Redefining Marriage, Redefining Weddings

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Monday February 17, 2014 · 7:14 AM PST

2014/02/17 · 07:14

For conservatives, "redefining marriage" has become a term of abuse, shorthand in their view, for the trouble with marriage equality. For many others, and that includes many people of faith, it's a simple statement of a necessary and inevitable part of the institution. Marriage has constantly been redefined throughout Christian history, and needs to be continually redefined, to keep its relevance for changing times and conditions.

Part of this process includes extending marriage to same - sex couples, but there's more to it than that. The process of thinking through the implications of extending marriage have led to some useful thoughts on this wider project in redefining marriage - for the better, and for the benefit of all. This was the theme of the 2014 conference of the British Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality, just completed.

gaycatholic

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Wednesday February 12, 2014 · 3:53 PM PST

2014/02/12 · 15:53

As marriage equality notched up one victory after another in 2012 and 2013, opponents bleated a repetitive refrain: those were all in liberal, blue states. Gay activists had reached their limit. In red states, traditional marriage would continue to prevail.

Not so.

gaycatholic

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Tuesday February 04, 2014 · 3:46 AM PST

2014/02/04 · 03:46

Consider the following Catholic views on sex and marriage:

* Most Catholics disputed the Church ban on artificial means of birth control (only 3% of couples rely on natural family planning)
* Most Catholics disputed the Church ban on premarital sex (Almost all couples who wish to marry in church have already been living together)
* Most Catholics disputed the Church ban on gay sex (most approve legal recognition for same – sex unions)
* Most Catholics criticize rules barring the divorced from remarriage in church.

All of this is familiar, and unremarkable – except for the source. Similar statements have been familiar to ordinary Catholics from formal opinion surveys, and from anecdotal evidence in discussion with parish peers, for years. Among lay Catholics, this is routine. But these statements do not come from secular opinion polling, or from any progressive group of church reformers, but from the German bishops themselves, as they have digested their results from the global survey on marriage and family. (Reuters report, "German bishops tell Vatican: Catholics reject sex rules")

gaycatholic

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Friday January 17, 2014 · 5:25 AM PST

2014/01/17 · 05:25

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's music, laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so,
Benedicamus Domino.
- Hilaire Belloc

The problem for too many LGBT Catholics (and other Christians), even the suggestion of being happy while both Catholic and gay seems impossible - even paradoxical. Instead, conscious of the "disordered" language of Vatican documents on sexuality, reports of the exclusion from parish ministry or Catholic employment of lesbian or gay Catholics who publicly announce their truth in marriage, and the perception of unremitting Catholic hostility to LGBT people, for many of us, there seem to be few options available for a life of honesty and integrity. None of these, it would seem, include all of "happy", "Catholic", and "gay". Read More

Is Pope Francis a “Disappointment” on Women and Gays?

gaycatholic

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Thursday January 16, 2014 · 8:51 AM PST

2014/01/16 · 08:51

At Religion Dispatches, Mary E Hunt has written about Pope Francis that there are “Three Things That Worry Me“. She’s not alone. Amid the general euphoria and adulation that Pope Francis has received and in the secular press, there’ve been other voices questioning, if not fully dissenting, whether this is entirely justified. Conservatives of course, are worried (I think with good cause), and the outright reactionaries downright horrified and angry. But we know that notwithstanding the noise they are able to make,and their claims to represent true Catholicism, these are a small minority. I’m more interested in the concerns of many moderate and progressive Catholics, Briefly, these concerns are

All of the enthusiasm about Francis’ style does not change the fact that the institutional Roman Catholic Church is a rigid hierarchy led by a pope.

A second difficulty flows from the first, in that nothing has changed for women or LGBTIQ people with regard to Catholicism during the early months of this papacy. Nor is there much prospect on either issue given what the pope has said publicly.

A third conundrum of contemporary Catholicism is the remarkable, even enviable public relations success, not to say coup, that the papacy of Pope Francis represents….. substantive structural and doctrinal issues do not evaporate just because the pope does not wear Prada.

Each of these points deserves careful consideration. For now, I state only my top-line response. Hunt is right – but also wrong. Read More

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do..... Even For Vultures

gaycatholic

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Monday December 06, 2010 · 2:58 AM PST

2010/12/06 · 02:58

Same sex pair bonding is widespread, throughout the natural world. Zoos are not exactly the natural world. The animals live in unnaturally confined conditions, and are often maintained there for the specific purpose of boosting numbers, in formal breeding programs. Unless you have an objection in principle to the mere existence of zoos (I'm neutral on that one), it's difficult to get seriously dogmatic about the story of Guido and Detlef, the male vultures of Munster zoo - but it does raise some questions:

The drama began in March when Guido and Detlef set up home together at the Allwetterzoo, in the British Army garrison town of Munster, northwest Germany.

The griffon vultures, Gyps fulvus, showed no interest in female company. They were happy in their own world, grooming one another with tender sweeps of their savage beaks between rearranging the sticks that made up their nest, although the other vultures kept stealing materials as if to spite their arrangement.

gaycatholic

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Monday September 27, 2010 · 4:52 AM PDT

2010/09/27 · 04:52

Sarah Palin’s understanding of wildlife appears to be no better than her tenuous grasp of social history. Mrs Palin has been very much in the news over her enthusiastic promotion of a band of crazies, conservative candidates who agree with her own views on education and “traditional family values”. She likes to describe the women in this band as “mamma grizzlies”, most recntly Christina O’Donnell in Delaware.

Does she have any idea what are the "family values" of real- life mamma grizzlies?

(Obviously, no - or she would never have chosen the image.)

gaycatholic

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Monday August 16, 2010 · 5:20 AM PDT

2010/08/16 · 05:20

In 2000, an eminent and biologist declared:

"When animals have access to the opposite sex, homosexuality is virtually unknown in nature, with some rare exceptions among primates."
G. Barlow, 2000

This was inaccurate. Just the previous year, Bruce Bagemihl,had published a book summarizing previously published scientific papers which described homosexual behaviour in over 300 species of animals and birds (listing dozens of papers for each), and also listing additional species of reptiles, amphibians, fish and even insects - over a thousand species in all, and tens of thousands of peer-reviewed articles. The first recorded observations of animal homosexuality were two millenia ago, by the ancient Greeks. In modern times, the first formal publication of scientific observations go back over 150 years. Photographic evidence of male swan couples has existed since the mid-nineteenth century.

Even this illustration, of male beetles doing it, was published as long ago as 1896:

gaycatholic

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Monday August 09, 2010 · 6:30 AM PDT

2010/08/09 · 06:30

A favourite argument used by the religious right against homoerotic relationships, and by the Vatican theologians against any form of sexual expression outside of marriage and not open to making babies, is that such sexual activities are “against nature”, and that the “purpose” of sex is procreation. Well, the people making these claims have never considered the actual evidence from, well, you know – “Nature” itself, which shows the exact opposite. (Anita Bryant's wonderful example of denial, which I ahve quoted before, is a good example) On sexual ethics, “Nature” is morally neutral.

gaycatholic

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Wednesday August 04, 2010 · 6:08 AM PDT

2010/08/04 · 06:08

Writing in El Paso Times, Texan priest Fr Michael Rodriguez has launched an impassioned diatribe against all forms of legal recognition for same sex union. His ranting could easily be dismissed as the lunatic fringe, but as so many Catholic catechismophiles share his ridiculous claims and assumptions, I think it is worth responding in full. This is his key assertion:

“Remember: Every single Catholic, out of fidelity to charity and truth, has the absolute duty to oppose (1) the murder of unborn babies, and (2) any and all government attempts to legalize homosexual unions.”

Not content to invent a supposed moral obligation to oppose all forms of union, he goes even further:

gaycatholic

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Monday August 02, 2010 · 6:03 AM PDT

2010/08/02 · 06:03

Well, the people making these claims have never considered the actual evidence from , well, you know, - "Nature" itself, which shows the exact opposite. (But then, when did the Vatican, or the wingnuts, ever consider the trifling matter of evidence to interfere with their convictions?)

In the lively comments thread after an earlier post in this series, reader CS in AZ reminded me of a famous exchange with Anita Bryant:

gaycatholic

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Tuesday July 27, 2010 · 10:22 AM PDT

2010/07/27 · 10:22

Last week, there were reports from Italy that undercover reporters had shadowed three priests, and had followed them to gay sex clubs. Video footage, allegedly of these priests in the clubs, in a private flat where one of them had sex with a man, and of one saying Mass, has been posted on line. The Catholic Church says it is "embarrassed" ( Catholic church embarrassed by gay priests revelations).

It needn't be - there's a long history of Catholic clergy having sex with men, from the earliest church to modern times.

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Redefining Marriage, Redefining Weddings

Red State Marriage Equality Train Rolls Along

German Catholic Bishops Agree: Sexual Doctrines Must Change!

"How to Be Happy, Catholic and Gay" (Towards a 12 - step Recovery Program)

Is Pope Francis a “Disappointment” on Women and Gays?

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do..... Even For Vultures

The Real Mamma Grizzlies: Lesbian Moms!

"Unnatural" Nature, Immoral Butterflies: The Great Cover-Up of Animal Homosexuality

Natural Law, Natural Sex, Natural Families.

Gay Marriage: The Fallacies of the "Catholic" Argument Against.

Our Queer Primate Cousins

Catholic Priests and Gay Sex in History