“Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
[…] And a certificate on paper isn\’t gonna solve it all
But it\’s a damn good place to start
[…]Underneath it\’s all the same love
About time that we raised up… sex”
“(I\’m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient, Love is kind”
You can see the lyrics here.
First of all, Mr. Macklemore, I agree: God loves all his children. Human rights for everyone. Love is patient and love is kind (1 Cor 13).
However, I don’t agree that “God loves all his children is somehow forgotten.” Of course we are very, very sinful and incredibly cruel to our brothers and sisters. We don’t love everyone equally, but it is generally known that God does. Go to mass on Sunday and the readings and hopefully the homily will convey that message. In God’s eyes, no one is the “lesser”, neither gay nor straight. If anything, God lifts up the lesser and favors the humble and the poor. Whether homosexuality is chosen or something you are born with, it is true that God loves all his children and so should we. They are two separate subjects.
There is a huge difference between accepting someone unconditionally and agreeing with all of his or her actions.
It is this fundamental difference that this song and society at large today do not seem to understand. God loves and we are called to love all people, those homosexual or not, in all our life situations and sin. However, our actions are not all relative. “Each person should do what is good for him or her” is an easy solution but incorrect. The Church is our mother and, like most mothers, tells us and does for us what is good for us, not what we want. The world offers “Band-Aid” cures for homosexuality and the Church offers the hard truth, but the truth that can truly satisfy homosexuals’ hearts. And that isn’t by paraphrasing a book, that’s by 2000 years of being guided by the Holy Spirit to interpret the Bible and what Jesus handed down through his Apostles.
Marriage is not a human right.
In America, human rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Human rights are possibly to have food, safety and not be tortured, basic principles of that sort. Marriage is not a human right; if it were, then babies should be entitled to it. Marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman, in which they form a family and a one-flesh union. Marriage is the building block and nucleus of society. You cannot marry whoever you want as a “right”. You cannot marry a wall.
It is time that we raised up sex.
Yet sex is an extreme bonding experience between a man and woman who should love each other and be giving themselves–and their bodies–entirely to one another. It’s an act that naturally results in babies, at least some of the time. So what should we raising up? Animalistic sex, in which we use each other’s bodies for our own pleasure and throw them out like trash when we don’t feel like it anymore? Let’s raise up love, in which we give ourselves entirely to one another. Love in which we respect others and their sacred bodies. And let’s raise up married sex as the ultimate expression of that.
So cry on Sundays if you are doing something against God’s will, which will never make you happy but only leave you emptier. True contrition often includes tears. Turn to God (= conversion), no matter what your lifestyle is like, every day and at least every Sunday so that you can be filled with true patience and true love. It’s true, we are all the same underneath, and only God can bring us true peace and satisfy our hungry hearts. Finally, write songs or support those that do and create the culture that we live in. Let’s create a culture of true love (not same love) and music that proclaims the truth. I don’t want to have to change my radio station every other song.
ADDENDUM:
Thank you to Jason Hall for clarifying civil vs. human rights for me:
Marriage to anyone or anything other than a person of the opposite sex is not a possibility to which we simply don’t have a right. No, it is an objective impossibility. At the same time, there IS a clearly defined fundamental human right to marry, recognized in British common law (and therefore in American law), as well as virtually every other Western legal system shaped by the Christian tradition. That’s because Church teaching has always recognized marriage as a basic right of each human person who has the capacity to enter into it.
A civil right is a right arising from and/or recognized by the civil law. A human right is something to which a person is entitled by being a person. When the civil law does not recognize human rights, that creates injustice, oppression, etc. The Church sees sacramental marriage among Catholics in a slightly more refined way than it sees marriage as a societal institution. Canon law governs sacramental marriages. But non-Catholics, and even those who aren’t baptized, have the right to marry and start a family, thought it isn’t a vocation as the Church understands vocations for the baptized.
51 thoughts on “Marriage: “Same Love?””
Pingback: Homepage
Secular society has degraded marriage and sex, and look where we are now: 40 percent total out-of-wedlock birth rate (among African Americans, 70+%). Since millions of children are being born into single parent households or very unstable relations, this is having an impact on the safety net systems. We are a collapsing society. God help us.
Great article Julie – we think alike…lol!
Here is a link for reference. In this article, Ryan Hunter says it best: “Among those millions of ex, lax, lapsed or non-Catholics who, for any number of reasons, remain unwilling to hear or live the Church’s position on these issues, most are now choosing to hear what they want from Pope Francis, divorcing his words from their appropriate pastoral context and focus.”
http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/09/24/the-words-of-a-pope-context-confusion-and-catholicism/
And thus is the problem with the survey that Phil posted. On homosexual marriage, people are cherry picking the Pope’s message to glean a pseudo-endorsement for their behavior.
The hard reality is simply too difficult for some people to accept. When you change the definition of Marriage to include same-sex unions, you will open the flood gates to those who want to “marry” just about anyone, or anything. As absurd and ridiculous as that statement may sound now, the foreshadowing is far too obvious to discredit or ignore.
God designed man and woman for a purpose. And same-sex unions cannot achieve that purpose. Of course, they probably don’t care about anyone’s purpose, but their own. Thus lies at the vortex of this issue.
“God made me this way. I can’t just change.” This same excuse can be offered by just about anyone with just about any agenda. Just ask a NAMBLA member. They want the law to sanction union between boys and men. Boys as young as 8 years old. “I’m just attracted to young boys….God made me this way.”
There will be people who contend that “marrying” their dog is normal. “Because God made me this way.” Peter Singer has already told the world that sex with animals is normal.
You see where this is going?
Pingback: Benedict XVI & the Way of Beauty - BigPulpit.com
First –the CIVIL laws of the US are based on the Constitution and its amendments, not on what you are calling “human law” which has no legal definition.
Second–the US Supreme Court, in Loving vs. Virginia, stated that marriage is a CIVIL right in this country.
Third–babies (and walls) aren’t entitled to be married not because of some meaningless definition of “human” rights, but because neither are deemed competent to enter into a contract.
“Yet sex is an extreme bonding experience between a man and woman who should love each other and be giving themselves–and their bodies–entirely to one another. It’s an act that naturally results in babies, at least some of the time. So what should we raising up? Animalistic sex, in which we use each other’s bodies for our own pleasure and throw them out like trash when we don’t feel like it anymore?”
I have two points to make–
First–by your statements above you would consider any hetrosexual couple incapable or procreating (due to age or infirmity) as practicing “animalistic sex”. Would you also state that THEY shouldn’t be married?
Second–sex can be an extreme bonding experiencing between two people of the same sex who love each other and who are giving of themselves, and their bodies, entirely to one another. No less bonding or giving than the experiences of two opposite sex partners. Why should their pair-bond be less worthy?
Sex involving two men or two women cannot, biologically speaking, ever be remotely the same as sex between a man and a woman. It can neither be unitive nor procreative, and it quite often is injurious to one or both partners’ physical health, as anyone who lived through the AIDS crisis knows too well.
While same sex relations may not be procreative, I can assure you that they are as unitive to SS couples as sexual relations are to straight couples.
Since sex between two people unable to conceive cannot be procreative–are you suggesting that they should not be married?
Sexually transmitted diseases have existed for as long as man. Straight people get them too. Are you going to argue that hundreds of years of people dying from syphilis is somehow morally different than people dying from AIDS?
And finally–I’d point out that your own argument trying to blame the gay community for AIDS and using it as a weapon against SSM backfires on you. Sexually transmitted diseases aren’t transferred by people in monogamous relationships–yet you are arguing against allowing members of the LGBT community to have those relationships acknowledged. You’re telling potential couples that their monogamy really doesn’t matter.
And finally–can I tell you how morally reprehensible I find anyone trying to blame AIDS on gay men is? It was a virus. And as anyone who lived through the AIDS crisis knows too well–preachers claiming this was “God’s punishment” for homosexuality remembers how religious intolerance and stigmatization did, in my opinion, as much to harm the victims as the virus itself.
Science differs from your opinion on the unitive issue and monogamy among same sex couples is vanishingly rare, but enough for now. SSM is a lie; the impact of that lie will redound most harshly on those who accept it.
Actually–Lesbian relationships have a higher percentage of monogamy than straight relationships, which have a higher percentage than male SS relationships. Which proves that the problem with monogamy isn’t gay or straight–it is with males.
SSM is not a lie. It is the law. In an increasing number of countries (hooray Scotland) and states (hooray Illinois).
Not that I expect you to care about FACTS.
You are free to believe whatever you want. All I want is that you keep your religion off OUR constitution. WE THE PEOPLE means all of us. We are a plural, secular society. You don’t get to define the rules.
Slavery was also permitted under the Constitution. Abolition, a largely Christian movement, was vigorously (often viciously) opposed by many who felt their relationship to their slaves was none of the abolitionists’ business. However, as others have observed, SSM advocates are fundamentally reordering one of society’s basic building blocks based on their disordered sexual appetites and/or desire for public affirmation of their personal relationships (because, in truth, society has no compelling interest in sanctioning the union of two members of the same sex. There is zero benefit to society as a result of such unions). As Lincoln noted in his second inaugural address, American society as a whole paid the bondsman’s toll for slavery. There will be a similarly harsh toll for embracing the lie of SSM and, yes, promiscuity generally. Already, a third of Americans now have an STD, according to recent reports, and while promising treatments for AIDS are on the horizon, its successor lurks. It always does. The wage we’ll all pay will be even more alienation, illness, and death.
Your argument is incoherent. Slavery had a VICTIM. SSM does not.
Slavery was based on a lie about fundamental relationships between human beings. So is same sex marriage. The victims, principally, are those who have deluded themselves that there is such a thing as same sex marriage, but society as a whole will suffer — is suffering — as well. That you can’t see the damage doesn’t mean it’s not occurring. It’s analogous to a homeowner seeing that the facade of his house is intact, but remaining oblivious to the rotting sills and studs beneath.
Slavery was based on labor, not relationships.
If you’re going to be this dishonest it is meaningless to try and communicate.
Over and out.
And there’s the other favorite, accusing others of doing what Cminca opened with– followed by the standard third, running when identified.
All of human existence is based on relationships among humans. The basic question is, are our relationships properly ordered to the good of others, or not? In the case of slavery and SSM, the answer is, not. As an aside, I hope you continue to post in this and other Catholic blogs. Understand, though, that in matters of faith and morals, you’re asking other readers to take your word over the Word.
Only if you define “monogamy” in a way that ignores serial polygamy– a series of one-person relationships.
It’s funny that it’s all “We the people” when you think you’ll get your way, though.
You bring up Loving vs Virginia– where “race” was held to not be relevant to marriage.
Unless you’re incredibly delusional, you recognize that there is a massive difference between males and females, biologically speaking.
Thus, your logic demands that one believe the difference between “black” and “white” are equivalent to that between the sexes.
More likely, you are operating on emotion and a faulty understanding of “marriage” that is closer to BFF than a life-mate, which you will likely justify because of the damage the last generation did to marriage with no-fault divorce.
No–I brought up Loving vs. Virginia where marriage was determined to be a civil right.
Don’t believe me? Look it up.
(And I’d also tell you that if I was the one worshiping virgin birth and crackers turning into flesh I’d be very careful about using the word “logic”.)
You don’t understand what logic is, as evidenced by the wide range of fallacies you commit; one can hardly be surprised that you think it’s on your side.
Nevermind– I kept thinking I recognized your name, so I finally went to figure out where…
Pretty much anywhere there are happy Catholics to call names, is where I know you from; you’re as allergic to logic as you are to the Catholic Church, and your emotion is the only authority you’ll accept.
I’m not going to waste my time, again, explaining to you that two and two isn’t five or three.
Keep you head in the sand and doubling down on the hate. It will just make you irrelevant that much faster.
Recognizing you for what you are is not putting my head in the sand, and not doing what you wish is not hate.
If you actually thought we were irrelevant, or headed there, you would not spend literally YEARS littering your irrational accusations, false claims and name-calling among the comments on Catholic sites.
There may be a bigot, here, but it’s not those who disagree with the mighty cminca.
You keep talking about my false claims and irrational accusations, yet you never seem to actually put forth an answer to anything I say.
Over and out
Ah yes, your famous “I don’t agree with your corrections, so they didn’t happen” tactic.
cminca, foxfier is not hating. Aye ya ya…people place such extreme words on situations that simply do not compute as truth. You, on the other hand are the one who comes to CS and post comments to instigate. If you want facts, you can find them easily, but what you seem to want is a constant argument, and then to feel justified as you “leave” with a “victim” mentality. We get it – You dislike Catholicism and Christianity and maybe religion of all kinds. Your stance is noted.
All are welcome to participate here. We always welcome the opportunity to share, debate and grow in understanding on any topic. However, you will not convert any here to support same-sex marriage, or the redefinition of marriage. We recognize that this topic is emotionally charged for many people. Please temper your emotions before pressing “post.” Please note that in the eyes of God, marriage is between one man and one woman. Any other union is not marriage. Define it was you may, same-sex relationships are not condoned by God. The Catholic Church is only trying to maintain God’s plan for this earth. Criticizing the Catholic Church, is criticizing God.
It is important to note that the reference to slavery in promoting the justification of same-sex unions is a distortion. Just like people at one time used the Bible to support slavery. Mark Tooley, the President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, clarifies it best: http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/02/25/responses-to-adam-hamilton-on-marriage-slavery-and-bible-2/
Diane McKelva
Catholic Stand, Managing Editor
“Criticizing the catholic church is criticizing God.”
Ummmmm–no.
Ummmmm – yes! 😉 People who criticize the Catholic Church don’t want God to get in their way of living their life according to the cafeteria plan. (They pick and choose what they believe.) Thus is the reason we have so many different Christian denominations. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus said it best, “The only alternative to obedience is the cacophony of human beings making it up as they go.”
People who live a life contrary to Scripture feel compelled to attack the Catholic Church, which adheres to Scripture, because even though they know the Truth, they don’t want to live the Truth. Basically, they minimize the importance of the Church in hopes of maximizing their justification to live in the cacophony of human beings that just “make it up” as they go through life. You feel less guilty when can discredit the one that threatens you. But you aren’t going to defame God, because you are hedging your beat that he will forgive you despite living contrary to his Law. So, you target the Church that He established on earth.
It’s sort of a plausible deniability. You can always claim on judgement day, “I’m sorry, Lord. I didn’t know that.” 😉
Christ may have “established” the church but you only have a bunch of people claiming “divine revelation” to explain what it has become.
Sorry–but I’m not buying that argument. Politics and personal interest are much more likely than “divine revelation”.
So until you can point out the scripture that calls for the hierarchy, confession, fish on Friday, and the rest of the medieval voodoo–I’m not going to agree that the CC = God.
Finally–you claim that Catholics live according to scripture. Others claim that Catholics don’t follow a single source but are guided by the whole history of the church. So which is it?
Catholic Answers is a great resource in answering your questions. http://www.catholic.com/ Their forum has some good threads where people have discussed this very subject. Have a blessed Thanksgiving. 😉
There is no personal interest in Christ’s message of helping the poorest of the poor (Mother Teresa). Nor are there any politics involved when Pope Francis says that he hates the effects of the “trickle down” capitalistic system of the modern age. “Why is it that when a homeless man dies, this is not news, but when the stock market goes up two points, much noise is made?” (And that’s loosely quoted)…..Anyway, the Church is based on authenticity cminca. We try to follow in the footsteps of God Himself but fail every day. The point is though, we keep trying. Confession is good for the soul, and even the best psychiatrists agree upon that one. If you want real answers, they are out there, I promise you that.
Civil marriage IS a human right as defined by the civil laws where one resides. Sacramental matrimony is a human right as defined by the laws/regulations of the RCC. The government does not impose upon priests or ministers the obligation to marry gays even in states where it is legal. The RCC has no human right to impose its archaic definitions of matrimony on the state. It’s quite simple. So simple that the majority of devout Catholics support same sex marriage, more so than the general populace.
An October study by Quinnipiac University: “American Catholics support same-sex marriage 60 – 31 percent, compared to the 56 – 36 percent support among all U.S. adults.
More devout Catholics, who attend religious services about once a week, support same- sex marriage 53 – 40 percent, while less observant Catholics support it 65 – 26 percent.
Catholic women support same-sex marriage 72 – 22 percent, while Catholic men support it 49 – 40 percent. Support ranges from 46 – 37 percent among Catholics over 65 years old to 64 – 27 percent among Catholics 18 to 49 years old.” The sampling was not large, but statistically representative with a small statistical margin of error.
Phil, did you read the article? Or did you see a chance to use the word “archaic”, rant against the Catholic Church and decide to seize upon it? Nothing in your comment addresses any of the point Julie so adeptly raised in the article.
The Church does not — and can not — “impose.” It can — and it does — _propose_, based on 2000 years of ministering to those undone by a disordered sense of human sexuality. I wish it were not the case, but it is: the Church is the world’s largest provider of social services, including the most extensive network of services to those suffering from HIV/AIDS, post-abortion trauma, and the like.
“The Church does not — and can not — “impose.” ”
It does a damn good imitation of trying.
And yet imitation–as in the case of the counterfeit marriages being enshrined in law here and there–is not the same as the real thing. What we’re facing here is nothing new: moral decay fostered by embracing false idols (sex, hyper-individualism, etc.) has afflicted numerous societies and civilizations in the 2000 years since Christ, as a sign of His extraordinary love for us, dwelt among us, suffered, died and conquered death for all time. Meanwhile, those societies and civilizations simply died for all time. The Church has attempted to transmit the lessons of their failure to successive generations, proposing a society based on love ordered to the good of others, as opposed to their self-centered desires. As with the Old Testament prophets, the response has often been rejection, vituperation, and even martyrdom. But the Church will never cease trying, and it will never cease.
How does The Church impose anything? The Church abides by the moral laws that have been instituted for 2000 years. But she doesn’t IMPOSE upon anyone. If you don’t want to be Catholic or Christian, don’t be.
Phil, that is a compelling study you refer here. Would you mind sharing a link where you obtained that information so that we can read also? Thank you.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1961
Phil, thank you for taking the time to respond to my request. I want to review this over the weekend. I will probably offer you my perspective next week. Again, thank you for your contribution in this discussion.
Had a chance to review. Interesting. I wonder how they posed their questions to the contributors.
Hi Diane…I do not know exactly how the questions were posed but I do know that the Polling Institute there has an impeccable reputation through the years….I am sure that they would share the format of the questions with you. Here iss the contact and info page, if you want specifics:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/
Thank you, Phil, that’s very kind of you to followup. Yes, I may do that just for my own edification. Thank you again.
Does calling oneslf a Catholic actually make one a Catholic? Does calling myself a baseball player automaticaly make me a baseball player? If I don’t play by or agree with the rules of the game I’m not sure you could truly count me as one. (The NBL certainly would call foul.)
(Over 50% of “Catholics” don’t even know that the church professes Jesus to be fully present in the Eucharist that they receive when they go to Mass… that tells you a whole lot about where we stand today.) -http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201305/knowing-believing-and-sometimes-not-knowing-believing-too-27323
No, civil marriage is not a human right depending on local civil laws; that might be called a civil right, if you find a place that is actually crazy enough to say people have a right to be married would have that as a civil right, but you seem to not understand what a “human right” is; you mistake it for “the law says so.”
Human rights…a clear definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
Wikipedia is not a source; it is no better than the original authority of your own say-so– actually, rather worse, since it changes at will.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/human+right?s=t
human right
noun(law) any basic right or freedom to which all human beings are entitled and in whose exercise a governmentmay not interfere (including rights to life and liberty as well as freedom of thought and expression andequality before the law)
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Now, there is a human right to mate and form a family– that has been commonly called “marriage.” It’s the basis of civilization.
The problem comes when people wish to chop out the icky “kids” (responsibility) part and substitute in their sexual impulses, then call that marriage.
The Lincoln line about “how many legs does a dog have, if you call his tail a leg?” is used for good reason.
In addition to the fallacy of equivocation by trying to conflate human (universal) with civil (local) rights, you follow it up with an appeal to authority.
If a majority of atheists thinks that the Catholic Church taught the world is flat, that has no weight in an argument on if it actually happened or not.