Religious Backgrounds
My Religious Background I am catholic. I was raised by catholic parents who were raised by catholic parents. Even all of my great grandparents except for one couple were catholic, and beyond that I have no idea. My Grandpa was the only one who was not raised catholic, but converted soon after he married my Grandmother and is buried in a catholic cemetery. I have always agreed with everything that The Catholic Church has taught me, but I feel like that may be because I have never known any other belief.
I have been in Catholic school since kindergarten and rarely learned about other religions other than how they differed from my own faith. The only two things I can think of that I may disagree with The Catholic Church on are really more political matters than they are matters of God. For instance, it is taught that a marriage is not complete without the act of sex. For a marriage to be valid under God, the couple must have sex. When I heard this, I immediately thought about men who have been paralyzed from the waist down who would not have this opportunity.
When I asked my teacher about that situation she said that the marriage was invalid due to the situation, but that there may be drugs out there that could help the situation. That was something I couldn’t believe. It made me feel like we were ousting them from the church because they were paralyzed. It seems to me that these men have been through enough trouble in their lives and shouldn’t need anyone’s permission to marry a woman who they are to fall in love with. The other concept I disagreed with was the idea of same-sex marriage.
Maybe it is just that I have issues with marriage in general, but I feel like two people who love each other should be able to marry legally. Now, that being said, I do agree with the church that it is not necessarily what God had in mind, and I do not really feel comfortable saying that I think God is “in favor” of same-sex marriage, but I would like to see the church say that legally same sex couples should be able to marry. I imagine the reason I feel this way could be because my aunt is a homosexual and is legally married to her life-partner and they are very happy.
I believe they were married in Illinois, but do not quote me on that. It just bothered me that they had to travel all that way to get legally bonded and it is not even valid in the state they live in. In other words, I agree with the church on the concept that they shouldn’t be married under God, but I see no reason that two people who really do truly love each other cannot be bonded together and share the same benefits that couples of the opposite sex share in marriage.
