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Should Roman Catholic Church agencies be required to adopt to Gay couples?
Yes 41%  41%  [ 9 ]
No 45%  45%  [ 10 ]
I Don't Know 14%  14%  [ 3 ]
Total votes : 22

Griff
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07 Feb 2007, 5:00 am

Send them back to Rome! Boo! The Vatican is a rogue state, and everyone knows it! Setting that aside, however, discrimination is always wrong, whether it's on the basis of religion, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Adoption agencies, especially, should be expected to have a moral compass. If they don't, they shouldn't be in business.



Mithrandir
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07 Feb 2007, 5:13 am

I am confused about the poll
Is voting Yes for against allowing of Gay adoption?


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skafather84
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07 Feb 2007, 5:53 am

Griff wrote:
Adoption agencies, especially, should be expected to have a moral compass.



yeah, it's called a background check, drug check, and using common sense interviewing skills.


sexual choice doesn't play into any of that.



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 11:28 am

skafather84 wrote:
first off, mother theresa was degenerate sadist so we won't talk about her acts of evil any more. and if you can't see why avoiding an elevator in a shelter for sick and dying people is a problem, you need to re-evalutate the world around you and your perceptions of it.


The issue I was attempting to raise was the issue of the issue of the greater good. Yes, it is true that you can say that Mother Theresa's Sisters of Mercy could have simply declined to proceed with their normal sacrifice of allowing all modern technologies. But on the other hand, they weren't simply weren't going to. The City of New York, at a time when homelessness was at it's heights, had an option to allow for an exception but decided that none could be allowed.

skafather84 wrote:
second: why is it a no brainer? i think gay couples should be allowed to adopt kids just like straight couples. i mean all i've ever seen against gay couples allowing to have kids is that either the parents will sexually abuse the child (which is an outright lie and a play off of people's bigotry against homosexuals) or that the kids would turn gay as a result of having gay parents (which is also an outright lie and a denial that sexual preference has more to do with genetics than who raised you).


I did not make either argument. In fact I would agree with you that sexuality has much to do with genetics, although choice plays a role as well. I don't think people are "set" into a role necessarily in every case. To deny that having two parents of the same sex would have any effect I think is rather naive, however, although again, I would not argue that it would "turn" them "gay."

Hoorahville wrote:
Churches get tax money? Can anybody point me in the direction of some examples of such? I'm not denying it happens, but I've never heard of it.


In the United Kingdom, the Church of England is the official state religion and gets state funds. In addition, members of the royal family are barred from marrying Catholics.

Jackel wrote:
Anything that you can claim gays do that make them bad parents, I can give you billions of examples of straight people comitting the same acts, child abuse, promiscuss sexual praticess, neglect, whatever.


Again, I did not claim that gays "make bad parents." I oppose adoption by homosexual couples however I would not make either argument.

Jackel wrote:
We've seen what special priviliges do, it just leads to sexual predators being quietly shuffled around instead of going to jail. The whole religious industry, and the chatholic church in peticular, has had special treatment for to long.


This wasn't the result of "special privileges" this was the result of illegal action.

Jackel wrote:
Just because a person thinks a lady can have a baby without sperm entering an egg


I know this will annoy people but I oppose in-vitro fertilization too.

Jackel wrote:
can't fathom the idea that jesus might have had a wife like all normal people doesn't make them better then anyone else in the world.


I'm agnostic, but who are you to define what is normal regardless what pop novelist Dan Brown might say?

Jackel wrote:
Homophobia needs to be hunted down and stopped out just like racism. There is plenty of evil in this world for people to hate and no need to make up reasons.


Define what you mean by "hunted down?"

Griff wrote:
Send them back to Rome! Boo! The Vatican is a rogue state, and everyone knows it!


Tolerance only works when it is practiced both ways.



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 11:31 am

Mithrandir wrote:
I am confused about the poll
Is voting Yes for against allowing of Gay adoption?


Forgive me.

Voting yes is not merely for allowing but for requiring. Voting no is for allowing an exemption. My apologies for the confusion.



Aspie_Chav
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07 Feb 2007, 12:48 pm

To my understand the act of fornication is like the act of gay sex it is a sin so should be treated equally. I assume that they are ok with unmarred couple who sleep in the same bed.



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 1:18 pm

Since we seem to be headed in this direction, I will link (link) to my comments on gay marriage, in which I touch on the adoption issue as well. This was in the recent "Liberal or Conservative (official poll)" topic. It's just easier then going all over it again. :)



skafather84
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07 Feb 2007, 1:59 pm

jimservo wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
first off, mother theresa was degenerate sadist so we won't talk about her acts of evil any more. and if you can't see why avoiding an elevator in a shelter for sick and dying people is a problem, you need to re-evalutate the world around you and your perceptions of it.


The issue I was attempting to raise was the issue of the issue of the greater good. Yes, it is true that you can say that Mother Theresa's Sisters of Mercy could have simply declined to proceed with their normal sacrifice of allowing all modern technologies. But on the other hand, they weren't simply weren't going to. The City of New York, at a time when homelessness was at it's heights, had an option to allow for an exception but decided that none could be allowed.



and they could have easily gone off their sacrifice to allow what is needed for the wheelchair bound. give up that "sacrifice" of modern technology and allow an elevator and they could help homeless people who could both walk and those who had problems with their legs.



seems kinda short sighted and full of garbage ideology that doesn't amount to positive productivity when put to the test. unless you consider an organization that is almost purely evangelical in nature to be positive.



Aspie_Chav
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07 Feb 2007, 2:01 pm

They will probably except gays concerning this issue. Christianity just like any other religion is flexi truth. Goes to explain why there are so many flavours of Christanity there is something for everyone.



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 2:28 pm

skafather84 wrote:
they could have easily gone off their sacrifice to allow what is needed for the wheelchair bound. give up that "sacrifice" of modern technology and allow an elevator and they could help homeless people who could both walk and those who had problems with their legs.


I don't have the information in front of me, and my web searches are coming up short. My information was based on something I read out of a book some time ago, The best I was able to find was this:

Quote:
In the winter of 1988, Mother Teresa's nuns of the Missionaries of Charity walked through the snow in New York's South Bronx in their saris and sandals looking for abandoned buildings to convert into homeless shelters. They found two, which New York offered them at $1 each. The nuns set aside $670,000 for the reconstruction, then, for a year-and-a-half, they went from hearing room to hearing room seeking approval for the project.

Providence, however, was no match for law. New York's building code requires a lift in all new or renovated multiple-storey buildings of his type. Installing a lift would add upwards of $130,000 to the cost. Mother Teresa didn't want to devote that much money to something that wouldn't really help the poor. But the nuns were told the law couldn't be waived even if a lift made no sense.

The plan for the shelter was abandoned. In a polite letter to the city, the nuns noted that the episode "served to educate us about the law and its many complexities."

What the law required offends common sense. After all, there are probably over 100,000 walk-up blocks of flats in New York. But the law, aspiring to the perfect abode, dictates a model home or no home.

Today (circa 1996), laws control much of Americans' lives: fixing potholes, running schools, regulating day-care centres and the workplace, cleaning up the environment — and deciding whether Mother Teresa gets a building permit.


(source link)

skafather84 wrote:
seems kinda short sighted and full of garbage ideology that doesn't amount to positive productivity when put to the test.


I don't believe in engaging in ideology. However, it seems just as ideological for a city to apply to apply to the law to hurt people so as to "apply no exceptions" (if not more so) as it is for a religious order to maintain a vow.

skafather84 wrote:
unless you consider an organization that is almost purely evangelical in nature to be positive.


I guess there isn't anything technicaly wrong with this statement, however being as the word evangelical is defined as...

: of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels
2 : PROTESTANT
3 : emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual
4 a capitalized : of or relating to the Evangelical Church in Germany b often capitalized : of, adhering to, or marked by fundamentalism : FUNDAMENTALIST c often capitalized : LOW CHURCH
5 : marked by militant or crusading zeal : EVANGELISTIC <the evangelical ardor of the movement's leaders -- Amos Vogel> (link to Merriam-Webster)


...it might be misleading to refer to The Sisters of Mercy as a evangelical organization in the same way it was misleading for time magazine to include Catholics in their lists of "leading Evangelicals."



skafather84
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07 Feb 2007, 2:38 pm

wikipedia wrote:
Some critics alleged that Mother Teresa and her followers accepted donations specifically earmarked for the sick and the poor, but that the funds were used for other purposes, particularly evangelism. Some of these complaints amount to accusations of fraud.

The Missionaries of Charity do not disclose either the sources of their funds or details of how they are spent. A 1998 article in the popular German Stern weekly quoted a witness account according to which the order received about US$50 million a year in donations on its New York account alone. Other journalists have given estimates of US$100 million a year for its global operations. Critics have argued that these sums far exceed the modest needs of the order.

Critics have also alleged that much of the money donated to the order is transferred to the Istituto per Opere Religiosi (colloquially known as the Vatican Bank) in Rome, where it is used by the Catholic Church for its general purposes, or is transferred to non-Christian countries for evangelical purposes.



if the organization has nothing to hide, they would readily volunteer where their money goes. for some reason, though, i doubt that they couldn't afford purchasing an elevator for the building.


again, is charity just for those who can walk?


as far as the semantics of evangelical


evangelical. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved February 07, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evangelical wrote:
e·van·gel·i·cal /ˌivænˈdʒɛlɪkəl, ˌɛvən-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ee-van-jel-i-kuhl, ev-uhn-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. Also, e·van·gel·ic. pertaining to or in keeping with the gospel and its teachings.
2. belonging to or designating the Christian churches that emphasize the teachings and authority of the Scriptures, esp. of the New Testament, in opposition to the institutional authority of the church itself, and that stress as paramount the tenet that salvation is achieved by personal conversion to faith in the atonement of Christ.
3. designating Christians, esp. of the late 1970s, eschewing the designation of fundamentalist but holding to a conservative interpretation of the Bible.
4. pertaining to certain movements in the Protestant churches in the 18th and 19th centuries that stressed the importance of personal experience of guilt for sin, and of reconciliation to God through Christ.
5. marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause.
–noun
6. an adherent of evangelical doctrines or a person who belongs to an evangelical church or party.



edit: see definition 5. i think context makes it clear enough which version of the word i'm looking to use....



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 3:04 pm

skafather84 wrote:
Some critics alleged that Mother Teresa and her followers accepted donations specifically earmarked for the sick and the poor, but that the funds were used for other purposes, particularly evangelism. Some of these complaints amount to accusations of fraud.

The Missionaries of Charity do not disclose either the sources of their funds or details of how they are spent. A 1998 article in the popular German Stern weekly quoted a witness account according to which the order received about US$50 million a year in donations on its New York account alone. Other journalists have given estimates of US$100 million a year for its global operations. Critics have argued that these sums far exceed the modest needs of the order.

Critics have also alleged that much of the money donated to the order is transferred to the Istituto per Opere Religiosi (colloquially known as the Vatican Bank) in Rome, where it is used by the Catholic Church for its general purposes, or is transferred to non-Christian countries for evangelical purposes.


I suppose it's possible that money donated to the Missionaries of Charity were transfered to the Vatican bank. If the money "far exceeded" the "modest needs" I suppose could I been transfered into the Church central accounts (rather then just left idle). Then again the Missionaries of Charity is not a tiny organization (link). There is also a large amount of Catholic charities, so it is likely that the money may have been spread around.

And yes, it is possible that the some money may have been move into the Church and used for promotion of the faith. If you want to call this fraud, fine. Did you know that when you donate money to secular charities, that money ends up branching out? For example, some money you donate to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation ends up being sent in turn to Planned Parenthood USA. There are countless other examples. I suppose this is fraud too.



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07 Feb 2007, 3:09 pm

jimservo wrote:
To draw it another way however, during the 1980s Mother Teresa's organization desired to open a shelter in New York City. However they did not include a plan for an elevator due to the fact they avoid modern technology as a sacrifice. The New York City building code requires a elevator on all builders that fall under that type of type. MT's org. requested a deferral. The city of New York refused. Again, what good is accomplished?


What I read Mother Teresa was not a nice person and her help for the poor did more harm than good.



skafather84
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07 Feb 2007, 3:10 pm

jimservo wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
Some critics alleged that Mother Teresa and her followers accepted donations specifically earmarked for the sick and the poor, but that the funds were used for other purposes, particularly evangelism. Some of these complaints amount to accusations of fraud.

The Missionaries of Charity do not disclose either the sources of their funds or details of how they are spent. A 1998 article in the popular German Stern weekly quoted a witness account according to which the order received about US$50 million a year in donations on its New York account alone. Other journalists have given estimates of US$100 million a year for its global operations. Critics have argued that these sums far exceed the modest needs of the order.

Critics have also alleged that much of the money donated to the order is transferred to the Istituto per Opere Religiosi (colloquially known as the Vatican Bank) in Rome, where it is used by the Catholic Church for its general purposes, or is transferred to non-Christian countries for evangelical purposes.


I suppose it's possible that money donated to the Missionaries of Charity were transfered to the Vatican bank. If the money "far exceeded" the "modest needs" I suppose could I been transfered into the Church central accounts (rather then just left idle). Then again the Missionaries of Charity is not a tiny organization (link). There is also a large amount of Catholic charities, so it is likely that the money may have been spread around.

And yes, it is possible that the some money may have been move into the Church and used for promotion of the faith. If you want to call this fraud, fine. Did you know that when you donate money to secular charities, that money ends up branching out? For example, some money you donate to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation ends up being sent in turn to Planned Parenthood USA. There are countless other examples. I suppose this is fraud too.



too poor to give out money to charities and i already know about branching out. i read up on it around the time of hurricane katrina when i found out that money donated to the red cross wouldn't necessarily go to katrina even if donated for that express reason.

but here's a question for you....you say that it goes from breast cancer to (un)planned parenthood....is planned parenthood trying to convert people to their religion and control them through the bible and alter?



skafather84
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07 Feb 2007, 3:12 pm

TheMachine1 wrote:
jimservo wrote:
To draw it another way however, during the 1980s Mother Teresa's organization desired to open a shelter in New York City. However they did not include a plan for an elevator due to the fact they avoid modern technology as a sacrifice. The New York City building code requires a elevator on all builders that fall under that type of type. MT's org. requested a deferral. The city of New York refused. Again, what good is accomplished?


What I read Mother Teresa was not a nice person and her help for the poor did more harm than good.


yeah...she was a sadist. she believed that others' and her own suffering brought her closer to god.



jimservo
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07 Feb 2007, 3:20 pm

EDIT: I screwed up here. So there.



Last edited by jimservo on 07 Feb 2007, 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.