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On Same-Sex Marriage, Catholics Are Leading the Way in Legalization
New York Times ^ | 05/27/2015 | Frank Bruni

Posted on 05/27/2015 12:26:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Take a look at this list of countries: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg and Ireland. Name two things that they have in common.

They don’t share a continent, obviously. Or a language.

But in all of them, the Roman Catholic Church has more adherents, at least nominally, than any other religious denomination does.

And all of them belong to the vanguard of 20 nations that have decided to make same-sex marriage legal.

In fact, countries with a Catholic majority or plurality make up half of those where two men or two women can now wed or will soon be able to.

Ireland, obviously, is the freshest addition to the list. It’s also, in some ways, the most remarkable one. It’s the first country to approve same-sex marriage by a popular referendum. The margin wasn’t even close. About 62 percent of voters embraced marriage equality.

And they did so despite a past of great fealty to the Catholic Church’s official teachings on, for example, contraception, which was outlawed in Ireland until 1980, and abortion, which remains illegal in most circumstances.

Irish voters nonetheless rejected the church’s formal opposition to same-sex marriage. This act of defiance was described, accurately, as an illustration of church leaders’ loosening grip on the country.

But in falling out of line with the Vatican, Irish people are actually falling in line with their Catholic counterparts in other Western countries, including the United States.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: catholics; gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; samesexmarriage; ssm
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1 posted on 05/27/2015 12:26:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

This person obviously failed logic 101.

A, B, and C have many D citizens
A, B, and C legalized E
Therefore, D caused E

That is what is known as a logical fallacy. There are way too many other variables involved to make that conclusion. One likely has nothing to do with the other.


2 posted on 05/27/2015 12:31:26 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: SeekAndFind

With the possible exception of Ireland, (not sure anymore), Church attendance in all of the countries you mentioned is extremely low.

Perhaps we should try somehow to distinguish between practicing and non-practicing.


3 posted on 05/27/2015 12:32:29 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: SeekAndFind
New York Times ^ | 05/27/2015 | Frank Bruni
C'mon, this is the NY Times. WTH believes them?
4 posted on 05/27/2015 12:37:17 PM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

Church attendance is just another part of being a baptized member of the Catholic denomination, just as voting democrat is for Catholics in America, and whatever they vote for in the catholic nations of Latin America and Mexico.


5 posted on 05/27/2015 12:39:47 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: SeekAndFind

"Bravo!"

.

"Who am I to judge?"


6 posted on 05/27/2015 12:39:57 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Doctrine doesn't change. The trick is to find a way around it.)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

Liberal are masters at social manipulation - they try to create the impression that “everyone else is doing it”... so you should, too!


7 posted on 05/27/2015 12:40:36 PM PDT by Fido969
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To: SeekAndFind

Let’s just admit it, marriage, as a component shaping Western Culture, died when divorce became normal, children became optional, and husband/wife roles were blurred. Sodomite Marriage is not the assault we think it is. It’s beating a dead horse.


8 posted on 05/27/2015 12:41:21 PM PDT by demshateGod (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

In Ireland, with about 90% Catholics, there isn’t much room for variables.

Mix that in with the Catholics in America voting for the democrats and their gay agenda, the author has a point.


9 posted on 05/27/2015 12:41:29 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past; SeekAndFind
That is what is known as a logical fallacy. There are way too many other variables involved to make that conclusion. One likely has nothing to do with the other.

"Likely"? This isn't the first time that a correlation between (modern) Catholicism and Liberalism has been statistically drawn:

If any corner of the globe should bear the imprint of Catholic values, it’s Latin America. Catholicism has enjoyed a spiritual monopoly in the region for more than 500 years, and today almost half the 1.1 billion Catholics alive are Latin Americans. Moreover, Latin Americans take religion seriously; surveys show that belief in God, spirits and demons, the afterlife, and final judgment is near-universal.

The sobering reality, however, is that these facts could actually support an “emperor has no clothes” accusation against the church. Latin America has been Catholic for five centuries, yet too often its societies are corrupt, violent, and underdeveloped. If Catholicism has had half a millennium to shape culture and this is the best it can do, one might be tempted to ask, is it really something to celebrate?
-- from the thread Why hasn't Catholicism had a more positive effect?

....Compare two lists: According to the USCCB, the five most Catholic states, in population, are: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. According to the American Life League, the states with the most pro-life legislation (i.e., inhibiting abortion in various ways) are: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Texas. This is a shocker. In short, there is no Catholic political impact in support of life in those states reportedly having the most Catholics. As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put it, after the 2008 election, “[w]e need to stop overcounting our numbers, our influence, our institutions, and our resources, because they are not real.”
— from the thread The Mythical Catholic Vote: The Harmful Consequences of Political Assimilation

....A new European Central Bank study has also found that Catholics are more likely to favour sharing wealth and to support government intervention in the economy than are Protestants....[Max Weber] noted that societies which had more Protestants had a more highly developed capitalist economy and that, in societies with different religions, the most successful business leaders were Protestant. Weber also argued that Catholicism impeded the development of capitalism in the West, as did Confucianism and Buddhism in the East...."relative to Roman Catholicism, Reformed Protestantism has curbed preferences for redistribution and for government intervention in the economy.”
-- from the thread Catholics 'more likely to back state economic intervention'

"The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy — whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead — is doubtless even today still very widespread, and much in recent history seems to speak for it."
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Market Economy and Ethics, 1985<


10 posted on 05/27/2015 12:47:22 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
The description of Ireland as a Catholic country is largely a myth. Church attendance is lower in Ireland than in the U.S.

As with most western countries, Ireland is dominated by one religion: secular socialism.

11 posted on 05/27/2015 12:47:33 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ( "It doesn't work for me. I gotta have more cowbell!")
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To: ansel12

Catholic voting in America used to be reliably Democrat back in the day.

But these days Catholics demonstrate the same voting patterns as most other Americans and usually race is the biggest factor.

In the last presidential election, 59% of white Catholics voted GOP, about the same as the general white population.
If you happen to be both a regular church going Catholic and non-Hispanic white, there is probably a closer to 70% chance you voted GOP in the last presidential election. Same would apply to regular church going white Protestants.

Tell me your race and how often you attend church services, I can more often than not predict how you vote. Back in the day, socio-economic-status SES (class) more often than not determined how you vote. These days it is mostly based on race and regular church attendance.


12 posted on 05/27/2015 12:48:57 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: SeekAndFind; All
"And all of them belong to the vanguard of 20 nations that have decided to make same-sex marriage legal."

When the native voters in these same-sex countries become minority voters to Muslim voters as a consequence of abortion and gay marriage, then majority Muslim voters will outlaw same-sex marriage again - and Christianity along with it.

13 posted on 05/27/2015 12:51:35 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: ansel12

You still can’t say it has anything to do with it. Traditional Catholic teaching sees homosexuality as sin and gay marriage as wrong. The only conclusion you could perhaps make is that there are a lot of bad Catholics in those countries. Cause and effect being the opposite direction. Sin destroys faith, faith does not cause sin. One can call oneself a Catholic but if one does not practice or believe its teachings then one is being dishonest with oneself (yes yes, too many “one”s in there, lol).


14 posted on 05/27/2015 12:53:03 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

Catholic voting is pretty much like it has always been, democrat.

Comparing them to non-Christians is probably the right thing for you to do, which you did, you sure wouldn’t want to compare the Catholic vote to the non-Catholic Christian vote, which always goes republican.

The majority of baptized members of the Catholic denomination, vote democrat, that is why the democrats wanted the 1965 Immigration Act so badly.


15 posted on 05/27/2015 12:55:45 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: SeekAndFind

Hmmmm, interesting. California passed their marriage law in Prop 22 by around 62% (61 actually), and the homo-Fascists cried “foul.”


16 posted on 05/27/2015 12:56:57 PM PDT by fwdude (The last time the GOP ran an "extremist," Reagan won 44 states.)
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To: ansel12

You are exactly correct when Hispanics are thrown into the mix. About 1/3 of all Catholics are Hispanics and Soetoro won 3/4 of all Hispanic votes in the last election.

My only point is that white Catholic voters ex-Hispanics, vote along the same lines as the overall general white population.


17 posted on 05/27/2015 12:59:44 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: SeekAndFind

Frank, you stunk at reviewing restaurants but I wish you’d go back to that hat trick instead of dumb editorials like this!


18 posted on 05/27/2015 1:01:00 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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To: fwdude

In 2008 CA voters did pass a ballot amendment to the state Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

But it was much closer than what you said.


19 posted on 05/27/2015 1:01:42 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: ansel12

Glad to see you finally coming out and agreeing with a world class sodomite! Congrats.


20 posted on 05/27/2015 1:02:33 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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