From: People For Peace <ppa@africaonline.co.ke>
Date: Sun, May 6, 2012 at 11:40 PM
Subject: Regional News
To: People For Peace <ppa@africaonline.co.ke>
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SAME SEX MARRIAGE DEBATE SAGA AS WORLD MARKS FAMILY DAY
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, MAY 7, 2012
International Day of Families will be celebrated on May, 15, 2012. Pope Benedict XVI has chosen May for his general prayer intention for the family. "That initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society."
The family day was proclaimed in 1994 by the United Nations. This was a response to changing social and economic structures, which have affected and still affect the structure and stability of family units in many regions of the globe, especially in developing worlds.
Same sex wedding- The Pope has always repeated his stand on protection of the traditional family values as opposed to liberal family values which are threatening the future of humanity, in a veiled reference to homosexual marriage and adoptions by gay couples/ File
Pope Benedict has always turned his attention to the family, encouraging church members to help couples in crisis and reaffirming church teaching that marriage between a man and a woman is the only legitimate basis for family life.
The Pope has always repeated his stand on protection of the traditional family values as opposed to liberal family values which are threatening the future of humanity, in a veiled reference to homosexual marriage and adoptions by gay couples.
Pope Benedict is concerned that our families are being torn apart by the secularization of society. Secularization erodes our consensus on fundamental values. For example, love between a man and a woman, Pope Benedict says "is reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life."
He asserts that the family is the "place and resource of the culture of life and factor of integration of values" (Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2007); hence it must be the object of the "greatest protection and assistance possible of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Marriage between a man and a woman he says must be preserved because it protects parents, children and the whole of society. Policies which undermine the family he says threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.
In
It explains why in October 2009, when two Kenyan men,
Charles Ngengi and Daniel Chege,
became civil partners at a ceremony in
It explains further why in February 2010 when rumor spread in the coastal town of
Juliana and Esther Soi married in the early 1990s-the aim is begetting children for the childless woman/ File
Although it could be argued that in
Juliana married according to their age-old tradition, where if a woman was not lucky enough to have her own children, she got another woman to honour her with children.
This customary arrangement – practised among
While in the West the focus is on same sex marriage, in Africa the family is being undermined by violence, Aids and poverty despite the fact that African family is usually the major source of the basic necessities of life and health; love and tenderness, adequate food, clean water, a place and time for rest, clothing and sanitation, to the extent made possible by socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions.
The family is responsible for the care and up-bringing of all children. It is a cohesive unit which ideally provides economic [land for farming etc] social and psychological security to all its members.
Although the mother has a fundamental responsibility for child rearing and development, it is shared among all members of the family. There are many mothers for a child. Thus the African Child usually develops a strong sense of social responsibility from his earliest years and learns to be respectful, responsible, and supportive member his extended family.
Marriage within the traditional social system has a relatively high degree of stability. This is mainly due to the fact that marriage is considered not as between two individual per se, but mainly between two extended families who consent to the union.
Even though urbanization and modernization have placed heavy burdens on families who still shoulder socio-economic responsibilities of the extended family, which is not as easy as in the past to provide children with the same amount of care and attention they automatically receive in the extended family set-up, African traditional values are still very strong.
Children attend the mass on the feast of
It is this value that has enabled children to respect God through their parents and community at large. Many children in the urban set up still go to church, unlike in the West where churches are almost becoming old people affair.
Although Aids is still a major problem in
Pope’s argument is based on the fact that condoms promote promiscuity and thus increase the risk of disease. He says condoms tend to give a sense of freedom to be sexually reckless, and that is a major cause of the spread of HIV/Aids.
Roughly 22 million people in sub-Saharan
People for
Peace in Africa (PPA)
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