It is so encouraging to discover people like you! Someitmes I give in to the temptation called discouragement. Have you ever written a full blown account of your story? I would be interested in reading it.

However, please be careful in delineating the meaning of ‘respect’ and ‘tolerance.’ There is a thin thread between those two and apathy and indiffierence. The latter are unChristian.

:)

But G’s analogy with ERAP is weak. It just occurred to me that the COMELEC was not really saying the people in the party is immoral but rather the interests of the party includes some immoral objectives. So ERAP may have committed immoral acts but he, as a person could not be called immoral, neither were his expressed interests and their objectives immoral.

I may be wrong here but I do not think we could apply the word moral or immoral on a being, that is if we are to be strict with our definitions. Only acts are immoral. THe immoral is not what we are but it is what we do. A homosexual is not immoral but homosexuality could (and I think) is immoral.

OK, throw in the ‘bigot’-calling.

I am opposed to the gay movement (call me a bigot but this stand I took after a long time of study and discernment, it took a while to understand the philosophical and religious underpinnings of the movement). But, I am not yet sure if I agree with comelec for not allowing them to have a party list, even from a religious point of view.

And one side bar. It is interesting to note that the law is always an imposition of someone’s belief over another. We impose our belief that thieving, murdering, rebellion etc is wrong and the thief, murderer, rebel etc would not like that. A law which does not impose anything cannot be called a law.

Reading this thread, I think darwin has been the most unbigoted one here, even though I do not agree with some of his premises. In fact, I think Mr Ryan Tani has been the bigot here. Pardon me adopting the term used in this thread.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/20718.aspx

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040722_gayanimal.html

if you feel that expressing our own opinions here is wrong because we don’t believe in what you believe, then the bias must be on you.

again i say, i respect you… please respect us.

Can you please support the facts you have just explained with CREDIBLE research studies and IMPARTIAL expert opinions? Specifically with the fact about homosexual activities in animals. I have presented to you an expert opinion but you just treat it like crap just because it does not represent your side of the story. You mistreat a professional doctor just because he does not accept your opinion.

Regarding your second “fact”
- yes smoking is immoral in a sense that it destroys your body the temple of the Holy Spirit, specifically your respiratory tract (Warning: cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health) I have relatives and friends who die of lung cancer because of smoking.
- yes the Catholic Church teaches that the sexual act should be consummated because it must always include the possibility of giving life. that is why contraception and masturbation is also a sin.

Remember, what is condemned is the sin, not the sinner. What happens is we always unite the sin with the one who committed the sin and so we tell people that the Church hates people who sin. That is false. The Church loves sinners, but like Jesus the church loves them that they teach them the right ways and instruct them to be repentant of their sins – Jesus tells people after healing them “Go, your faith has healed you. Sin no more”. Repentance and faith is part of the healing process.

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CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

2291 The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”137 “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.”

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

2372 The state has a responsibility for its citizens’ well-being. In this capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children.161 In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law.

Fiction: That homosexuality is abnormal comes from the observation of mating habits within the animal kingdom.

Facts: Many animals display homosexual characteristics and some would argue that it does, in fact, promote reproduction rather than hinder it, although gay interactions may not directly result in offspring. Examples can be found in bottlenose and spinner dolphins, orangutans, many whale species, bison, bonobos, bighorn rams, cheetahs, lions, hyenas, and vampire bats (to name a few) that have been found to exhibit homosexuality in a stronger sense where there is direct stimulation of the genitals between males and males as well as females and females.

Fiction: “It is immoral to use an organ in a way that violates its particular purpose”

Facts: If we were to follow this claim of morality based on the abnormality of a body parts function, smoking would be an immoral act because it was not what the mouth is intended for. Also, other heterosexual acts of foreplay and gratification that do not include penis-vagina penetration would also be viewed as immoral including, but not limited to oral sex. Corvino comments on this idea, “Unless opponents of homosexuality are prepared to condemn heterosexual couples who use contraception, or individuals who masturbate, they must abandon this version of the naturalness argument.”

And as I am at peace, I need not search my heart anymore.

May your brand of Faith bring you Joy.