Gay Marriage: Why the christians need to STFU about it

[Aiza]

I missed this post earlier apparently, sorry:

Y'actually, Aiza, I did indeed say "the Christians," but note that if Christians are not speaking out against homosexuality, then they are not being addressed since the prefix to the thread is "Gay Marriage."

I see, and I apologize for the confusion there.

As far as catholicism and its whole thing with pedarasty goes...well...supposedly the pope is infallible because he is the pope...to simplify it to an extreme extent. But, see, I take issue with any institution that claims an individual is infallible "just because." No man is infallible, and especially not when he was a Hitler Youth. The catholic church very often does wrong and then rather than coming clean...or, as they put it, "confess their sins," they instead try to scramble to cover them up, thinking that the public will not notice.

Papal infallibility is similar to Scriptural Infallibility, in that he is infallible when speaking on issues of Faith or Morals. And only when speaking ex cathedra, within his office as Pope. He wasn't infallible when he was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child. And while individual priests, bishops and even Popes have done evil and hateful things in the past; I do think that "the Church" is a lot bigger than that. I can understand if you feel that way though.

Sorry, Aiza. I know you're proud of your faith and all but the organization you've chosen to align with is the one I consider to be the absolute worst example of religion. The fact it was that or Islam, as you mentioned in your intro post, makes me cringe and wonder why exactly you seem to be hungry to join religions that espouse women as inferior to men. I sure hope you weren't the victim of domestic violence, because it will not signal a good, healthy mental recovery if you are... If you're wondering where that comes from, well, there's an old saying: Kick a dog enough and soon it begins to believe it genuinely did something wrong, even if it did nothing of the sort. And catholicism and islam are two of the biggest examples of people on high telling the rest that they're all doing something vile and wrong at every moment of their lives. Which is what happens in spousal abuse situations, too...interesting, that, the correlation between spousal abuse and catholicism and islam, yes?

I quite love Catholicism. I don't think Catholicism or Islam see women as inferior to men. Islam sees women as different and to be protected by men, though I can see where it has definitely been problematic in its implementation, so I won't really argue too much. Catholicism scarcely recognizes a gender difference at all, particularly nowadays. Women are not capable of receiving Holy Orders (nor will they ever be), and the requirements for a woman's cloister are stricter than those of a men's cloister. (For nuns/monks respectively). If you dig into the past, you will find that women were once required to veil their heads in church (til the 80s, though some people would argue veils are still required since the old laws were never formally revoked), there were no "altar girls" til the 90s (and some churches do keep boys-only), and there were no female Apostolic ministries until the 16th century or so.

The current CCC mentions them only that they are equal in dignity. Outside of that, I can't think of anything. And yes, Catholicism is demanding and sometimes it does feel as if I am always doing something wrong (I am sure if I flip around the CCC even this sentence may be wrong!). But I enjoy being called to that state of perfection. Islam also puts very high demands on individuals and so maybe you are right in terms of that mentality, though I don't think of it as abusive, nor am I a DV victim.

There is room in Catholic dogma which allows for religious plurality, and legalized homosexual marriage on the state level--its why we have for example, legal divorce even if there is no legal divorce in the Catholic Church (though Catholics still resisted legalized divorce in Malta); or why we allow legalized artificial contraception. On the other hand I am bound to what my bishop says.