Pope officially endorses Same Sex Civil Unions

abradley said:
Assuming the couple indulge in sex IMHO the Pope is wrong. He is speaking as a Catholic and the Catholic Church sees sex outside the sacrament of Matrimony is a sin.
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He's not disputing that it's sin, near as I can tell. He's saying that being gay should not exclude someone from being in a family. Certainly there's plenty of other sins that don't come to bear on it.
 
abradley said:
Assuming the couple indulge in sex IMHO the Pope is wrong. He is speaking as a Catholic and the Catholic Church sees sex outside the sacrament of Matrimony is a sin.
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Yeah but literally everyone does sins, that's kind of how ordinary Catholics square this circle and live their lives as nice people. Getting super steaming mad that people do some certain sins and wanting the state to ban them and society to make them outcasts doesn't necessarily follow from things being sins.
 
abradley said:
Assuming the couple indulge in sex IMHO the Pope is wrong. He is speaking as a Catholic and the Catholic Church sees sex outside the sacrament of Matrimony is a sin.
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It is, however, a very sexy sin.

Also, it is the Catholic Church, who probably have a patron saint of judgemental statues.
skip ~ 0:50
 
Farm Boy said:
There wasn't to be a legal distinction. The law would simply strike "marriage" or whatever out of all language, by statute, and replace it with a the civil phrase so people would stop getting bent. But people like getting bent, so it would never have worked. If I remember the conversations it was like 80% "that's my word you can't have it" and 80% "the rights aren't enough, you must have your face officially rubbed in the word." Far as I'm still concerned anyone with a huge issue either way, so long as the rights are intact, can get bent over. Elsewhere may have been or still be different.
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I recall it this way as well actually, except add that a significant portion of the conservatives were vehemently fighting any legal recognition too.

Arwon said:
Yeah but literally everyone does sins, that's kind of how ordinary Catholics square this circle and live their lives as nice people. Getting super steaming mad that people do some certain sins and wanting the state to ban them and society to make them outcasts doesn't necessarily follow from things being sins.
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I explain this to my children all the time. "Jesus surrounded himself and defended sinners constantly; no one is beyond redemption". I don't agree this issue is really a sin, but in a more general sense I do use this argument to teach my children right from wrong.
 
Estebonrober said:
I recall it this way as well actually, except add that a significant portion of the conservatives were vehemently fighting any legal recognition too.
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"Call it something else not marriage" was also always a very provincial outlook, as was abolishing marriage in favour of an alternative union status entirely, because hey other countries exist.

Guess what's easier to get recognised by another country when you're trying to arrange affairs relating to migration. Is it universally understood and existent in law everywhere "marriage"? Or is it some new alternatively labelled and defined status with no equivalent in that other country's law?

Australia has very strong and well defined de facto partnerships (I believe called common law marriage in some countries) such that marriage and "not married but living as a couple" are virtually the same in legal effect for nearly all major domestic purposes. You end up being treated as effectively married by the law regardless of whether you got formally married, for things like tax, inheritance, property law, family law, pensions, etc.

Using that legal treatment, we had same sex relationships treated the same way as hetero de facto partnerships for for a good decade before we had marriage equality. But marriage equality was still necessary regardless of how equal we could make things locally without it, because nothing is as internationally portable as actual marriage.
 
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Arwon said:
"Call it something else not marriage" was also always a very provincial outlook, as was abolishing marriage in favour of an alternative union status entirely, because hey other countries exist.

Guess what's easier to get recognised by another country when you're trying to arrange affairs relating to migration. Is it universally understood and existent in law everywhere "marriage"? Or is it some new alternatively labelled and defined status with no equivalent in that other country's law?

Australia has very strong and well defined de facto partnerships (I believe called common law marriage in some countries) such that marriage and "not married but living as a couple" are virtually the same in legal effect for nearly all major domestic purposes. You end up being treated as effectively married by the law regardless of whether you got formally married, for things like tax, inheritance, property law, family law, pensions, etc.

Using that legal treatment, we had same sex relationships treated the same way as hetero de facto partnerships for for a good decade before we had marriage equality. But marriage equality was still necessary regardless of how equal we could make things locally without it, because nothing is as internationally portable as actual marriage.
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I'm not sure this argument holds much water honestly. First any nation that is not willing to adjust their recognition of such a union is probably not open to the union in the first place. IE putting married in front of it is not going to get a SSM recognized there either. Also as a matter of course the distinction has always been there and jsut needs to be formalized and elaborated on. I think this ship has sailed and agree with others here about the pope threading a line of practicality. It jsut resonated with me since it was always my take about marriage/civil unions here in the US. At the time queer couples could not get health insurance for their spouses or life insurance and so on. . . so
 
Estebonrober said:
I'm not sure this argument holds much water honestly. First any nation that is not willing to adjust their recognition of such a union is probably not open to the union in the first place. IE putting married in front of it is not going to get a SSM recognized there either. Also as a matter of course the distinction has always been there and jsut needs to be formalized and elaborated on. I think this ship has sailed and agree with others here about the pope threading a line of practicality. It jsut resonated with me since it was always my take about marriage/civil unions here in the US. At the time queer couples could not get health insurance for their spouses or life insurance and so on. . . so
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Nah the trouble is lack of standardisation and reciprocity. A lot of places have no idea, in their laws, what to do with various civil unions, civil partnerships, domestic partnerships, registered partnerships, de facto partnerships etc, even where they do either perform or recognise same sex marriages. And there are places which recognise but do not perform same sex marriages. Relevantly for the US, parts of Mexico are in that situation, as is Israel.

And even where they do have provisions, it's potentially extra evidence or paperwork or translation burden put on people to access their rights - hardly equal!

If were trying to move my family to another country I would much prefer to be able to simply show "we are married" rather than "the Great State of Texlakota has given us this alternate non-marriage status called Homosexual Domestical Certificate so as not to upset some voters and can you please treat it like marriage under your laws?"
 
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^It might be an issue, yes. Not due to lack of concept of civil unions (unless you'd move to some 3-4rth world country), but the actual legal status of analogous unions there. Civil unions can easily have different status to marriage in any country.
That said, one can go to the mayor or other state representative and "re-marry" in the new country. If they actually allow political marriage or some union for LGBT.
 
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Interestingly, over half the countries with same sex marriage are Catholic.

Wiki has 29 countries with same sex marriages performed.

Catholicism is predominant in 15 (Argentina Austria Belgium Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador France Ireland Luxembourg Malta Mexico Portugal Spain Uruguay).

It's also the largest Christian branch in Canada and Australia, roughly half the Christians in Germany, and a reasonable minority in the Netherlands and USA.

Have to consider that maybe the Catholics just like a nice big celebration.
 
It would be something if we had an august international body that could standardize such a concept so that willing participant states could all sign on.
 
Arwon said:
Interestingly, over half the countries with same sex marriage are Catholic.

Wiki has 29 countries with same sex marriages performed.

Catholicism is predominant in 15 (Argentina Austria Belgium Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador France Ireland Luxembourg Malta Mexico Portugal Spain Uruguay).

It's also the largest Christian branch in Canada and Australia, roughly half the Christians in Germany, and a reasonable minority in the Netherlands and USA.

Have to consider that maybe the Catholics just like a nice big celebration.
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We also realize a lot of our priests seem to have certain tastes. . .homosexuality is by far the less concerning one.
 
The universal church welcomes all, I hear
 
There is civil union here, as in Italy.


Dark blue: Marriage
Cyan: Civil union
Purple: Limited domestic recognition (cohabitation)
Beige: Limited foreign recognition (residency rights)
Grey: Unrecognized
Red: Constitution limits marriage to opposite-sex couples

I can't say what Hungary, Croatia and Montenegro are, but apparently no marriage and much fewer rights for a type of civil union (?).
 
I suspect Hungary is "biding our time"
 
Oh... the Church isn't what it used to be...

I bet that ....
Spoiler Don't open it !! :
 
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