Gay marriage/Infertile parent(s)

[Skol Vikings]

To start out, I am a 100% believer in that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman in terms of social issues and also because of my religious beliefs, but I happen to have a few friends that are gay and when we debate the topic of gay marriage they always tell me that gay marriage is the same thing as a man or a woman who are infertile getting married, so what's the difference? I never really know how to respond to it better than "because it is a sacrament for a man and a woman"... to that they say "that's an excuse you need to quit hiding behind, blah blah blah, the time has come to accept us, etc..."
I was wondering if anyone on here had some better answers or responses to that question, and some in depth insight as well would be appreciated if you have it haha...

[MidnightSun12]

Well, according to that logic then any couple over the age of 60 that can't have children due to natural menopause would be the moral equivalent of two gay people committing sodomy??

Can anybody say for certain that a married couple who are naturally infertile cannot become fertile some day later down the road? There are stories in the bible (and in real life) where couples who are barren miracously concieve children. On the other hand, I can say with absolute certainty that a homosexual union never have and never will be able to create children.

That said, married couples who decide to intentionally steralize themselves are a completely different matter, entirely, as they are dis-ordering their marriage in much a similar way that a same-sex union is disordered...

[JNdoum]

Besides what the previous poster said, the infertile couple, unlike the married couple, is not naturally inclined to never have children. They are naturally suited to each other, man to woman, and if all were working as it should be, they normally could conceive a child. However, a man and a man or a woman and a woman could not conceive a child together no matter what the circumstance was. They are not naturally suited to one another, and their union is not natural. Sometimes it just boils down to that.

[St Francis]

This may sound crazy, but back in the 70's, when big cars were enormous, I watched as a tow truck brought a Cadillac off a beach. Yes, someone driving a humongous Cadillac drove it onto the beach.

Now, if the tow truck had been bringing a 4-wheel drive vehicle off the beach, then we would know that the driver had driven his car appropriately, but that the vehicle had broken down.

However, with the Cadillac, we knew the driver had done the wrong thing with his car. He had abused his car. he had taken into consideration his own wishes over the reality of his car, which was that it was a Cadillac and not a Jeep.

Your friends probably will not understand this. They think of their bodies as their own, sexual activity as their right, and their souls they ignore.

There are some things Catholic which can be explained, I can explain to someone the Catholic idea of marriage, of our bodies and souls and relationship to God, and I can show how this all fits together to form a coherent whole system of thought, but what I cannot do is to defend the Catholic views using only a secular philosophical basis. Your friends are starting from Los Angeles, you are starting from New York. They do not understand your directions to go west in order to reach Kansas City if they think that you are in Los Angeles.

[JimG]

The difference is that an infertile heterosexual couple are not incapable of marital relations. Homosexual couples are a priori incapable of marital relations. Sexual complementarity is required to engage in marital relations, which are the physical aspect bonding a man and wife.