The following is my reply to Dave N., who kindly left a couple of commentaries on my post, titled, "LGBTs" in San Francisco up in arms against Archbishop Niederauer , my latest reply was too long for the comm box, so here it is. His thoughts are in red italics. Thank you kindly for your patience and attention.
The things you claim I characterized as "ridiculous" ... I didn't.
I didn't said you said it. I attributed it to the "post-modernist peanut gallery." You should not feel accused, unless of course, you are sitting with them. Are you?
What I DID say was ridiculous is the assertion that same-gender couples, including some I know that have been in committed relationships for over 20 years, were and are driven by the same lustful, self-indulgent, destructive drives that the gang-rapists of Sodom were. And that is what the Catechism requires one to believe if its reference to the Sodom story is to make any sense. And that view of the Sodom story is not just that of "some isolated 20th-century exegetes" ... it is quite clearly what the story is about. And when it comes to the NT, I'm not sure a Catholic should be quite so dismissive of scholarly views of the USCCB and NAB translators, either.
Again, I'm not dismissing outright the interpretations of some -and I reemphasize, some 20th century exegetes regarding these Bible verses. Again, theirs is not the only scholarly interpretation, there are others in the 20th, 21st and even before that also bear on the question. And again I repeat, the Catholic Moral position is not solely based on those verses alone as you allege, but is bigger, vaster if you will, and includes non-theological claims as derived from Natural Law, which is the morality that can be discovered by reason acting alone.
As for US civil law, theological arguments aren't really relevant (as per the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment), nor is your desire to avoid being "outcasts."
I don't mind being an outcast as defined by the dominant pagan culture. I do, however, defend my civil rights to believe, assemble, and petition my representatives whenever and however I like and I will not surrender those rights, and I will defend those rights come hell and high water.
Nor is this a debate about "theological arguments", but really about if a nation, founded on the bedrock of Natural Law Morality can in fact survive without such bedrock. That Catholic Moral Theology and Natural Law philosophy have convergent aims, well that's true, but one doesn't need to be a Catholic - or indeed a believer - to recognize, ellucidate, and apply Natural Law morality to policy. The "progressive" attempt to reduce the argument for traditional marriage to one of irrelevant theology is a fallacy.
Yet, there is an implied argument here that is seldom addressed by same-sex marriage advocates when they rail against "theological arguments" and it is not that they oppose that the governments recognize the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection of Christ. What they oppose is that the *moral demands* of the Gospel be recognized and applied by governments and this, very selectively, for they would agree in principle that feeding those who can't feed themselves, or extending health care to those who can't afford it, or caring for the elderly and the infirm are convergent moral demands made in the Gospel to which all can agree.
No, the opposition by homosexualists against Gospel morality is aimed specifically against any words in the teaching of Christ that can be remotedly interpreted as indicating a "big picture" anthropology of human beings having a nature gifted with attributes oriented toward a supernatural end, a morality that includes the entirety of our bodily and spiritual beings that sanctifies our objective reality as sexual beings. Homosexualists reject a "whole package" reception of the Gospel, by affirming a view of total sexual autonomy aover and against the view of holistic approach to human nature transmitted in the Gospel. This is the principal - if not the sole - "theological view" the homosexualist reject when they say "don't you impose your morality on me" as they go ahead imposing theirs upon others, by government imposition when at all possible.
The fact is that if federal, state, and local governments eventually come to recognize civil marriages for same-gender couples, that won't make you any more or less an outcast than you already are.
Nice flourish, but wrong argument, for the injection into policy and law of the homosexualist worldview necessarily delegitimizes the defenders of traditional marriage and of natural law morality and undervalue their views.
Trying to wage that war by fighting to maintain/pass laws that negatively impact those that you disagree with is an inappropriate and counterproductive choice of a battlefield.
This noble aspiration should cut both ways, shouldn't? But it doesn't in practice, as we've been getting the sharp edge of the blade nowadays.
And as for bigotry -- Merriam-Webster defines intolerant as follows: "unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights: bigoted."
Yes, funny you mention that, because I traced and reflected on the "tolerance" definition game in chronological order here, here, and here.
Modern lexicographers and semanticists should be forgiven for formulating definitions useful to the needs of those who fight the imposition of certain morality upon themselves, while imposing their upon others, using the coercive power of the state whenever possible. Perhaps they had racism and the Civil Rights movement in mind when they redid the lexicon, unsuspecting that the definition would be seized by others whose cause have nothing to do with racial bigotry and discrimination.
People should respect the right of Catholics to make their theological case as to why they believe same-gender relationships are always wrong, and enforce their conclusions on their own members as they see fit. But when you try to deprive same-gender couples of legal rights, benefits, and protections granted to straight married couples, using the worst sorts of negative stereotypes to make your case, you actually have moved into an area where the term "bigoted" quite literally applies.
The Gospel has social implications. We have always understood that, that's why we invented hospitals, demythologized the practice of medicine, organize the state to feed the hungry and protect the poor and infirm from arbitrary action and so on and so forth. We understand that morality is accesible by reason acting alone and that the conclusions of this Natural Law morality converge with that of revealed morality and as such, in the public arena in a free society, we have both the right and the obligation to pursue virtue in social practice, in economics, in legislation, etc. We are not going to be corralled into our churches as if these were reservations where we can practice our subculture "safely" and without "damaging" any one else. Our message is for all and as laymen, it is our vocation to pursue it without apology.
As for me being a bigot, I'll leave that judgment to those who know me best: my wife, and my confessor.
Thank you, Dave N., for commenting here in Vivificat and may the Lord bless you richly.