Should the catholic church be asking schoolchildren to sign this petition?

But, don't you think, littlemo, that those were not marriages, whatever the people involved said? I bet they weren't recognised in law.

Totally inappropriate, but does not in the least surprise me.

Littlemo, you actually asked us why society should not accept these bizarre couplings if it accepts gay marriage. Are you now wishing to retract that question?
You say you may be old fashioned - yes, I think your thinking is out of date.
Nobody wants to force anyone into a gay marriage, or to force churches to conduct the service - what is being asked for is simple parity for all.

How absurd an extrapolation, but, again, not surprising.

I do agree Bags, those were obviously not marriages as we know them. But those were only a small part of my reasoning, just to help us think about it. I don't expect everyone to agree with me and I am willing to be convinced by anyone's reasoned arguement.
What about polygomy, is that okay? If we change what we see as marriage then I think we will lose something.

Greatnan, at no time did I mention anyone being forced into gay marriage. I have stated my belief that there are good, loving relationships between same sex couples and that these should be valued and respected by society. You seem to be misunderstanding my point. I agree with parity for all, we can be as I said equal but different, just as we hope that men and women can be equal but different.

littlemo How do the actions of a clearly deranged francophile help us to think about gay marriage? And why do we need help in the first place?

I think you have missed my point, Littlemo. I was trying to point out that if you did not wish to engage in a gay marriage, nobody was going to force you. Homosexual couples are merely asking for the same freedom as heterosexual couples. Yes, they can have a civil partnership and we keep being told it is no different from marriage - then why not call it marriage?
I don't buy that 'equal but different' line either - it is used by many religions to justify treating women as second class members. Homosexuals don't want to be different - they want to be treated exactly the same as other people.
It seems to me that many of the 'reasons' for opposing gay marriage given by some people are covering covert homophobia.
It is particularly ironic for the catholic church to be laying down the law about any sexual matters, given its appalling record of abuse.

Apparently most homosexuals couldn't care less about 'marriage' being made legal for them, they're quite happy with the way things are. Who exactly is it who's insisting that the law be changed?

Apparently? Who says? Does it matter if only one couple wants equality?

I probably read it in the Mail online, Greatnan! .

If only one couple wanted equality, I would question the wisdom of changing the law just to accommodate them, yes. I'm not against it, per se, I just don't see why it's suddenly become such an important issue.

Definitely agree with Greatnan with both of the last two posts. Many people do not want to marry, should we ban marriage for all. We will look back at this discrimination in the future and think how strange that it took so long to give equal rights to all Do we all have equality or not. Obviously not!

Surely it is up to the people concerned to decide if it is an important issue - it may not be important to some but I don't think the law should have to wait until a certain number of people want it changed.
I expect people said the same kind of thing about abolishing slavery, because some slaves seemed to be happy.

That's hardly a fair comparison.

And yes, I agree that it is up to the people concerned to decided if it is an important issue - which is the point I made in the first place. But it seems to be other groups of people who are arguing on their behalf - whether they want it or not.

Greatrnan, I think we'll have to agree to differ. No matter what I say I seem to end up as homophobic, which I am not, even covertly. Not everyone who argues against gay marriage is homophobic! It seems to me to be an easy way of trying to score points and cloud the issue I was trying to discuss. I agree with you Anagram.

I certainly did not accuse you of being homophobic but I am willing to agree to differ.
I have seen several gay people discussing their feelings of exclusion so I don't know how it can be concluded that this 'issue' is being raised by other groups on their behalf.
My original post asked if it was appropriate for young children to be asked to sign a petition, presumably without the consent of their parents. Nothing you have said has convinced me that it was the right thing to do.

Greatnan, you also stated that they were asking pupils, some as young as 11, to sign the petition, but as littlemo pointed out, the petition gives a clear stipulation that no child under the age of 16 may sign.

I bet they are indoctrinated under the age of sixteen though.

I had to go to bed in mid debate last night -we are an hour ahead of you!
It appears the letter from the archbishops was read out to the whole school, so even if the under-16's were not asked to sign, they were still subjected to it.
I did not intend to start a discussion on the desirabiity of giving homosexual couples exact parity with others, (we have already had a thread on that subject), just to ask what people thought about the letter being read out to children. However, threads wander where they will and we would not have it any other way!

I once sat with a group of teachers to watch a sex ed dvd brought in by the school nurse. We had to watch it because we had been told that it showed a condom machine and we had to decide if it was appropriate as RC children are not taught about contraception. The machine was only in the background for about 10 seconds so we agreed the dvd could be shown.

Pathetic...yes....we thought so too.

Forgot to add on above post.....we indoctrinate our children not only by what we teach but by what we omit to teach.

understand that a pupil at one RC school has made a formal complaint to the local education department about how the letter was presented by the Head because the pupil felt it was discriminatory. Do not know details but will scan papers to see if it gets anywhere! I would have thought that the Religious Studies lessons in a RC school would have made the church doctrine clear so not sure why additional letter needed!

Vampire Queen - I don't think I have undersrtood your point. A group of teachers was shown a video which could be used in sex education. Were they shocked, upset, surprised?

My answer to the original question is - of course it is inappropriate. Children could feel afraid to refuse to sign, in case they are taken to task. And what use is such a petition, if many of the people signing it are children? Utterly ridiculous.

I'm sick of churches ignoring modern science. Medical science teaches us that a person's sexuality is inborn not chosen, so their discrimination against gays is as illogical as it would be to discriminate against me for being a short dark-haired woman. I was born with the genes that made me this way, just as gays are born the way they are.

Religion. Catholicism. Religious celibate men in long frocks. Grrrrr to the lot of them.