Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Well, today the highest court in America decided to endorse gay marriage by providing such unions with the same benefits as an actual married couple.  That story can be read here-  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_GAY_MARRIAGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-06-26-10-20-13
There are many issues here to consider, and the giving of certain benefits is not really the largest of them, nor is it the more important. The issue of benefits is simply a matter of definition.  In order to receive benefits, one must meet certain standards which award the benefit.  For example, I recently signed up for Chesterton magazine.  The site said that I can get 20% off anything I buy in the store on the website.  In other words if a person is a member, you get this benefit.  All of this hangs in the definition of what a member of their web site is.  The answer is that I sign the form, pay my fine, then I am a member.  Such definitions are created by the owner of the site, organization, or institute.  The members do not get to change the definition of what a member is, the members would cease to be members and would then become equal to the owner.  Now, in the case of such a thing as a news paper or magazine, the change of definitions are acceptable, in the moral and ethical sense because it is based on the mind of another human being.  Yet, in the case of nature no human or human institution has the license to simply change the definition.  How we perceive the world around us may change, but our perception does not affect the thing in itself, that is, its nature or its essence.  The human person is not defined by governments.  Governments can either endorse or oppose what a human person is, but no matter what attempts they make to be the supreme authority; though they may call themselves a supreme court, the power does not lie in their hands. This is because the definition of "human" "rights" and "marriage" are all given to us by the one who owns or creates those things.  It is funny, how we are so set on claiming ownership of things.  The liberal ceases to be one when it comes to his own property. "I am the owner, I am its master!" is the cry that comes to mind when their property is threatened.  There claim is not wrong, but no sooner do they claim to have a right to owner ship that they deny the right of ownership to God.  A right is not something some man named Jefferson made up.  A right cannot be proven empirically.  It is a metaphysical reality, which is to say it is above the mere physical.  It is more than that, it is a spiritual reality that is given and defined by God. The only way rights can be protected from the mob is that it is objective, and not in our hands to change.  Take God out of the equation, that is to say divorce religion and God from everything else, and not only are we no longer protected from the tyranny of subjectivity, but also lose the ability to be rational. God gives us an intelligent soul. Our ability to take in knowledge, to understand, and to be rational is a faculty of the soul. Refuse God, and the mind is darkened.  Thus rights are not given or taken by government, only suppressed or endorsed; it is God who gives and defines such a thing as a right.  Marriage is one of those rights; and those who partake in homosexual acts, which by the way homosexuality is not a state of being but rather an action and those who are committing the act are labeled homosexual, are not and have never been denied the right of marriage.  They are just as free as anyone else to marry.  The government has not denied them the God defined, and God given, act of marriage. What the court has endorsed today, and proponents have rallied for, is not marriage. God defines marriage as between man and woman by the very act of creating man and woman.  If God did not define it this way he very well would have left woman out of creation.  If we are to look at man and woman from a merely Darwin eye certain questions arise.  How can a species survive the concerns of ancient man, such as predators, when they must stop to give births? How can man avoid predators while bleeding spontaneously every month? My point is this, homosexuals by their very action and philosophy deems the opposite sex as not needed, and in the way; especially women.  Today marriage was not redefined; it was ignored, or even attacked in order to establish something else.  A person partaking in homosexual acts can marry anyone of the opposite sex they want. Should they choose to live a life that looks much like marriage with someone of the same sex, call it what you want, a civil union, but it is not a marriage.  Not because I say so, but because God created us so and thus defined it so.  Now, in ancient times and even now, governments endorsed actual marriage because it was socially and politically a good.  Such unions begot stability as marriage brought with it children. With children, the parents would work to provide for them thus they worked harder, both for money and in their life. In other words they strove harder in virtue, though there idea of virtue may be different than our own; which in turn led to stronger communities and more people to tax and build the empire. Homosexual acts do not build up society because it rejoices in being barren. The same is true for any marriage that uses contraception as well. The statement the president made discrimination enshrined in law." And "It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people," is completely false, as I have just said nothing is being denied the homosexual.  They have not been treated is lower, but as equal.  A gay man is looked at as a man, who is equal, for that man to want a same sex union is to want something that is outside of nature; In other words he does not seek equal treatment, but special treatment.  To say "you can now have a union with your same sex partner” does not lift them up but rather says they are different. Endorsement of unnatural acts among people only suppresses people.  In place of rising them up, we say "no, stay down there"; by the very act of calling this union "Gay Marriage”, we are saying it is not marriage, we are saying it is different, and it is gay.   It is a strange paradox that the more such things are endorsed the more the people are suppressed, and stagnated. My last line about the term “gay marriage” is not completely accurate, as it is not gay at all.  Gay means happy, and the homosexual is not happy, or at least no more than a slave is happy.  Yes, the chains are familiar, and it’s not so bad really once you get used to the chains.  In fact these chains have a certain taste of security. The slave can depend on the chains to always be there.  It is as if these chains are who the slave is, it is a part of there being.  As G. K Chesterton said in St. Francis of Assisi,the minute sex ceases to be a servant, it becomes a tyrant.” In the end, the homosexual is a slave and it is the Christian still fighting for his freedom.  It is the Church that says “No, you are more than some disordered act.  You are not your sin. You are a child of God, created in his image.”  The mission of the Church and God fearing men and women is to uplift the one struggling with homosexual attraction.  The war the Church is fighting is for the homosexual, not itself. The Church cannot be destroyed, nor can the family for as Chesterton also said, “We will not be able to destroy the family.  We will merely destroy ourselves by disregarding the family.”  So, to finish I am not sad because I feel the righteous has lost some great victory, rather because the homosexual and others like them, are the ones who have lost today, and God will only allow us so much time before the judgment.                                                                       

Thursday, June 20, 2013

In an article I read today on rawstory.com, Bill Donohue reacted to the resent statement of the Holy Father about a “Gay Lobby” in the Vatican. The statement by the Holy Father does not come as a surprise, really, to many Catholics. Mr. Donohue said as much, “Look, it’s no secret.  You've got a nest of priests. You have them in the United States, you have them in seminaries, you have them in parishes-more so in the past certainly today.”  I, as a seminarian in an undisclosed location, know firsthand of what I have refer to as the “Gay underground.”  It is underground in the sense that is only spoken about in whispers, and only among friends.  In seminary there were those whom we all but knew were of the “Gay lobby”, but it was something of which we could do nothing.  If we speak out we run the risk of being punished in some form, up to and including being removed from seminary.  This punishment did not mean they were protecting the “gay lobby”, at least not in every case, but rather homosexuality was something to be unspoken off.  While I did not experience a direct endorsement of the behavior from faculty, it was at least not dealt with firmly enough by some.  So, it was a life of picking and choosing battle.  Seminary life has this feeling of a C.I.A drama, always cautious of what you say, where you say it..And is my room bugged?  (Thanks allot Verizon). 

               I agree with Mr. Donohue calling this “lobby’ a “nest”.  In my experience it really does work like a nest.  What I mean is this, a lobby brings to mind an organized set of individuals, all working and acting together.  I imagine weekly or monthly meetings to discuss the future plans and how the finances look. There is a call to order, with each member having to be recognized.  “The chair acknowledges Mr. Smith.”  “Thank you speaker, I would like to call for a vote on amendment 141, of the ‘how to act in seminary in order to not be caught” bill.” And so on… Rather it is more like nest, like that of some aggressive creature.  Yes, these creatures do hunt in pacts, and are protected by their own, but it seems only at their local territory.  There is no annual meeting and introducing and passing bills and amendments.  Rather it is like minded men (and women), that simply unify.  This is not to say the homosexual-the one committing the act- is an animal, but rather acts like one in the sense that they allow their passion to dominate them. To further clarify the point, any man or woman that allows any passion to rule is in fact acting as an animal. When tyrannical passion spreads and those infected unify, then no longer is it an oddity, but a tumor.  If left unchecked it becomes cancer, and must be removed by the knife, and that is painful. It should also be stated that these passion controlled people do have a leader. This leader does indeed have many meetings, and does propose new actions to take.  He guides them to each other, darkens there mind, closes their hearts to as much grace as possible in order ti fill them with his own “dark Grace”.  The unseen leader who unofficially unifies all these people is Satan, and he is manipulating God’s beloved children.  They are still created in the image of God, created by him, and in that sense all are his, though some still need adoption by baptism in order to be made fully his children. Yet, that is the point, the enemy wants to deny them that grace.  The enemy is intelligent, and takes this more serious than we ever do.  So, like a good tactician, he goes after the leadership. The Father, both spiritually and actually, is the head of the family.  So the enemy, as he did in genesis, goes after the one every man yields to, the woman.   In an actual family the good husband, though strong, tough, fearless, and uncompromising bends at the slightest glace of his wife. She means so much to him that he seeks her glance in all things, for what wars can he win without his lady to fight for?  If she does not lay out his armor, shield, and sword for him, how will he hope to conquer? So thus the enemy tempts eve.  This is seen in artificial birth control, Abortion, modern feminism, and so forth.  This is also true in the Church by the degradation of the religious orders.  The spirit of the world comes rushing in, and things like the habit are too traditional.  In place of a strong religious presence, showing the world what a real woman and man is, we have compromise, and oh, what’s wrong with that? Thus now we have cancer in the Church, men being led into compromise, and into not being men. Women are now literally being pillaged (have you seen an abortion?), there womanhood mocked by modern feminism with its philosophy of wanting a woman to be a man.  A woman must be a man by not having children, having the same job as a man, wearing the same clothes as a man, acting in the same way as a man, speaking the same way, and in the lesbian relationship declaring men completely unnecessary while trying to be that very thing they cannot be, a man.  How can children learn to be a man or woman, when their parents are only one sex?  The growing tide of evil in the world can be traced directly back to the lack of holiness in the Church.  So no, it is not surprise, or secret that there is a “Gay lobby” in the Church, simply looks at the world around us.  Whatever sin is occupying, that is to say has conquered, the world, the Church has not done enough to stop it.  Yet, there is always hope, G. K Chesterton once said, and I am paraphrasing, “Hope is hoping when all is hopeless, otherwise it would not be a virtue”, and “Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”  I would say these last decades have been that of surgery.  The many scandals, and open unceasing war against all things holy, has all been God and the scalpel. Now, we come to the cancer itself, the corruption of the leadership.  Once the Church has recovered form her cancer, she will shine all the brighter, and her enemies better gut their fill, the culling is near.