Posted on 03/27/2013 6:54:54 AM PDT by NYer
Thanks to Kathryn Lopez for highlighting this interview in USA Today with Archbishop Cordileone on gay marriage.
Anybody who wishes to enter into a debate about gay marriage with friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, or anyone else should read this interview and memorize each and every answer by the Archbishop.
This, folks, is how it is done. Do not accept their premises at all.
This is not a debate about tolerance or a live and let live mentality. If it was, some form of civil union or benefit structure would have been sufficient. This is about criminalizing the opposing views and driving Christianity further into the cubby hole.
Read this. Memorize it. Regurgitate.
Q: What is the greatest threat posed by allowing gays and lesbians to marry?Read the whole thing.
A:The better question is: What is the great good in protecting the public understanding that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife?
I can illustrate my point with a personal example. When I was Bishop of Oakland, I lived at a residence at the Cathedral, overlooking Lake Merritt. It's very beautiful. But across the lake, as the streets go from 1st Avenue to the city limits at 100th Avenue, those 100 blocks consist entirely of inner city neighborhoods plagued by fatherlessness and all the suffering it produces: youth violence, poverty, drugs, crime, gangs, school dropouts, and incredibly high murder rates. Walk those blocks and you can see with your own eyes: A society that is careless about getting fathers and mothers together to raise their children in one loving family is causing enormous heartache.
To legalize marriage between two people of the same sex would enshrine in the law the principle that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant, and that marriage is essentially an institution about adults, not children; marriage would mean nothing more than giving adults recognition and benefits in their most significant relationship.
How can we do this to our children?
...
Q: How would the allegation that opponents are bigoted lead to their rights being abridged?
A: Notice the first right being taken away: the right of 7 million Californians who devoted time and treasure to the democratic process, to vote for our shared vision of marriage. Taking away people's right to vote on marriage is not in itself a small thing.
But the larger picture that's becoming increasingly clear is that this is not just a debate about what two people do in their private life, it's a debate about a new public norm: Either you support redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex or you stand accused by law and culture of bigotry and discrimination.
If you want to know what this new public legal and social norm stigmatizing traditional believers will mean for real people, ask David and Tanya Parker, who objected to their kindergarten son being taught about same sex marriage after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized it in that state and wanted to pull him out of class for that lesson. He was arrested and handcuffed for trying to protect his son's education, and they were told they had no right to do so.
Ask the good people of Ocean Grove Methodist camp in New Jersey that had part of its tax-exempt status rescinded because they don't allow same-sex civil union ceremonies on their grounds. Ask Tammy Schulz of Illinois, who adopted four children (including a sibling group) through Evangelical Child Family Services — which was shut down because it refuses to place children with same-sex couples. (The same thing has happened in Illinois, Boston and Washington, D.C., to Catholic Charities adoption services). ... Ask the doctor in San Diego County who did not want to personally create a fatherless child through artificial insemination, and was punished by the courts.... Ask Amy Rudnicki who testified in the Colorado Legislature recently that if Catholic Charities is shut out of the adoption business by new legislation, her family will lose the child they expected to adopt this year. ... Nobody is better off if religious adoption agencies are excluded from helping find good homes for abused and neglected children, but governments are doing this because the principle of "anti-discrimination" is trumping liberty and compassion. ...
When people say that opposition to gay marriage is discriminatory, like opposition to interracial marriage, they cannot also say their views won't hurt anybody else. They seek to create and enforce a new moral and legal norm that stigmatizes those who view marriage as the union of husband and wife. ... It's not kind, and it doesn't seem to lead to a "live and let live" pluralism.
Blinded fools-—do they think the push for ‘marriage equality’ will end for same gender adults? Nay but Pandoras opened box will yield more horrors within. Look for incest, threesome and bestial requests demanding their rights too.
If this decadent society tosses out the Bible admonitions of gay practices then all the other taboos above don’t apply either. Stick with the Almighty Holy One— the Ultimate Supreme Justice who holds the final say on the matter.
A very smart archbishop. He makes the case, and never mentions religion or God, only and natural law and common sense. He should testify before the Supreme Court,.
Great Graphic!
Is It Yours?
Also, an excellent article. But, one caveat. A true liberal will not allow you to get even these wise and wonderful words in edgewise.
One can not engage in debate with someone who interrupts you with memorized talking points, doesn’t answer direct questions, changes the subject on a dime, and responds to your well-mannered and thoughtful approach with ridicule. This was illustrated so well in the Ryan/Biden debates, with Biden’s eye-rolling, guffaws, and non-sequiturs.
I encounter this daily with liberals, so I have to assume it is trained behavior.
NYer, with all due respect to both you and Archbishop Cordileone, the social ramifications of gay marriage are a tangent to the question of the constitutionality of gay marriage imo.
More specifically, the Founding States made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution’s silence about issues like marriage, abortion, euthanasia, ect., means that such issues are automatically unique state power issues.
But also note that the pro-gay liberal media, including Obama guard dog Fx News, is arguing a wide, PC interpretation of the Equal Protections Clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment in defense of gay marriage. But if the liberal media would take the trouble to read all the way down to Section 2 of 14A, then they would find out that, regardless of the Equal Protections Clause in Section 1, the 14th Amendment itself discriminates against people. This is because Section 2 discriminates on the basis of sex, age and citizenship status.
So what 14A really does is to clarify that the states have the power to make laws to discriminate on bases which are not expressly protected by the Constitution, same-sex marriage being an example, as long as such laws discriminate equally.
I’m going to read it when I can, and I mean no disrespect to you, but overall I can’t see how the Roman Catholic church isn’t furthering homosexuality in the long run. I live in NY state myself (not sure but you might, from your ID), and from living in a very Catholic area (80%), I’ve never known faith or God’s Word to be important to anyone around me. It is like Europe here, though known to be so Catholic. What I really have issue with, as a Christian, is the church leadership, which doesn’t teach the important things from the Bible, like “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). I know from being Lutheran (a church also not teaching a reliance on God), and being in such a lukewarm area, and from a nominal Christian, abusive family, that I lived as a very lost person (including as a lesbian) that there is very little “light” in this area. The only person in 40 years I knew, before discovering some small faith pockets, was a Jehovah’s witness. So, for this and other reasons, the Catholic church speaking out, saying basically that they so that homosexuality is wrong (as most people will take it), doesn’t convince me. I look to the Bible. I hope you’re not offended, but I am speaking what I believe needs to be said.
And when they sense that they have lost the argument, they just start calling names.
Yes. That too. I forgot that, but you are completely right about that.
Yeah, the talking over what you're trying to say, as well, is annoying; it's called 'jamming', and you see it on the talk shows all the time. Ann Coulter has learned this trick, and uses against libs all the time. Of course she's considered a b*tch for doing it, but, of course, it's OK for the libs.;o)
WOW! Not only is it a learned technique (as I suspected) but it has a NAME!
Thank you for that information.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.