The Pope opened his mouth...

[Haunted]

NFP I grant you is a form of controlling the number and frequency of births.

Then it is by definition a form of contraceptive and you must therefore explain why the church is against contraception

As I argued earlier NFP (which includes the calendar method) neither prevents conception nor alters the natural fertility of the couple in any way.

That is precisely what it does. What is it if not the prevention of pregnancy?

NFP is conception avoidance not prevention.
E.g. tax avoidance is legal, and tax evasion is illegal.

Semantics. In all forms of contraception the prevention of pregnancy is the goal, the calender method aims to prevent pregnancy ergo it is contraception. The couple are engaging in sex without the "procreative" nature which you so often tout as being necessary for moral sex.

NFP restricts sex to times when there are no viable ova present.

Which does not in any contradict my point.

The sperm are free to proceed to the fallopian tubes unhindered, it is just that there will not not a viable ovum for one of them to fertilise.

So any method which allows the sperm to proceed to the fallopian tubes unhindered is moral? At least we are getting closer to a more precise definition.

NFP is also distinguished from (artificial) contraception by the fact that it can be use to achieve the opposite, i.e. maximising the intrinsic fertility of the couple and increasing their likelihood of conceiving. A condom or the combined oral contraceptive will not achieve that.

Pulling out is also a 'natural' method that will achieve the same. And how exactly does a condom decrease fertility? If anything, it will increase fertility because ejaculations will be more frequent which is proven method of increasing sperm counts and fertility among males. Frequent male orgasms will ensure that when a couple do wish to conceive they have the best possible chance of doing so.

[Senethro]

NFP exploits, for want of a better term, the intrinsic (or natural) phases of infertility during the menstrual cycle. Contraception alters fertility, whereas NFP clearly does not.

NFP is conception avoidance not prevention.
E.g. tax avoidance is legal, and tax evasion is illegal.

Even your word choice shows you know you're not being intellectually honest. You know its gaming the system. You know that tax avoidance and tax evasion are both equally immoral, if you have the ability to pay and have been using services that those taxes would pay for.

You won't find consistency by sticking to the letter of the law when the spirit of those laws is muddled. NFP is contraception.

[Senethro]

I reasoned it earlier than the function of human sexuality is procreation. When sexual attraction is directed to the same sex procreation is impossible. SSA attraction is a sexual disorder. SSA attraction is not like having green eyes, people with green eyes can still see, their eyes still effectively carry out their intrinsic function. I have seen no evidence in the literature for homosexuality being genetically linked, but if you want to provide some...

I think deriving an ought from an is and calling it reasoning is being a bit too generous.

Homosexuality could be considered a disorder under some definitions but I fail to see how that would place any kind of moral burden upon homosexual people to act in a particular manner.

There has been a decades long interest in determining the relative contribution of social, environmental and genetics to sexual orientation. Prior to 1990 there was something of a rash of twin studies which suffered from poor methodology. This is a more modern one (sample size: ~5000) that suggests a genetic component. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JM ... s,2000.pdf

Note that I say component. Its not the whole story. But given that a component is present and that homosexuality is therefore intrinsic, this means homosexuals are not a bug, but a feature. Phenotypic variation.


btw i think the faux-concern for those poor "afflicted" people with a "disorder" (word choice yours) and applying of your own labels to them (SSA) is disgusting. Look at the top google results for it! (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&as ... =&safe=off) People attempting to "treat" homosexuality, mormons, that evil cesspit mercatornet that you've linked to before. What fine company.

The naming of things is important and you should be careful using the labels employed by extremists and bigots.

[RedCelt69]

I don't get why you guys are feeding macgamer's bizarre obsession. It doesn't matter what you say and how often you say it, you won't convince him of his error until you are able to provide a Vatican-approved dissertation (preferably by a bishop, or a philosopher born-and-raised with the RCC) saying that he's wrong.

Some people just don't like thinking for themselves.

[macgamer]

I don't get why you guys are feeding macgamer's bizarre obsession. It doesn't matter what you say and how often you say it, you won't convince him of his error until you are able to provide a Vatican-approved dissertation (preferably by a bishop, or a philosopher born-and-raised with the RCC) saying that he's wrong.

Some people just don't like thinking for themselves.

Perhaps because they feel like it's a game of chess and they are chasing my king around the board trying to avoid the 50 move stalemate.

[macgamer]

To summarise:

The Church opposes contraception
Sex must be unitive and open to procreation therefore between an man and women, within marriage.

Natural Family Planning
NFP is a method for controlling the number and frequency of births. Its mechanism does not physically or chemically prevent conception taking place. Its mechanism relies upon temporal isolation of the gametes thereby avoiding times when the likelihood of conception is high.

However couple must not just follow the letter of the law, but also spirit of the law. NFP can be used with a contraceptive mentality, that is to say a couple's sexual act is closed to the prospect of children by their intention. Remembering the unitive and procreative requirements, a couple must always be open and welcoming to the prospect of children. The couple recognise and respect the purpose of sex - procreation.

Superficially similar mentally could be employed using contraception, but that is all it would be. This is the difference between prevention and avoiding, active and passive, frustration and concordance.

If you say that contraception is permissible, then you say then you deny that sex must be primarily for procreation. It sex can be simply for pleasure and optionally an expression of love, then why not any other sexual practices you can to imagine? The purpose, function and nature of things are important. That is the foundation of this stance, understand than and you will grasp it.

[RedCelt69]

I don't get why you guys are feeding macgamer's bizarre obsession. It doesn't matter what you say and how often you say it, you won't convince him of his error until you are able to provide a Vatican-approved dissertation (preferably by a bishop, or a philosopher born-and-raised with the RCC) saying that he's wrong.

Some people just don't like thinking for themselves.

Perhaps because they feel like it's a game of chess and they are chasing my king around the board trying to avoid the 50 move stalemate.

Because when they think for themselves they end up looking all silly.

[macgamer]

I think deriving an ought from an is and calling it reasoning is being a bit too generous.

Homosexuality could be considered a disorder under some definitions but I fail to see how that would place any kind of moral burden upon homosexual people to act in a particular manner.

Disorders are not generally indulged but coped with or ameliorated in some fashion. However the Church uses natural law with scripture to arrive upon moral teaching.

Note that I say component. Its not the whole story. But given that a component is present and that homosexuality is therefore intrinsic, this means homosexuals are not a bug, but a feature. Phenotypic variation.

The 'childhood gender non-conformity' seems quite a strong factor in this study. That seems to have a stronger familial link and potentially more heritable than sexual orientation might be. It could be that this precipitates some departure from a normative sexual orientation. Interesting stuff.

btw i think the faux-concern for those poor "afflicted" people with a "disorder" (word choice yours) and applying of your own labels to them (SSA) is disgusting. Look at the top google results for it! (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&as ... =&safe=off) People attempting to "treat" homosexuality, mormons, that evil cesspit mercatornet that you've linked to before. What fine company.

The naming of things is important and you should be careful using the labels employed by extremists and bigots.

The term homosexual /-ity is a 'loaded' term these days. SSA is more accurate in what I am referring to, which is the inclination or attraction rather than the practice. Orientation again had become a little more loaded, again a label or a definition, rather than just an aspect of a particular person. Since the cause and mechanism of development of SSA is unknown, it is premature to attempt to 'fix' it. However there might be some who would prefer not have a SSA and seek to alter this.

Anyway perhaps this discussion has given everyone some insight into the justification on my position on this matters. I wonder how long it will be before I'm prosecuted for hold or expressing them.

[Haunted]

To summarise:
The Church opposes contraception
Sex must be unitive and open to procreation therefore between an man and women, within marriage.
Natural Family Planning
NFP is a method for controlling the number and frequency of births. Its mechanism does not physically or chemically prevent conception taking place. Its mechanism relies upon temporal isolation of the gametes thereby avoiding times when the likelihood of conception is high.

However couple must not just follow the letter of the law, but also spirit of the law. NFP can be used with a contraceptive mentality, that is to say a couple's sexual act is closed to the prospect of children by their intention. Remembering the unitive and procreative requirements, a couple must always be open and welcoming to the prospect of children. The couple recognise and respect the purpose of sex - procreation.

I couldn't better summarise the hypocrisy myself.

[Haunted]

What a week for Catholicism it has been!
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

[jollytiddlywink]

And leaving this to medical researchers and psychologists, and indeed any and all other scientists who study the matter (without a pre-determined and religiously-conservatively motivated opinion), produces the conclusion that homosexuality is not an "affliction" but rather a perfectly normal part of human existence, like green eyes.

Again, I challenge you to produce a logical deduction, a priori, as you insisted upon, to prove the immortality of homosexuality.

I reasoned it earlier than the function of human sexuality is procreation. When sexual attraction is directed to the same sex procreation is impossible. SSA attraction is a sexual disorder. SSA attraction is not like having green eyes, people with green eyes can still see, their eyes still effectively carry out their intrinsic function. I have seen no evidence in the literature for homosexuality being genetically linked, but if you want to provide some...

You have avoided the question. I asked you to prove that homosexuality is IMMORAL. You haven't even attempted to do so.
In any case, your initial premise is flawed: the function of (heterosexual vaginal intercourse) is procreation, among other things. This says nothing about any other form or orientation of intercourse. The idea that homosexuality (not SSA) is a disorder does not follow on from a lack of procreation. Homosexuality is like having green eyes in that people are born with one or the other or both.
And while there is no 'gay gene' that has been found, there is a long list of evidence which suggests that sexuality is determined by birth, if not before. A partial list includes:
Gay men have more ridges on their left thumb and pinkie finger-prints.
Gay men and lesbians have a significantly higher chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous.
Gays and lesbians both have different armpit odours than heterosexuals.
Various portions of the brains of gay men and straight women are of equal size, while those of straight men and lesbian women correspond.
Gay men's brains respond differently than straight men's brains do to fluoxetine.

And I must recommend, in agreement with Senethro, that you avoid using terms like SSA, and especially "disorder." These are not terms that are used by anyone other than radical fringe elements. Your suggestions that the term homosexuality is a 'loaded term' can, and now will, be thrown back at you. "Disorder" is a loaded term. It is also, since you chose to mention medical researchers and psychologists, one that medical researchers and psychologists would not use, and would argue against using, on the basis that it is factually incorrect. Lastly, your statement that because the cause(s) of homosexuality is not known, it is "premature to attempt fix it" shows quite clearly how firmly you have attached your ideological blinders. If and when the cause(s) becomes known, there will still be no reason to attempt to fix it, because, and I want to emphasis this point, nothing is wrong. If you persist in thinking that something is wrong, in opposition to the weight of scientific and medical evidence, and the human stories of gays and lesbians themselves, then you will need to take great care to explain why it is that you know better than they all do how other people should be living their lives.

Infertility, as you have earlier argued, is intrinsic to homosexual couples. You have also said that homosexuality is not a choice. Given your statement that the infertility of infertile couples is not a choice (just as with homosexual couples), I ask this: If infertile couples are permitted to adopt, why are not homosexual couples? The only difference is the sexuality of the couple.

Children have a right to a father and mother. While often through marriage breakdown or death they are deprived of either parent, it would be extremely selfish on the part of an adoptive parent or parents to set about deliberately depriving children of the unique care of either sex. I think we are living with the consequences of a lack of positive male role models.

Please provide a citation to any legal document you care to use which states that children have a right to a father and mother.
If you are going to mention the "unique" care of either sex, do you subscribe to the idea of male and female spheres in the house? Should mother cook and mend and clean and care for the children? Should father don his suit and tie and go out into the world each day to earn money, read the paper and form a political opinion for himself (no need to tell the wife what that opinion is, she can't vote)? If you do not subscribe to the idea that men and women have different roles to play in a family, on what possible basis, save dogma, can you assert that they can provide "unique care"?
I had no shortage of positive male role models in my life, and indeed, I think that there is more probably a shortage of positive female role models, but your statement is an opinion, and mine is anecdotal, so we should leave this out.

For the third time, I would like to refer you to my earlier points, and perhaps even receive a response, regarding the weakness of the bible as a basis for homophobia within the church. Cite any passage you like: it will be part of the ongoing, unsettled, dispute over the correct translation of passages into modern English. If you reject out of hand the disputed translation and insist on accepting whatever version you have in front of you, there are further objections to the bigoted stance the church takes, at least on the basis that it claims to be taking that stance with biblical backing.

The Church would say that its interpretation of scripture comes from the Church fathers who themselves received it from their antecedents back to the apostles. How various parts of scripture should be interpreted was in this was preserved. It would rest on the references in Leviticus, Genesis then the letters of Paul.

But the church has changed its practices before, has it not? In the early days of the church, priests were permitted to marry. Did the divine game of Chinese whispers suffer an error there?
Very well, then. I take it you are not interested in the theological debate on the proper translation of those passages in leviticus, etc. If we take at face value the translation in the bible you use, which probably reads something like, "Man shall not lie with man as with woman, it is an abomination," (18:22) we must then ask what you think of eating pork. Leviticus condemns that in language as strong as it uses to (apparently) condemn homosexuality. For that matter, it also (19:25) enjoins you not to eat any fruit from a tree that is less than five years old. Is that covered under Fairtrade or organic, and if not, do you refuse to buy fruit at the supermarket? More to the point, 20:13 (at least in the King James version) calls explicitly for the execution of homosexuals ("shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them"). I note that you have not, so far, advocated killing gays and lesbians. Why are you being inconsistent?

Lastly (as an aside) the article you cited a while ago, by an Oxford theologian, made reference to homosexuals potentially "ignoring Christ's teachings" on the matter. Jesus is not on record in the bible or indeed anywhere else as commenting on homosexuality. This gives me reason to doubt the validity of any other claim he makes, if he is in error on such a central issue.

What he does say is that he did not come to abolish the old law but to complete it.

This is a weasel way of allowing Jesus to 'comment' on everything, without any record of his comments on anything.
The bible also includes predictions (which seem to be read out at every Christmas eve service I have ever attended) that Jesus would be of the line of David, would rule on his throne, etc. But Jesus could not be of David's line, even though Joseph was of David's line, because Joseph was not Jesus' father. Jesus was an illegitimate child: the holy spirit did not marry Mary, and when Jesus was born, his birth-mother Mary and his adoptive father Joseph were not married, either! This is a long way of saying that the bible has bits which contradict other bits. My original point stands: there is no record, in the bible or anywhere else, of Jesus making any comment on homosexuality.

[Haunted]

Another day, another catholic gay sex scandal
http://www.smh.com.au/world/catholic-ch ... -qcwl.html
"SBT television last week aired video from a hidden camera showing father Marques Barbosa, 82, having sex with a 19-year-old boy in the northeastern state of Alagoas."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100317/ap_ ... urch_abuse
"Merkel's comments to parliament on Wednesday came amid growing impatience from Germany's Roman Catholics for the pontiff to address the scandal in his homeland, where some 300 former Catholic students have come forward with claims of physical or sexual abuse."

[macgamer]

What a week for Catholicism it has been!
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/03/how-to-w ... volvement/

Another day, another catholic gay sex scandal
http://www.smh.com.au/world/catholic-ch ... -qcwl.html
"SBT television last week aired video from a hidden camera showing father Marques Barbosa, 82, having sex with a 19-year-old boy in the northeastern state of Alagoas."

Aside from the Canon Law offences, I would have thought you would be a supporter of 'anything between consenting adults'. Unless you think homosexual acts should have higher age of consent above 16 or 18?

My confidence in the British sense of truth and justice was rally recently with the news of this coup to the plans of the cultural Marxist and their SOR and Equality bill:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ma ... ay-parents

You may be interested to know that the Catholic churches in England and Wales, and Scotland will be covering the costs of the pastoral events of the Pope's visit and the State the civil events:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ma ... s-released

[macgamer]

You have avoided the question. I asked you to prove that homosexuality is IMMORAL. You haven't even attempted to do so.

I have, repeatedly. It is just that we are on completely different philosophical wavelengths.

So here is the Catholic case in review:

* For sex to be moral it must be unitive and procreative, between a married man and woman. Homosexual acts demonstrate neither of those necessary qualities and hence is immoral.

* This is justified by natural law (the biological function of sex is procreation, the biological function of sexual attraction is to bring two complementary members of the same species together to achieve this end) and scripture interpreted within the tradition of the Church. [Jesus did not write the Bible, God inspired its various authors. The New Testament was written by members of the Church. The Church selected the books which make up the Biblical canon. This was latterly messed up by reformers striving to make the bible accord with their views.]

* The Church has been given the authority to teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals by Christ himself:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

This authority has been passed down through the Popes to the current successor and Vicar of Christ, Benedict XVI.

In any case, your initial premise is flawed: the function of (heterosexual vaginal intercourse) is procreation, among other things. This says nothing about any other form or orientation of intercourse. The idea that homosexuality (not SSA) is a disorder does not follow on from a lack of procreation. Homosexuality is like having green eyes in that people are born with one or the other or both.

Same sex attraction (SSA) is a trait in a way that homosexuality or sexual orientation is not. SSA is about the attraction distinct from sexual practice or identity. There cannot be a gene for sexual behaviour or identity, there can be a gene for a trait which influences sexual behaviour or identity. SSA is a legitimate term in this discussion. Let us suppose there is a co-dominant gene for sexual attraction, certain allelic combinations produce the three major sexualities:

AA = Heterosexuality / Opposite sex attraction
Aa = Bisexuality / Either sex attraction
aa = Homosexuality / Same sex attraction

Supposing that SSA is a recessive trait would make sense given its strong influence in the sexual fitness of those that express such a phenotype. The SSA trait is much more analogous to sickle cell anaemia whereby there is a fitness improvement in those heterozygous individuals compared to dominant homozygotes.

And while there is no 'gay gene' that has been found, there is a long list of evidence which suggests that sexuality is determined by birth, if not before. A partial list includes:
Gay men have more ridges on their left thumb and pinkie finger-prints.
Gay men and lesbians have a significantly higher chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous.
Gays and lesbians both have different armpit odours than heterosexuals.
Various portions of the brains of gay men and straight women are of equal size, while those of straight men and lesbian women correspond.
Gay men's brains respond differently than straight men's brains do to fluoxetine.

All of which are epidemiological associations and point to no cause or mechanism.

Please provide a citation to any legal document you care to use which states that children have a right to a father and mother.

Marriage is the legal document which entitles children, the products of marriage, to a mother and father. No-fault divorce gradually eroded the sense of the primary purpose of marriage: to create a family. It should not need a legal document to entitle children to a mother and a father. A mother and a father are needed to create new life even if fertilisation is in vitro. The removal of the anonymity of sperm donors is an acknowledgement of that fact. The amount of legislation a government passes is inversely proportional to its efficacy. Legal positivism - boo!

I note that you have not, so far, advocated killing gays and lesbians. Why are you being inconsistent?

The bible is inconsistent that is why we today cannot just pick it off the shelf and understand it from our 21st century outlook. It needs to be interpreted using the knowledge passed down from the Church fathers.

My original point stands: there is no record, in the bible or anywhere else, of Jesus making any comment on homosexuality.

It would have been nice if Jesus had written down a catechism alas he did not. Instead he instructed his apostles who wrote down some of his sermons and sayings. He crucially became the incarnate Word of God and made Himself the Supreme and Universal Sacrifice once and for all for our sins.

[macgamer]

Relevant
"Cardinal Brady will not resign over abuse 'cover-up' "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8567144.stm

A great moral example to us all

Alternatively everyone could take turns:


and join this facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/gro ... 502&ref=mf

[Senethro]

So as expected, Macgamers reasoning for homosexuality being immoral comes down to "Because the man in the funny hat says so" and nothing more. Thats not a philosophical wavelength, thats a lazy abdication of responsibility.

Now why should the Catholic church be allowed to impose this view on secular society?

[jollytiddlywink]

So here is the Catholic case in review:

* For sex to be moral it must be unitive and procreative, between a married man and woman. Homosexual acts demonstrate neither of those necessary qualities and hence is immoral.

Conveniently, catholics oppose marriage equality, and thus they deny to gay couples half of their considered preconditions for 'moral' sex. Gaming the system much?
Secondly, you have simply restated your belief as its own support. This proves nothing. We might as well ask how you came to be in St Andrews and receive the reply, "I am here, so here I am!"
The words "for sex to be moral" could just as easily be "for sex to be immoral." All we have as the basis for this claim of morality is your own say-so, an entirely inadequate basis for claims of morality, especially since you would doubtless lay claim to a universal morality above the wishes or actions of man. If you wish to recourse to the "god says so" argument to back up the bald assertion that "for sex to be moral it must be..." then we can address that below.

* This is justified by natural law (the biological function of sex is procreation, the biological function of sexual attraction is to bring two complementary members of the same species together to achieve this end) and scripture interpreted within the tradition of the Church. [Jesus did not write the Bible, God inspired its various authors. The New Testament was written by members of the Church. The Church selected the books which make up the Biblical canon. This was latterly messed up by reformers striving to make the bible accord with their views.]

The biological function of sex is procreation. On that we agree. But it is not possible to assert that the only biological function of sexual attraction is procreation (witness the homosexual behaviour in virtually every animal species studied). Outside of pure biology, the function of sex, although it may be purely procreation in some organisms, is a multifaceted thing; sex plays important social, pair-bonding and hierarchical roles in some organisms with more complex social structures and larger brain capacity, which means that unless you confine yourself purely to biology (which you don't, by bringing in a moral element) your insistence that the purpose of sexual attraction is purely to bring males and females together is demonstrably false.
Further, your assertion that the biological function of sex is implicitly the only function of sex is guilty of arguing from the specific to the general, without any support. Indeed, not only is there no evidence to support your contention, but there is evidence which proves it to be false, namely the other functions of sex that I noted above. Indeed, several species of animal have sex for fun: dolphins do oral, for example, and various primates are proverbially notorious for masturbating while small children are visiting the zoo. Here then is sex in the natural world which is plainly being done for anything but procreation. It rather stands your argument on its head.

You have labelled as 'natural law' a biological argument (and a tenuous one at that), rather than what other people commonly recognise as natural law, namely the philosophical arguments of thinkers like Aquinas. 'Natural law' is not 'what happens in nature is law' otherwise the church wouldn't bother with marriage, because none of the animals bother with that. Or were you unable to find anything in the philosophy of natural law that supports your position as you wish it to? I reiterate my earlier ultra-brief summary of Aquinas' (the church's chosen natural law philosopher) writings: "Good is to be sought, evil avoided." Please explain how this, or indeed any other part of his writings, is meant to be taken as a logical proof of the immorality of homosexuality. And let's not have another self-referential, circular argument to the effect that 'the church says gay sex is evil, and Aquinas says evil is to be avoided, so natural law backs up the church with logic!' It only supports the church's position if natural law can arrive at the conclusion "homosexual sex is immoral" without church input. Otherwise it is just another church argument dressed up in different clothes.

Was the bible messed up by reformers before or after the early church changed its mind on allowing priests to marry? I offer this fact as proof that the church has changed its policy on matters of sex and morality before. It is not, therefore, a monolith, and you cannot reasonably claim that church tradition is infallible, unless you also assert that the definition of infallibility has changed over time, which makes the entire position absurd.

And while we're on the subject of infallible popes being the divinely appointed vicars of Christ on Earth, were the Borgia Popes being infallible when they hired all the prostitutes in Rome and had them as entertainment at dinner for the assembled churchmen and dignitaries, who were probably amused to see the women carry walnuts from one side of the hall to the other. Without using their hands. Most tellingly, in the Vatican this form of entertainment was so routine as to be almost not worth mentioning. But we have historical record of it. An interesting example of the uses to which the authority of Jesus himself "to teach infallibly on faith and morals" has been put, as it has been passed down through the popes.
You're on shaky ground if you wish to assert that the church as a whole or the pope in particular has carried on without alteration the traditions of Jesus passed down through the last 2000 years. Some of the alterations have been, if you will allow me to spell it out, downright hilarious.

In any case, your initial premise is flawed: the function of (heterosexual vaginal intercourse) is procreation, among other things. This says nothing about any other form or orientation of intercourse. The idea that homosexuality (not SSA) is a disorder does not follow on from a lack of procreation. Homosexuality is like having green eyes in that people are born with one or the other or both.

Same sex attraction (SSA) is a trait in a way that homosexuality or sexual orientation is not. SSA is about the attraction distinct from sexual practice or identity. There cannot be a gene for sexual behaviour or identity, there can be a gene for a trait which influences sexual behaviour or identity. SSA is a legitimate term in this discussion.

In so far as you recognise here that sexual orientation is inborn, we, and the scientific community, are in agreement. Beyond that, all bets are off. SSA is not a legitimate term for this, or any other discussion. It is a term used by radical, fringe bigots who have been soundly, repeatedly and blisteringly condemned by the scientific, medical and psychological communities, and particularly their use of so called 'gay cure' reparative therapy has been repeatedly denounced as at best ineffective, and at worst likely to increase drastically the risk of suicide for those subjected to it. There is no need to use one of their terms when the word 'homosexuality' (n. the state of being homosexual [homosexual: n a person who is sexually attracted to the same sex.]) is perfectly adequate, and indeed seems to be completely interchangeable with your term, with the exception that the term homosexuality does not have very heavily bigoted and pejorative overtones. It is exceedingly difficult to see any reason for your continued use of SSA beyond ignorance or a wilful effort to provoke. Again, your claim that 'homosexuality' is a loaded term will be thrown back at you; SSA is a loaded term, the more so because it carries very strong and non-neutral connotations.

Let us suppose there is a co-dominant gene for sexual attraction, certain allelic combinations produce the three major sexualities:

AA = Heterosexuality / Opposite sex attraction
Aa = Bisexuality / Either sex attraction
aa = Homosexuality / Same sex attraction

Supposing that SSA is a recessive trait would make sense given its strong influence in the sexual fitness of those that express such a phenotype. The SSA trait is much more analogous to sickle cell anaemia whereby there is a fitness improvement in those heterozygous individuals compared to dominant homozygotes.

This is hilarious, what else can I say? To spend so long arguing that homosexuality is immoral and maladaptive only to voluntarily, and of your own free will, imply that bisexuals are a "fitness improvement" on heterosexuals, is positively sublime. I expect you to be knighted for services to comedy any minute!

Please provide a citation to any legal document you care to use which states that children have a right to a father and mother.

Marriage is the legal document which entitles children, the products of marriage, to a mother and father. No-fault divorce gradually eroded the sense of the primary purpose of marriage: to create a family. It should not need a legal document to entitle children to a mother and a father. A mother and a father are needed to create new life even if fertilisation is in vitro. The removal of the anonymity of sperm donors is an acknowledgement of that fact. The amount of legislation a government passes is inversely proportional to its efficacy. Legal positivism - boo!

No, marriage is not a legal document. It is a legal undertaking which, in this jurisdiction at least, joins a man and woman together, in the same way that civil partnership joins two men or two women together. The product of marriage is a married couple. That's it. You can have marriage without children, and children without marriage. You have confused the legal document with the religious ceremony. The catholic religious ceremony of marriage has as part of it the purpose of having children, but this has nothing to do with a legal marriage. Marriage may be a religious rite, but it is now primarily a legal undertaking: observe that marriages which take place with no religious ceremony are still marriages, but the religious ceremony does not produce a married couple until the legal paperwork is done.
And I note that you haven't pursued your assertion that a mother and father are essential because of their "unique roles." Was that particular position too 1950s even for you to try to defend?

I note that you have not, so far, advocated killing gays and lesbians. Why are you being inconsistent?

The bible is inconsistent that is why we today cannot just pick it off the shelf and understand it from our 21st century outlook. It needs to be interpreted using the knowledge passed down from the Church fathers.

Ah, now we are getting near the crux of the matter. Its interesting that you prefer to see the bible as inconsistent, rather than see your own position as inconsistent. "Pride goeth..." comes to mind.
But what is inconsistent about the bible saying that "if man lieth with man... it is an abomination" and slightly later explicitly stating that the punishment for that abomination shall be death? It seems perfectly straight-forward to me. If, as you have done, you disallow one passage as needing to be interpreted (which seems to mean ignored, as you use it), then why not disallow all the passages on that subject on the basis of interpretation/ignoring them? And if you are going to say that church tradition has provided the knowledge to interpret this, you're out of luck. Church tradition has changed: priests were formerly allowed to be married, but no longer are. If the church can change its mind on this, what else can it change its mind on? For that matter, the church might change it back again, at least as far as allowing CofE clergy to join the church, and bring their wives with them. If they end up with one of the CofE clergy who has a civil partnership, they'll be in a right mess!

My original point stands: there is no record, in the bible or anywhere else, of Jesus making any comment on homosexuality.

It would have been nice if Jesus had written down a catechism alas he did not. Instead he instructed his apostles who wrote down some of his sermons and sayings. He crucially became the incarnate Word of God and made Himself the Supreme and Universal Sacrifice once and for all for our sins.

Thanks for conceding the point that the incarnate Word of God didn't leave any record of pronouncements on homosexuality.

[macgamer]

Conveniently, catholics oppose marriage equality, and thus they deny to gay couples half of their considered preconditions for 'moral' sex. Gaming the system much?
Secondly, you have simply restated your belief as its own support. This proves nothing. We might as well ask how you came to be in St Andrews and receive the reply, "I am here, so here I am!"
The words "for sex to be moral" could just as easily be "for sex to be immoral." All we have as the basis for this claim of morality is your own say-so, an entirely inadequate basis for claims of morality, especially since you would doubtless lay claim to a universal morality above the wishes or actions of man. If you wish to recourse to the "god says so" argument to back up the bald assertion that "for sex to be moral it must be..." then we can address that below.

I stated the moral principle used by the Catholic Church and demonstrated its application to homosexual relationships. They are neither intrinsic unitive nor procreative and same-sex unions can never be understood to be marriage (more than this later).

The biological function of sex is procreation. On that we agree. But it is not possible to assert that the only biological function of sexual attraction is procreation (witness the homosexual behaviour in virtually every animal species studied). Outside of pure biology, the function of sex, although it may be purely procreation in some organisms, is a multifaceted thing; sex plays important social, pair-bonding and hierarchical roles in some organisms with more complex social structures and larger brain capacity, which means that unless you confine yourself purely to biology (which you don't, by bringing in a moral element) your insistence that the purpose of sexual attraction is purely to bring males and females together is demonstrably false.

Multifaceted yes, but its primary purpose is the exchange of complementary gametes. It it does not perform its primary function successfully all the secondary uses are pretty much superfluous to the continuation of the species.

Further, your assertion that the biological function of sex is implicitly the only function of sex is guilty of arguing from the specific to the general, without any support. Indeed, not only is there no evidence to support your contention, but there is evidence which proves it to be false, namely the other functions of sex that I noted above. Indeed, several species of animal have sex for fun: dolphins do oral, for example, and various primates are proverbially notorious for masturbating while small children are visiting the zoo. Here then is sex in the natural world which is plainly being done for anything but procreation. It rather stands your argument on its head.

All of which I acknowledge, however animals do not possess faculties of reason to anywhere near the extent that we do and so are amoral. We however do and are able to understand morality and deduce what is moral and what is not. Not without some formation of one's conscience within the society in which are raised. However I would argue that morality can be understood using one's faculties of reason and so there are universal right and wrongs. Which brings us nicely onto Aquinas.

You have labelled as 'natural law' a biological argument (and a tenuous one at that), rather than what other people commonly recognise as natural law, namely the philosophical arguments of thinkers like Aquinas. 'Natural law' is not 'what happens in nature is law' otherwise the church wouldn't bother with marriage, because none of the animals bother with that. Or were you unable to find anything in the philosophy of natural law that supports your position as you wish it to? I reiterate my earlier ultra-brief summary of Aquinas' (the church's chosen natural law philosopher) writings: "Good is to be sought, evil avoided." Please explain how this, or indeed any other part of his writings, is meant to be taken as a logical proof of the immorality of homosexuality. And let's not have another self-referential, circular argument to the effect that 'the church says gay sex is evil, and Aquinas says evil is to be avoided, so natural law backs up the church with logic!' It only supports the church's position if natural law can arrive at the conclusion "homosexual sex is immoral" without church input. Otherwise it is just another church argument dressed up in different clothes.

Here is a relevant excerpt from Aquinas:

Url: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5065.htm
I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), an action is said to be against the natural law, if it is not in keeping with the due end intended by nature, whether through not being directed thereto by the action of the agent, or through being directed thereto by the action of the agent, or through being in itself improportionate to that end. Now the end which nature intends in sexual union is the begetting and rearing of the offspring and that this good might be sought after, it attached pleasure to the union; as Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i, 8). Accordingly to make use of sexual intercourse on account of its inherent pleasure, without reference to the end for which nature intended it, is to act against nature, as also is it if the intercourse be not such as may fittingly be directed to that end. And since, for the most part, things are denominated from their end, as being that which is of most consequence to them, just as the marriage union took its name from the good of the offspring [Cf. 44, 2], which is the end chiefly sought after in marriage, so the name of concubine is expressive of that union where sexual intercourse is sought after for its own sake. Moreover even though sometimes a man may seek to have offspring of such an intercourse, this is not befitting to the good of the offspring, which signifies not only the begetting of children from which they take their being, but also their rearing and instruction, by which means they receive nourishment and learning from their parents, in respect of which three things the parents are bound to their children, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii, 11,12). Now since the rearing and teaching of the children remain a duty of the parents during a long period of time, the law of nature requires the father and mother to dwell together for a long time, in order that together they may be of assistance to their children. Hence birds that unite together in rearing their young do not sever their mutual fellowship from the time when they first come together until the young are fully fledged. Now this obligation which binds the female and her mate to remain together constitutes matrimony. Consequently it is evident that it is contrary to the natural law for a man to have intercourse with a woman who is not married to him, which is the signification of a concubine.

I think this is a pretty clear defence from Aquinas, who also references Augustine, that 'things are denominated from their end' i.e. the function of the action is important in considering the morality of said action. So 'an action is said to be against the natural law, if it is not in keeping with the due end intended by nature'. In the case of sex 'nature intends in sexual union is the begetting and rearing of the offspring and that this good might be sought after' however 'to make use of sexual intercourse on account of its inherent pleasure, without reference to the end for which nature intended it, is to act against nature, as also is it if the intercourse be not such as may fittingly be directed to that end.

From this I think Aquinas is explicitly condemning sex whose intention is not to beget children or 'intercourse be not such as may fittingly be directed to that end'. I think contraceptive sex and homosexual acts come under that definition.

Was the bible messed up by reformers before or after the early church changed its mind on allowing priests to marry? I offer this fact as proof that the church has changed its policy on matters of sex and morality before. It is not, therefore, a monolith, and you cannot reasonably claim that church tradition is infallible, unless you also assert that the definition of infallibility has changed over time, which makes the entire position absurd.

To be clear the Church is only infallible on matters of faith and morals. Priestly celibacy did change and could change again but it is very unlikely. Priestly celibacy applies only to priests in the Roman Rite. Eastern Rite Catholics have a married clergy since they use a different code of Canon Law. Priestly celibacy is a matter of Canon Law, if priests are not permitted to marry any breaches of celibacy is a breach of Canon Law and immoral since sex must be within marriage. I was stating that tradition is a source to draw upon for the interpretation of scripture and liturgy.

And while we're on the subject of infallible popes being the divinely appointed vicars of Christ on Earth, were the Borgia Popes being infallible when they hired all the prostitutes in Rome and had them as entertainment at dinner for the assembled churchmen and dignitaries, who were probably amused to see the women carry walnuts from one side of the hall to the other. Without using their hands. Most tellingly, in the Vatican this form of entertainment was so routine as to be almost not worth mentioning. But we have historical record of it. An interesting example of the uses to which the authority of Jesus himself "to teach infallibly on faith and morals" has been put, as it has been passed down through the popes.

Ah the Borgias want excellent patrons of the arts. I suppose that art came at a price in every sense. The office of the Pope is one thing and the person in that office is another. There have been some very bad Popes, whose morality have been less than up to the standard. Dante probably isn't too far off in placing these individuals in the inferno. However this does not alter the truth of the faith.

You're on shaky ground if you wish to assert that the church as a whole or the pope in particular has carried on without alteration the traditions of Jesus passed down through the last 2000 years. Some of the alterations have been, if you will allow me to spell it out, downright hilarious.

Tradition can help to inform the Church today in its mission and ongoing development of doctrine, but some aspects are better off left in the past.

In so far as you recognise here that sexual orientation is inborn, we, and the scientific community, are in agreement. Beyond that, all bets are off. SSA is not a legitimate term for this, or any other discussion. It is a term used by radical, fringe bigots who have been soundly, repeatedly and blisteringly condemned by the scientific, medical and psychological communities, and particularly their use of so called 'gay cure' reparative therapy has been repeatedly denounced as at best ineffective, and at worst likely to increase drastically the risk of suicide for those subjected to it. There is no need to use one of their terms when the word 'homosexuality' (n. the state of being homosexual [homosexual: n a person who is sexually attracted to the same sex.]) is perfectly adequate, and indeed seems to be completely interchangeable with your term, with the exception that the term homosexuality does not have very heavily bigoted and pejorative overtones. It is exceedingly difficult to see any reason for your continued use of SSA beyond ignorance or a wilful effort to provoke. Again, your claim that 'homosexuality' is a loaded term will be thrown back at you; SSA is a loaded term, the more so because it carries very strong and non-neutral connotations.

I think we'll argue to disagree on this one. It really isn't that important.

This is hilarious, what else can I say? To spend so long arguing that homosexuality is immoral and maladaptive only to voluntarily, and of your own free will, imply that bisexuals are a "fitness improvement" on heterosexuals, is positively sublime. I expect you to be knighted for services to comedy any minute!

Comedy is a good release valve in highly charged debates, sometimes it occurs without warning. Although a fitness improvement amongst bisexuals is an interesting consideration, I think Senethro's article suggested that bisexuality is more prevalent in women. No analogy is going to fit, and heterozygotes are not necessarily fitter than 'dominant' homozygotes, but just fitter than the 'recessive' homozygotes. I just do not think that sexual attraction / orientation is governed entirely by genes. Nature - nurture is a false dichotomy.

No, marriage is not a legal document. It is a legal undertaking which, in this jurisdiction at least, joins a man and woman together, in the same way that civil partnership joins two men or two women together. The product of marriage is a married couple. That's it. You can have marriage without children, and children without marriage. You have confused the legal document with the religious ceremony. The catholic religious ceremony of marriage has as part of it the purpose of having children, but this has nothing to do with a legal marriage. Marriage may be a religious rite, but it is now primarily a legal undertaking: observe that marriages which take place with no religious ceremony are still marriages, but the religious ceremony does not produce a married couple until the legal paperwork is done.

It depends on what you consider the purpose of marriage to be. The civil and legal aspect of marriage does not make any demands on the presence of children, but Canon Law does.

And I note that you haven't pursued your assertion that a mother and father are essential because of their "unique roles." Was that particular position too 1950s even for you to try to defend?

That would be entirely personal perference and not even I would say men must work and women must stay at home. Whatever arrangement works best for the couple in the running of their family should be employed. Although I often feel that I was born 60 years too late.

[RedCelt69]

In a long list of things you say which I find laughably disagreeable, the following paragraph wins

All of which I acknowledge, however animals do not possess faculties of reason to anywhere near the extent that we do and so are amoral. We however do and are able to understand morality and deduce what is moral and what is not. Not without some formation of one's conscience within the society in which are raised. However I would argue that morality can be understood using one's faculties of reason and so there are universal right and wrongs. Which brings us nicely onto Aquinas.

Animals are not amoral. Morality is a societal tool for societies to work well together. Every social set of animals has its own moral code. Non-social animals are amoral. The difference isn't a small one.

The only universal rights and wrongs are those governing the laws of physics. Everything else is made up (adapted and adapting) by those who seek further rights and wrongs. That doesn't make them universal.

...I often feel that I was born 60 years too late.

It is your right and privilege to operate on societal aspects best-suited to 60 years ago. Assuming, demanding or insisting that others must do otherwise (else be labelled immoral/evil) is a losing move in the game of life.

[jollytiddlywink]

...homosexual relationships... are neither intrinsic unitive nor procreative and same-sex unions can never be understood to be marriage (more than this later).

Outside of pure biology, the function of sex, although it may be purely procreation in some organisms, is a multifaceted thing; sex plays important social, pair-bonding and hierarchical roles in some organisms with more complex social structures and larger brain capacity, which means that unless you confine yourself purely to biology (which you don't, by bringing in a moral element) your insistence that the purpose of sexual attraction is purely to bring males and females together is demonstrably false.

Multifaceted yes, but its primary purpose is the exchange of complementary gametes. It it does not perform its primary function successfully all the secondary uses are pretty much superfluous to the continuation of the species.

No, the secondary uses are still perfectly valid provided that some (not all) of the individuals alive at any given time pass on their genes, and indeed the secondary uses can, and obviously do, provide survival benefits to the genetics of the species as a whole. The non-procreational uses of sex in this case includes homosexuality.

Indeed, several species of animal have sex for fun: dolphins do oral, for example, and various primates are proverbially notorious for masturbating while small children are visiting the zoo. Here then is sex in the natural world which is plainly being done for anything but procreation. It rather stands your argument on its head.

All of which I acknowledge, however animals do not possess faculties of reason to anywhere near the extent that we do and so are amoral.

You can't have it both ways. You cannot resort to biology as evidence to support your arguments and then reject it when it supports my arguments. It is especially egregious for you to argue your case from a biology=morality standpoint and then deny my biologically-based points on the basis that they do not conform to your moral codes. This is intellectually bankrupt, and so is the case you attempt to build on such shoddy foundations. This includes the excerpt you quote from Aquinas:

Here is a relevant excerpt from Aquinas:

Url: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5065.htm
I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), [b]an action is said to be against the natural law, if it is not in keeping with the due end intended by nature

From this I think Aquinas is explicitly condemning sex whose intention is not to beget children or 'intercourse be not such as may fittingly be directed to that end'. I think contraceptive sex and homosexual acts come under that definition.

The supposed 'end intended by nature' is, as I have demonstrated, frequently violated by nature itself, every time an orang-utan masturbates, every time that dolphins have oral sex, and every time that numerous animal species (including humans) engage in homosexual sex. As logical support for bigotry, this passage is useless. It falls and breaks a leg or four at the first hurdle.

And while we're on the subject of infallible popes being the divinely appointed vicars of Christ on Earth, were the Borgia Popes being infallible when they hired all the prostitutes in Rome and had them as entertainment at dinner for the assembled churchmen and dignitaries, who were probably amused to see the women carry walnuts from one side of the hall to the other. Without using their hands. Most tellingly, in the Vatican this form of entertainment was so routine as to be almost not worth mentioning. But we have historical record of it. An interesting example of the uses to which the authority of Jesus himself "to teach infallibly on faith and morals" has been put, as it has been passed down through the popes.

Ah the Borgias want excellent patrons of the arts. I suppose that art came at a price in every sense. The office of the Pope is one thing and the person in that office is another. There have been some very bad Popes, whose morality have been less than up to the standard. Dante probably isn't too far off in placing these individuals in the inferno. However this does not alter the truth of the faith.

You earlier said "This authority has been passed down through the Popes to the current successor and Vicar of Christ, Benedict XVI."
Again, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot insist that church tradition has been handed down from human to human over the past 2000 years, infallibly and incorruptibly, and then lightly dismiss any fallible and corrupt behaviour as the failings of 'just the person in the office,' especially when you earlier insisted that the authority was passed down through the people. In any case, the office of the pope cannot transmit tradition, only the holders of that office, and the other lower posts in the church, can transmit tradition. The howling corruption and scurrilous behaviour of the Borgia popes may not alter the truth of the faith, but it certainly altered the transmission of church tradition down the centuries. Many of the popes of that era appointed 'nephews' of theirs to be cardinals, with 'nephew' being a more or less open secret name for an illegitimate son. And you still maintain that these popes were infallible in the teaching of faith and morals?

You're on shaky ground if you wish to assert that the church as a whole or the pope in particular has carried on without alteration the traditions of Jesus passed down through the last 2000 years. Some of the alterations have been, if you will allow me to spell it out, downright hilarious.

Tradition can help to inform the Church today in its mission and ongoing development of doctrine, but some aspects are better off left in the past.

So, you're now backing away from your argument that the inherited tradition of the church is unchanging. If that tradition merely "helps to inform" the modern church, with some parts of that tradition "better off left in the past," again we come to the question of why? Why does the church hold onto some bits of tradition and not others? Is it just the pope sitting around, musing to himself, and then announcing, "No, we don't hire prostitutes to entertain our dinner guests anymore. But we're still homophobic, no doubt about it!" Why not leave the bigotry in the past as well? More and more this is boiling down to 'because the pope says so' as we have slowly knocked away the props of church tradition, biblical citation and natural law.

With regard to your comment on the homosexuality/SSA argument:

I think we'll argue to disagree on this one. It really isn't that important.

No, I won't agree to disagree. This is important. You're wrong.
Words are very important. If you think that calling a group of people "disordered" and applying a label to that group of people which is used only by extremists seeking to demonise and dehumanise that group of people is unimportant, that simply shows how callous you really are, and it makes your half-hearted protestations about how parents should not do physical violence to their homosexual children ring all the more false.
The term is homosexuality. Use it.

This is hilarious, what else can I say? To spend so long arguing that homosexuality is immoral and maladaptive only to voluntarily, and of your own free will, imply that bisexuals are a "fitness improvement" on heterosexuals, is positively sublime. I expect you to be knighted for services to comedy any minute!

Comedy is a good release valve in highly charged debates, sometimes it occurs without warning. Although a fitness improvement amongst bisexuals is an interesting consideration, I think Senethro's article suggested that bisexuality is more prevalent in women. No analogy is going to fit, and heterozygotes are not necessarily fitter than 'dominant' homozygotes, but just fitter than the 'recessive' homozygotes. I just do not think that sexual attraction / orientation is governed entirely by genes. Nature - nurture is a false dichotomy.

"No analogy is going to fit?" So, you've decided that your analogy comparing homosexuality to sickle-cell anaemia doesn't fit? Good. It doesn't.
Nature/nurture is a false dichotomy. The important fact (although slightly awkward for you) is that homosexuals are born homosexual.

No, marriage is not a legal document... marriage may be a religious rite, but it is now primarily a legal undertaking: observe that marriages which take place with no religious ceremony are still marriages, but the religious ceremony does not produce a married couple until the legal paperwork is done.

It depends on what you consider the purpose of marriage to be. The civil and legal aspect of marriage does not make any demands on the presence of children, but Canon Law does.

You acknowledge that children are an irrelevance to civil and legal marriage, and you further recognise that canon law is separate from any consideration of civil and legal considerations. I take it, then, that you support civil marriages (rather than civil partnerships) between any two adults who care to enter into such an undertaking, particularly if they do not consider the purpose of marriage to be having as many catholic children as possible?

And I note that you haven't pursued your assertion that a mother and father are essential because of their "unique roles." Was that particular position too 1950s even for you to try to defend?

That would be entirely personal perference and not even I would say men must work and women must stay at home. Whatever arrangement works best for the couple in the running of their family should be employed. Although I often feel that I was born 60 years too late.

So I take it that "employing whatever works best for the couple" extends to a man marrying another man, because that is what works best for some people.