What? I never said any such thing, also you misspelled my name.

There is a recognized difference between gender and sex, one is biological while the other is considered learned. I have yet to see evidence that suggest sexual preferences are determined by gender role and my own experiences suggest to me otherwise. Personally, I have little doubt sexual orientation is influenced by genetic predisposition, and your developing sub-cultures already existed; they are simply being defined now. The idea of a binary human sexuality was always an incredibly stupid take and it was never actually true. The truth is that most of our common understandings of human sexuality has been deeply flawed by the over hanging prejudice.

Here is an article you might find interesting:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/0t4/crcees/files/summerschool/readings/WestZimmerman_1987_DoingGender.pdf

Hello.
I can tell you the christian position on this topic, which is not necessarily my position (I am on the edge myself).

Christianity has nothing against homosexuality as such, and is only opposed to particular types of sexual intercourse. According to christianity, the functions or ends of intercourse are (1) procreation, (2) union among two people in a marriage, (3) pleasure. And the act must be used with these ends in mind, in the order shown.

The problem with homosexual intercourse is that it can meet ends (2) and (3) but never (1). As such, it is misused. Note however that this is no worse than heterosexual intercourse for the end of (2) and (3) only.

Also, christianity (at least most branches) sees nothing wrong with being a homosexual without the act of intercourse, as it recognizes that the condition is involuntary, and therefore cannot be blameworthy. At worse, it sees it as an unnatural condition like being blind or deaf.

Christianity has nothing against homosexuality as such, and is only opposed to particular types of sexual intercourse. According to christianity, the functions or ends of intercourse are (1) procreation, (2) union among two people in a marriage, (3) pleasure. And the act must be used with these ends in mind, in the order shown. — Samuel Lacrampe

It sort of places God as no more than a beast. A beast effectively merely tries to procreate.

The lure is the pleasure but beast does not know itself so it plunders and blunders toward a goal that often surprises with much anxiety.

Hello.

I am not sure I understand your position. Are you saying a beast is moved to intercourse by pleasure or by the aim to procreate? My guess is the former, as it appears a lot of beasts, especially the males, don't take care of their offsprings.

The Roman Catholic catechism calls homosexuality "intrinsically disordered". In pastoral letters, the bishops may say that homosexuals are "persons of sacred worth" etc. -- and good for them. I would be more interested in their letters if they said homosexual intercourse was actually good, and drop the "intrinsically disordered" plank in their platform.

Catholics aren't alone in this. Methodists are having a hard time with homosexuality too, as are various denominations more conservative than Methodists.

Hello.
It depends what is meant by "intrinsically disordered". Maybe it only means homosexuality is an unnatural condition, which would be more of a statement of fact than a statement of judgement of the person.

he Roman Catholic catechism calls homosexuality "intrinsically disordered". In pastoral letters, the bishops may say that homosexuals are "persons of sacred worth" etc. -- and good for them — Bitter Crank

To be fair, the Roman Catholic catechism also immediately state "They must be welcomed with respect, compassion and gentleness. We will at all cost avoid toward them any unjust discrimination. These individuals are called to realize God's will in their lives, and if they are Christian, to bond with the suffering of the sacrifice of the Lord on the cross through the difficulties they can encounter because of their condition".

Is it unnatural? Is that a step up from intrinsically disordered?

I don't really give a rat's ass what the pope and bishops think, but I have no doubt that "intrinsically disordered" is a judgement upon my person. Evidence for "judgement", if it was needed, is that the Vatican has forbidden Catholic organizations from allowing Dignity use of its facilities (this action by a previous pope). Further, priests are not to say Mass with the group. Dignity is the gay Catholic advocacy group. They've been around since the early 1970s and have chapters across the US.

To be fair, the Roman Catholic catechism also immediately state "They must be welcomed with respect, compassion and gentleness. We will at all cost avoid toward them any unjust discrimination. These individuals are called to realize God's will in their lives, and if they are Christian, to bond with the suffering of the sacrifice of the Lord on the cross through the difficulties they can encounter because of their condition". — Akanthinos

And yet the Catholic Church has been one of the larger crosses gay Catholics have had to bear. So, it sounds like pious bullshit.

Granted: Unlike in the early 1970s, most openly gay Catholics find there are plenty of friendly parishes. That doesn't mean all are. As far as blessing gay relationships or being an openly gay seminarian, one can pretty well forget it.

why would anyone care what some others are consenting to and doing amongst themselves, as long as it does not impact me? — jajsfaye


Because human behavior is so interesting. You could be straight as the day is long, and still find it interesting what kind of lives homosexuals lead. And in reverse, gay people find the various doings of heterosexuals to be interesting as well.

-Bitter Crank

You're correct. Maybe I should have replaced "why would anyone care..." with "why would anyone be concerned about...".

- And yet the Catholic Church has been one of the larger crosses gay Catholics have had to bear. So, it sounds like pious bullshit.

To be fair, its the Catholic Church. It is all going to sound like pious bullshit, no matter what is said.

I also think the claim would need to be explored. I'm never going to deny that the Church has its doctrinal and structural problems, but I really dont know that minus Catholicism, the situation for homosexuals throughout history would have been dramatically improved. I sincerely doubt Jeremiah's idea that homosexuals play a sort of peaceful regulating function in society, if only evil bigots would not be so evil. Bigotry does not stem from religion, spirituality or adherence to a specific creed. It is but the negative aspect of normalisation of social behaviours, and thus will always have to be defeated yet again.

And, to be perfectly candid, I think that the Church is facing a series of problems, of which its attitude and doctrine toward homosexuals is not of the highest priority. And I get that I say this to someone who is positionned to be a victim of unjust discrimination from the Church because of its ridiculous stance, and that it must suck ass to be told this. But the Church condemning homosexuals is not the Church covering up rapes of children and murders of nuns who wanted to blow the whistle. It is not its default implication in the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It is not x, y and z.

Still. Gotta wonder, really, how much effort it would really take for the Pope to simply decide that from now on, the Church stays out of the bedroom affairs of people. Shortest encyclical ever.

I'm not Catholic (never was) and for the most part don't have deep resentments toward the Catholic Church. The religious body that I find more disappointing is the Methodist Church. It's just that the Catholic church is such a large sprawling organization and depending on which bishop, which priest, which parish council, which day, which issue, and so on, a Catholic can feel quite happy or quite alienated.

You know, during the decade of 1960-70 and years following, most churches - Catholic and mainline Protestant - hemorrhaged members. Tens of millions of people left and never returned. The religious left their orders in droves. Apparently millions of Christians decided that the gap between "the church" and "the world" had grown too wide. One can ask, "To what extent have the Catholic and Protestant churches found a way to address the world people are living in?" Homosexuality is just one of numerous issues where one has to conclude that they aren't making much progress.

We can say "by secular standards the church is wrong" and that will be true in some cases. It's better to say "by religious standards the church is wrong". The Lutherans, Presbyterians, Church of Christ, Episcopalians, et al have found ways to resolve the inclusion of homosexuals without losing their souls. (Of course, on a lot of other issues, like "the church as real estate operation" most churches haven't even acknowledged that the problem exists.) Most churches would not not want to give too much to ease the suffering of the poor, because... they have all these other expenses. Etc. Etc.

The Minneapolis St. Paul Archdiocese declared bankruptcy last year after a large cluster of lawsuits relating to priestly sex abuse. Priests are, of course, fallible and bad things can happen--but that isn't why the Church was sued for so much and lost its case. It was like the Nixon Administration -- it wasn't the Watergate burglary that wrecked the administration, it was the cover-up. Same here. Years of covering up, years of lying, resisting, denying, obstructing investigations, etc--right up to the day they admitted it was all true. Yes -- the priest fucked the boy, we knew about it, we protected the priest for 30 years, and we did everything we could in the last 10 years to prevent the court and investigators from finding the truth.

THAT is just a prime example of the attitude and approach that has alienated so many members for decades.

I am not sure I understand your position. Are you saying a beast is moved to intercourse by pleasure or by the aim to procreate? My guess is the former, as it appears a lot of beasts, especially the males, don't take care of their offsprings — Samuel Lacrampe

By aim to procreate. Procreation can and does often exclude raising children in a responsible manner or not at all.

The act of procreation is also not exclusive to the pleasure associated with that act, so it is not a one or the other argument.

Don't lose your time, Wellwisher is a troll.

I mean, "homosexuality is contrary to evolution". Do you really need a deep critical philology to figure out he's just inserting a more hip word in " X is contrary to the will of God"?

Beside being entirely wrong, besides, since we already have working models showing how homosexuality could be considered an evolutional advantage. — Akanthinos

Homosexuality, by definition, does reproduce in a biological sense. Evolution is tied into reproduction. Male-male or female-female cannot reproduce. This is biological fact. If you want to call that God's law then fine. Either way, there is no perpetuation of the DNA, even if a homosexual person offers many selective advantages. The only way for these useful qualities to perpetuate is through learned behavior, by others, which involves choice and willpower. Or, like in modern times, the cultural superego, via fake news, encourages this learned behavior since it creates political division.

On the other hand, when the bible and the Church were very strict about the enforcement of old time standards of homosexuality, homosexuals had to pretend to be straight by marrying and having children. The church helped perpetuated the DNA of natural homosexuals. When choice was taken away, the DNA was satisfied. However, it was less wide spread because learning homosexual behavior was not easy to study and copy.

If you look at alcohol and drug addiction, these were choices in the beginning. The first beer someone drank was a choice to look older or cool. However, this initial choice can become habit forming to some; internal pleasure loop into a subroutine, to where it seems like second nature to both oneself and to outsiders. If you look at an alcoholic, functional or dysfunctional, the original choice often becomes the foundation of who they will become.

That is a horrible understanding of both homosexuality and evolution; however, what is even more outlandish is the notion that "the church" has a significant role in this. Your church as you know it, has not been around long enough to be a relevant factor. Especially since "the church" in relation to the history of homo sapien evolution has not been a wide spread influence. The hominid lineage diverged from apes about 5 to 8 million years ago and humans have been around for about 100,00 years. Furthermore homosexual behavior has been observed in about 1,500 animal species, with some species having as much as 80% of the population with homosexual preferences. A realm completely outside "the church".

The data are clear, homosexuality is wide spread, has likely been around forever, and is here to stay. The conclusion that somehow it is counter to evolution could only come from a mind that has no clue what that even means.

With all the evidence we now have about how wide spread the practice of homosexuality is in the animal kingdom, only the ignorant could possibly concluded that homosexuality is somehow "counter" to evolution. Clearly homosexuality is neither culled by evolution nor does homosexuality impede evolution.

I think the debate on whether homosexuality impedes or is culled by evolution is anthropomorphism.

Evolution will not falter without humans. In fact it has more chance of faltering with humans around.

How's the weather in Russia these days?

Here in Moscow it is fine.

There is no debate; the jury came in ages ago: the fact that the human anus is capable of being pleasurably stimulated (in both males and females) heavily implies anal sex ("sodomy") has long served adaptive utility. Sex as a form of stress relief and creating/maintaining relationships is a strong enough adaptive advantage in and of itself, and we see plenty of great ape species employing it for those reasons...

That has nothing to do with same-sex attraction, though.

I wouldn't say it has "nothing" to do with it. Sexual attraction won't progress further without some sort of sexual compatibility. The fact that males are sexually compatible with other males, and females are sexually compatible with other females, means that same-sex attraction can help serve the same adaptive functions as sex (save direct reproduction).

In other words, some people would say that same sex attraction is unnatural because of the nature of sexual reproduction, but if partnership involving sexual intimacy/gratification is actually a function of sex, then homosexuality can serve that function without issue.

In the most straightforward terms, my point is that because we have a biological suite of sexual organs which permit same-sex intercourse, it stands to reason that a capacity for same-sex attraction evolved along with them and serve various entirely natural adaptive functions.

Homosexuality, by definition, does reproduce in a biological sense. Evolution is tied into reproduction. Male-male or female-female cannot reproduce. This is biological fact. If you want to call that God's law then fine. Either way, there is no perpetuation of the DNA, even if a homosexual person offers many selective advantages. — wellwisher

What you fail to take in account is that homosexuals can and do reproduce (yes, with females) all the time. Their reproduction is not tied to the Church, and it happens in lands that aren't Catholics.

And if homosexuality is the result of multiple beneficial interacting genes, it doesn't matter if it is coming from an homosexual individual or an heterosexual.