RC said: “Similarly, 'happy' rapists and murderers, 'happy' animal torturers…”
Good points, Robert and Snout, you saved me a few words;)
I just would like to add that ‘happy’ people are usually well-adapted. (Look up ‘happy’ in the dictionary and you’ll find: Being especially well-adapted; felicitous). I wouldn’t class a murderer or rapist or animal torturer a well-adapted or happy person; they usually have major psychological problems.

“Consent to murder? Are we talking assisted euthanasia?”
Euthanasia is not murder, it’s mercy. The only alternative to euthanasia for all patients involved is prolonged pain and suffering, or suicide. Only death can stop the incurably ill person suffering unbearably. There is no doubt in the physician’s mind that the patient cannot be cured. At the end of all the suffering the patient will die.
Euthanasia is only used when there are no drugs strong enough to end the suffering of unbearable pain.

“Consenting to harm might be valid for soldiers or terrorists perhaps?"
Terrorists harm people. Suicide bombers do not ask the victims whether they want to be around when the bomb explodes, do they?

“Suicide as a form of informed consent?”
People who commit suicide have mental problems or act in despair.

“… protecting marriage or heterosexual behaviour from becoming merely a form of behaviour, rather than the norm, is pretty important, to me, the State and the species. “

Oh please..the species debate is back. Wasting sperm, huh, RC? Read a few posts back. Especially Robert’s calculation on how much sperm he will be wasting during his lifetime will lighten you up a bit.

HIV? Answer: condoms.

The list goes on, I won’t even bother to make you see how illogical your arguments are.

But I have to admit that the point of abortion is a reasonable one and debatable- even though probably not as many homosexual people as heterosexual people will have to worry about abortion.
In fact, they might lovingly offer to adopt a baby if you and the State will let them.

RC,

“What is the harm restricted to? Physical harm, or more widely to include concepts such as the mores of a society etc?”

Some people believe that values spring from some kind of revealed outside source, while others such as myself believe that the “mores of society” have evolved from the input of all of us. The “mores of society” are not immutable: they are a collective response to who we are and the world we live in. There’s not a lot of point debating the two points of view. Either you believe in revealed religion, or you don’t.

I don’t.

What I do believe, though, is that the “mores of society” should reflect the principle of not harming individuals so far as is possible. Our concept of this is changing. One of the major changes has been to include women as valid individuals. Another has been a change in the type of economy we live in: forming heterosexual families and having lots of children no longer has the economic imperative it used to. We live longer. We are not a tiny Semitic tribe trying to survive in a hostile first millennium BCE Middle East. The idea that our values should be exactly the same as theirs is absurd to me. For all its faults, the principle of the primacy of individual rights that sprang from the Western Enlightenment is not something I would surrender willingly.

“…does that mean that we who discriminate about what we feel is or should be acceptable, should be forced to accept a minority view?”

It depends on what form that discrimination takes. You can take whatever view you like in your own heart. But if your discrimination harms people – and I believe that promoting hatred and intolerance does just that – then I don’t believe you can excuse that by citing tradition.

This string has been about the Church’s claim that gay parenting harms (“does violence”) to children. The empirical evidence says it doesn’t. It may harm “traditional mores”. This is not necessarily a bad thing, if those “mores” harm real people, today.

You make an important point Snout. The Church simply says homosexual behaviour is immoral, and that constitutionally homosexual people (and constantly condemns discrimination against them) are part of God's plan just as much as heterosexual people.

My purpose was to counter gay propaganda about percentages of homosexual people in the community and illustrate that sexuality is more fluid than the gay lobby wishes to admit.

In 1973 homosexuality was removed from the register of mental illness pending more research - research that to date has not been done. No one knows. And the article you linked to confirms that. In it there's talk of individuals who are married and leave to enter homosexual relationships - homosexual people who later in life get married. How many who indentify as homosexuals are bisexuals? What is bisexuality? Must it manifest for x number of years? Why are people who no longer have homosexual sex and are Christian not valid members of a study? Could they not know things about sex other don't know, and are particularly good witnesses to the full dimensions of human sexuality?

Why then, given the uncertainty, should we overturn a culturally stable and successful definition of marriage for the tiny majority of those who are truly homosexual and who desire to be married? We owe it to children to allow for human fallibility - leave the institution as is. We must adapt to it, not the other way around.

Those with the particular gift of homosexuality need to use it to protect what enabled them existence in the first place. Witness to other aspects of sexuality i.e the sexual celibate kind http://www.pureintimacy.org/

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about." GK Chesterton

We have a responsibility to prevent the destruction of marriage.

Martin I liked some of the questions you raised in that last post.

I am fairly confident that the real threat to marriage is not "gay marriage" but rather a fundamental shift in the heterosexual community. Marriage (and de-facto) relationships have become a legal nightmare if they fail which can do massive damage to all involved. Mostly well intentioned changes which try and address one part of a problem without adequately considering the implications of the "cure". People (male and female) can find themselves isolated from family, financially crippled, falsely acussed of all sorts of nasty without anymore failing than being human.

We need a the ability for people to agree up front what they are signing up for and for breach of those agreements to have some consequences for those who breach the agreement. Society used to work with one predominate model "till death do us part, for better for worse etc", now we see to have "till you get bored or something better comes along" regardless of what is said before family and friends (or God if you are that way inclined). There lies your problem, not that seemingly very small number of gays who might want to formalise their union.

R0bert

I totally agree Martin. Those outside the Church are attempting to force the Christian church to accept a position not compatable to our understanding of reality. They only see their reality as relavent. It is not a position based upon scientific fact but upon sentimentality. We respect the individual we abhor his unclean act; this equally applies to everyone engaged in anal sex.

As I have said before many men engage in same sex acts while being married. There is no fact of science to suggest genetic factors make them bi-sexual. It is merely self gratification, opportunism and lust. These acts the Church cannot condone as evolved genetics as some seem to suggest, neither can it condone adultery or prostitution.

Those that engage in such behaviour might be happy but they are not moral. What is the point of the purity of life that the Christ teaches if any behaviour is viewed as OK. These people are not supporters of the position of the Church they are merely agnostic antagonists.

The Christian Church has a right to their point of view since we believe in design by a Divine mind. The NT identifies homosexuals as those that followed the god Juno who turned away from such impurity to follow the purity of Christ. There were converted homosexuals in the early Christian Church, even as there were adulterers and prostitutes they abandoned their impurities to follow Christ.

Martin: “We have a responsibility to prevent the destruction of marriage.”
Why? Depends how yo look at it. I don’t see that changing the definition of marriage, so that same sex couples are able to get married, will mean destruction of marriage- it can be seen as an enrichment. Changes can be positive and refreshing. The world won’t end if a few homosexuals are going to get married. It works perfectly in other counties.

And, I’d have to agree with Robert, heterosexual couples are doing a good job at destroying marriages. How many marriages end in divorce, was it 1 in 4?
I was discussing with someone that perhaps in the future marriages might be 2, 5, or 10-year contracts- much like driver’s licences- people will have to renew them if they want to stay together longer. If not renewed in time, it will be nullified. That will save many couples having to go through expensive and stressful divorce procedures. It will also be a solution for people being trapped in a marriage they can’t get out of.

Philo: “They only see their reality as relavent. It is not a position based upon scientific fact but upon sentimentality.”
Are you saying that the reality of the church is all based upon scientific fact? Don’t Christians just interpret reality differently than non-Christians do? Perhaps the church’s position is based upon spiritual beliefs. Beliefs do not necessarily have to be true.

“Those that engage in such behaviour might be happy but they are not moral”
I wouldn’t rely on Christianity’s interpretation of morality.