51 - 60 of 113 Comments

1. John

   3 years ago

   But fat people do have the right to be fat. And they can marry.
   
   I'm glad you're making headway with your own weight struggle. Now you might want to work on your understanding of what love is. It is not a mere appetite.
   
   You're out of your depth here - you don't understand sexuality, law or compassion.

2. Chuck Anziulewicz

   3 years ago

   DEAR DEACON FOURNIER:
   
   The United States of America is not a theocracy. Perhaps you would be happier if it was. Perhaps you would like it if this country was renamed The United States of Christ. Until that happens, you must accept the fact persons of ALL belief systems (whether Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Pagans, etc.) are on equal legal footing.
   
   It would appear obvious that YOUR church would not be particularly welcoming to Gay individuals, particularly Gay couples, and that YOUR church is opposed to supporting marriage equality for Gay Americans. But other Christians and congregations are more supportive and accepting. Are you suggesting that only YOUR views should apply to the formulation of public policy?
   
   If your belief is that Gay folks are committing an abominable sin and will face fiery judgment from their maker, well then that's your right. But co-opting the law to force people to do your bidding is the real abomination.
   
   Why is it that Straight couples are encouraged to date, get engaged, marry and build lives together in the context of monogamy and commitment, and that this is a GOOD thing … yet for Gay couples to do exactly the same is somehow a BAD thing? To me this seems like a very poor value judgment.
   
   Here is my advice to you: Your faith is a personal matter. And if your personal faith informs you that Gay relationships (no matter how monogamous or long-term) are anathema, you are welcome to conduct your personal life as you see fit. You do not have the right to demand that persons of other faiths do the same.
   
   When marriage equality for Gay couples finally becomes a reality (and it eventually will), I can promise you with 100% certainty that it will not affect your life, your marriage, your church, or your children ONE BIT. You will never have to worry about being denied a job or your love because of YOUR sexual orientation. Your church will never be forced to marry Gay couples, any more than it is forced to marry non-Christian couples.
   
   Perhaps the best thing for you to do when it comes to your dealings with Gay individuals and couples is simply to obey The Golden Rule: Treat them as you yourself would wish to be treated.
   

3. Bob

   3 years ago

   KHanley - Catholic leaders can and do often speak out against the instrinsic evil of artificial contraception. It is the lay faithful who largely ignore the instruction.

4. Pete Brady

   3 years ago

   Those coming late to the discussion appear to have myopically channelled all their anger on what the good Deacon himself characterized as an "absurd example." Perhaps the explanation of St. Thomas Aquinas will serve to add clarity to the good Deacon's point in that Aquinas stated that 'God has joined to the exercise of the different functions of human life a pleasure or satisfaction, which is therefore something good. But if man, inverting the proper order of things, seeks satisfaction as an aim in itself, in contempt of the good to which it is joined and which is its aim, he perverts its true nature and converts it into sin or an occasion of sin.'
   
   Gluttony is a vice. It perverts the good which is the sustenance of life through food. If eaten only for the pleasure of it, or to excess, it opposes the good for which God intended it. The same can be said of avarice. Immense wealth in and of itself is not sinful, but if it consumes to the exclusion of all else that is good then it is not well ordered. Lust is a vice and a sin. Even in the heterosexual conjugal act if it is detached from its primary purpose of the possibility of procreation then it is disordered. We speak of man's sensitive appetites. Masturbation is disordered because it is physically detached from the purpose for which God gave the sexual function. When the aim of the sexual urge is satisfaction alone to the exclusion of the aim of the sexual function, procreation, then the proper order of things has been inverted. And is then rightly described as "disordered." The homosexual act is, therefore, a "disordered appetite."
   
   That which draws us to our last end of being with God for eternity is good. That which separates us from God, depriving us of our last end in God is evil. When we pervert what God has made known to us in His natural law we do evil.
   
   Civil law is meant to flesh out the natural law, which is also known as right reason. If civil law goes beyond the bounds of natural law then confusion and conflict arise until we correct the error and are once again settled into conformance with it.
   
   Civil law is therefore proscribed from creating a "civil right" that is in not supported in the natural law. Since homosexuality perverts the proper order and aim for which God ordained the sexual function it is devoid of any claim to a natural right. Having no natural right it cannot have a "civil right."

5. Katie

   3 years ago

   Timothy Smith:
   You may not care what the Pope thinks, but those that want the truth do. I'll pray for you too.

6. Pete Brady

   3 years ago

   Those coming late to the discussion appear to have myopically channelled all their anger on what the good Deacon himself characterized as an "absurd example." Perhaps the explanation of St. Thomas Aquinas will serve to add clarity to the good Deacon's point in that Aquinas stated that 'God has joined to the exercise of the different functions of human life a pleasure or satisfaction, which is therefore something good. But if man, inverting the proper order of things, seeks satisfaction as an aim in itself, in contempt of the good to which it is joined and which is its aim, he perverts its true nature and converts it into sin or an occasion of sin.'
   
   Gluttony is a vice. It perverts the good which is the sustenance of life through food. If eaten only for the pleasure of it, or to excess, it opposes the good for which God intended it. The same can be said of avarice. Immense wealth in and of itself is not sinful, but if it consumes to the exclusion of all else that is good then it is not well ordered. Lust is a vice and a sin. Even in the heterosexual conjugal act if it is detached from its primary purpose of the possibility of procreation then it is disordered. We speak of man's sensitive appetites. Masturbation is disordered because it is physically detached from the purpose for which God gave the sexual function. When the aim of the sexual urge is satisfaction alone to the exclusion of the aim of the sexual function, procreation, then the proper order of things has been inverted. And is then rightly described as "disordered." The homosexual act is, therefore, a "disordered appetite."
   
   That which draws us to our last end of being with God for eternity is good. That which separates us from God, depriving us of our last end in God is evil. When we pervert what God has made known to us in His natural law we do evil.
   
   Civil law is meant to flesh out the natural law, which is also known as right reason. If civil law goes beyond the bounds of natural law then confusion and conflict arise until we correct the error and are once again settled into conformance with it.
   
   Civil law is therefore proscribed from creating a "civil right" that is in not supported in the natural law. Since homosexuality perverts the proper order and aim for which God ordained the sexual function it is devoid of any claim to a natural right. Having no natural right it cannot have a "civil right."

7. Esther M Ferencz

   3 years ago

   WOW is there some HATE FILLED REMARKS in some postings by bloggers. ARE YOU ALL SICK AND PERVERTED?????? DOES NOT NO ONE not a DEACON who is educated in the matters of faith and morals and have the authority to respond to a sickness in the church and culture and the CATHOLIC RESPONSIBILITY not due RESPECT??? There is a tendency to ATTACK AS ATTACK JUNK YARD DOGS PARTICULARLY by the homosexual community......you call your lack of CIVIL RIGHTS WRONG,,,, HUH!!!?????? I did not know that 2 men wanting to wed or two women, who sodomize, and do other SICK AND IMMORAL SEX acts
   ..which of course is THEIR CHOICE.....BUT DO NOT BE TELLING AMERICANS and CATHOLICS WHAT IS OR WHAT IS NOT A "CIVIL RIGHT" THERE are MORAL RIGHTS, NATURAL ORDERS which have a set of WRONGS AND RIGHTS and Christ Himself spoke of them,,,,,,,ONE of which is TO NOT LAY MAN WITH A MAN WITH ANOTHER and THE SAME FOR FEMALES.....shall we call CHRIST ANTI CIVIL RIGHTS???? I think NOT,,,,,,He created man and than woman so that man would not be alone,,Gen 2,,,,ALSO may I point to Gen 10...Sodumn and Gommorah, the two cities whos salt remneants remain to this day when Christ CLEANSED THE CITIES of EXACTLY what YOU WISH TO HAVE AS "CIVIL RIGHTS" HE did it with SULFURFIC FIRE! STUNNING! The sea where the flames and city remains are in part in the Black Sea which NO LIFE CAN LIVE IN.....THE SALT CONTENT is such that you need not know how to swim you just FLOAT the heavy salt laden water is sick and dead!
   
   

8. Liz

   3 years ago

   Just google "Folsom Street Fair" - they are basically the same pix - and, your complaint is? ... It is what it is. And I don't see the people in those pictures (from the Folsom Street Fair) upset because their pix are being taken. Hey, don't read the website ... you do have a choice.

9. Bulbajer

   3 years ago

   Pete Brady, my point was not that gays were photographed without consent. My point was that it's misleading and dishonorable to picture the gay community as always being rowdy and loud. Well, it's the truth, you say? Do you actually think the majority of gay couples want themselves to be exposed as rowdy and loud? The majority of them just want to blend in, wouldn't you? I felt that the author was perhaps going back on his words of being against discrimination by showing a lot of pictures depicting gays as rowdy and ridiculous.

10. tardans1@cox.net

    3 years ago

    So what civil rights should the overweight forfeit, that we may properly sanction their disordered appetites?

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