So do I...

Count me in.

Although I was born catholic, I don't agree with the Pope. we can't continue living in denial and pretending that homosexuals are freaks of nature. They do exist and they want to lead a happy life just like you and me. Many of them dream of having a family and the Pope should not deprive them of that!

I agree with you Natasha that homosexuality does exist, and it always has existed, but so have pedophilia, zoophilia and what not.

Does that make them acceptable? Does that make it ok in a society? Does that make it normal? or natural?
I truly don't think so.

Should I remind you, but Islam has the same point of view as catholicism towards homsexuality. Remember the story of the prophet "lou6" who was sent to eradicate homosexualty.

Everybody should remember that it is the point of view of the religion and not of a simple man (the Pope). He has not created the religion, he is just following its precepts.

I don't know what's the deal with gays these days, I think this is the third post I read in two days talking about gays mariages. I am a muslim (not very relegious), anyway as for prophet Loott story I think that what happened to them was in the first place because they were herassing other people. What I am trying to say is why don't we stick our noses in our own business, what gays do in their own private lives is their choice and we don't have the right to object any of their actions. If you are so disgusted by them just try to apply whatever you beleive of on your own children and your family. A lot of us hate the US actions taken against of Irak, Iran or Syria cause they act like the world judicial system without being appointed by anyone, so why playing the same role with others private's lives. Why don't we mind our own business and try to make a real change.

And I am deeply sorry if I sound offensive.

Sinan, with all my respect, but I guess there's something to be cleared here, homosexuality, specially when given the right of marriage, is no longer a personal privacy, it affects the society a great deal. Only one of the negative effects of their marriages is that all their marriages will not help in the continuation of human kind (unlike straight people, their marriages could not help in the continuation of human kind in certain cases and not all). This is only one side effect, there are many others on the moral and health levels. And one shouldn't necessarily follow a certain religion to care for our well being and existence.
What I'm trying to say is, gay marriage has more negative effects than positive effects, so even if we don't take religion into consideration, it still is something dangerous.

Anyway, this is my personal opinion and I'm not trying to force it on anyone :)

First of all thanks for reading my comment :)
What I was trying to say, why wasting time thinking in these issues? Will our opinions prevent gays from being gays?

:) No, sure it wont, but it may help minimize the negative effects on the society as a whole.

I agree with you on the fact that everyone should stick his business. But my comment was not focused on tolerating homosexuality or not but on the message that media want to vehicle about the pope's behaviour. They say that it is his responsability to change the church's point of view but he is only a representative of the church and he is NOT a legislator. So, it's ridiculous to not agree with the Pope as he is not a legislator and the position of catholicism is too clear that he can not seriously say the contrary. Otherwise we can disagree with the religion.

So, don't focus on the Pope but on the religion that he represents. (analogically, you can do with any other religion)

I hope that you have understood my message.

I think pretty much every religion bans and forbids homosexuality, and of course no one can change that.

Anyway, what I understood from the Pope's quote is that the push that is being made and the pressure that is being applied to make gay marriage acceptable is part of an evil ideology that threatens the society.

He's not just saying gay marriage is wrong and unacceptable, as that is something that is clear in religion, he's saying that this new ideology, that within other things advocates gay marriage, is a threat to society and that it is evil.

with all due respect, I don't agree with Catholicism's view on homosexuality. No body chooses to be born gay! And those who are born this way have the right to be happy just like you and me. I don't see homosexuality as immoral just because religions say so. And being gay is by no means like being a pedophile or whatever. I have a number of gay friends and I have high respect for them.

Touchy subject. You know where I stand. Let's leave it at that. :-)

tt les gens qui disent d'acord evec l'om....je filicite bravo,mais noublier pas une choses que notre prof mohamed(que la paix soi sur lui)a parle de ca il ya 1400ans,parmis les signes de dernier jour de cette vie,et il faut pas juge dieu ou la nature de ca (cest un choix),je vs dis attention elle s'approche et encore filicitation bravooooo

Guys,

gay people have the same interests as you do: to realize their hopes for happiness without hurting anyone. gay marriage ensures that humans who want to spend their lives with another human of the same gender get the same legal protection that you do, when you follow your hopes. the point is to protect gay people, and seeing as their protection does not interfere with your wellbeing, to object to it seems a little selfish.

what on earth leads you--or led the pope for that matter--to the bizarre conclusion that equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians somehow "attacks" two-gender marriage? you say that the emerging truth that gays and lesbians deserve--and are now insisting on--equal civil rights is some evil effort cloaked in human rights rhetoric. i say your fear, hate and vicious prejudice is cloaked in one of the most historically corrupt perversions of Christ's teachings. SHAME ON YOU. SHAME ON THE POPE. SHAME ON BUSH. this pope apologized for historical injustices of the catholic church. hopefully the next one will apologize for this one's bigotry and hate.

It's funny, here we are talking about the "negative" and "evil" that gay people cause. Hmm....that's a head scratcher to me. Someone mentions above pedophilia when speaking of gay people. Umm, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Catholic church seem to know a lot more about pedophilia than gays.

Oh, and by the way, war as an institution, is far, far worse and more destructive than gay people. Just a little something that popped in my gay brain.

Hi, it's me again....just found this on google...wonder what some of you think of this statement by the Pope:

"Pope Calls Priestly Pedophilia Worst Form of Evil"

Thoughts?

what the pope's definition of 'evil' might be seems to be central to this discussion. I'm guessing it probably has something to do with the destruction of the prospect of what he would consider to be a life with the potential to express god's grace or something like that. pedophilia presumably damages both the victim's self-confidence, ability to form relationships, and, of obvious interest to the (dead) pope, trust in religion. however, it seems that there is no one way to express god's grace in a life - chastity seems specifically to demand that argument: if you can express god's grace both by having sex/reproducing and by not having sex/not reproducing then it sounds like extreme flexibility is a feature of this condition. The one limiting condition, I would have guessed, would be Jesus's teaching of love - expressing love would presumably be the one condition. The manner in which that love is expressed is irrelevant. Pedophilia is a bit of a misnomer however (it means 'love of children')... as it is not really love, but objectification of the child as an object, and taking advantage of that object irrespective of the consequences for the child. If you take advantage of a girl (as a guy), then same problem comes up (we're all pretty familiar with this). If you are in a respectful loving relationship, on the other hand, then who you are in the relationship with is, of course, irrelevant (ie, whether they are the same gender, younger, older, whatever). A respectful loving relationship will not be a sexual relationship, in the case of a child, but that's got nothing to do with gender - that has to do with taking advantage of someone who is not aware of your interests (the child won't understand the adult's sexual interests, and it will terrify them, and this will destroy the child's trust). In the case of another adult, on the other hand, sexuality is a deeply rewarding feature of a relationship, that reinforces the depth of the relationship, and if it is expressed between two people of the same sex, different social groups, different racial groups, different ages (as adults)... all of this is irrelevant.

The Creator all gave us brains. Some of us the Creator gave the ability to empathize. I speak to those who can empathize.

There are those amongst you who do not fit into the human created definitions of sexuality as defined by our dominant culture. They experience discrimination in the culture, they are persecuted, they experience humiliation and not a few have experienced destruction from the dominant culture.

Some of these individuals are defined as homosexuals. But there are also transgendered individuals, transexual individuals, homosexuals, and others.

These individuals represent a vulnerable minority in this current dominant culture. They are disorganized and vulnerable and a lot of the time they are their own worst enemy, internalizing the hatred their society visits upon them.

One of the main cheerleaders of this hatred was the Pope. Remember this. This Pope courted other groups which were usually the victims of his dominant culture ONLY if they represented a minority that had to be answered to. Like a true bully, this Pope apologized to his victims of the past IF those victims had developed and gained power and money to warrant such an apology.

The vulnerable who did not gain this cache to defend themselves, this Pope still went after like a dog after a rat. The human right abuses which followed as a result of this Pope's words against this vulnerable minority are well documented and a reality that will never disappear no matter how much chest beating and wailing the lovers of this Pope have.

The Creator will judge this Pope accordingly. The creation will not bear a humanity which does not accept and embrace reality. The minority to whom I refer was created by this Creator, is loved by this Creator and is obviously sanctioned by this Creator as part of the biological Creation.

Hear my words. I turn over for judgment anyone who does not see the truth in them.

Creator bless those who are willing to hear.

Let's not waiste our time anymore. It's going to be difficult to change an Institution that has been the longest EMPIRE on the Earth. Yes, the Roman Empire prevails... not in the same way but now in the form of Catholic Religion.

If what we're looking for is to have a marriage ceremony in a church, we can start hiring good actors who play the priests and hire a church, photographers, a church choir. (Come on, that's possible with money!)

If Catholic Church is a one-sided authoritarian form of control, we may as well ignore it.

The real problem comes when religion interferes with constitutional rights. That's when we should stand up and speak, make campaigns, make ourselves be heard and be assertive in our convictions.

On behalf of the real separation of Church and Estate.

Kevin & Nathan & Sarah

(Kevin is a 16 year old student who has an open-minded girlfriend and a boyfriend who have decided to live together as a happy family and raise children in a tolerant and open-minded philosophy.)

To anyone who believes homosexuals and their right to marry have negative effects on society:
Your argument that gay marriage is bad because it doesn't further reproduce humanity is completely invalid. First of all, the human race is in no danger of going extinct at over 6 billion people crammed onto this planet. Besides, not all straight relationships produce new children. Does that mean that they should be denied the right to marry or have a relationship free of discrimination and hate? Also, many gay partners have adopted, fostered, or by artificial insemination born a child and are just as good at raising children as straight kids.
And don't you think it's a little messed up for the Catholic Church to be criticizing deviations from the sexual norm when its priests have been molesting children for years. However high up in the Vatican offices that information reached, all they did was relocate them.
Smooth move.

I can't see ANY homosexual danger or ANY negative effect. In which way does homosexuality 'affect' the societey, in WHICH way? - But I see the danger of sexual racism.

You say that one of the reasons homosexuality is evil is because is doesn't promote propagation. Not only is the slowing of our exponential population growth a good thing, but there are many families with same-sex care givers that provide loving and nurturing homes. Often, the children they raise otherwise have been unwanted. If you think that such children should be removed from their caregivers, then you obviously haven’t spent time in foster care. Anyone that has can tell you that it’s confusing, terrifying, and unbearably lonely.

All that same-sex couples are asking for is right to have their union recognized in the eyes of the law. To have survivor benefits, medical benefits, to have the right to continue raising the children they love if their partner should die, to visit their partner in the emergency room. All of these are things that married couples take for granted, but same-sex couples are denied.

Except for the “gays don’t breed” argument, I haven’t seen anything put forth explaining *why* homosexuals are evil, or why giving same-sex couples these benefits would destroy society. If this is a question you have trouble answering, I would respectfully suggest that you spend some time and consider how your own morals relate to this issue, instead of parroting what others have said.

What would marriage add to homosexual couples? see nothing for them. they can adopt and raise kids as u guys mentioned, they already have sex, each as a single person has medical and social rights... nothing to add. many heterosexual people get married coz they want their union as a couple to be religious and blessed by god. now since we all know religion is totally against homosexual marriage, then tell me why are they trying to get married!

plus you who think stopping the population from growing is a perfect argument, there are tings called birth-control, you don't need gays to get married to control the growth of population besides many european countries are dying coz they have no children in their population, take germany, or italy for example. marriage is not basically for breeding, but breeding is one of the very important element for survival and existence, u might say few homosexuals wont harm our survival, but here comes the role of coming generations, when a kid is raised by a mom and a dad both having "balls" they will grow up believing it's so normal to have a wife with balls, after all it's the parents who set the idol. or would a gay man tell his "son": hey son look at that hot lady over there!
if i want to have a really reasonable and detailed discussion about homosexuality and its danger i'll go on forever, but you wont listen you'll just want to prove me wrong.
i have good gay friends they know where i stand and why, i respect them as any other human being, but i refuse to let them brainwash generations to come.

i am extremely homophobic when it comes to homosexuals, not to be mean or anything, but i think that gays should be removed to a seperate society, keeping there "hormones" to themselves. recently my friend who is a united states marine went to a gay bar but did not realize it, until a gay man touched his arse. then he punched him in the face breaking his nose. there WILL be extremely negative effects if gays are allowed to be married. indeed the christian way is man and women, not man and man or woman and woman. gays should not be welcome in a straight society, i would feel REALLY uncomfortable if i was in a room with a gay person. which is why that it could be dangerous for gays to get close to straight people. as a conclusion gays should be removed to a seperate society without gay marriage. to be Catholic you must act Catholic

(note: this is my opinion)

Well, when in Rome do as the Romans do. Even though I don't mean it the way it's usually meant, but it still is relevant. When in Rome, don't get pissed off or offended with what the Romans do. It's a different culture and you should not only see your culture as the "right" or prevailing culture everywhere in the world. Granted that in any other situation it is probably very rude and offensive, but you have to keep in mind that perhaps in that gay bar it is not offensive. The man did not deliberately want to offend your friend. Your friend is in a gay bar, how is that guy supposed to know your friend was straight? Is it so ridiculous for the gay guy to enter a gay bar with the assumption that everyone in there are gay and are out to meet new people? It's not like they have any other place to go to where they don't have to wonder about whether the person is gay or not. Us, straight people, really got it made. We don't have to go to a specific place because we are just so different and are outcasted from the rest of society. But I digress...

I'm not going to go into details of whether it's "right" or "wrong" to be doing that, but I will say that your friend got angry way too quickly which is understandable since anger is an acceptable emotion for men in our society. But underneath that though, lies fear and shame when that incident happened. But I'm sure he is far from admitting feeling those emotions. But if he seriously were to have considered that his reaction was from fear of homosexual behavior and shame for it having been done to him, his anger would have subsided and it wouldn't have gotten violent. Your boy was in the wrong place, it ain't the gay person's fault.

And I find your to be solution way too simplistic. I realize that it's easier to put them all on an island and pretend that they don't exist, but most of life's decisions are the ones that are difficult. If we were to do that, what will stop us from putting all disabled people to another country because they take up too much of us, "normal people's", resources. Or what about poor people, because they are all so lazy and I'm tired of supporting them with my tax dollars. Eliminating people from your little world is not the solution, and I hope you see that. Perhaps you should learn more about homosexuality and dare I say, make a friend of one. Education might be a better way to go. But hey, that takes a lot more work than your "out of sight, out of mind" solution. And worry not, just like women, not all gay men will be attracted to you, nor your friend. They, too, have standards. :-P

As far as your last sentence, I don't know what you're implying to that exactly. You do realize that marriage is controlled by the state, right? When a couple gets married, they do not go to a Catholic church to get their papers put together and then have the ceremony. County records keep track of that and they (rightfully) have nothing to do with the Catholic church, nor any other church for that matter. I don't know where that comment came from, but the Catholic church control the Catholic church, and that's about it. They have nothing to do with our country's laws and processes and government. (Thank gawd!)

I realize these are your opinions, and I hope you take this comment at face value and not put some sort of emotion behind it. I respect your opinion, but I so greatly disagree with it.

(Paraphrased)
"The greatest sign of psuchological or mental health is FLEXIBILITY" - Einstein

I hope we can all continue this dialogue. I find it very valuable. Even the ones I disagree with. :-P

I would say that 'technically' homosexuality is unnatural, and must be a genetic defect (since if everyone had been gay then mankind would die out). But shurley the most unnatural thing of all is to not have sex at all (like the pope...).
I disagree slightly with the above comment because I think since catholicism is the fastest growing religion in the world, it is quite dangerous to keep such a barbaric idea alive.
I live in England, and I just can't get to grips with the way (a lot) of you guys seem to think. All that "good vesus evil" crap...

i dont really know why this should be an issue. gay (homosexualism and lesbianism) are both wrong. its as simple as that. God created man and woman not man and man or woman and woman. so whats the confusion. a gay friend recently told me he was quitting and i asked him why - he said for the fact he cant come out in the open to confess that he's gay and stand by it, then its wrong cos if it was right, then he would stand by it any day any time. i encouraged him to quit and so am i encouraging and gays all over the world to quit. i see gays in the same light as terrorists. sorry if i sound too hard. but thats just the way i feel

i dont really know why this should be an issue. gay (homosexualism and lesbianism) are both wrong. its as simple as that. God created man and woman not man and man or woman and woman. so whats the confusion. a gay friend recently told me he was quitting and i asked him why - he said for the fact he cant come out in the open to confess that he's gay and stand by it, then its wrong cos if it was right, then he would stand by it any day any time. i encouraged him to quit and so am i encouraging and gays all over the world to quit. i see gays in the same light as terrorists. sorry if i sound too hard. but thats just the way i feel

Hello,
You must get a lot of hate mail for this, considering it comes up on Google so often. Let me be forthright - I'm gay. I am not going to start bashing you up with my pointy pointy words, not I am going to tell you that your religion is "bollocks". I believe people should believe whatever gives them strength and hope, love and faith and I know Christianity does that for many people, I would never attempt to convert anyone.

That said, why must you make it your life's work? And when all's said and done, all you have to go on is a book. A book, begging your pardon, you have no real evidence is anything more than manipulative man made laws. I do not hope to change your cemented beliefs, to try to make you see that gay and lesbian people are NOTHING to be feared or hated. We are not evil, wrong and illegal in any kind of way. Women are not inferior to men and the earth is not flat. On the point of discovering SO much in this world, it is disappointing that some people go out of their way to express their disgust at the way people choose to love one another. At the end of the day, I am sure you are a good person. You may think that your ways are the be all and end all, but my friend - look around you at space, oceans and chasms. There is too much in the world to be discovered and you must make people feel uncomfortable with themselves? Why? On religion, I will not retort, though WebPages like this sorely tempt me to. On this matter however, what you have done is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make the whole world see your point of view, which you cannot do. You will always meet opposition, you will never win this battle. We eventually will win the war. And I shall be standing in the front row.

Hello,
You must get a lot of hate mail for this, considering it comes up on Google so often. Let me be forthright - I'm gay. I am not going to start bashing you up with my pointy pointy words, not I am going to tell you that your religion is "crap". I believe people should believe whatever gives them strength and hope, love and faith and I know Christianity does that for many people, I would never attempt to convert anyone.

That said, why must you make it your life's work? And when all's said and done, all you have to go on is a book. A book, begging your pardon, you have no real evidence is anything more than manipulative man made laws. I do not hope to change your cemented beliefs, to try to make you see that gay and lesbian people are NOTHING to be feared or hated. We are not evil, wrong and illegal in any kind of way. Women are not inferior to men and the earth is not flat. On the point of discovering SO much in this world, it is disappointing that some people go out of their way to express their disgust at the way people choose to love one another. At the end of the day, I am sure you are a good person. You may think that your ways are the be all and end all, but my friend - look around you at space, oceans and chasms. There is too much in the world to be discovered and you must make people feel uncomfortable with themselves? Why? On religion, I will not retort, though WebPages like this sorely tempt me to. On this matter however, what you have done is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make the whole world see your point of view, which you cannot do. You will always meet opposition, you will never win this battle. We eventually will win the war. And I shall be standing in the front row.

um hi I am in grade 11, I got here looking for facts to prove my ideas that Same sex marriage does not affect population growth tecnically.... because It does not add or take away population.... any who so my teacher is soooooooo against same sex anything it isnt funny, I have writen 4 essays all of which he ripped up.... sigh....If you wondering I am straighter then a board but I do believe that being different is okay... if you are in a same sex relationship then good for you but just keep it to your self... in a den full of lions dont throw stones! So I have gone through 38 things exactly like this and the responses are amazing! if you just read 38 of these you get to see both sides really well.... but sadly I cant use any facts stated in here because its all just oppinion in my teachers eyes.... but I have to say congrats to Sinan and good job on your blurb lol but it was the best out of the ones I read so far. which was very few... so please no hate male just putting it out there no strong opinions or anything