Speaking of God, these are the The Five Non-Negotiables
Abortion. Euthanasia. Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Human Cloning. Same Sex “Marriage”.
It is our responsibility as believers in the God of Abraham that we must evaluate the policies embraced by a political party, candidate or law. It is not enough to say that there is “some” good if there is intrinsic evil. As people of faith we cannot support the five non-negotiables.
And this demonstrates the folly of introducing religion into politics. These are the opinions of YOUR religion. Not everyone's religion. Not even all Catholics, really.
I have my one non-negotiable.. Mind your own business. But since you want to discuss it, let's do that.
Abortion
Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being. The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being.
Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life."
Abortion is immoral and a grave offense. Anyone who has, or even participates in (with full knowledge) an abortion is committing a grave offense against not only his own soul, but also against the Creator and His creation of man. It is our duty to educate and comfort those in pain, especially when effected by such an atrocity as abortion.
Fetuses aren't people, and the problem with you anti-abortion fanatics is that you aren't pro-life, you are pro-birth.
The reality of the situation is that if a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she'll find a way to not be pregnant. This is why abortion laws don't work in countries like the Philippines that have them, it's why they didn't work in this country before Roe.
The problem with giving globby the fetus the same rights as a fully grown person, is that you have to take rights away from the fully grown person it is inside. And I just don't mean forcing women to have their rapists' babies, but such things as charging women for assault for not taking proper pre Natal care. Do we arrest women for sipping a glass of wine during pregnancy or sneaking a smoke? Because it sounds like assault to me.
Euthanasia (assisted suicide)
Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. An act which causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded. "
Euthanasia for the motive of eliminating suffering is morally unacceptable. God is the ultimate power when it comes to our lives and when our time has come. While one can still discontinue medical procedures when the treatment becomes too burdensome or extreme that, while extending the life a small amount, the party accepts that death is imminent (besides the attempts to impede it), and is therefore acceptable, though this decision should be made by the patient, if competent enough.
As someone who watched both of his parents die of cancer (and stopped believing in God shortly thereafter), I can't honestly believe that any kind or good deity would want people to suffer for the sake of suffering. When my time comes, I wouldn't want to put those close to me through that.
Now, I do have reservations. Once you put Euthanasia on the menu, the last thing you want is big insurance encouraging that as an option.
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
We can support ethically responsible stem cell research, but we must oppose any research that exploits or destroys human embryos. Deliberately destroying innocent human life at any stage, for research or any other purpose, is unacceptable. However, obtaining embryonic stem cells or their pluripotent equivalent without creating or harming embryos is ethically acceptable stem cell research.
People of Faith must stand firmly with a pro-life stance. Similar to abortion, every life is sacred and must be treated with dignity. We are not to murder any current life at any stage for the furtherment of future research.
Pragmatic view. Far more embryos and Zygotes never attach to the uterine wall and end up in tampons than are ever destroyed in labs. But we don't include little coffins with sanitary pads. We have 450,000 frozen embryos in fertility labs that are never going to be used.
Human Cloning
In 1995, an Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II titled 'The Gospel of Life' stated the following: "The various techniques of artificial reproduction, which would seem to be at the service of life and which are frequently used with this intention, actually open the door to new threats against life. Apart from the fact that they are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act, these techniques have a high rate of failure: not just failure in relation to fertilization but with regard to the subsequent development of the embryo, which is exposed to the risk of death, generally within a very short space of time. Furthermore, the number of embryos produced is often greater than that needed for implantation in the woman's womb, and these so-called 'spare embryos' are then destroyed or used for research which, under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, in fact reduces human life to the level of simple 'biological material' to be freely disposed of."
Human cloning goes against the natural law that God created. God's law is that new life can only come from the conjugal act, making it against God's law to clone humans without that act.
Um, okay. Problem with human cloning is that beyond "We did it" kind of science, there's really no practical use for it. A baby born from Cloning would have all the rights from a baby born from the fun way of doing it.
Now, I could see a time in the future where we could have partial cloning where the could grow an organ in a lab with no chance of rejection because it is a genetic match for the recipient.
Homosexual "Marriage"
Homosexuality has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. The Abrahamic religions present homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity. Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and they are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
Homosexual "marriage" is not marriage at all, and it goes against God's instituted natural law. Marriage was created for a man and a woman. Since this cannot be obtained through same-sex unions, the act of homosexuality is morally wrong. While the act of homosexual sex must be condemned, the individuals are to be loved, with respect and compassion directed towards them as they struggle to find their way to God and His calling for them.
Oh, please. There's a whole lot of stuff in the bible that is against "God's Law" that we do every day. Working on the Sabbath. Eating Pork and Shellfish. Not being a virgin on your wedding day. Women wearing pants.
Heck, within my own lifetime, it was considered "sinful" to live together outside of marriage. Now 75% of married couples live together before tying the knot, and no one blinks twice about it. I just had three of my nieces get married this year, and all three lived with their fiancés before marriage, including the couple who are kind of nutty Catholic.
So now that we've dispensed with the "God Says it's bad" argument, we can move on to the "I think it's icky" argument.
99% of straight people have engaged in Fellatio or Cunnilingus. (That's Latin for "Blow Job" and "Muff Dive", by the way.). 37% of heterosexuals have tried anal sex.
Different strokes for different folks.
I am a white dude currently dating an Asian woman. Prior to 1969 (Within my lifetime), that was considered a crime in much of the country. And religion was used to justify it.
On October 28, 1964, after waiting almost a year for a response to their motion, the ACLU attorneys filed a federal class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. This prompted the county court judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile (1890–1967), to issue a ruling on the long-pending motion to vacate. Echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, Bazile denied the motion with the words:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
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Wow.
So here's the thing. If you don't want to have sex with another dude, that's your own business. If you don't want to date someone of another race, that's completely your prerogative. But don't try to impose your beliefs on the rest of us, thank you.