peterson@istari.DEC (Bob Peterson) (02/17/86)
Owen Rowley recently made a distinction between the Gay world and the Breeding Population. Is there a distinction? Sure, gay sex doesn't require birth control (yay!), but that doesn't mean we don't cause or carry babies. This newsgroup is gay male dominated so perhaps we tend to forget our sisters. I know of at least one of my lesbian friends who is pregnant by choice. There are other friends who are active parents through current or previous marriages. And does anyone remember HBO's America Undercover from last year, "Being Homosexual"? It interviewed a lesbian and gay man who were raising their own child. There is a difference, in my mind, between the Gay world and Those Who Require Breeding. My own pater's comment when I came out was "aren't you going to miss raising a family"? Maybe, but I will make that choice on my own with no one else's influence, thank you. \bob usenet: decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxwrk!peterson /\ arpa: peterson%vaxwrk.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis) (02/19/86)
Bob Peterson points out that many gay/lesbian people are involved in living arrangements which include children. It's worth mentioning that even more gays and lesbians are involved in child-related professions, including teaching, social work, and medicine, not to mention day care. In addition, many gays and lesbians would adopt children if given the chance. There is no opposition between ``the gay lifestyle'' and caring for children (though there is obviously a basic incompatibility between promiscuous sexual entanglements and having children in one's home; but this is true for people of all sexual orientations). Of course, many yuppies (and guppies) do not wish to be around children; but most gays/lesbians are hardly guppies (salmon, maybe, but not guppies). By the way, it's worth noting that the Roman Catholic Church frowns on all non-procreative relationships. I recall a case a year or so ago in which a sterile couple (heterosexual) was denied the rite of religious marriage, on the grounds that a marriage in which children are impossible cannot be a marriage at all.
john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) (02/28/86)
First, pardon me for posting where (possibly) most of you aren't much interested in what I have to say. Second, please believe me when I say that it's entirely possible to think people are wrong about important things (as any orthodox Christian thinks most of you are wrong about sexuality) without hating or despising or looking down on those people. I'm pretty disgusted by a lot of my own actions -- there's no way I could hate somebody else for his actions without being wildly inconsistent (and unChristian). But of course that doesn't mean I have to approve of your lifestyle, just that I have to be loving and considerate. Third, the occasion for this posting. In article <166@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis) writes: >By the way, it's worth noting that the Roman Catholic Church frowns on all >non-procreative relationships. I recall a case a year or so ago in which a >sterile couple (heterosexual) was denied the rite of religious marriage, on >the grounds that a marriage in which children are impossible cannot be a >marriage at all. This is not correct. The Church says that impotency invalidates a marriage, not sterility. (I'm not interested in defending this position -- I'm just stating it correctly.) A marriage between two people who were (absolutely or relatively) sterile or infertile *would not* be annulled or prohibited (unless maybe for some other reason). A marriage, on the other hand, in which sexual congress was impossible would be held to be no marriage at all, as Vince writes. Thanks. God bless you all. -- Peace and Good!, Fr. John Woolley "Compared to what I have seen, all that I have written is straw." -- St. Thomas
dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (03/01/86)
In article <531@cisden.UUCP>, john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) writes: > First, pardon me for posting where (possibly) most of you aren't much > interested in what I have to say. It's interesting to note that Fr. Woolley's access to net.religion.christian was shut off upstream at a backbone site because it no longer wanted to pay for the transfer of "frivolous" newsgroups, yet, apparently, net.motss is still being passed. Someone upstream has a "queer" sense of what's frivolous and what's not! Father, I recognize your paragraph about orthodox Christianity and not hating those whom you disagree with as being the obligatory disclaimer that every member of the orthodox Christian ministry has to declaim before facing a crowd of gay people. It functions as a kind of "hex", preventing the Religious from defilement-by-association, while trying to communicate some degree of levelheadedness to those gay people who haven't tuned out during the first sentence. I am afraid that even such comments as these might start another really rather useless discussion here, since at that level there isn't much more to be said other than to agree to disagree, and you KNOW that that has never stopped the great majority of USENET posters from entering the fray. We have gone through several lengthy waves of this, and I might be a bit gun-shy, but understand that I'm trying to avoid another anytime soon. On the other hand, should you care to, I would welcome your comments on pastoral issues which directly affect some gay people, such as the role of groups like Dignity, a Catholic group for lesbians and gay men, the nether-status that such groups have within dioceses, the role of the Church in fighting for or against equal opportunity statutes, and the disarray the Church finds itself when the Archbishop of NYC argues against such a bill, while the bishops of the dioceses of Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and many others support it. -- Steve Dyer dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU {bbncca,bbnccv,harvard}!spdcc!dyer