My wife and I have been happily married for more than thirty years now. We’ve helped each other out through thick and thin, including years of cancer treatments and a current handicap because of it. We’ve never needed counseling, never cheated, and never separated. I’d like to think we are an example of what all good, loving marriages should be.
So imagine my surprise when I discover that, according to Catholic League president Bill Donohue, our marriage is a sham because we have no children. “The whole purpose of marriage is to have a family,” he said, while arguing against gay marriage. “It’s not about making people happy. It’s not about love.”
This would apparently include those who get married later in life, past child-bearing age — so for all of you seniors who are reading this: Forget about marriage. Love, according to the Catholic League, has nothing to do with it. You are doomed to live the rest of your life sad and alone if you wish to be a good Catholic, apparently.
From what I can see, plenty of kids are being born now without parents being married at all. Somehow, that happens. Apparently, being married doesn’t seem to have anything to do with that.
I do admit that I am confused by those who stand Grinch-like above it all, sneering down haughtily while trying to prevent others from having joy. Why does it hurt these Grinches in the slightest? What, does someone else’s happiness cause you pain? Shouldn’t we be encouraging happy couples in stable relationships?
But what do I know? My marriage is apparently a scam.
ventrellaquest.com 
Or we could ignore fundamentalists of all stripes. I think that would lead to a much better outcome.
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Nicely said. My husband and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary later this year; we’ve been together for 33 years. We have a happy, strong marriage much like yours — except we’ve not had to face the enormous challenge of cancer. We don’t have kids, but have had many, many fur-babies over the years.
This guy is an idiot. Without knowing anything about his personal circumstances, I would guess he’s projecting his personal definition of the purpose of marriage. It sounds like what someone in an unhappy marriage has to tell themselves daily in order to stay in it (‘for the kids’). (I know the biology argument is marshalled to ‘prove’ gay marriage is unnatural, but the whole ‘not about love, not about happiness’ makes it sound like a personal mantra.)
These folk would do well to study the actual history of the church and its position on marriage over the centuries. Not only did the church originally not want to have anything to do with performing marriages at all, they’ve also participated in blessing many a gay marriage as well.
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The rest of his sex ideas are from the dark ages, why not marriage, there’s some sex in that? You marry a woman that benefits you in some way and have sex with whomever you wish. That’s why there are Jesus crackers. They’re like colon-cleanse for the soul. Why does it hurt him for everyone to have a happy marriage? That’s really simple: he’s a Paulist. He doesn’t love his religion, he follows the teachings of the woman hating murder, Paul, and the cowardly liar, Peter. He uses Jesus because nobody likes the teachings of the other two. Religion dictates your life, therefore Paulists are incapable of happiness. Everything pisses him off and he will search the bible for an out of context quote to make it stop and when it doesn’t stop from pointing it out he’ll attack. Like Cujo after he was bitten by the bat. The man is in pain and you are hurting him.
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Mike, you have my full support on this one. What a ridiculous attitude. Clearly you and Heidi have a legitimate marriage – it is not a sham. This whole attitude toward “traditional marriage” is dumb, dumb, dumb. (No children, or lacking intention to have children, does not determine the validity of your marriage, obviously.)
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And what about couples who marry but are infertile for some reason? Are their marriages invalid, too? If you concieve but have multiple miscarriages and never have a live baby, do you get points for trying?
This is one reason I left the Catholic church–their complete and total tone-deafness and diregard for any people that fall outside their narrow definition of who is an acceptable Catholic (and therefore an acceptable human being).
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Be fruitful and multiply. That is what the Bible says.
Wanna know why?
Because at the time it was written (mega BC), the Jewish population was dangerously thin and the rabbis were understandably worried it would get thinner.
That is what it is about.
It is NOT some holy commandment from God that gets parlayed into some sort of societal obligation to have as many children as possible, although the religious zealots would like you to think it does.
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