Just Friends

Jim Burroway

September 24th, 2012

That’s how Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George sees loving and committed gay couples:

George said, “There must surely be ways in our civil society, where we can honor friendships, where we can respect other people, without destroying the nature of marriage. It is very important, for your whole lives, give witness to what marriage truly means. And while civil laws might change – if they do – then society will be the worse for it.”

“Honoring friendships” is always nice. But people generally don’t come together to form households and families over mere friendship, no matter how noble friendships may be. It is love which makes a family, as the saying goes, and it is that quality which sets committed, loving gay couples apart from people who are friends. Think of those couples who marry in states which provide it and those other couples who accumulate thousands of dollars in legal bills to try to create an imperfect and inconsistently recognized approximation of a legal partnership in those states which don’t — George doesn’t see them at all. Or more to the point, he does see them — he knows they’re out there — he just doesn’t want to address them. Dehumanizing is the word that comes to mind here.

Blake

September 24th, 2012

Eh, he’s just out-of-touch and speaking in the insulated terms used in Con-Cath world.

I for one am not going to get my panties in wad because he’s advocating his cloistered position outside of his echo-chamber. I’m saving my indignation. Because I see in there, amongst the offensive terms that make no sense outside of Catholic-marriage-arguments, the acknowledgment that the solution is possibly civil unions, which, if anything, is a sea-change for George’s position on this issue.

Thanks for pointing out the “nasty”
rhetoric, though.

TampaZeke

September 24th, 2012

Let’s see, how can I put this delicately?

I DON’T FUCK MY FRIENDS!

@Blake, I read and re-read Jim’s commentary and NOWHERE did I see where he said anything about “‘nasty’ rhetoric”.

Steve

September 24th, 2012

Why should we listen to an allegedly celibate, never-been-married pedophile enabler talking about relationships and marriage?

Ben In Oakland

September 24th, 2012

This is the same cardinal that was saying a few years ago that gay people have lost touch with their humanity. One could be snarky and point out a certain percentage of the catholic priesthood that has certainly not lost touch with the humanity of 10 year olds, but that would be very snarky indeed. One could certainly comment one the entire catholic priesthood losing touch with the humanity of marriage, love, sex, family, and children, but that would also be snarkasm.

I’d rather concentrate on this. When someone dismisses my life and family as mere friendship, when Rooney, Taylor, King, fornicating and adulterous Newtie, and Limbaugh have 33 marriages among them, I susepct he doesn’t know much about fmaily or friendship. But then, he doesn’t have a family, does he?

When someone tells me that I have lost touch with humanity because I wish to marry the person that has shared my life for the past 10 (in my case) or 40 (as many of my friends) years…

…this is going WAY beyond a mere “belief system”.It is a literal dehumanization of me, my husband, my family, and those of millions of people just like me. So people that love each other, desire life partnerships, marriage, family, children. and normalcy have lost touch with the human race? I can think of NOTHING more human than that.

I have no problems with the man, the church, or the “belief system”, if they leave it at that. I think it is stupid, wasteful, hateful, a misapplication and misunderstanding of scripture, and will ultimately be apologized for,. But beyond that, hey, no problem.

It is quite another matter when I am made a lower animal by his remarks and attitude. It is something else when he seeks to force his religious beliefs on people who are not members of his church. It becomes unconscionable when he neglects the true suffering in the world– starvation, ignorance, war, disease, overpopulation, and child molesting priests– in favor of pursuing a vendetta against people who are far more worthy human beings than he appears to be, whom he does not know, knows nothing about, and who have done him no harm, while avoiding the obvious discrepancies in heterosexual and priestly behavior.

Roy Dalgleish

September 24th, 2012

Hey Steve,

now come on, stop mincing words, man. What do you REALLY think….

(Stops laughing long enough to type..) Nice Post!

Regan DuCasse

September 24th, 2012

It’s so sickening to me to hear people of this social stature talk like this.
Friendships can occur between all manner of vertebrates.

Humans are unique in involving ceremony, legal and civil responsibility to their unions.
I’m so tired of people like this looking at a human being, and declaring they aren’t human enough after all, to do the most human thing.
It’s not the first time, and recent history should have taught this cardinal how doing that has been the most destructive to social justice and human life.
When you value ALL human beings, and the church reflects that, then I might believe he’s sincere.
But the most vulnerable people among us have been harmed by his church.
Completely anathema to the commandments of Christ himself.

dn

September 24th, 2012

Hey at least he didn’t compare us to the Klan. This time.

Timothy Kincaid

September 24th, 2012

I guess you could say he honors friends without benefits.

Marcus

September 24th, 2012

Does he have a problem with two opposite-sex friends getting married? (Me neither, but I’m not the one arguing that same-sex friends shouldn’t be allowed to marry.)

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