I think I agree with this piece (I say "think" because there's a lot here to mull over and digest).

I've long thought that one can affirm the traditional Christian teaching on the immorality of homosexual conduct while also acknowledging the truly terrible and uncharitable bigotry that Christians have unfortunately directed at homosexual persons.

Case in point: When I was at college in the early 1990s a guy lived in the dorm room next to me who was quite vocal about his faith. He remarked frequently that homosexuality was wrong and that gay people were on the road to Hell. He regularly made comments that were very antagonistic to gay people. OK - fair enough. But I also knew (thin walls!) that he had sex with his "steady" girlfriend who went to college in another town most weekends when she visited him, and that he had sex with another girl from the local community frequently during the week in between these visits.

Another case in point: Gay teenagers being kicked out of their homes by their Christian parents is an all-too-common phenomenon. But I'd wager that straight teenagers who are caught by their parents having sex with their boyfriends/girlfriends are almost never kicked out of their homes.

But any orthodox theology that concludes that homosexual conduct is wrong would by neccessity have to conclude that heterosexual fornication is wrong. And yet, as Christians, we have often failed to treat these sins with anywhere close to the same level of seriousness and moral gravity. Which suggests to me that the passion directed against homosexual conduct is only part based on theological orthodoxy, while being partly (maybe mostly?) based on an uncharitable loathing of people who are out of the mainstream.

In current political terms - I don't think we should legalize gay marriage. But I'll admit that I have a very hard time mustering much passion for the issue. Because quite frankly I think FAR more good could be done by bringing back laws against adultery and eliminating no-fault divorce than by banning gay marriage. But try to get Christians to rally for either of those causes!

Good article. Which New Testament translation was used for the Romans passage?

He refers to “filthy enjoyments,” “degrading passions,” “shameless things,” and “monstrous behaviors”

I don't read this as 'emotional language' at all but an objective description.

The distinction between theological response and pastoral response is a point very well taken. From what I've read, the group "Courage" combines well both these responses.
There are also external obstacles that the Church has to face. One is the conviction, widespread in our culture among all types of people and not just homosexuals, that the only way to affirm a person is to affirm all his activities, at least those that are particularly significant for him. This means that a person will not even be open to the full theological and pastoral response of the Church unless he can first come to see that a person is more than what he does, that his identity as a person is something deeper than what he does.

Melinda Selmys: You write”. . . there is a very real difference between homosexuality as it was generally practiced in St. Paul’s time, and homosexuality as it is generally practiced today—not in order that the whole cloth of Christian sexual teaching can be quietly unraveled, but in order to develop a pastoral approach that is appropriate in a modern context.”

St. Ignatius of Antioch urges males and females to present themselves to the Bishop that the Bishop may determine if they are marrying for love rather than lust. Does it follow, from your conclusion, that heterosexuality practices are markedly different between contemporary and St. Ignatius’ milieu such that the Church must develop a different pastoral response to heterosexuality?

Sex between two persons, outside marriage, is just a poorly-attended orgy. Call it whatever you want, but don't call it marriage and don't call it Christian. Sometimes the best pastoral response is, "It's wrong. Knock it off."

Zeal for His father's temple consumed him.

How much zeal should we, His followers, have for the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Paul's inspired writings show one kind of zeal. I don't think Ms. Selmys shows zeal for anything other than a desire to distinguish herself from Paul (and other "mean" Christians).

This is an interesting argument, but it wrongly assumes that negative emotional reactions to homosexual practice are unloving.

For St. Paul, the negative emotional reaction when encountering homosexual practice (or lawsuits between believers, or having sexual relations with one's mother, etc.) is entirely appropriate, corresponding to the ugliness and destructiveness of moral disorder. It is not, as argued here, merely a cultural prejudice along the lines of "girls have cooties." It is similar to the legitimacy of disgust (expressed in different degrees) in the face of fathers having sexual relations with daughters, animal cruelty, bestiality, rape, murder, personal belittlement, sadism, inconsiderate behavior, no-fault divorce and re-marriage, etc.

Sure, the appropriate response in a private, one-on-one pastoral meeting would not be to wince in disgust and run in the opposite direction, but the presence of the emotional reaction is healthy even when it is legitimately tempered by compassion and the particular circumstances of relationship.

So while I agree that a pastoral response should involve tempering of emotional responses in compassion and humility (since no one is without sin), in no way should that practice serve to de-legitimate the health of negative emotional responses to homosexual practice to begin with. And neither should this compassionate tempering of emotions (in any situation when encountering sin) be grounded on St. Paul's supposed cultural prejudice when he explicitly roots his theological AND emotional response with respect to sexual morality in the moral order of Creation. Splitting off the "emotional" response from the "theological" response is unreasonable in this case.

Can our pastoral responses be better? Yes. Should they be grounded upon a splitting of Pauline theology and ethics, rejecting emotional norms? I would say no.

I think I am seeing hostility here toward Melinda Selmys and her concern for a pastoral approach to gay people. It has seemed to me for a long time that the model for the Catholic Church for pastoral care of gay people should be the divorced and remarried. Specifically, I would recommend reading John Paul II's address to the Pontifical Council for the Family of January 1997.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1997/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19970124_plenaria-pc-family_en.html

In the eyes of the Catholic Church, the sacramentally married, civilly divorced, and civilly remarried Catholic couple is in much the same situation as the same-sex couple. True, the remarried couple has one way (a possible annulment of the first marriage) to "regularize" their situation that the same-sex couple does not, but not every marriage can be annulled (not even in the United States!).

The divorced and remarried couple is called to attend mass and participate in parish life, but it is made clear to them that they may not receive communion. It seems to me this would be appropriate for the same-sex couple. Assuming that neither the divorced and remarried couple or the same-sex couple is attempting to convince others in the church that they are correct and church teaching on remarriage or homosexuality is wrong, I fail to see why they should not be treated very similarly. To treat single gay people or gay couples differently from divorced individuals or divorced and remarried couples cannot, it seems to me, be justified on any reasonable grounds, and consequently is homophobia.

“It is also important for modern Christians to understand that there is a very real difference between homosexuality as it was generally practiced in St. Paul’s time, and homosexuality as it is generally practiced today—not in order that the whole cloth of Christian sexual teaching can be quietly unraveled, but in order to develop a pastoral approach that is appropriate in a modern context.”

The more theology is informed by the pastoral the better, and I agree that general homosexual practice today differs from general past practice, especially in Paul’s era. However, modern homosexual practice is making clearer and clearer that homosexuality in and of itself simply isn’t sinful. The other behaviors that homosexuals have practiced in the past and even in the present have clearly been sinful in and of themselves, but general homosexual practice today is, as Selmys suggests, benign.

Some months back, Joe Carter mocked the New Hampshire lesbian tending her organic garden, but his portrait shows just how harmless even the enemies of homosexuality consider many homosexuals. Most of us have neighbors, coworkers, or family members who are homosexual and who otherwise live modest lives just like ours.

The ordinariness of contemporary homosexual life is especially evident in the homosexual members of the Methodist reconciling congregation where I worship. Our discussions of fidelity and childrearing differ not at all from the discussions had in previous churches I attended where gay members remained hidden.

A conversation about what really matters in sexual morality is long past due.

Same sex attraction as a disordered form of idolatry strikes me as an accurate and useful definition. It gives St. Paul's writings relevance for the unchurched 21st Century reader. In addition, it prompts a fresh venue from where one might engage a loved one to pursue chastity in the spirit of genuine charity.
As Christians, we need more tools to redirect the conversation in a way that will encourage the afflicted to set aside a lifestyle destined for emptiness.

At the end of the Day, any sexual act that demeans the inherent Dignity of the human person, is not an act of Love to begin with.

Unfortunately for Melinda Selmys, First Things is about the last place she could have picked to find readers who were open to her very reasonable interpretation of Paul and her compassionate approach to homosexuality. I have quoted from Frank J. Matera's book _Romans_ (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament) a number of times before, and it's always worth another look. I think it will please Ms. Selmys' (assuming she has not seen it before) and offend those who take issue with her, and if so, I will be glad.

---------------------------------
. . . .Paul’s own attitude toward these sexual relationships, be they between adults and minors or between adults and adults, is clear.

The more difficult question today is the hermeneutical issue: What is the authority of Paul’s remark about such relations. For some, this is not and issue. For others, the text raises questions about a phenomenon whose biological and social origins are not fully understood. In my view, further discussion will do well to recognize the following.

• First, Paul’s own position about same-sex relations is clear.
• Second, the example of same-sex relations plays a rhetorical role in Paul’s argument in Romans, and his discussion of such relations is not the main point of the passage.
• Third, while Paul opposed such relationships, they do not otherwise play a significant role in his writings. Other forms of behavior such as greed and strife are condemned more regularly.
• Fourth, Paul’s discussion of same-sex relations occurs in a context that emphasizes all are under the power of sin and have fallen short of God’s glory (3:9, 23). Consequently, no one is in a position to condemn others, for all are in need of God’s saving grace. The most prudent course of action in the present time, then, is to treat all with compassion, aware that only God is in a position to judge another person.
---------------------------------
(I have broken the text into paragraphs and added bullets for readability.)

By the way—and if memory serves me, Matera brings this up himself—were the Romans really *that* bad? I don't think so!

Apologies for running on, but one more thought…
What other practice, in addition to homosexuality, has been pasteurized by modernity and should no longer be considered sinful? Alas the crutch of relativism can infuse even the most fruitful exchange. In the Gospel reading this Sunday Jesus teaches us that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of heaven ahead of the chief priests and elders. This dynamic is only possible because in the Father’s wisdom, the weight of our sins help lead us back to God. As Christians, humility and obedience to our vocation help us evangelize by example. Do not become an obstacle to the salvation of those acting on homosexual urges by redefining the disorder to suit modern sensibilities.

A timeless essay on the issue:

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9403/articles/homo.html

Behavior is a practice, not a person, and no State or person has the Right to coerce any person(s) to condone the engaging in or affirmation of any type of sexual behavior that does not respect the inherent Dignity of the human person. To discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior is to discriminate against a practice, not a person.

Homosexual behavior is a phenomenon with a long history, to which there have been various cultural and moral responses. But today in our public life there is something new, a novum, which demands our attention and deserves a careful moral response.

The new thing is a movement that variously presents itself as an appeal for compassion, as an extension of civil rights to minorities, and as a cultural revolution. The last of these seems to us the best description of the phenomenon; indeed, that is what its most assertive and passionate defenders say it is. The Nation, for example, asserts (May 3, 1993): "All the crosscurrents of present-day liberation struggles are subsumed in the gay struggle. The gay moment is in some ways similar to the moment that other communities have experienced in the nation's past, but it is also something more, because sexual identity is in crisis throughout the population, and gay people-at once the most conspicuous subjects and objects of the crisis-have been forced to invent a complete cosmology to grasp it. No one says the changes will come easily. But it's just possible that a small and despised sexual minority will change America forever."

Although some date "the movement" from the "Stonewall Riot" of June 1969, we have more recently witnessed a concerted and intense campaign, in the media and in leading cultural institutions, to advance the gay and lesbian cause. Despite the fact that the Jewish and Christian traditions have, in a clear and sustained manner, judged homosexual behavior to be morally wrong, this campaign has not left our religious communities unaffected. The great majority of Americans have been surprised, puzzled, shocked, and sometimes outraged by this movement for radical change. At the same time, the movement has attracted considerable support from heterosexual Americans who accept its claim to be the course of social justice and tolerance.

We share a measure of ambivalence and confusion regarding this remarkable insurgency in our common life. We do not present ourselves as experts on the subject of homosexuality. We are committed Christians and Jews and we try to be thoughtful citizens. In this statement, we do our best to respond to the claims made by the gay and lesbian movement and to form a moral judgment regarding this new thing in our public life.

We are not a "representative group" of Americans, nor are we sure what such a group would look like. No group can encompass the maddening and heartening diversity of sex, race, class, cultural background, and ideological disposition that is to be found among the American people. We are who we are. As such, we offer this product of our study, reflection, and conversation in the hope that others may find it helpful.

Our aim is to present arguments that are public in character and accessible to all reasonable persons. In doing so, we draw readily on the religious and moral traditions that have shaped our civilization and our own lives. We are confident that arguments based, inter alia, on religious conviction and insight cannot legitimately be excluded from public discourse in a democratic society.

In discussing homosexuality, homosexuals, and the gay and lesbian movement, it is necessary to make certain distinctions. Homosexuality is sometimes considered a matter of sexual "orientation," referring to those whose erotic desires are predominantly or exclusively directed to members of the same sex. Many such persons live lives of discipline and chastity. Others act upon their homosexual orientation through homogenital acts. Many in this second group are "in the closet," although under the pressure of the current movement, they may be uneasy about that distinction between public and private. Still another sector of the homosexual population is public about its orientation and behavior and insists that a gay "lifestyle" be not simply tolerated but affirmed. These differences account for some of the tensions within the "movement." Some aim at "mainstreaming" homosexuality, while others declare their aim to be cultural, moral, and political revolution.

We confront, therefore, a movement of considerable complexity, and we must respect the diversity to be found among our homosexual fellow citizens and fellow believers. Some want no more than help and understanding in coping with what they view as their problem; others ask no more than that they be left alone.

The new thing, the novum, is a gay and lesbian movement that aggressively proposes radical changes in social behavior, religion, morality, and law. It is important to distinguish public policy considerations from the judgment of particular individuals. Our statement is directed chiefly to debates over public policy and what should be socially normative. We share the uneasiness of most Americans with the proposals advanced by the gay and lesbian movement, and we seek to articulate reasons for the largely intuitive and pre-articulate anxiety of most Americans regarding homosexuality and its increasing impact on our public life.

II. New Thing/Old Thing: The Sexual Revolution

While the gay and lesbian movement is indeed a new thing, its way was prepared by, and it is in large part a logical extension of, what has been called the "sexual revolution." The understanding of marriage and family once considered normative is very commonly dishonored in our society and, too frequently, in our communities of faith. Religious communities and leaderships have been, and in too many cases remain, deeply complicit in the demeaning of social norms essential to human flourishing.

Thus moral criticism of the homosexual world and movement is unbalanced, unfair, and implausible if it is not, at the same time, criticism of attitudes and behaviors that have debased heterosexual relations. The gay and lesbian insurgency has raised a sharp moral challenge to the hypocrisy and decadence of our culture. In the light of widespread changes in sexual mores, some homosexuals understandably protest that the sexual license extended to "straights" cannot be denied to them.

We believe that any understanding of sexuality, including heterosexuality, that makes it chiefly an arena for the satisfaction of personal desire is harmful to individuals and society. Any way of life that accepts or encourages sexual relations for pleasure or personal satisfaction alone turns away from the disciplined community that marriage is intended to engender and foster. Religious communities that have in recent decades winked at promiscuity (even among the clergy), that have solemnly repeated marriage vows that their own congregations do not take seriously, and that have failed to concern themselves with the devastating effects of divorce upon children cannot with integrity condemn homosexual behavior unless they are also willing to reassert the heterosexual norm more believably and effectively in their pastoral care. In other words, those determined to resist the gay and lesbian movement must be equally concerned for the renewal of integrity, in teaching and practice, regarding "traditional sexual ethics."

It is a testimony to the perduring role of religion in American life that many within the gay and lesbian movement seek the blessing of religious institutions. The movement correctly perceives that attaining such formal approbation-through, for example, the content and style of seminary education and the ordination of practicing homosexuals-will give it an effective hold upon the primary institutions of moral legitimation in our popular culture. The movement also correctly perceives that our churches and synagogues have typically been inarticulate and unpersuasive in offering reasons for withholding the blessing that is sought.

One reason for the discomfort of religious leaders in the face of this new movement is the past and continuing failure to offer supportive and knowledgeable pastoral care to persons coping with the problems of their homosexuality. Without condoning homogenital acts, it is necessary to recognize that many such persons are, with fear and trembling, seeking as best they can to live lives pleasing to God and in service to others. Confronted by the vexing ambiguities of eros in human life, religious communities should be better equipped to support people in their struggle, recognizing that we all fall short of the vocation to holiness of life.

The sexual revolution is motored by presuppositions that can and ought to be effectively challenged. Perhaps the key presupposition of the revolution is that human health and flourishing require that sexual desire, understood as a "need," be acted upon and satisfied. Any discipline of denial or restraint has been popularly depicted as unhealthy and dehumanizing. We insist, however, that it is dehumanizing to define ourselves, or our personhood as male and female, by our desires alone. Nor does it seem plausible to suggest that what millennia of human experience have taught us to regard as self-command should now be dismissed as mere repression.

At the same time that the place of sex has been grotesquely exaggerated by the sexual revolution, it has also been trivialized. The mysteries of human sexuality are commonly reduced to matters of recreation or taste, not unlike one's preferences in diet, dress, or sport. This peculiar mix of the exaggerated and the trivialized makes it possible for the gay and lesbian movement to demand, simultaneously, a respect for what is claimed to be most importantly and constitutively true of homosexuals, and tolerance for what is, after all, simply a difference in "lifestyle."

It is important to recognize the linkages among the component parts of the sexual revolution. Permissive abortion, widespread adultery, easy divorce, radical feminism, and the gay and lesbian movement have not by accident appeared at the same historical moment. They have in common a declared desire for liberation from constraint-especially constraints associated with an allegedly oppressive culture and religious tradition. They also have in common the presuppositions that the body is little more than an instrument for the fulfillment of desire, and that the fulfillment of desire is the essence of the self. On biblical and philosophical grounds, we reject this radical dualism between the self and the body. Our bodies have their own dignity, bear their own truths, and are participant in our personhood in a fundamental way.

This constellation of movements, of which the gay movement is part, rests upon an anthropological doctrine of the autonomous self. With respect to abortion and the socialization of sexuality, this anthropology has gone a long way toward entrenching itself in the jurisprudence of our society as well as in popular habits of mind and behavior. We believe it is a false doctrine that leads neither to individual flourishing nor to social well-being.

III. The Heterosexual Norm

Marriage and the family-husband, wife, and children, joined by public recognition and legal bond-are the most effective institutions for the rearing of children, the directing of sexual passion, and human flourishing in community. Not all marriages and families "work," but it is unwise to let pathology and failure, rather than a vision of what is normative and ideal, guide us in the development of social policy.

Of course many today doubt that we can speak of what is normatively human. The claim that all social institutions and patterns of behavior are social constructions that we may, if we wish, alter without harm to ourselves is a proposal even more radical in origin and implication than the sexual revolution. That the institutions of marriage and family are culturally conditioned and subject to change and development no one should doubt, but such recognition should not undermine our ability to discern patterns of community that best serve human well-being. Judaism and Christianity did not invent the heterosexual norm, but these faith traditions affirm that norm and can open our eyes to see in it important truths about human life.

Fundamental to human life in society is the creation of humankind as male and female, which is typically and paradigmatically expressed in the marriage of a man and a woman who form a union of persons in which two become one flesh-a union which, in the biblical tradition, is the foundation of all human community. In faithful marriage, three important elements of human life are made manifest and given support.

(1) Human society extends over time; it has a history. It does so because, through the mysterious participation of our procreative powers in God's own creative work, we transmit life to those who will succeed us. We become a people with a shared history over time and with a common stake in that history. Only the heterosexual norm gives full expression to the commitment to time and history evident in having and caring for children.

(2) Human society requires that we learn to value difference within community. In the complementarity of male and female we find the paradigmatic instance of this truth. Of course, persons may complement each other in many different ways, but the complementarity of male and female is grounded in, and fully embraces, our bodies and their structure. It does not sever the meaning of the person from bodily life, as if human beings were simply desire, reason, or will. The complementarity of male and female invites us to learn to accept and affirm the natural world from which we are too often alienated.

Moreover, in the creative complementarity of male and female we are directed toward community with those unlike us. In the community between male and female, we do not and cannot see in each other mere reflections of ourselves. In learning to appreciate this most basic difference, and in forming a marital bond, we take both difference and community seriously. (And ultimately, we begin to be prepared for communion with God, in whom we never find simply a reflection of ourselves.)

(3) Human society requires the direction and restraint of many impulses. Few of those impulses are more powerful or unpredictable than sexual desire. Throughout history societies have taken particular care to socialize sexuality toward marriage and the family. Marriage is a place where, in a singular manner, our waywardness begins to be healed and our fear of commitment overcome, where we may learn to place another person's needs rather than our own desires at the center of life.

Thus, reflection on the heterosexual norm directs our attention to certain social necessities: the continuation of human life, the place of difference within community, the redirection of our tendency to place our own desires first. These necessities cannot be supported by rational calculations of self-interest alone; they require commitments that go well beyond the demands of personal satisfaction. Having and rearing children is among the most difficult of human projects. Men and women need all the support they can get to maintain stable marriages in which the next generation can flourish. Even marriages that do not give rise to children exist in accord with, rather than in opposition to, this heterosexual norm. To depict marriage as simply one of several alternative "lifestyles" is seriously to undermine the normative vision required for social well-being.

There are legitimate and honorable forms of love other than marriage. Indeed, one of the goods at stake in today's disputes is a long-honored tradition of friendship between men and men, women and women, women and men. In the current climate of sexualizing and politicizing all intense interpersonal relationships, the place of sexually chaste friendship and of religiously motivated celibacy is gravely jeopardized. In our cultural moment of narrow-eyed prurience, the single life of chastity has come under the shadow of suspicion and is no longer credible to many people. Indeed, the non-satisfaction of sexual "needs" is widely viewed as a form of deviance.

In this context it becomes imperative to affirm the reality and beauty of sexually chaste relationships of deep affectional intensity. We do not accept the notion that self-command is an unhealthy form of repression on the part of single people, whether their inclination be heterosexual or homosexual. Put differently, the choice is not limited to heterosexual marriage on the one hand, or relationships involving homogenital sex on the other.

IV. The Claims of the Movement

We turn our attention now to a few of the important public claims made by gay and lesbian advocates (even as we recognize that the movement is not monolithic). As we noted earlier, there is an important distinction between those who wish to "mainstream" homosexual life and those who aim at restructuring culture. This is roughly the distinction between those who seek integration and those who seek revolution. Although these different streams of the movement need to be distinguished, a few claims are so frequently encountered that they require attention.

Many gays argue that they have no choice, that they could not be otherwise than they are. Such an assertion can take a variety of forms- for example, that "being gay is natural for me" or even that "God made me this way."

We cannot settle the dispute about the roots-genetic or environmental-of homosexual orientation. When some scientific evidence suggests a genetic predisposition for homosexual orientation, the case is not significantly different from evidence of predispositions toward other traits-for example, alcoholism or violence. In each instance we must still ask whether such a predisposition should be acted upon or whether it should be resisted. Whether or not a homosexual orientation can be changed-and it is important to recognize that there are responsible authorities on both sides of this question-we affirm the obligation of pastors and therapists to assist those who recognize the value of chaste living to resist the impulse to act on their desire for homogenital gratification.

The Kinsey data, which suggested that 10 percent of males are homosexual, have now been convincingly discredited. Current research suggests that the percentage of males whose sexual desires and behavior are exclusively homosexual is as low as 1 percent or 2 percent in developed societies. In any case, the statistical frequency of an act or desire does not determine its moral status. Racial discrimination and child abuse occur frequently in society, but that does not make them "natural" in the moral sense. What is in accord with human nature is behavior appropriate to what we are meant to be-appropriate to what God created and calls us to be.

In a fallen creation, many quite common attitudes and behaviors must be straightforwardly designated as sin. Although we are equal before God, we are not born equal in terms of our strengths and weaknesses, our tendencies and dispositions, our nature and nurture. We cannot utterly change the hand we have been dealt by inheritance and family circumstances, but we are responsible for how we play that hand. Inclination and temptation are not sinful, although they surely result from humanity's fallen condition. Sin occurs in the joining of the will, freely and knowingly, to an act or way of life that is contrary to God's purpose. Religious communities in particular must lovingly support all the faithful in their struggle against temptation, while at the same time insisting that precisely for their sake we must describe as sinful the homogenital and extramarital heterosexual behavior to which some are drawn.

Many in our society-both straight and gay-also contend that what people do sexually is entirely a private matter and no one's business but their own. The form this claim takes is often puzzling to many people-and rightly so. For what were once considered private acts are now highly publicized, while, for the same acts, public privilege is claimed because they are private. What is confusedly at work here is an extreme individualism, a claim for autonomy so extreme that it must undercut the common good.

To be sure, there should in our society be a wide zone for private behavior, including behavior that most Americans would deem wrong. Some of us oppose anti-sodomy statutes. In a society premised upon limited government there are realms of behavior that ought to be beyond the supervision of the state. In addition to the way sexual wrongdoing harms character, however, there are often other harms involved. We have in mind the alarming rates of sexual promiscuity, depression, and suicide and the ominous presence of AIDS within the homosexual subculture. No one can doubt that these are reasons for public concern. Another legitimate reason for public concern is the harm done to the social order when policies are advanced that would increase the incidence of the gay lifestyle and undermine the normative character of marriage and family life.

Since there are good reasons to support the heterosexual norm, since it has been developed with great difficulty, and since it can be maintained only if it is cared for and supported, we cannot be indifferent to attacks upon it. The social norms by which sexual behavior is inculcated and controlled are of urgent importance for families and for the society as a whole. Advocates of the gay and lesbian movement have the responsibility to set forth publicly their alternative proposals. This must mean more than calling for liberation from established standards. They must clarify for all of us how sexual mores are to be inculcated in the young, who are particularly vulnerable to seduction and solicitation. Public anxiety about homosexuality is preeminently a concern about the vulnerabilities of the young. This, we are persuaded, is a legitimate and urgent public concern.

Gay and lesbian advocates sometimes claim that they are asking for no more than an end to discrimination, drawing an analogy with the earlier civil rights movement that sought justice for black Americans. The analogy is unconvincing and misleading. Differences of race are in accord with-not contrary to-our nature, and such differences do not provide justification for behavior otherwise unacceptable. It is sometimes claimed that homosexuals want only a recognition of their status, not necessarily of their behavior. But in this case the distinction between status and behavior does not hold. The public declaration of status ("coming out of the closet") is a declaration of intended behavior.

Certain discriminations are necessary within society; it is not too much to say that civilization itself depends on the making of such distinctions (between, finally, right and wrong). In our public life, some discrimination is in order-when, for example, in education and programs involving young people the intent is to prevent predatory behavior that can take place under the guise of supporting young people in their anxieties about their "sexual identity." It is necessary to discriminate between relationships. Gay and lesbian "domestic partnerships," for example, should not be socially recognized as the moral equivalent of marriage. We note again that marriage and the family are institutions necessary for our continued social well-being and, in an individualistic society that tends to liberation from all constraint, they are fragile institutions in need of careful and continuing support.

V. Conclusion

We do not doubt that many gays and lesbians-perhaps especially those who seek the blessing of our religious communities-believe that theirs is the only form of love, understood as affection and erotic satisfaction, of which they are capable. Nor do we doubt that they have found in such relationships something of great personal significance, since even a distorted love retains traces of love's grandeur. Where there is love in morally disordered relationships we do not censure the love. We censure the form in which that love seeks expression. To those who say that this disordered behavior is so much at the core of their being that the person cannot be (and should not be) distinguished from the behavior, we can only respond that we earnestly hope they are wrong.

We are well aware that this declaration will be dismissed by some as a display of "homophobia," but such dismissals have become unpersuasive and have ceased to intimidate. Indeed, we do not think it a bad thing that people should experience a reflexive recoil from what is wrong. To achieve such a recoil is precisely the point of moral education of the young. What we have tried to do here is to bring this reflexive and often pre-articulate recoil to reasonable expression.

Our society is, we fear, progressing precisely in the manner given poetic expression by Alexander Pope:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

To endure (tolerance), to pity (compassion), to embrace (affirmation): that is the sequence of change in attitude and judgment that has been advanced by the gay and lesbian movement with notable success. We expect that this success will encounter certain limits and that what is truly natural will reassert itself, but this may not happen before more damage is done to innumerable individuals and to our common life.

Perhaps some of this damage can be prevented. For most people marriage and family is the most important project in their lives. For it they have made sacrifices beyond numbering; they want to be succeeded in an ongoing, shared history by children and grandchildren; they want to transmit to their children the beliefs that have claimed their hearts and minds. They should be supported in that attempt. To that end, we have tried to set forth our view and the reasons that inform it. Whatever the inadequacies of this declaration, we hope it will be useful to others. The gay and lesbian movement, and the dramatic changes in sexual attitudes and behavior of which that movement is part, have unloosed a great moral agitation in our culture. Our hope is that this statement will contribute to turning that agitation into civil conversation about the kind of people we are and hope to be.

Hadley Arkes
Amherst College Robert George
Princeton University Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Institute on Religion and
Public Life
Matthew Berke
First Things The Rev. Hugh Haffenreffer
Emanuel Lutheran Church
Hartford, Conn. Rabbi David Novak
University of Virginia
Gerard Bradley
Notre Dame Law School John Hittinger
College of Saint Francis James Neuchterlein
First Things
Rabbi David Dalin
University of Hartford Russell Hittinger
Catholic University of America Max Stackhouse
Princeton Theological Seminary
Ernest Fortin
Boston College Robert Jenson
St. Olaf College Philip Turner
Berkeley Dividity School
(Yale University)
Jorge Garcia
Rutgers University Gilbert Meilaender
Oberlin College George Weigel
Ethics and Public Policy Center

I have never been introduced to a divorced and remarried couple at a parish event who said, "Oh, how do you do? I'm Mark and this is Rita and WE'RE LIVING IN SIN!"

If they ever do, I'll react about the same way I do when I get introduced to somebody and he says, "Oh, hi! I'm Kenny and this is Eddie and WE'RE MARRIED!"

Keep it to yourself and it's nobody's business. Shove it in people's faces and you're likely to get a reaction.

This is a good article. I am also interested in knowing which translation is quoted. Thank you.

Weighing both essays it becomes clear that Salztman, as he claims, is centered in old-time justification, and Selmys is centered in justice, and I would add, human justice, not God’s.

Selyms’ argument is that Paul comes across as possibly hateful and homophobic because “he was writing to a world which saw EXPLOITATIVE [my emphasis] forms of homosexuality as something approaching the norm.” In other words, Paul was not addressing non-exploitative forms of homosexuality, only the exploitative forms. Both Selmys' and Saltzman’s arguments rise or fall on this distinction. And I will quote Paul from Selmys’ argument:

“That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions: why their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed with passions for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting appropriate reward for their perversion. In other words, since they refused to see it was rational to acknowledge God, God has left them to their own irrational ideas and to their own monstrous behavior.”

The question is: Is there a non-exploitative form of homosexual behavior? I have answered no to this in many writings because I am certain that a sado-masochistic element is endemic to homosexual behavior. How does an other surrender to an other in obedience (the root meaning of obedience is “listening”) if each is not open to the totality of who the other is in the image and likeness of God, revealed in Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam or Eve and Eve? Homosexual behavior is sado-masochistic in nature, and if each partner agrees to phsyical and/or emotional sado-masochistic stimulation to enhance/deepen their relationship, then one can say that they have come to an agreement in a relationship, but they have not escaped the sado-masochistic nature of the relationship, the dynamics of which in being humanly justified are an abomination.

In Selmys’ and Saltzman’s arguments one must make a decision: Is Paul, in Selmys’ opinion, “…developing an argument against the kind of philosophies that had arisen within Greco-Roman culture” or is Paul describing an abomination revealed by the Holy Spirit concerning men and women who have abandoned themselves to “degrading passions”? That is the crux of the argument that one must decide on.

Because Selmys’ ground is human justice, she writes, “…it is necessary to distinguish between the visceral, emotional reactions which ancient writers—including Paul—had towards homosexuality, and the theological doctrine which developed out of a holistic Scriptural vision of sex.” And because Saltzman’s ground is justification, he takes Paul at his word, for Paul boasts that if you are not able to discern how to follow Christ, follow him (Paul), because he lives in Christ, and it is there that one is justified.

One must choose: Selmys or Paul. Saltzman chose Paul. Being loving towards those with a homosexual orientation is a must in pastoral outreach, but that is no reason to distort revelation.

David Nichol,

You write, "To treat single gay people or gay couples differently from divorced individuals or divorced and remarried couples cannot, it seems to me, be justified on any reasonable grounds, and consequently is homophobia."

The sexual behavior of divorced or divorced and remarried couples is most often (particularly if they are not involved in anal sexual practices) radically different from the sexual behavior of gay couples. I will quote Nietzsche here: "It is not a matter of dialectics, but a matter of degrees." To equate homosexual sexual practices with sexual practices involved in the sexual union of a man and a woman, and especially those focused on the restoration of man and woman, acknowledging that birthing children is central to that restoration, is the best example of how in sexual politics we have reached the height of absurdity.

Nancy,

I don’t see how the same sexual acts I commit with my wife suddenly become “demeaning” when a lesbian couple commits them.

I think this is an excellent article by Melinda Selmys. I cannot understand why some people are having a hard time grasping her point. "Michael" misunderstands her to be saying what he evidently believes, i.e. that modern homosexual practice is "benign". Several others here think she is somehow trying to downplay Christian disapproval of homosexual sin.

Selmys is merely making the sensible point that the way to help a sinner see the error of his ways is not always to speak to him with contempt. The way to help a homosexual see the sinfulness of his way of life is not necessarily to tell him that he is a "sicko". Did Jesus say to the woman caught in adultery, "You are a slut, so go and sin no more"? Did he say to the woman at the well, "Yes, you are right to say you have no husband, because you're a skank." Somehow, He was able to get them to see their sinfulness without treating them like dirt.

Wasn't Jesus accused of eating with, entering the houses of, and being altogether too friendly to sinners? On the one hand, Jesus made it clear what was sinful and what was not. But He also spoke to sinners with love. There was, admittedly, one class of sinners to whom He did speak with special harshness; and who was that? It was the self-righteous, that "brood of vipers" who prided themselves on their own righteousness, the "pharisaical".

What Selmys is doing is *defending* the traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality, by showing that it is not based on mere emotional reactions or cultural factors, as many nowadays contend, but rather on a profound and coherent view of human sexuality and its purpose. Selmys is not denying that the Christian with a well-formed conscience should find all sin abhorrent. She is saying that the sinfulness of sexual acts does not reside in the emotional reactions that people have toward them. We should be repelled by sin because it is wrong; but we don't say something is wrong just because it repels us. If we base our morality on feelings alone, we will end up being conformed to this world. The world no longer is horrified by divorce, or premarital sex, or masturbation, or contraception, or fornication, or many other sexual sins that horrified all generations of Christians until relatively recently. And as the prevailing feelings about these things have changed in the wider society, so, unfortunately, has the teaching of many Christian groups. That is the problem with basing morality on feelings alone. The problem is that when individuals and whole societies fall into sinful ways, their consciences are dulled, their oral sensibilities are deadened.

Thank you, Melinda Selmys. Your witness and your arguments are very powerful.





















He told her to sin no more.

Stephen,

“I think this is an excellent article by Melinda Selmys. I cannot understand why some people are having a hard time grasping her point. "Michael" misunderstands her to be saying what he evidently believes, i.e. that modern homosexual practice is "benign".”

I understand Selmys’s article perfectly. She thinks homosexuality is a sin. But she also argues that homosexual practice is no longer “exploitative” as it was when Paul wrote. I think “benign” is a fair substitute for “non-exploitative.”

I also think that once you realize that homosexuality is not necessarily exploitative, you have to ask what exactly is wrong with homosexuality, and the inability of conservative Christians to answer that question satisfactorily is why conservatives are losing on this issue.

Think of this way: Paul says that the Romans “are steeped in all sorts of depravity, rottenness, greed, and malice, and addicted to envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite. Libelers, slanderers, enemies of God, rude, arrogant and boastful, enterprising in sin, rebellious to parents, without brains, honor, love or pity.”

Every Christian of whatever stripe will agree with this list of sins, and most secularists will to. Everybody agrees that “greed, malice, envy, murder,” etc., lead to nothing but trouble. The Christian will call these things sin; the secularist will call them maladaptive behaviors; but no one encourages these practices. Everybody knows these practices are wrong.

So why remove homosexuality from Paul’s list? Because there’s nothing wrong with it. Greed will eat up your soul, make you a bad spouse, parent, neighbor, and co-worker. But homosexuality won’t make you bad at any of these things. Now that homosexuals are out of the closet, more and more people are coming to understand that homosexuality is just fine. It’s greed, malice, envy, and murder, etc., that are the problem.

Michael, you seem to come from a North European utilitarian perspective, rather than a Jewish perspective of ritual purity. Recall that Jesus was a Jew and spoke primarily to other Jews.

Thus, I do not believe that it is valid, in the context of ritual purity, to substitute "benign" for "non-exploitative." It is true enough that God does not wish us to exploit; but, for the more sophisticated mind, we will have more to answer for when we present our life here on earth before the Lord. For those who are in a covenant by their blood (that is, Jews) or for those who have been otherwise duly apprised of God's law (that is, Catholics), the bar will be raised.

As we, perhaps tragically, number among the enlightened, we can no longer console ourselves with utilitarian stories about how to be "non-exploitative" is identical with being benign. We must not, of course, exploit others. But we, Catholics and Jews, know well how to make ourselves into immaculate vessels of grace. The path of grace has been quite clearly delineated. Do not pretend otherwise.

Consider me grateful that Ms. Selmys has not come across the elements of modern homosexuality that continues to display all the elements of self-worship, pederasty and exploitation of the only other two well-known examples (Greco-Roman and Sambia tribe).

I'm a devout Catholic but i don't agree when people say that homosexuality is a sin or that homosexuals are sinners. Homosexuals or not, we are all sinners. Homosexuality is developed by many factors & one is being exposed to it since childhood. There are also church people who are homosexuals. So to those that see homosexuality/homosexuals as something like a disease, stop being hypocrites.

A topic that is rather tiring in one sense and yet that needs our attention and prayers at major levels .

Thus , the struggle to walk the narrow path of being compassionate for the afflicted , without being lukewarm about the seriousness of the situation or not going into the other spectrum of hatred and fear .

The latter would only duplicate what the afflicted are themesleves dealing with !

Homosexuality can be seen as another arsenal of the enemy , in the warfare against The Fathe rand His children , that started in The Garden .

Thus , man , who is to reflect the Father glory is made to be deprived of that dignity and becomes a tool to do same for other men - using the tactic of seductive control .

'Show us The Father and that shall be sufficient for us ' and our Lord tells them - 'if you have seen Me , you have seen The Father .'

Casting off the enemy given idenity as one's whole being a serpentine disordered /rebellious sexual idol/appetite may be not easy - it may be as painful and fearful as being crucified , yet out of that pain and struggle can emerge the joyful , life giving dove that is ever flying to The Father, yet ever in Him , to praise Him ever .

True, it might take all the armamnets of warfare at the disposal of The Church -fasting , so that the hungry areas get filled with His Spirit - draw in those abdominal muscles , asking for the dominion of The Spirit and using such occasions , to intercede for others too , dealing with the out of control appetites in other areas , thus living in the truer identity of oneself in The Kingdom ; sitting for hours , in His presence , in front of His image , calling out His Name , to instill The Father Presence - such would be the compassionate measures that members of The Church would need to offer , to show real compassion and prevention so that the effects of this idolatry do not choke off the life giving identity of many .

Homosexuality with its inherent, subtle and often hidden hatred against women and life is becoming more vocal as a militant supporter for abortion ; no surprises there either .

We only get to see another facet of the face of the liar and the murderer .

In the black community, we often hear littel boys addressed as 'papa ' and those words bring out a profound truth - that is the identity of all little boys - one that the enemy wants destroyed !

May our Mother carry all of us her children , to be presented to The Father - to be made pure , holy , joyful , filled with praise and thus be true to our destiny , in Him !

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us !

Patrick,

“Michael, you seem to come from a North European utilitarian perspective, rather than a Jewish perspective of ritual purity. Recall that Jesus was a Jew and spoke primarily to other Jews”

I wouldn’t call it Northern European or utilitarian. Much of what Jesus told his fellow Jews was that notions of ritual purity were erroneous, and the work of much Christianity, especially in the Latin West, has been to leave notions of ritual purity further and further behind.

For that matter, Selmys herself rejects ritual purity by raising the question of whether today’s homosexuality is exploitative or benign. If you’re living in a world defined by ritual purity, it doesn’t matter whether something is exploitative or not; all that matters is that it has been declared unclean.

---

Charles,

“Consider me grateful that Ms. Selmys has not come across the elements of modern homosexuality that continues to display all the elements of self-worship, pederasty and exploitation of the only other two well-known examples (Greco-Roman and Sambia tribe)”

Of course, she has come across it. Her point is that exploitative homosexual practices are no longer the general rule. People who know a lot of homosexuals personally usually agree with such an assessment. In a recent article on this site, Russell Saltzman explained that the two homosexuals he knows well are good, decent people. In my church, the homosexuals are not only good and decent, they are often leading the Christian life in more exemplary ways than the heterosexuals.

In Paul’s day and Jesus’s, homosexuality seemed to be of a piece with “greed, malice, envy, murder,” etc., but it’s not anymore. Conservatives can no longer make the case that homosexuality in and of itself is destructive in the ways that “greed, malice, envy, and murder” are. You can call homosexuals “ritually unclean,” but I don’t think it will get you very far.

The self-righteous today are those who claim that sin is no longer sin because of their own pride. The sins of the flesh destroy the spirit.

@Melinda Selmys - "So why bother to analyze the cultural context of Romans 1 at all? Isn’t it just an exercise in historical trivia, one that should be widely skirted in order to avoid scandal and confusion? ... If one understands, however, that he was writing to a world which saw exploitative forms of homosexuality as something approaching the norm, the vitriolic tone makes a lot more sense and is easier to forgive. ... It is also important for modern Christians to understand that there is a very real difference between homosexuality as it was generally practiced in St. Paul’s time, and homosexuality as it is generally practiced today."

I appreciate the author's article, but I wonder where she has been hiding. Hasn't she seen gay pride parades in any major U.S. city? Doesn't she know that despite the magnus doctrinus condomis being applied to every young person in this country, male homosexuals are widely and intentionally ditching so-called safe sex for unprotected and daring encounters with desire and death? Isn't she aware of the all-encompassing hedonism, alcohol and drug use that lace the male homosexual culture in the U.S.?

Exploitative forms of homosexuality ARE well on the way to being the norm here. Just ask ADM Mike Mullen, who recently told U.S. military chaplains to support homosexuality or resign! With leadership like that, what do you think a group of rugged gay petty officers will do in secret to the weakest of their basic trainees?

It is NOT generally different in reality or appearance than what was generally practiced in Paul's time. The anonymous male body is an idol to homosexuals in this culture, just as it was then.

Homosexuality of both sexes is, as Romans 1 illustrates, the next-to-lowest pool into which the fetid pipe of idolatry and sexual libertinism inexorably drains. Just ask Hugh Hefner, of all people, why gay porn is the only thing that reportedly turns him on these days.

We are sliding rapidly and directly toward the bitter end of Romans 1. That chapter should be memorized, recognized and publicized among us. But we should do this only to give the good news of the boundless love and sacrifice of God himself in Romans 4-5, the complete deliverance of every believer from every chains of sin in Romans 6-8, the incontrovertible plan of God for history in Romans 9-11, the life of self-sacrificial worship to God that is our spiritual birthright in Romans 12-15, and the genuine community represented by the church illustrated in Romans 16--as a result of heeding chapters 1-15--that the gay lifestyle counterfeits and fails to deliver.

Without Romans chapters 1 - 3, and especially chapter 1, the rest of Romans is a yawn.

Neither truth without love, nor love without truth, ever helped a homosexual find the straight gate or the narrow path. Pretending that the culture that embraces homosexuality has a stable condition and just needs an aspirin instead of an immediate heart transplant is spiritual indifference and, if done consciously and continually, amounts to quackery as well.

The translation Melinda Selmys is using is The Jerusalem Bible from 1973—The [Old] Jerusalem Bible, as opposed to The New Jerusalem Bible (1985). Chapter 1 of Romans from The New Jerusalem Bible can be read online here:
http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=52

I think Romans 1:24 is a very key line. Above it is translated, "That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies . . . .

Here are a few other translations

New Jerusalem Bible: That is why God abandoned them in their inmost cravings to filthy practices of dishonouring their own bodies . . .

New American Bible: Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies.

New International Version: Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

King James Version: Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves . . .

Common English Bible: So God abandoned them to their hearts’ desires, which led to the moral corruption of degrading their own bodies with each other.

Revised Standard Version: Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves . . .

The Anchor Bible, Romans, Joseph A. Fitzmyer: For this reason God delivered them over to the craving of their hearts for impurity that their bodies might be degraded among them.

Fitzmyer says: "When Paul says that God pardoken, 'delivered (them) over' (1:24, 26, 28), he is speaking protologically; he is seeking to give a logical explanation of the dire condition of pagan humanity; in a primitive way, which echoes OT thinking, he attributes that condition to an action of God who punishes pagan humanity in his divine wrath."

Is this what we believe today?

Thanks for the feedback. There's a lot here, so I'll try to address the points that seem to be coming up the most frequently. I should, perhaps, clarify my own position with respect to this issue: I'm pretty fully aware of the psychology/culture/ideology, etc. surrounding modern homosexuality, because I identified as a lesbian prior to my conversion to Catholicism. I'm not arguing that homosexuality is not sinful; I wouldn't have broken off a six year long relationship if I hadn't been convinced that the Biblical and Magisterial teachings on the morality of same-sex sex acts was very clear. I would agree that this is a tremendously important issue, politically speaking, because it does strike at the heart of what marriage means. Having been in both a lesbian relationship, and a heterosexual marriage (over ten years now...) I would say that they are not the same thing, that there are important distinctions, and that some of the objections raised in this thread are pertinent. However, I think that there are number of hasty generalizations being made here, particularly when all homosexual relationships are described as "idolatrous," "sado-masochistic," or entirely devoid of love. These characterizations seem to be based on a purely theoretical model of homosexuality, not on a knowledge of a significant number of real homosexual relationships. I won't deny that there are sado-masochistic homosexual relationships, or homosexuals who are literally guilty of idolatry -- there are some who talk about man as that natural religion of man, or the church of man-love, or who practice homosexuality as an element of ecofeminist neopaganism, but that's certainly not universal. Unless these terms are being used in a way that has little to do with their generally accepted meaning, they're blanket stereotypes that can only serve to generate misunderstanding and hostility in the discourse surrounding homosexuality.
What I'm arguing for is the development and implementation of a pastoral approach that will allow Christian witness to be more, not less, effective in witnessing to the truth about human sexuality. Emotionally loaded appeals might make Christians feel that we are doing more to combat the erosion of sexuality, but they actually serve to make us seem deranged, fearful, and sexually repressed. I think we need to keep in mind, the point is not to stand up for the truth, or to strengthen the Christian voice in the public arena, or even to safeguard marriage in the legal sphere, the point is to lead immortal souls to Christ. The homosexual person, not the homosexual agenda, or the homosexual movement, is the object of our witness, and that witness must be carried out with love.

Gil Costello:

You say: "The sexual behavior of divorced or divorced and remarried couples is most often (particularly if they are not involved in anal sexual practices) radically different from the sexual behavior of gay couples."

Is your argument that divorce and remarriage (i.e., adultery, for Catholics) is a lesser sin than being in a same-sex relationship? I sense you are disgusted by homosexuality, but don't confuse that with a moral judgment. I think quite a good case can be made that, within Catholic though, an adulterous heterosexual relationship is is a more serious offense than a homosexual relationship. Those in a same-sex relationship (as opposed to an adulterous relationship) are not profaning a sacrament they previously received, are not breaking vows, and are not violating the literal meaning of one of the Ten Commandments.

I'm using the Jerusalem Bible. The other translations I've looked at are more or less comparable.

Origen, no doubt a brilliant man with a loving heart, and a true son of the Church, came to believe that it was impossible for God to allow anyone to go to hell, and thus hell, if it exists at all, would be eternally unoccupied.

A modern day genius and true son of the Church, Rene Girard, has dismissed the Church's doctrine of atonement, and he, too, is motivated by a loving heart.

In my view, Selmys fits into this pattern. She is a true daughter of the Church, and it is from a loving heart that she indulges in the amelioration of serious sexual sins endemic to a gay lifestyle (neutralizing some gay practices by de-emphasizing the wicked path they lead a person down, a path that always moves away from God after turning away from him, and precisely why every gay sexual act is a serious sin). Saltzman's argument implies that these “non-exploitative” acts are acts that Selmys believes we should not get emotional about and need not be discussed as soul-threatening, but in fact might be terribly wrong in where they lead a person (especially malleable youth in sex-education classes), and if that is so, we need to discuss how wrong these acts are as the only way to really get close to a person trapped in a gay identity.

The fault that Origen, Girard and Selmys share in common is a desire to possess what is in their view a kinder disposition than that of the Judaic-Christian God revealed to us in Scripture. Yet, if we accept Origen’s view, we will never be able to grasp as fully as we can the depths of God’s gift of freedom bestowed in an incomprehensible act of love, for in that freedom we actually can and might choose to reject every tear being wiped away for all eternity. To disagree is tantamount to putting a particular limit on our freedom that God never imposed.

And with Girard and Selmys the error is in not perceiving the depths of human sinfulness that turn us away from God, and continue in every repeated act to drive us further away from him, and therefore, in their view, not needing the redemption described in the doctrine of the atonement, and in embracing their view we risk what Hans Urs von Balthasar warns about, not discerning the depths of God’s love:

“Our inability to resolve this dogma into gnosis is the true scandal; it is a signal and a warning that this is where genuine faith begins. For it is precisely here, in this deed, that genuine divine love begins and ends, a love that overwhelms us and exceeds all capacity to think—and thereby becomes completely evident as love.” (“Love Alone is Credible”, p 100)

Selmys, via gnosis, is pardoning the depths of certain repetitive sins, sins that will, in effect, continually distance gay persons from the possibility of true hope and receiving the fullness of God’s love (what I view as Saltzman’s argument). In other words, to diminish the depths of particular sins that distance us from the love of God diminishes Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. And it is then that a false Christ will appear to the believer.

David Nichol,

"Is your argument that divorce and remarriage (i.e., adultery, for Catholics) is a lesser sin than being in a same-sex relationship? "

Yes, because the distance from God is further.

@Melinda Selmys - " The homosexual person, not the homosexual agenda, or the homosexual movement, is the object of our witness, and that witness must be carried out with love."

Yes, thanks!

You get close to the truth but miss the simple truth of Paul's teaching. The problem was not that homosexuality was associated with idolatry, or that homosexuality was different back then (a highly subjective conclusion). Paul is saying that homosexuality IS idolatry. "they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation, for the image of mortal man". Same sex attraction is a real psychological phenomenon, but allowing it to define you, puts your sexual desire and self image on the throne of your life where only God belongs.

I do not think the Catholic Church should minister to persons who represent themselves as a "gay couple". I think the Church should patorally mininster to people who claim same sex attraction, or even live together as friends. It would be wrong to assume they are not chaste in this circumstance.

I do not think, under any circumstances, children ought to be raised in a household where "gay" sex is occuring. Many gays adopt children and their partner moves in as an ersatz parent. Validily is then leant to this situation as being okay for children. These children are victims of perversion. The Church must call these adults out on their wrongful situation.

Michael,

I am a fool to enter this discussion, since for most of us this is a visceral, prelogical conviction, one way or the other, but I feel compelled to make a few points. This is addressed primarily to Christians, especially Catholics. Others will probably find my points beside the point.

Jesus did not abolish the ideal of purity. Instead he enshrined it as part of the ordinance of the soul. It is not pork that makes one unclean. It is impurity of heart. That is, purity has been interiorized into our very being Jesus blessed the pure of heart.

We are called upon to be pure as God is pure. And it is not man's business to tell God what purity is. To do so is to make the human will the final arbiter of the moral order, which is the soul of sin. Our responsibility is to assimilate ourselves to the divine will and being. My warremt is Christ's prayer to Abba, the charter of the soul that would be good.

One response might be that God is love and some homosexuals love each other sexually and therefore their love is good. Non sequitur. If the act is disordered, to engage in it is wrong and replaces the love we owe to God with the love we indulge for ourselves and the other. IF we act through love, often not the case. The love of God comes first. To put any other love before that is Idolatry. Now if homosexuals love one another chastely, without congress, then yes, this love can be a good thing.

I think the case against homosexuality is well established for Christians in the bible. I know this is contested, but the fact is that the Bible does speak out against homosexuality and homosexuals. What people don't talk about much is that, so far as I can see, in not one case in the Bible is an open homosexual praised in connection with his homosexuality, and in no case is homosexuality commended as a godly use of God's great gift to us (in trust), sexuality. The fact is, we do not own our sexuality or anything else about us. God does. And we will be required to give an account of how we have used this gift when life ends and God collects or discards his own.

As for the claim that homosexuality has changed over the ages, that is an argument feeble in the extreme. Homosexuality was widely accepted in the Hellenistic world. It is simply not true that it was always exploitative or pederastic. (In somewhat earlier times) both the Spartans and the Thebans encouraged exclusive homosexual love between warriors in elite units (e.g. the Theban Sacred Band) because a man would be ashamed to show cowardice in the sight of his lover. The emperor Hadrian doted on a young (but not juvenile--he was ca. 19 when he died)) male lover Antinoos, and was heartbroken when the youth drowned in the Nile. Examples could be multiplied. Trust me--I'm a Classicist.

The fact that there are homosexuals among us who appear to leave exemplary lives otherwise does not prove the case. This is the "my kid came out yesterday--he's a good kid, so homosexuality must be o.k." argument, and it assumes the issue in dispute. The "By their fruits ye shall know them" response, while useful as a rule of thumb, doesn't clinch the case because we do not see the world as God does. If we could walk through the world with the eyes of an angel we would see a reality upside down--we could hardly recognize the place. The Bible makes the point often.

If homosexuality is intrinscially displeasing to God, then it is not an inspiration to me that two homosexual church elders who are pillars of your church should lead the church with better example than many other congregation members. It is a spiritual catastrophe, because it seems to justify that which is alien to God.

The apologists' ace, as they see it, is the argued harmlessness (relativite to heterosexuality) of homosexuality. To counter this I would have to attack homosexuality with a complex argument in the fact of an intellectual establishment which has gone over, starting in the 70's (including the APA, American Psychiatric Association, and other--some of the details of the changeover are not pretty). Moreover, my position on this matter is more that of an obedient Catholic than a deep statistician in the research in human behavior accumulated in the last fifty years (not, in my opinion, without taint, but I accept that this is an opinion and not an authoritative judgement).

But to at least offer an article that, unusually, critiques the communis opinio on the normality of homosexuality using extensive documention I offer one link. The article was produced by the Family Research Council, a group admittedly pro Christian and anti homosexual, but much of its research come with citations from neutral, secular sources and governmental studies:

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02

I close with a reiteration of how much I hate to post this message. It will anger some and hurt others, and torrents of rebuttal and ridicule are to be expected.
As kids say, I'd rather eat worms. But I have an abiding fear that when I stand for the Big Interview, God would otherwise ask "Why didn't you speak up?"

Blessings,

Richard

With God…

“I appreciate the author's article, but I wonder where she has been hiding. Hasn't she seen gay pride parades in any major U.S. city? Doesn't she know that despite the magnus doctrinus condomis being applied to every young person in this country, male homosexuals are widely and intentionally ditching so-called safe sex for unprotected and daring encounters with desire and death? Isn't she aware of the all-encompassing hedonism, alcohol and drug use that lace the male homosexual culture in the U.S.? Exploitative forms of homosexuality ARE well on the way to being the norm here.”

Not all or even most homosexuals go to pride parades. Go to church with them. Go to their homes. Play with their children. Let go of your fixation on one, highly publicized subculture.

I grew up in the Bible belt, and when I took Protestant friends to Roman Catholic churches with me, they expected all kinds of weird things to happen because all they knew about Roman Catholicism was rumor and legend. Perhaps you, too, are under a false apprehension of the different kinds of lives homosexuals lead.

---

Melinda Selmys,

“I'm not arguing that homosexuality is not sinful; I wouldn't have broken off a six year long relationship if I hadn't been convinced that the Biblical and Magisterial teachings on the morality of same-sex sex acts was very clear.”

While the biblical and magisterial teachings are clear about the prohibition, they are a little slippery about the reasons why they want to prohibit homosexuality. It takes almost no effort to convince someone that greed and malice are wrong. Both sins corrupt your ability to relate to others and find joy in creation. It takes a little more effort to convince someone that adultery and fornication are wrong, to show them that these sins also corrupt your ability to relate to others and find joy.

But I have yet to hear a convincing argument about homosexuality. Maybe you have one. If so, I’d like to hear it.

Richard,

You won’t get a shouting match from me. I like and admire you too much for that, and I’m always happy to exchange thoughts with you.

I think there are two kinds of arguments against homosexuality. One, like Paul’s, argues for concrete harms. Homosexuality is like adultery, murder, theft, etc., because it tears society apart. I reject this argument because I do not see any evidence for it.

The other argument is spiritual. Homosexuality is like idolatry, the failure to keep the Sabbath, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, etc., because, while these sins produce no concrete harms, they do divide us from God. I respect this argument, but one cannot argue against it because it is “merely” a matter of faith, and matters of faith ultimately cannot be argued against. They just are.

What troubles me about the spiritual argument against homosexuality is that it is new. And if you are willing to admit that it’s new, then we have to talk about what that novelty means. And I just don’t see anyone willing to have that conversation.

Michael,
I am well exposed to the homosexual lifestyle. My great uncle is a member of professional homosexual activist groups. My best friend in college and close friend in high school were all gay. And I attended various gay youth rallies and continue to live in a city that regularly affirms all types of sexual deviancy.

I was counseled to consider the lifestyle by a public school therapist I had grown close to. He was one of those respectful gays - with a house and long-time boyfriend - we hear about. When I told him I was leaning me to skip college and go live in a monastery due to various social justice concerns and ascetic lifestyle choices, he spun it as a rejection of heterosexuality and embrace of his homosexuality. Granted he never made an advance, but his promotion of the culture was clearly an outlet of the new flesh fetish this perverse culture has. I've seen my great uncle move from one fashion to the next to continue to remain attractive and be able to exploit young men in the culture. I saw my mom care for dying AIDS patient infected by his partner, his health ignored by his partner, regularly cheated on by his partner, threatened to be kicked out of their apartment if he didn't submit to his partner. I've seen my friends exploited by their partners in the culture, and exposed to depersonalized lust when hanging around their friends. I heard my friend in his struggles with his infliction and his torments of seeing bodies as things. Perhaps the worst was gay youth rallies. Paid by the city and run by the older gays to promote the culture and continually leer over and talk up the new flesh.

Now I left that world behind. At some points I justified their behavior. Tried to pretend others being exploited wasn't be my concern. It wasn't some years later that I came across the authentic Catholic teachings. Then everything made since. There is an ideal. We all fail to reach it. We all act to help each other and avoid scandal. We do not justify or affirm or even tolerate, we challenge and support.

Sadly what has happened is many have joined in the relativist race to the bottom.

Gil Costello

You say that a homosexual relationship is a worse sin than an adulterous relationship "because the distance from God is further." I'm only guessing at your reasoning, but if my guess is correct, wouldn't you have to say that masturbation, at least objectively, is a greater sin than adultery or homosexual sex? According to the Catholic Church, for sex to be licit it must be unitive and procreative. Homosexual sex can at least be unitive, though never procreative. But masturbation can be neither.

@Michael - thanks for your comments. I had an extended family member live the gay lifestyle in San Francisco, above a bathhouse. He died of AIDS, but his relationships to God and his family were restored before he died.

I see only two things different about the gay movement between now and then: retro-viral drugs to arrest the plague of AIDS, and the defining down of deviance resulting in broad societal acceptance of a disordered way of life.

I define disordered as anything that is against the Creator's design. You mentioned you'd like to see a convincing argument about homosexuality. Here is one, from Scripture (Mark 10:1-7, NIV) and from the Savior himself, about homosexuality as much as divorce:

Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

“What did Moses command you?” he replied.

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Jesus reaches back to creation as the pattern of marriage, family and sexuality. Not everyone will be married, but sexual activity between any persons must be within the bounds of God's design of one man and one woman joined together for life.

Here is another: look at the design of the human body. The complementarity of the sex organs is incredible. In great contrast, the excretory system was plainly never designed for sexual activity, and has been called the "royal road" to AIDS infection. If one thinks that human bodies evolved from slime and we're more highly developed animals, then what does it matter what we do with our bodies? But if God designed us and our bodies for a purpose, his purpose, it matters infinitely.

We all fall short even of our own standards, including me. We all must find forgiveness and healing for brokenness of one type or another at the foot of the cross. But ignoring the truth of scripture will only make things worse.

Such a disheartening conversation. But predictably so.

After years of struggling with this issue for myself, I came to the conclusion that the Church could never condone homosexual action without unraveling the fundamental natural law axiom which holds together all of its sexual morals: only sexual intercourse between a married man and woman, open to procreation, accords with human nature. Everything else, be it outside or against nature, is sinful. Whether it was sex with a stranger or the friendly lovemaking of devoted longtime companions is virtually immaterial. End of story. Make one exception and the cloth unravels.

In an ideal Catholic world, there would only be two kinds of sexually virtuous people: married people and celibate people.

Speculation as to the origins of sexual orientation, (even its existence), its relative "pathology" according to current fields of study, its cultural forms, the sanity or insanity of "gay culture", the particulars of given relationship, whether homosexuality constitutes identity or is just one more disordered desire, the intentions of the participants...pro or con...all these things are really not that important to the Catholic discussion.

As well, the job of the Church, IMHO, has been to safeguard and promote sacramental marriage-and-family. Again, nothing else on the human erotic horizon is of positive interest outside that role.

To Catholic "gay" people and those who would like the Church to be different, I would say this: Forget it. Not gonna happen. Either A. try to conform, in single chastity, B. ignore the rules, based on your own "conscience", and try to belong as best you can or C. say farewell and move on.

To the Church as Teacher, I would say this: I know that you cannot, are incapable of, approving of sex between men or between women. I get it and I understand the logic. But what you are asking people of homosexual orientation to do is not simply to constrain yet one more disordered desire like greed or envy, but to accept that if and when they come to love another human being (of their own sex), and as part of that love arises the desire for physical communion, then they must accept that their hunger for loving bodily connection is perverse, that a crucial part of their ability to love is defective and shameful. And that what they perceive as a gift is actually a form of violence.

This is quite unlike the message you give to men and women, whose combination of eros and friendship is for the other sex. The chastity you require of them is to channel something very much constitutive of their identity as people capable of enacting a Sacrament not only with heart, mind and vow, but with flesh. You never tell them to avoid being defined by their opposite-sex desire because it is an implied part of their divinely ordained manhood and womanhood, the stuff of the sacrament.

Whether your words are harsh and cruel, or whether they are kind and compassionate, the situation remains basically unchanged: to accept the teaching, a homosexual man or woman must accept that what is potentially sacramental in others, the sacredness of which moral rules protect, is in them a counterfeit perversion and disorder, which the same rules must repress.

It really will not do to make male-female sexual desire and activity a part of a sacramental vocation, a divine calling, and then suggest that same-sex desire and activity is merely an unfortunate hunger that ought not become part of personal identity, as if it were a tic or bad habit of speech. Especially if the oft-overpraised and under-valued phenomenon of personal experience is factored into the mix.

This will not change the Church's mind. It cannot. It is not the Church's job to accommodate human nature where both Nature and Sacrament combine against it. But perhaps it might let some of those who share the Church's mind get a glimpse as to why some of those who love "their own kind" took option C.

This is a thoughtful article and a valuable contribution to the discussion. But I object to the use of the word ``homophobic.'' This is not a word suitable for thoughtful analysis, it's an attack word (and etymologically it's nonsensical: it means ``fear of the same''). The word was invented in order to conflate reasonable disapproval of homosexual acts with unreasoning hatred. Use of emotionally charged, intellectually incoherent language such as this is a symptom and a cause of a decline in serious thought in our society.

The argument for centuries of Christian thought is that St Paul justifies hatred, persecution and yes, violence against homosexuals as a great sin. The author has the rather unnovel view that St. Paul was correct but our pastoral resonse must be more loving.

This schizophrenic response has turned many gays virulently anti-Christian. Is that not the greater sin? And let's have a look at St Paul, a fanatic if there ever was one. Priests and ministers spend endless time spouting with embarrassment his fulminations that "women, obey thy husbands" or as I understand it, his endorsement of slavery.

To deny those with same sex attraction the right to loving relationships is to condemn them to eternal suffering, whatever this hypocritical "pastoral resonse" will be?

You Madam committ the greater sin.

The problem I find with your argument is that by putting forth homosexuality as condemned in Romans as a form of idolatry is that it's a steath argument for normalizing it. Idolatry involves putting something above God, but those things it itself are not harmful or sinful: just the abuse of them. It's possible to idolize food and be an epicurian or glutton, but no one argues against food itself.

The advocates might take this further, and say that in a SSM committed relationship, they don't commit idolatry. I agree with your aims in that we shouldnt beat people up over the head when we minister to them, and shouldn't demonize them. It's just the extended argument I worry might cause what you don't expect.

EssEmm,

I agree with a lot of what you say, but of course contraception and cohabitation, both accepted by quite a large number of Catholics (though not by the Church) are exceptions that unravel the cloth. One might also find the extraordinarily high rate of annulments in America to be problematic for Catholic teachings on marriage and sexuality. Also, estimates that at any given time, about half of all Catholic priests are sexually active might make gay people wonder how serious their alleged sins should appear in the eyes of the Church. Of course, the fact that Catholics in large numbers do not practice what the Church preaches is not necessarily an indication that the Church is wrong.

If you do not believe that the engaging in or affirmation of demeaning sexual acts that do not respect our inherent dignity as human persons is a violation of the inherent, unalienable Right of all persons to be treated with dignity and respect, there is no argument that will convince you that homosexual sexual acts are acts of grave depravity.

Charles, With God…, and EssEm,

I’d like to make four observations about your posts.

First is that all of the stories are heartbreaking, painful, and unnecessary. The sexual revolution of the sixties did tremendous damage, and the culture of experimentation as well as the giddy certainty that the old rules don’t apply continue to afflict the young, who repeat old mistakes.

Second, all of the stories you all tell are about men, which is routinely and almost exclusively the case whenever homosexuality is discussed. I sometimes think that if conservatives were to make all of their arguments based on lesbian sexuality, their case against homosexuality would collapse.

Third, the stories all seem to date from the seventies or before. Although the seventies gay clubbing subculture still thrives, there are a lot of young people who simply are more square. I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that the NIH reports that one third of gay men don’t have anal sex. Even though I’m in my fifties and my career has meant that I’ve been around a lot of homosexuals, I don’t know a single person who has died of AIDS. I only socialize with good, decent people.

Fourth, and together with the first, the most important observation is that all of the stories you tell are about unchurched men. This point is not just about homosexuals going to church or going to church regularly; it’s about going to a reconciling church like mine, where homosexuals are openly welcomed and valued.

The reigning assumption is homosexuals naturally devolve into decadence, but that simply isn’t true in reconciling congregations because we affirm, lift up, and support them. We expect them to abide by the crucial rules of sexual morality. They must be chaste or enter a stable, faithful, enduring relationship with another. They must live like ordinary Christians, which is to say that the extraordinary is expected.

F.Y.I.-

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_014.htm

The sensitivity that is sought by Selmys in her article is commendable but too much is conceded that undermines her argument. This is why conservatives, and this of course may be a vague term, find such a perspective suspect. Her understanding of Paul's language and tone is unacceptable. Paul of course writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His language is not "possibly hateful and homophobic." His language, contextually situated of course, reflects God's wrath against all unrighteousness of those who suppress the truth. Her failiure to understand why Paul writes such strong language against the moral corruption that he inveighs against is indicative of the underlying weakness of her article, namely, an unwillingness to take seriously the sin that is being addressed byl Paul. It is not as if idolatry is bad and homosexuality is as bad. The one, homosexual rebellion is the result of being given over by God to such a judgment due to idolatry. Contextualizing this does not soften Paul's argument. She wants to appear more compassionate than the Apostle. This is most disappointing and is unworthy of Catholic teaching and evangelical witness.

For heterosexual people, there is never any thought of ever having to declare one’s sexuality, nor is there any pressure to hide it. Yet homosexual people are faced with both of these from the moment they suspect their sexuality might be different from what is considered by the majority to be “normal”. In churches where homosexuality is taught to be an abomination in the eyes of God, the fear of expressing a homosexual orientation is overwhelming and often results in the person leaving the church forever.

However, a pastoral response to the LGBT community recognizes that we are all sinners, and rather than automatically signing a gay person up to a reparative therapy program, will walk with them through the journey of self discovery and the process of discerning a way forward.

In his well read work on pastoral care, Clinebell suggests that there are five functions of pastoral care. One is healing which aims to restore a person to wholeness and lead them beyond the present circumstances they find themselves in. Another is sustaining which helps a person endure and transcend the present circumstance. Both of these functions are important for a gay to person deal with the inner conflicts and move towards a life of peace and wholeness as they begin the coming out process.

Michael,

Thanks for the warm words. Your post, though civil, is less heartwarming. There are answers to your points, in fact easy answers, but posting them would simply lead to concatenations of point counter point ad infinitum. You have taken your stand and I mine and I expect that we will take them into eternity, with what consequences God knows.

The posts of the whole thread simply confirm for me what I know and what Christ predicted, that the time has come when good and evil are confounded and that light and darkness will battle until the end of time. I cannot simulate fellowship with a spirituality that thinks the Lord is pleased when institutionalized homosexual and lesbian congress is offered up to him as a gift. The thought makes me shudder. For much of my life, like many of my milktoast peers, I have tried to wish away the existence of the anger of God, but now I understand that and how I was wrong.

May God have mercy on us all,

Richard

God did not create us heterosexual, homosexual,bisexual..., God created us equal in Dignity while being complementary as male and female, and oriented us towards The Word of Love. To deny this fundamental truth, is to deny The Word of God, from The Beginning:

"Have you not heard that from The Beginning, God created them male and female, and for THIS reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh..."

Only in a complementary relationship between a mature man and woman, united in Marriage as husband and wife, can two become one body, one spirit in Love, creating a new family.

One cannot be for Christ and anti Christ, simultaneously:
"You cannot be my disciples if you do not abide in My Word." - Christ, The Word of Love Made Flesh

Those who substitute the body's waste receptacle for the body's vessel for germination of new life inevitably begin to treat other humans like waste products. Homosexual acts and artificial contraception are similar in that both substitute mere mutual genital titillation for the sacred marital act. They differ in the magnitude of the insult inflicted on human dignity.

Baal created the historical homosexual culture and the 19th century Western nihilist and narcissist movements the modern homosexual culture. Some addicts find ways to survive on limited concentrations of such evil. While commendable for their struggle against such great evils it is not an acceptable compromise and total avoidance and challenge is necessary to free oneself.

It is important to note that it is not too late to orient oneself to The Word of God. We are all sinners. Wherever sin abounds, God's Grace and Mercy abounds ever more if we repent and believe in The Truth Of Love.

Richard,

“There are answers to your points, in fact easy answers, but posting them would simply lead to concatenations of point counter point ad infinitum.”

If you have easy answers, I’d like to hear them. I’m not interested in infinite responses, but I do think that dialogue clarifies thought. I know that most conversations clarify my thinking. It is striking, however, that no one seems capable of responding to my question.

Could it be that the reaction against what Selmys proposes here has much more to do with our own laziness than any real concern for homosexual persons?

It is much harder to actually understand someone than it is to sit there and tell them what they should or should not be doing. We all seem to agree on the orthodox position that homosexuality is intrinsically wrong. No problem. You just try to take that and that alone into a debate, or even better, try explaining it to a class of teenagers and see how far you get. You may be convincing yourselves, "doing your Christian duty", but you won't be getting very far with your audience let me tell you.

Now, as I see it, what Selmys proposes here is not counter to othodoxy in the least. As I see it, she seems to be the only one pointing the way towards exactly HOW Christians can actually begin to convince practicing homosexuals about the reality of homosexual sin. On our part, it takes a lot of effort. To reach out of our comfort zone is never easy but absolutely necessary to any pastoral initiative. For that reason, I really think she's on to something here.

AMDJ
V.

Ms. Selmys,

You are certain there is no common thread of sado-masochism endemic to gay relationships, and I disagree.

I know too little about lesbian relationships to speak authoritatively on it, but gay relationships I know well, and will speak from that perspective:

In the film "Comfort of Strangers" there are two sets of couples, an elderly couple who have established an ongoing sado-masochistic sexual lifestyle who engage a young couple in sado-masochistic game-playing. At the core of this game the elderly couple will show that the young couple's life-style that has no hint of sado-masochism is in fact as sadomasochistic as theirs. They could easily quote Dylan: "You see, you're just like me - I hope you're satisfied."

The male of the younger couple is success-oriented in his narcissistic self-absorption. He at least unconsciously is making a demand on his mate to abandon her motherly concerns for her children to indulge a kind of worship of his narcissistic image embedded in his success-story (success is all-important in gay culture), made in the image and likeness of Michelangelo's David (one of the greatest successes of all time, for Michelangelo as well as David), with hints that the young man has homosexual tendencies (which really point to his narcissism); and the young woman during the film is masochistically submitting to her sadistic mate, but wrestles with this submission (which is the incentive that leads masochists on to become sadistic, something that is accomplished for the young woman in this film by the elderly couple). At one point in the film, the couple go through a sexual marathon to prove that their love for each other is genuine, a common occurrence in gay culture, even to the point of indulging sex with men outside the relationship as a heightened form of expressing love for the other: this is because gay relationships are masturbatory in essence (masturbation is the highest form of narcissistic sexual expression, something we easily excuse in children because they are naturally processing it in an immature narcissistic stage, something we normally expect adults to have grown out of): one is always making love not with the complementary other, but with a reflection of oneself, a male. This film, based on a script by Harold Pinter, explores what is obviously sado-masochistic and what is unconsciously sadomasochistic in relationships. I would argue that all gay relationships are inherently sado-masochistic, whether recognized or not, for two reasons:

1) God is most present to every person in the glory of his Creation, and we humans, being the peak of Creation, most reveal God, especially when we listen to the Holy Spirit and act on his wisdom. For Christians, God is a relational being (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and because we are made in his image and likeness, we become, in God's plan, relational, and God chose in the first order a very specific example of relationship, Adam and Eve. This is why in speaking about God so many theologians have discussed the nuptial mystery: even priests committed to a celibate life must discern the nuptiality of their relationship with God, especially turning to Mary who, for Jesus, was mother and, in a deeply spiritual sense, spouse. To attempt to controvert the fundamentals of relational living is an assault on God's plan for his Creation, and to carry out this assault against God via an assault on his plan places one squarely in a sado-masochistic lifestyle. So, for example, when two men who love each other in friendship will fully mold that friendship into a grotesque replica of what God intended for man and woman, it is an assault on God's plan, and because a hatred of God is the ground of this assault (he is thwarting our own plan for our imagined creation, possessing a knowledge of good and evil that is as valid as his), there is no way one can suppress that hatred, and it is always expressed against the other in the relationship, because the other is made in the image and likeness of God, the peak of Creation, a ground that cannot be existentially altered in essence. In other words, in gay relationships the other is always a cause of frustration for the other other, not being all that he should be for the other other, and this is precisely the sado-masochistic element endemic to all gay relationships: their divine discontent can never be overcome. They can experience long periods of happiness, but never the joy in doing God's will, and in a gay relationship they are forever defying God's will.

2) In Jean Luc Marion’s book, "God Without Being", there is a wonderful chapter on idolatry. He convincingly argues that idolatry is not constituted by an object, but by the gaze itself. In other words, the idolatrous person looks at other objects only to receive the reflection of their gaze from those objects that are shimmering reflections of some aspect of his interiority. The gaze goes out to capture an image and return it to the viewer to enhance his sense of self, meaning all forms of idolatry are self-worship. A woman for a man is the inexplicable other, the person who does not match what constitutes his self image interiorly, consciously or unconsciously, and therefore becomes difficult to turn into an idol. In fact, the woman is feared and then hated by the mere fact that she disrupts his self-worshipping gaze: she is a threat to his narcissistic self-image. This is why in gay culture there are so many attempts to turn an image of woman into an object that can comfortably reflect the gaze of self-worship, and why photo-images of Marilyn Monroe and other "womanly women" are turned into idols, and become part of a narcissistic culture, the origin of female impersonation, making the photo-image more life-like. This is also why historically in gay culture there has been so much misogyny: real women are anathema because feared, and that fear is overcome by a constructed idolatrous image of women that reflects the defensive parody of women that is central to the interior life of gay men.

One of the hallmarks of homophobia—on display here—is instantly to make this equation

homosexuality = male homosexuality = anal intercourse

As others have pointed out, in this type of forum, the objections to homosexuality and homosexual behavior are very frequently applicable only to male homosexuality, and often may be applicable to heterosexuality more than to lesbianism. Heterosexuals can (and not infrequently do) engage in anal intercourse, but lesbians don't. AIDS is easily spread in homosexual male contact and heterosexual contact, but almost never in lesbian contact. Even in the comments to an post written by a woman who was in a six-year lesbian relationship that she broke off when she became a Catholic, we are still mainly getting a critique of male homosexuality from the commenters. (Of course, perhaps they are just devoted to the Old Testament, in which there is no condemnation, expressed or implied, of female homosexuality.)

Albert speaks kindly of disgust at homosexuality, saying, "It is similar to the legitimacy of disgust (expressed in different degrees) in the face of fathers having sexual relations with daughters, animal cruelty, bestiality, rape, murder, personal belittlement, sadism, inconsiderate behavior, no-fault divorce and re-marriage, etc." Yet how many people's stomachs are turned by no-fault divorce? How many people who have obtained no-fault divorces have been bullied or beaten by their disgusted peers?

Two things seem rarely acknowledge to me. One is that in Romans, homosexuality isn't the sin. It is the PUNISHMENT. Note the various translations I gave in my message of 9.24.2011 | 8:49am, and the quote from Fitzmyer, which I will reproduce here:

**********
When Paul says that God paredoken, "delivered (them) over" (1:24, 26, 28), he is speaking protologically; he is seeking to give a logical explanation of the dire condition of pagan humanity; in a primitive way, which echoes OT thinking, he attributes that condition to an action of God who punishes pagan humanity in his divine wrath.
**********

The second thing rarely mentioned is that homosexuality is only the first in a laundry list of sins and vices that goes on as follows (from the NAB): "They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." No one ever seems to cite Romans 1 to condemn greed, boastfulness, or rebellion against parents!

It is highly unlikely that St. Paul's condemnation of greed, pig meat or gossip was meant to be interpreted as at all similar to his condemnation of homosexual relations. In Jewish Law, the homosexual act is classified as sexual immorality, one of only three sins a Jew may not commit even to save his life. The others are idolatry and murder. (Sanhedrin 74a)

This is why the Gospels do not record Christ's having explicitly prohibited homosexuality in the Gospels. He was a Jew, preaching to Jews. Nobody present would ever have doubted that homosexuality is an unspeakable defilement.

(The Babylonian Talmud was written down some six centuries after the Gospels. However, the legal traditions it records are much older. The plain fact is that it has been the consistent and uninterrupted teaching of all Abrahamic religions that homosexual acts are gravely offensive to God.)

Not to mention, they are a public health hazard. The usual rule in medical facilities is that anything which has been inserted into a human rectum must be burned, boiled or buried.

"Doesn't she know that despite the magnus doctrinus condomis being applied to every young person in this country, male homosexuals are widely and intentionally ditching so-called safe sex for unprotected and daring encounters with desire and death?"

"Male homosexuals" as a class? Um, no, or certainly no worse than "heterosexuals". The use of safer sex techniques and technologies, including condoms, is something that is only slowly being accepted by people of different sexual orientation, heterosexuals, too. Almost half of American pregnancies are unintended, after all. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/health/policy/27contraceptive.html)

Condom usage has risen substantially across the board, though remaining higher among homosexuals than heterosexuals. One major problem is that unprotected sex is still privileged in the minds of our cultures, with unprotected sex being seen as the only acceptable version of sex by some and others thinking that sustained use of condoms inside an established relationship implies a lack of truth that should be done away with. And then, there's the time-honoured belief: "Nothing bad will happen to _me_!" (Condom fatigue, too, plays a role.) Combine these issues with condoms with the long latency of HIV--it takes three months after infection to produce HIV antibodies, three months during which a person is most infectious--and you've got a recipe for a virus' survival.

Resh Gulata:

You say: "Not to mention, they are a public health hazard. The usual rule in medical facilities is that anything which has been inserted into a human rectum must be burned, boiled or buried."

I know proctologists sterilize their instruments, but I always thought gynecologists (dentists, etc.) did, too.

The human mouth has more bacteria than the human anus. But these discussions about the "ick factor" have nothing to do with morality and everything to do with homophobia. The attempt is to connect homosexuality with feces, germs, and disease. The message is that gay people are dirty (even though, once again, this is an issue that involves only gay men).

@Devid Nichol - "we are still mainly getting a critique of male homosexuality from the commenters." We're largely male commenters, so that is to be expected. Regarding the type of physical contact, that's what male homosexuals do, and that's why it keeps coming up.

"homophobia" - If you're going to call me Greek names, I much prefer to be called heterophilic (vive le difference!) or even hamartophobic (afraid of sin and its consequences). Here are some better ones, from 1 Corinthians 13, that I would love to be called:

makrothumei - patient
chresteuetai - kind
ou kairei epi te adikia, sugchairei de te alethia - not rejoicing in evil, but rejoicing in the truth

I hope and pray that you find the truth of God's work not to be a shackle, but a shackle cutter. But you have to take it as it is, not as you want it to be.

Consider this seven point plan to redefine sexuality and marriage: http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/7-point-strategy-for-promoting-gay-marriage/

Just FWIW: http://faithoncampus.com/a-student%E2%80%99s-insight-into-approaching-glbt-students/

With God . . .

You say: "If you're going to call me Greek names . . . . " To use the word "homophobia" is not to call anyone names. Branding people as homophobes would be name calling, but pointing out that ideas are homophobic is not name calling. And anyway, I prefer to do all my name calling in English. :)

"Homophobia" may not be the best word that was ever coined, but it does identify something, unless you want to claim that bullying or beating gay people is the rational response of good people who are merely opposed to sin and are doing God's work. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church says homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." If homosexuals were never treated with disrespect and insensitivity, and unjust discrimination were unknown, why would the Catechism bother to say that?

Am I the only one who caught this?

"In Sparta, a young man beginning his studies would actually be assigned an older lover as a matter of course—something like the system of old British public schools, except that the pederastic element was openly acknowledged and encouraged. "

British public schools "assigned an older lover" to students? This might be a fashionable theory among academics but it sounds more like one of those "things that are so silly that only an intellectual could believe it."

What grieves me about this is that one hundred years from now it will be commonly said in these sort of circles that the Church was in the practice of assigning young boys to priests for the purpose of pederasty.

Lord have mercy on all of us.

"British public schools "assigned an older lover" to students?"

Craig Roberts,

Didn't you know that "Baal created the historical homosexual culture and the 19th century Western nihilist and narcissist movements the modern homosexual culture"?

And when Baal commanded, the british public schools disobeyed at their peril.

David Nickol,

You write, "As others have pointed out, in this type of forum, the objections to homosexuality and homosexual behavior are very frequently applicable only to male homosexuality, and often may be applicable to heterosexuality more than to lesbianism.”

I think it pompous for someone to critique something they know little about. Lesbians first and then women in general are better equipped to offer a critique of lesbianism than gay or heterosexually oriented males. I do have criticisms of lesbianism, but having been thoroughly enmeshed in gay culture for 6 years, and having experienced much of the gay lifestyle as a youth, I am confident in writing about the gay lifestyle, but not the lesbian lifestyle.

I would note, too, that for many years during the time that gays and lesbians had separate parades, when they were at odds with each other on many issues, one of the demands that lesbians placed on gay leadership was to stop inviting NAMBLA (organization that promotes man-boy love) to be represented as a gay phenomenon. There are many differences between gays and lesbians, including lifestyle differences, and I refuse to lump them together. I will continue to write about what I know.

"condom fatigue"

Is that related to "tired of living"?

Gil Costello:

You say: "I would note, too, that for many years during the time that gays and lesbians had separate parades . . . . "

I have lived in New York since 1970, the year of the first Gay Pride Parade, and gay men and lesbians have always marched together.

You say: "I am confident in writing about the gay lifestyle, but not the lesbian lifestyle."

Are you confident in writing about the "straight lifestyle"? And exactly what would it be?

We are talking about morality and pastoral care here. Generalizations about "lifestyle" are not particularly relevant.

My brother was so smart he would never do math homework and always got straight As in high school. He became addicted to heroin at age 16, and because of that addiction he remained 16 in many developmental respects, including emotions. He's dead now. He died a 16-year-old at age 60. And every morning I walk past these old heroin addicts with the same hairstyles and beards they wore in the 60s, still nodding out in front of MacDonald’s as part of their lifestyle, truly taking pride in it, but the nod is now induced by state-issued methadone, not heroin.

Many heroin addicts talk about the genetic factors involved in their addiction, or the environmental factors, their upbringing, etc. And there has been teems of professionals in the therapeutic community that have supported these views and gave them therapeutic credence throughout the years. Is it imprudent to talk about heroin addicts sticking shared needles in their arms, and when most of their surface veins have collapsed, they start shooting up in the groin area or between their toes, and how this behavior puts them at high risk in contracting AIDS and other blood-carrying diseases? You know, the icky stuff.

For me the grand tragedy strikes home every morning I walk past those old heroin addicts nodding outside of MacDonald’s, how they were never able to become fully who they are. Their grand groove, a hedonistic tune played at age 14-16, burned into a deep rut. Should we encourage youth who experience that "genetic" or "environmental" attraction to heroin to be more of who they naturally/constitutionally are? Should we set up classes to help them move more positively into a heroin lifestyle, even encourage legislators to legalize/normalize heroin to take the stigma out of the equation? If the drug is all-important to these persons in becoming who they are, is it ethical to deprive them of it?

When I was 16 and sent to the worst reformatory in New Jersey, I was assured by all the prisoners in reception that I would be assigned to one of the better places that all first offenders go to, especially since my crime was drug related. This was a relief. And when I was interviewed by a counselor during the 30-day reception time, a man who was key in making a classification of my being, I was really scared, and in my fear I decided to tell him the truth no matter what he asked me. And his first question was,

"Why do you use heroin?"

"I like the feeling."

"You like the feeling?!" he yelled at me. "My best friend was found dead in the trunk of a car from a drug-overdose, and you like the feeling?"

Based on his report, the classification committee placed me in the most violent cottage on the grounds and I was denied all educational opportunities (I had a 3rd grade education at the time): I would be assigned hard labor jobs, and when I was released at age 18 I was given no money, no place to live and no job. Limited rehabilitation resources simply could not be wasted on a prisoner who had no hope of changing something he liked so much.

When I got to the cottage and told another prisoner what had happened, he said, "Whatareyou nuts? Never tell them the truth! Tell them what they want to hear!"

So I say to gay leadership: I understand. You like the feeling. You like it more than anything. You feel it is in your genes, central to who you are as a person, your very identity.

Just stay away from the children. Let them decide. Don’t encourage them in sex education classes. Don’t assign them to “support groups” that encourage them to pursue a gay lifestyle. You and I know the truth that we’re not supposed to speak: many children experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay. So just take your hands off them. Can you do that?

David Nickol,

You write, "...gay men and lesbians have always marched together." Someday an honest historian will write the book about the perennial conflict between gays and lesbians until they decided to join forces for political objectives.

Yes, I am confident in writing about heterosexuality, but because the vast majority of heterosexuals do not embrace a sexual identity, it wouldn't be of much interest.

Pastoral care doesn't have to include suppression of the truth and the support of lies.

Gil Costello:

You say: "Just stay away from the children. Let them decide. Don’t encourage them in sex education classes. Don’t assign them to “support groups” that encourage them to pursue a gay lifestyle. You and I know the truth that we’re not supposed to speak: many children experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay. So just take your hands off them. Can you do that?"

It's hard not to read this as you asserting that gay people are child molesters and/or that they recruit children, both of which suggestions I reject. To the best of my knowledge—and you are welcome to offer evidence to the contrary if you have it—sexual orientation is fixed well before adolescence (perhaps prenatally), and there are *not* many children who experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay. You seem to be implying, at least in part, that sexual orientation is a choice, or perhaps that a heterosexual orientation is not a choice but one can renounce it and choose homosexuality. I simply don't think it is true. I think by early adolescence, when a young person begins to discover his or her orientation, it is already fixed. Perhaps there are some rare individuals who have a weak or shaky sexuality, or who are bisexual, who may tip one way or another based on environmental factors, but if so, I imagine that is rare and "recruitment" one way or the other has little chance of succeeding. So I don't accept your premise.

I do, however, think everyone should be free to choose how he or she wants to live. I have talked to a number of young people who have said they "think they might be gay" but don't want to be. My advice to them is that there is no reason to stick a label on yourself. No matter what you feel your sexual orientation may be, there is no requirement to call yourself gay and imitate other people who call themselves gay. To discovering your orientation, whatever it may be, is not like being drafted into the army. You may not have a choice about your orientation, but you do have a choice when it comes to what you do (or don't do) about it.

Let me make a similar request of you not to harm children. Don't make homosexuals into such horrible monsters that when young adolescents realize they are gay, they loathe themselves and feel they have no place in the world. Don't in any way say anything that would permit or encourage or allow young people who may be gay to be teased and bullied. Give young gay people a chance for happiness and not depression, hope and not despair, and life, not suicide. Do you think you can do that?

Gil Costello:

You say, "You write, '...gay men and lesbians have always marched together.'"

No, actually I wrote, "I have lived in New York since 1970, the year of the first Gay Pride Parade, and gay men and lesbians have always marched together." In case that wasn't clear enough, I meant here in New York City, the first city to have a Gay Pride Parade.

You say, "Yes, I am confident in writing about heterosexuality . . . "

I asked if you were confident writing about the "straight lifestyle." I take you to be saying there is a gay lifestyle but no straight lifestyle. My point is that talk of the "gay lifestyle" invariably involves stereotyping.

Gil:
Did the gay male parade organizers shoot back that the lesbians stop funding the Vagina Monologues that celebrate the drunken rape against a young woman by a lesbian? You can't away from the new flesh fetish represented in this culture. Whether you chalk up the courting of youth into the culture to perversion or desperation for affirmation it is a disturbing concern that is all too common.

I find it somewhat hard to believe that sexual tastes are hard-wired, as you, David, seem to suggest. Taste in pretty much every other area, from food to music to clothing to climate and philosophical outlook, seems to be largely determined, or, at the very least, subject to influence by one's environment.

Certainly there are innate proclivities, but I find it hard to believe that any man could not be led to find women sexually attractive, or vice versa. I may be wrong, but I do view with some suspicion anyone who holds up a teenager's inclinations as a kind of inviolable law.

When I was 15, my musical tastes tended toward some pretty embarrassing heavy metal, and my taste in dress was unmentionable. I have since come to have a greater appreciation of harmony and of a way in which to dress that is polite and appropriate to one's station. I am not convinced that homosexual attraction is not of the same type of misjudgment.

@David Nickol

It seems that your vocabulary draws heavily on the prevailing culture and not on scripture. Further, it seems that human experience, your own or that of others yo are aware of, is the guide for faith and conduct, instead of scripture.

Jesus said, "He who has my commands and keeps them, he is the one who loves me."

Accepting Jesus' commands--all of them, including his instruction on sexual activity being within the confines of a lifelong heterosexual marriage--is life's greatest challenge and greatest reward. Doing so with abandon and taking the risk of whatever that brings--that is the most daring and death-defying act one can commit. He is there, and the Father is there, and the Holy Spirit is there, to transform us through the inevitable struggles. We will remain broken in many respects until we see him face to face, but what we give up for his sake, and what we embrace for his sake, will provide an eternal reward.

On the other hand, setting one's course by another compass and trying to harmonize scripture with what one has already decided to do will only result in further blindness and spiritual shipwreck.

This reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Dawn Treader, as Prince Caspian addresses his crewmen who are balking at sailing beyond where they have been before, and about which they have heard many dangerous tales, and to which point they have come through many perils. He writes:

"Aslan's Mane! Do you think that the privilege of seeing the last things is to be bought with a song?"

When you are ready to throw your all in Christ's boat and sail with him, and with us, as imperfect as we are--wherever he goes--to the end of the world, then you will understand what many of these commenters have been saying. You will understand what the scriptures have been saying all along. You will understand what he has been saying to you all along. And that is this: your destiny is not to be left on any of the enchanting but enslaving islands encountered along the way, but to throw in your lot with him whatever the cost, for his companionship and his reward.

Come aboard, shipmate!

I think we need to be aware that any blanket statements about homosexuality are always going to have many exceptions. For example, a slick argument proving that all same-sex relationships are sado-masochistic because they are contrary to God's design, and anything contrary to God's design is self-destructive, is nice so far as it goes – but how far it goes is to the edges of the conservative Judeo-Christian ghetto and absolutely no further. Ditto for arguments that involve appeals to predatory gay military officers, the AIDS epidemic, etc.
In the secular sphere, any argument which does not apply to a church-going, monogamous lesbian couple with 2.6 children and a minivan will not wash. The reason for this is actually fairly cogent: if you prove that many homosexual men with HIV do not disclose their serostatus to their sexual partners, all you've proven is that a completely different sin, i.e. culpable negligence, is common among HIV infected men. Who'd have guessed? You haven't proven that homosexuality is immoral per se, in the same way that if someone proves that Pharisaism is rampant in Christian circles, they have not demonstrated that Christianity is immoral. This is especially important if you're actually talking to someone who identifies as LGBTQ. If you argue that homosexuals are promiscuous, narcissistic bathhouse habitues with posters of Liza Manelli on their walls and a penchant for barebacking, all they have to do is say, “But I'm not,” and your argument is dead in the water.
This applies not only to the arguments that we field in real conversations, but also to the comments that we make in any public forum. The secular folks most likely to be reading this thread, for example, are people who ID as gay or lesbian. People who don't have a stake in the discussion won't bother reading the internet discourse of the “other side.” On the other hand, people who do have a stake will go looking for Christian articles so that they can be offended and have something to complain about on their blogs. Note that possible LGBTQ lurkers should not be treated with contempt. When I was a young lesbian newsgirl writing for the local paper, I went looking for Catholic documents on homosexuality with the specific intent of trouncing them in print. Fortunately, what I found was the Pontifical Council for the Family's “Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality,” which put the Catholic position so cogently, fairly, and respectfully that I ended up writing in favor of allowing Catholic schools to teach Catholic sexual morality. The point being that even someone who expects be offended can end up being impressed.

Michael, you asked for an argument against homosexuality, so here we go.
Let me be clear before I start that I'm talking about homosexual sex acts, not homosexual relationships: there's been some very fine work done by people within the Christian gay-but-chaste community towards forming what they call “special friendships,” that is, emotionally intimate same-sex relationships which are not sexualized. Such relationships demonstrate that it is possible for people with same-sex attractions to have responsible, creative relationships with one another without having sex.
Basically, I think that any successful argument has to be based on the idea that homosexual sex is lacking something essential. There are three such things:
1. Responsibility
2. Complementarity
3. Creativity
How do same-sex genital relations fail in these three respects?
1. Catholic theology posits that in marriage two people give themselves to one another, they make a sincere, reciprocal gift of self. This gift involves the entire person, including sexuality and fertility. The gift is not a self-enclosed circle, but rather a means of transmitting self-hood to a new human person who never existed before. Sex therefore involves responsibility for the child that might be conceived. This is a built-in safeguard against sexual selfishness and irresponsibility. This is part of the reason why the Church condemns all forms of sexuality, gay or straight, in which procreation is impossible. (I would note that the sexual irresponsibility of heterosexual Catholics is a considerable scandal in this respect. I know that people will say that contracepting Catholics aren't “flaunting” their sin the way that a homosexual couple is when they say they're married, but let's be real: any homosexual person looking around the pews can see that if almost all of the couples have 0-2 children it's not because there's an infertility epidemic in the Church, or because we all have just reasons to use NFP.)
2. A man represents the other for a woman, and a woman does the same for a man. The complementarity inherent in opposite sex relationships draws people outside of themselves in a radical way. St. Paul uses the image of marriage to represent the unity of Christ and His Church for precisely this reason: because it is through the reconciliation of opposites (man and woman, human and divine) that the full potential of love is realized.
3. Although a same-sex couple may undertake any number of creative projects together, their sexuality itself is not creative. Sex creates people. Neither oral, anal or manual sex can accomplish this. This is why the Church insists that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex are inseparable: She means that they are literally inseparable, that the procreative aspect manifests the unitive, and the unitive is realized in the procreative.

That's the argument in a very small nutshell. I go into it in a lot more detail in my book, and of course if you're willing to slog through it, John Paul II's Theology of the Body covers it in depth.

Several people seem to be under the impression that I am trying to down-play or undermine the claim that homosexuality is sinful. I'm not. What I'm saying is that if you try to convert someone by telling them that their most intimate relationships are disgusting, shameless, perverted, and abominable, you'll probably just scandalize them and cause them to harden their heart. It's worth noticing that we don't actually know what St. Paul would have said to a practicing homosexual, because in Romans he is writing to a Christian community in Rome, and the rhetorical thrust of his argument relies on the assumption that his readers are unsympathetic to homosexuality. Also, Romans 1 is a lead up to Romans 2, where Paul spills a lot of ink dressing down anyone who thinks that they're better than the folks described in Romans 1: “So no matter who you are, if you pass judgment you have no excuse. In judging others you condemn yourself, since you behave no differently from those you judge.” (Rom 2:1)

Melinda Selmys,

I’ve made many of the same points on this site as you are making here about the need to avoid blanket statements and especially about how many of the purported sins of homosexuality are actually different kinds of sin. Your example was culpable negligence; I usually use promiscuity.

I’m still looking for someone who will answer my question, and I’m hoping you will. I’ll reprint part of what I asked above.

I think there are two kinds of arguments against homosexuality. One, like Paul’s, argues for concrete harms. Homosexuality is like adultery, murder, theft, etc., because it tears society apart. I reject this argument because I do not see any evidence for it.

The other argument is spiritual. Homosexuality is like idolatry, the failure to keep the Sabbath, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, etc., because, while these sins produce no concrete harms, they do divide us from God. I respect this argument, but one cannot argue against it because it is “merely” a matter of faith, and matters of faith ultimately cannot be argued against. They just are.

What troubles me about the spiritual argument against homosexuality is that it is new. And if you are willing to admit that it’s new, then we have to talk about what that novelty means. And I just don’t see anyone willing to have that conversation.

Charles,

You ask, "Did the gay male parade organizers shoot back that the lesbians stop funding the Vagina Monologues that celebrate the drunken rape against a young woman by a lesbian?”

In the early days of the gay and lesbian movements (at the separate parades that I went to) I never once saw in any lesbian parade a placard or a float representing the notion that lesbians engaging children in sex is part of the lesbian advocacy. On the other hand, I'm certain there are lesbians and heterosexually oriented persons who engage children in sex and believe it's beneficial to children, but show me where any lesbian advocates for that. It was certainly a part of the early gay movement.

David Nickol,

You write, "To the best of my knowledge—and you are welcome to offer evidence to the contrary if you have it—sexual orientation is fixed well before adolescence (perhaps prenatally), and there are *not* many children who experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay."

This is one of the classic deceptions promoted by gay leadership, that children who are not gay do not experience same-sex attraction, or in any case not many; in other words, not a negligible number. This deception goes counter to all the findings made by reputable child psychologists (ones who read the studies and findings) going back at least as far as Jean Piaget (who is on the hit list at many universities). I could quote from many websites to substantiate my claim, but you would claim the findings homophobic. So I will quote from a pro-gay website (http://www.avert.org/am-i-gay.htm):

"There isn't a questionnaire you can fill in or a test to take [to determine if a child is gay]! While your sexuality is developing, MANY TEENS [my emphasis] will become attracted to someone of the same gender - it doesn't mean that you'll always be attracted to people of that gender. Some people can be quite old before they have their first same-sex attraction. For some people, the only way to know for sure is to wait and see. Other people seem to have known they were gay since they were really young - everyone's different."

Do you get it? The source of my anger, that is? Sexuality as we know it in science develops; it cannot be scientifically determined that homosexuality is fixed in any child. If it can’t be determined if any child who experiences same-sex attraction will “always be attracted to people of that gender”, then the logical moral choice appears: do not indoctrinate a child into being gay. But I’m certain this information from this pro-gay website will over time disappear as we delve more deeply into embracing the lies of sexual liberation.

I fought for gay rights early on, and the battle cry from gay leadership was “Leave us alone to live our lives! Stop persecuting us for our lifestyle. We aren't out to harm anyone!" I still abide in supporting that cause. Just take your hands off the children.

I remember early on fundamentalist Christians charging that once gay rights are affirmed, gay activists will want to go into schools and start teaching children the joys of homosexual sex. And I along with gay leadership shot back that such accusations were outlandish and hate-filled, pure homophobia, that the homophobes just don't get it: Gays want to be left alone to live their lives without being persecuted! Or, as Selmys might put it, left alone to sin along with the rest of the sinners.

Children should not be taken into rooms and indoctrinated into embracing any sexual lifestyle, homosexual or heterosexual (something Selmys and yourself don’t seem in any way outraged by;…well, if schools did start the equally absurd and dangerous practice of heterosexual indoctrination classes, I suspect you and Selmys might be offended). LET THE CHILDREN MATURE TO WHERE THEY WILL EMBRACE A SEXUAL IDENTITY ON THEIR OWN TERMS IF IT TURNS OUT THEY DESIRE ONE (I would never want one, and neither would anyone, in my view, who desires a gestalt identity, an identity that would be able to see that surface identities, including the ones fixed to desires, are always in flux). Indoctrinating children into embracing any sexual identity is brain-washing pure and simple, a form of violence that should be outlawed. And children should not be taught in sex education classes, as they now are, that anal penetration is harmless if you wear condoms, and the damage done is much more involved than the potential danger of condom fatigue.

I suspect Selmys is self-deluded from experiencing the genuine loving and kind hearts of many lesbians she has known along with and a true sense that they, like every human being, are searching for love in the only way they know how. You know, trouble and desire. Because Selmys truly wants to be a faithful Catholic, she has to vilify and alter the meaning of what Paul writes concerning homosexual behavior. I suspect she would also have problems with beloved John. He wrote, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments" (I John 5:2). This echoes Paul and James who made it clear that you must keep the commandments to love your brother/neighbor (Rom 13:8-10; James 2:8-11). We’re talking agape here, not the many human-determined forms of love that are almost always caught up in ego-oriented desire, including the love of children when you want to make them over in your image and likeness.

Yes, we are all sinners, but how willing are we to look at the depth of our sins, not ameliorate or mitigate them as Selmys suggest we do, unless Paul really was a homophobe? For in that process, as I wrote above, we diminish what Christ accomplished on the Cross. This is the gist of Selmys’ error: she would ameliorate, mitigate or diminish the impact of sinful sexual behavior in our thinking and our emotions as a better way than the Cross. Saltzman, if I read him right, is basically telling us that Christ paid the price for the depth of all our sins and we don’t have to ameliorate, mitigate or diminish them. It is here that we are justified, not in elaborate moral game-playing that continues what Adam and Eve sought to do at the outset: be gods by determining on our on what is right and wrong, and how deep the wrongs go.

"For example, a slick argument proving that all same-sex relationships are sado-masochistic because they are contrary to God's design..."

Not as slick as the slippery slope of sexual liberation.

David Nickol,

"I asked if you were confident writing about the 'straight lifestyle.’'"

Again, not interesting enough for this discussion, because it lacks the commitment to a reductionist sexual identity and all the interesting problems that arise from that dilemma.

Also, I can't argue about the gay pride parades in New York in the early 70s. What I do know is that wherever I was from 1977 until about 1985, lesbians and gays had separate parades. Lesbians in Seattle, for example, were vocal in their rejection of NAMBLA and in the misogyny rampant in gay culture, where women were often and even publicly referred to as "fish", referencing the odors emitted from their sexual organs that indicate how really foul they are. The language was reigned in, but the reasons for this prevailing misogyny in gay culture has not been fathomed to deepen our understanding of what it means being gay (and I’m not talking about those who experience same-sex attraction or engage in homosexual behavior, but those who aligned with gay ideology and culture). Is it important to fathom this? Especially if we are going to indoctrinate children into embracing a gay identity? One can make the case that misogyny exists among heterosexual men, also, but it has nothing to do with women being universally anathema as physical beings, so physically foul that one should avoid contact at all costs.

I know a woman today who volunteers most of her spare time to gay causes: she in fact spearheads most of the events that she participates in. She remains disconcerted, though, about how she often feels insulted or demeaned at these events by gay men, and she shrugs it off with, "Well, it's just a part of their culture - I shouldn't take it personally. And I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill."

I am always reminded that it isn’t nice to talk about this history and how the remnants remain with us unchecked in our politically correct posturing that solves none of the deeper psychological and emotional problems, indeed suppresses them, but I have been seriously considering having inscribed on my coffin, “Nice is not enough.”

Gil Costello:

It very rarely has to do with suicidal ideation. It has to do, instead, with the regular human belief that "_this_ bad thing can't happen to _me_!" and, also, with the identification of unprotected sex--regardless of the genders of the people involved--as being more authentic, as demonstrating the trust appropriate in an intimate relationship.

Praising unprotected sex--even identifying it as the only acceptable type of sex--is hardly the stuff of whatever proportion of gay men you might imagine. It's official doctrine of the Catholic Church, for instance.

"This is one of the classic deceptions promoted by gay leadership, that children who are not gay do not experience same-sex attraction, or in any case not many; in other words, not a negligible number. This deception goes counter to all the findings made by reputable child psychologists (ones who read the studies and findings) going back at least as far as Jean Piaget (who is on the hit list at many universities). I could quote from many websites to substantiate my claim, but you would claim the findings homophobic. So I will quote from a pro-gay website (http://www.avert.org/am-i-gay.htm):

"There isn't a questionnaire you can fill in or a test to take [to determine if a child is gay]! While your sexuality is developing, MANY TEENS [my emphasis] will become attracted to someone of the same gender - it doesn't mean that you'll always be attracted to people of that gender. Some people can be quite old before they have their first same-sex attraction. For some people, the only way to know for sure is to wait and see. Other people seem to have known they were gay since they were really young - everyone's different.""

What, exactly, is controversial about this? It's a statement that many people can be attracted to people of the same gender, that this may but does not necessarily mean that will be your default, and that different people learn about their sexual orientation at different times.

"Sexuality as we know it in science develops; it cannot be scientifically determined that homosexuality is fixed in any child. If it can’t be determined if any child who experiences same-sex attraction will “always be attracted to people of that gender”, then the logical moral choice appears: do not indoctrinate a child into being gay."

I don't understand how identifying a possibility that a child might be gay, especially through a hedged and conservative statement like the one you quoted, counts as indoctrinating a child into being gay.

"LET THE CHILDREN MATURE TO WHERE THEY WILL EMBRACE A SEXUAL IDENTITY ON THEIR OWN TERMS IF IT TURNS OUT THEY DESIRE ONE"

1. Please don't shout.

2. Are you making the mistake of identifying "sexual identity" with "anything non-heterosexual" and not recognizing that "heterosexuality", too, is a sexual orientation in its own right?

Ms. Selmys, it would be interesting to read your interpretative take on adultery where you could make a distinction between exploitative adultery e.g prostitution, slavery and trade as against marital infidelities. Which one should we look more broadly or tolerably on? Rhetoric aside, we're all missing the point here in First Things, Jesus' statement on the adulteress about to be stoned, "let him who has not sinned.." put determination of culpability in God's hands, where it really belongs. Whither which way we convince ourselves will not change His mind. He will favor a sinner who turns away from his sinful past, "Go and sin no more" as against someone who convinces himself that he has done no wrong.

The pastoral response to homosexuals should reflect Jesus teaching in the Gospel of John regarding the woman caught in adultery (Jn 7:45 - 8:11). In this instance, the act of adultery is clearly wrong, but Jesus teaches that we should be very careful about judging individuals. This "love the sinner, despise the sin" approach also seems most pastorally appropriate for the distinction between homosexual acts and homosexual persons.

"Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again," (RSV-CE, Jn 8:11) in no way can be construed as a minimization of the serious and wrongful nature of the underlying act, but is a pastoral guideline of love towards others, making a critical distinction between sin and sinner.

David Nickol,

Because I am limited to Internet access at the public library to 1 ½ hours, and because the senior center here cdnsors First Things for us seniors as to violent and hate-filled, I can't do the research required to show the the many conflicts between lesbians and gays during the early part of the sex liberation movement, but I did find this rom a gay friendly website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_social_movements):

"Lesbian feminism, which was most influential from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, encouraged women to direct their energies toward other women rather than men, and advocated lesbianism as the logical result of feminism.[25] As with Gay Liberation, this understanding of the lesbian potential in all women was at odds with the minority-rights framework of the Gay Rights movement. Many women of the Gay Liberation movement felt frustrated at the domination of the movement by men and formed separate organisations; some who felt gender differences between men and women could not be resolved developed "lesbian separatism", influenced by writings such as Jill Johnston's 1973 book Lesbian Nation. Disagreements between different political philosophies were, at times, extremely heated, and became known as the lesbian sex wars,[26] clashing in particular over views on sadomasochism, prostitution and transsexuality. The term 'gay' came to be more strongly associated with homosexual males."

Randy McDonald,

The notion of “unprotected sex” is derived from the notion of “safe sex”. I would argue that safe sex doesn’t exist. It is always dangerous: if not physically, certainly emotionally and psychologically, and why unprotected sex is not possible, an illusion generated by sex liberationists. The German novelist Thomas Mann in 1912 wrote a novella titled “Death in Venice”. It was his way of exploring the conflict between the Apollonian impulse to employ logic and reason and the Dionysian impulse to throw logic and reason aside in pursuit of one’s passion, the latter a governing principle of sex liberation, and why so much faulty logic abounds in the sex liberation movement, including in gay ideology. In my opinion he chose a gay man pursuing a boy sexually for philosophic reasons not in any way to be anti-gay, but because gay culture had even then, even before the word “gay” (as sexual identification) and the phrase “gay culture” was coined, because, as a brilliant artist he was aware of the Dionysian/narcissistic element so consistently present in the homosexual culture of his time (think how in revisionist gay history Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas are always portrayed as lovers who were persecuted because of their sexual engagement, when in fact they didn’t engage each other in sex at all [maybe once], but pursued “rent boys”, which was common in homosexual culture, and still is but we can’t talk about it – you know, pretend it doesn’t exist) . The brilliant filmmaker, Luchino Visconti, did a wonderful adaptation of this novel, staring the great Dirk Bogarde, who also played the lead role in Joseph Losey’s brilliant “The Servant”, an exploration of the sado-masochistic impulse in those who are not pursuing complementary sex, but their own self-aggrandizement, a narcissistic way.

You then ask, “What, exactly, is controversial about this [that most teens who experience same-sex attraction will not become gay]? It's a statement that many people can be attracted to people of the same gender, that this may but does not necessarily mean that will be your default, and that different people learn about their sexual orientation at different times.” I totally agree with you. I was simply responding to David Nickol’s and other gay activists’ claim that “To the best of my knowledge…sexual orientation is fixed well before adolescence (perhaps prenatally), and there are *not* many children who experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay.”

You then ask “I don't understand how identifying a possibility that a child might be gay, especially through a hedged and conservative statement like the one you quoted, counts as indoctrinating a child into being gay.” My statement wasn’t hedged or conservative. It was stating a fact. My argument is that if, as you seem to agree, we are not able to know with scientific certainty what child who is experiencing same-sex attraction will end up gay, then we should not impose a gay identity on a child who expresses to a teacher or a counselor that he/she is experiencing same-sex attraction. In other words, “the possibility that a child MIGHT [my emphasis] be gay” is no justification to indoctrinate a child into a gay lifestyle as is now occurring in many schools throughout the country. Again, to put this in perspective for you, would you object to teachers and counselors setting up classes to indoctrinate children into a heterosexual lifestyle? They could justify this action by stating an equal protection clause in our Constitution, that because children are so malleable, and their frontal lobes (center of discernment) are not fully developed, too many peers might pressure them into experimenting with a homosexual lifestyle. After all, you and I agree that many children experiencing same-sex attraction will not end up gay. Shouldn’t we have classes to help them along in their heterosexuality? My argument is that this would be just as insane as sticking children in gay indoctrination classes that now exist, and it would be equally criminal in my view because children are still in a state where their sexual maturity is developing: it should not be violently halted and fixed in any sexual identity by an adult with an agenda, hetero or homo.

You then politely ask me not to shout about this criminal action against children in schools. I can’t do that.

Your final question to me: “Are you making the mistake of identifying ‘sexual identity’ with ‘anything non-heterosexual, and not recognizing that ‘heterosexuality’, too, is a sexual orientation in its own right?”

You are confusing sexual orientation with sexual identity. When a person experiences a sexual attraction to another, there is no reason to take on a sexual identity, even if the person engages in same-sex behavior. As a teen I knew two boys who engaged in same-sex behavior after experiencing same-sex attraction. Eventually they would sexually develop out of that attraction, and both ended up married with children. If they were in many schools today, they would be assigned a gay identity and placed in a gay-support group where they would be indoctrinated into embracing a gay lifestyle. And we now have scientific evidence from neuroscientists that any thought and/or behavior that are repeated engrave trails in the brain, making the person more prone to the thinking and the behavior. In other words, we now know with certainty that repeated thoughts and/or behavior actually changes the brain. And this is what we are doing to children in gay indoctrination groups.

Paul had a powerful conversion experience and knew God's reality. He had a great faith and understood truly that nothing is impossible with God. He knew he was a great sinner but knew that with God no matter how great the sin, God is greater. Jesus approached different sinners different ways. He did not use the same methods with everyone and I don't believe we should either. He was very harsh to the scribes and pharisees and the little fig tree that didn't give Him some fruit when He was hungry. He was harsh to the people of Nazareth when they had been speaking kindly at first to Him. Our society is being morally destroyed by this sin. There are powerful people, educated and organized, abusing their authority to push this sin on our nation and I find it very hard to believe that Jesus would speak to them the same way he would speak to an individual sinner. I believe He would let the powerful ones know exactly what He thought of them while the victims of their policies He would deal with as the children they are sucked in by the system. There is a real effort to destroy faith here and He would not tread lightly with that.

I think that Mr. Mills, writing in, "The New Oxford Review," made more sense when he made the opposite appeal being made here by Melinda Selyms.

The Saints were being Pastoral and they were much more effective at it than we modern folks who seem to think that calling homosexual acts, " a sin crying to Heaven for vengeance," is mean.

Maybe if our Bishops had been more strident and manly in their denunciation of homosexual sin then we would not have had so many predatory pederastic priests being protected; and maybe we would not have had so many Pederastic Prelates, either.

http://listserv.virtueonline.org/pipermail/virtueonline_listserv.virtueonline.org/2002-November/004333.html

The Myth of the Greek acceptance of homosexuality is just that; a myth

http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-10-036-f

"'Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again,' (RSV-CE, Jn 8:11)..." Yes, TomD, this is the gist of what is required in pastoral care of same-sex oriented persons. And I would add that Jesus did not say, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and don't take sinning seriously again, and don't feel guilty about leading the little ones into the same sin, for we are all sinners, and isn't it nice that we all find common ground there?" The many gay friends I have had throughout the years have not taken offence at me when I have spoken the truth to them, even though on occasion they have taken offense at my bringing to their attention what is sinful. In pastoral care, the suppression of the truth about sin is just as damaging as the suppression of love.

Today’s Gospel reading was Jesus’ response to those who had to say goodbye to family and friends or to bury them before they could follow him, and Jesus’ response seems harsh: “Let the dead bury the dead.” His response in my mind concerns not the duties of family ties and friendship, but our anxiety about following him in love/truth: “What will people think of me if I follow this radical man to the point that they take offense? Will I become anathema in their eyes? Will they ostracize me? Will they in some manner crucify me?” This is why Jesus requires that we pick up our cross: he promised persecution to his disciples.

The Love that is God cannot be separated from the Truth that is God: they are the same. The father of lies would convince us otherwise.

The point of tolerability has been made. But tolerability in no way will ever mean condonation. There is a brick wall folks. As God looks at our hearts to see if we would choose Him above everything else including sexual orientation and relationships that are not pleasing to Him.

If the issue at stake is to win a debate by making sound human argument, there would not be a problem. If however it concerns a decree of the eternal God whose word is firmly fixed and unchangeable, what any human being thinks is of no value what so ever. For those who believe God consider the following:
The wages of sin is death. Whatever the sin is, it will bring great affliction, and adversely affect the quality of our lives. The reason we encounter so much suffering in the world is that we ignore the fact that our suffering results from our sins. This is why Christ came; to bring us repentance or God’s power that enables man to abandon whatever choices we make that God revealed as harmful and destructive to us. The scripture also reveals that Christ came to bring us forgiveness of sin. It is important to God that man repents of living in sin and then be forgiven.
In the case of homosexuality, God showed how repugnant the sin is by destroying Sodom and the surrounding cities, as an example for all the world, that we may refuse the lifestyle. In God’s plan for man, he commanded man to reproduce abundantly and fill the earth with people. This is the primary assignment God gave to man. We serve God by bearing children. Those who live a homosexual lifestyle fight God in two ways: first they fail to serve God by refusing to procreate and denying that God made only male and female. These two positions bring affliction to those who practice homosexuality.
Their lifestyle causes problems for the rest of humanity because the homosexuals oppose all peoples by refusing to perpetuate the human race. They are against humanity. Not only that, they are waging a fierce campaign against humanity by adopting straight children to initiate them into it, and enticing the young to adopt the lifestyle to further decimate humanity. God calls the sin an abomination because it defiles the land and everything they touch. This defilement hastens God’s judgment upon the earth, and the affliction spreads out to all people.
Those who accuse Apostle Paul of bias have taken a stand against God who inspires man to speak for him. If they consider the scriptures as man’s word just to win an argument, then there is no point in holding this discussion. They try to silence critics of the lifestyle by accusing them of hate and prejudice. They forget that to love them is to speak God’s word and stand by God’s word. Christ says if we deny him before men he will deny us before the Father. We are trying to them and ourselves by speaking up. Speaking up is not hate, just because they say so and are right in their own eyes. God is the one judges them. The word of God brings judgment, and as long as we speak what God says, no matter how we say it “in love” they will still react negatively since it is God’s word we speak that judges them. God have mercy on all of us.

Hi Melinda,

I'm surprised that you failed to mention in your article the Catholic pastoral approach over the past 30 years that has been appropriate. sensitive and effective in helping men and women with unwanted same sex attractions lead chaste lives, Courage, www.couragerc.net. The late, director of Courage, Fr. John Harvey, O.S.F.S., has left an inspired legacy to the Church and her children.

"It is always dangerous: if not physically, certainly emotionally and psychologically, and why unprotected sex is not possible, an illusion generated by sex liberationists."

Consistent condom use does result in sharply reduced rates of STD transmission (and, in fact, pregnancy, too). There is danger, and there is sharply decreased danger, and it's dangerously confusing to people unaware of the statistics and the techniques to not distinguish between your moral concerns regarding sexual activity and the physical realities of sexual activity.

"I was simply responding to David Nickol’s and other gay activists’ claim that “To the best of my knowledge…sexual orientation is fixed well before adolescence (perhaps prenatally), and there are *not* many children who experience same-sex attraction who will not end up gay.”"

I hadn't seen

"My statement wasn’t hedged or conservative. It was stating a fact. My argument is that if, as you seem to agree, we are not able to know with scientific certainty what child who is experiencing same-sex attraction will end up gay, then we should not impose a gay identity on a child who expresses to a teacher or a counselor that he/she is experiencing same-sex attraction."

How?

"In other words, “the possibility that a child MIGHT [my emphasis] be gay” is no justification to indoctrinate a child into a gay lifestyle as is now occurring in many schools throughout the country."

Can you please define indoctrination?

"Again, to put this in perspective for you, would you object to teachers and counselors setting up classes to indoctrinate children into a heterosexual lifestyle?"

No, because the premise is ridiculous since heterosexuality is normative and children regardless of their underlying orientations are still almost always indoctrinated into a heterosexual lifestyle.

"As a teen I knew two boys who engaged in same-sex behavior after experiencing same-sex attraction. Eventually they would sexually develop out of that attraction, and both ended up married with children."

It's not obvious to me how having access to a gay-friendly environment would have changed their underlying sexual orientation, save in making it easier for them to have a same-sex relationship and hopefully making anti-gay harassment less common.

"If they were in many schools today, they would be assigned a gay identity and placed in a gay-support group where they would be indoctrinated into embracing a gay lifestyle. And we now have scientific evidence from neuroscientists that any thought and/or behavior that are repeated engrave trails in the brain, making the person more prone to the thinking and the behavior. In other words, we now know with certainty that repeated thoughts and/or behavior actually changes the brain. And this is what we are doing to children in gay indoctrination groups."

Is it? Sexual orientation, as a substantially inherited personality trait, is very deeply rooted. The sort of indoctrination into heterosexuality providthe people who join are already pred by most cultures hasn't managed to eliminate non-heterosexualities. How is membership in a gay-straight alliance where membership is voluntary, or the suppression of anti-gay bullying and harassment, supposed to encourage homosexuality (save, I grant, in the sense of allowing people to feel safer)?

I am pleased to announce that as of today the Senior Center in Seattle, Washington, has ceased to censor First Things. I am supposing that this publication is no longer viewed as too violent and filled with hate-speech. Truly a blessing for us seniors here.

The grave and wicked sin of homosexuality, and the liberal propaganda about homosexualism, and, especially, the error the Church made in trying to make an accomodation with the world, has led Holy Mother Church to coddle and cradle homosexuals and to invite them into her Seminaries where their wickedness causes grave evils.

The words in the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel (from the Raccolta) are apt here.

This wicked serpent, like an unclean torrent, pours into men of depraved minds and corrupt hearts the poison of his malice, the spirt of lying, impiety and blasphemy, and the deadly breath of impurity and every form of vice and iniquity. These crafty enemies of mankind have filled to overflowing with gall and wormwood the Church, which is the Bride of the Lamb without spot; they have laid profane hands upon her most sacred treasures.

Homosexuals engaged in that wicked vice have their immortal souls at stake and speaking about sexual orientation this and compassion that will never rouse their complacent consciences.

Flannery O'Connor was right when she said, paraphrasing, that to the nearly deaf you shout and that to the nearly blind you write with bold bright letters.

The Rainbow Flag Folks require the truth in black and white.

Holy Mother Church is the Ark of Salvation and it is her primary duty to save souls and, as such, she must be teaching the Four Last Things, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, and she must constantly remind us what it is we must do to gain Heaven and avoid Perdition and those poor souls trapped in the pleasurable vice of sexual iniquity must have their conscience revivified.

Randy McDonald,

I’m more than pleased that as a person committed to the gay agenda you are willing to admit that with condom use “There is danger [of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS]…”, although it is sharply reduced. And then there are the many children who suffer from “condom fatigue”. So how many children getting infected with AIDS and/or STDs is an acceptable number in promoting the ideals of sexual liberation?

I, of course, was referencing the emotional and psychological effects of encouraging children in sex education classes to adopt a “casual, safe sex” attitude towards sexual engagement, criminal in my mind because, as I alluded to earlier, sex is always and everywhere dangerous because it is the primal force in propagating the species and is inextricably caught up in every existential facet of being human, and we should never be casual about something so powerful that it could so easily destabilize the psychological and emotional well-being of a child, and if you take an honest look around, as I do daily, at the youth today, you will see where the notion of casual, safe sex has delivered them.

You ask how teachers and counselors are imposing a sexual identity on children. I will give two examples, both representative of the norm at many schools. A friend of my daughter at age 14 told a counselor that he had been experiencing same-sex attraction. The counselor immediately enrolled him in a “gay support group”, and it wasn’t the same-sex attraction that hurled this child into a deep and persisting depression, but the angst of having to face up to the “fact” that he was gay, and in the gay support group he was inundated with information from the counselor and the other kids who had been indoctrinated explaining all the evidence of why he was gay. Through conversations with responsible persons, me included, he came to understand that he was not in fact gay, but a child going through a normal sexual development phase. Today at age 25 he is in a long-term relationship with a woman and is happy in his educational pursuits.

Another male friend of my daughter at age 15 was given a test with the other children his age to determine how gay he was. The children were given this test under the auspices of teaching children to be tolerant of gay children. My daughter’s friend scored 60% gay and it devastated him (when I arrived home from work he was sitting in a corner with his head hanging low), for he was experiencing no same-sex attraction; in fact, he was experiencing consistent sexual attraction to girls. When he was at my house I asked him where the teacher got the test from, and he told me: an Internet site set up by gay activists. I told him, “I’ll tell you what—I’ll take the test twice. First as I was at your age, and now at age 54.” In the first test I scored close to 60% and on the second test close to 15%. This gave him a lot of relief. “You see,” I told him, “Your sexuality is developing, and you just happen to be a hyper-sensitive kid who possesses a lot of traits that are admirable, because many male kids don’t possess those great gifts. Trust me, you will be a better person because of them when you grow older.”

I see indoctrination as a process where a person is repeatedly exposed to certain thoughts/ideas until he/she comes to accept them as fact. Now it is obvious that a person can be indoctrinated into embracing truths or lies. But what is of most interest to me is that recently neuroscientists in the field of neuroplasty have discovered that persons, especially malleable youth, if exposed to repetitive thoughts and/or behavior, it can alter their brains. (To get a sense of this new field, visit www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=7131130). We have always known or suspected this but just never gave it a scientific classification. For example, we know that if we get young people (around age 17) to join the army, it will be much easier to indoctrinate them into being soldiers who are required to kill persons they don’t even know, regardless who they are fighting or what the reason is, for their frontal lobes, the center of discernment and judgment, are not fully developed and won’t be until about age 23 (the genius of Stanley Kubrick explored this in “Full Metal Jacket”). And if the indoctrination is successful, the brain will be changed. This is why gay apologists rage against those persons who have, through “reparative therapy” (what I would call neuroplasty), actually changed their sexual orientation. When we talk of the damage done to soldiers, it’s not just PTSD, but an actual change in the brain through indoctrination that can take a long time to undo or overcome, and often this never happens, and I suspect leads to a lot of divorce among ex-soldiers. And when you take a child who is experiencing indoctrination in gay support groups, the repetitive statements about why he is gay in and of itself can alter his brain, and if he starts participating in gay behavior, that will deepen the indoctrination and the level the brain changes.

You write, “Sexual orientation, as a substantially inherited personality trait, is very deeply rooted.” There is no scientific data to confirms this, other than that a sexual orientation can be deeply rooted. The debate still rages without any conclusive scientific data that explains why sexual orientations other than heterosexual are deeply rooted. I saw a man on television insisting that his leather fetish had a genetic base, and I would agree with him because every human feeling, thought and action has a genetic base. I do believe that any rational person should be able to grasp the fact that men’s and women’s bodies are primally designed by nature for sexual attraction—even Darwin would agree to this. And when looking to other primates who engage in homosexual behavior, it is always an activity of dominance; one of many reasons I talk about the sadomasochistic element in gay relationships.

I want to remind those who are fighting the good fight to save the children who are being sacrificed on the altar of the sexual revolution in sex education classes that they are free to use anything I write here at First Things. And it is not necessary to put what I write in quotes, for if it is the truth and what God wills to be written, then it doesn't come from me, but from the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to agree with the politics of the person reporting, but the facts scream out for themselves:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/obama-appointee-kevin-jennings-fisting-and-fk-em-to-the-religious-right.html

Gil Costello says:
"I am pleased to announce that as of today the Senior Center in Seattle, Washington, has ceased to censor First Things. I am supposing that this publication is no longer viewed as too violent and filled with hate-speech. Truly a blessing for us seniors here."

Or perhaps it is because First Things sounds more and more like a gay pride parade handout with each passing day.

In that sense, it is quite violent and destructive (to Christians/Catholics), not that your Senior Center might be able to grasp just how violent that can be.

Felicity,

I am grateful that First Things provides an opportunity to have an open discussion on all the elements of the sexual liberation movement, welcoming in all those who feel strongly about it one way or another. That is the only way we are going to be able to come to grips with its destructive power, especially against innocent children. This involves a battle of ideas, and a publication of the highest intellectual order must provide the battlefield, and this is the place.

Oh...and First Things went back on the censored list again as violent and hate-filled at the Senior Center here in Seattle. Obviously there is a battle going on among the liberal staff that oversees censorship for us seniors.

My good friend, David, sent me this:

"Witness this aphorism in the Pensees, which suggests how easily a man can shut himself off from the whole of truth virtually with a clear conscience: 'If you do not take the trouble to know the truth, there is enough truth at hand so that you can live in peace. But if you crave it with all your heart, then it is not enough to know it.'...It is an error as common as it is fatal, says [John Henry] Newman, to think that 'truth may be approached without homage.'"

-Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love, pg. 66.


Selmys' fault is that she is not willing to grasp the whole truth, and I suspect that that is partially due to not fully letting go of her gay identity in embracing a Christian one. This is understandable because it is true of most Christians who pursue their apprehension of what is good and evil on their own terms separate from what God reveals. And that because the one last thing in our rebellion against God is determining at some level what is good. The fruit just taste too good.

And finally, I went to Selmys’ blogsite to look for her take on the essentials conveyed in "Theology of the Body" and I found this: "Ideally, what you’re aiming for is to take greater pleasure in the other person’s sexual climax than in your own, and to want to be satisfied yourself primarily so that the other person can have the joy of having satisfied you." And after reading this I understood that however deep Selmys has moved into her Christian identity, her reductive sexual identity still has a hold on her imagination and perspective on human sexuality.

I would recommend that a Christian man and woman in uniting with one another in sexual communication that they should never aim "to take greater pleasure in the other person's sexual climax than in your own". This creates at some level a situation of anxiety related to successfully pleasing the other (which bears a tension) with an inescapable anticipation of receiving pleasure from the other in return, even if it is a continuation of giving joy to the other, no matter how deeply one can bury or shelve this anticipation, or veil it with a Gnostic understanding, an ideal abstract knowing that separates one in degrees from the reality of truly uniting, and in the mere aim of bringing about in the other a sexual climax, even as a sacrificial gifting, the act of aiming to bring about a condition in the other in essence cannot be separated from some aspect of control (for actively aiming to bring about an orgasm in the body of the other is a form of control of the other, even in seeking to please, which is a human love that falls far short of agape) that establishes a barrier to "letting go”, the latter always a falling into an openness of giving and receiving not founded on any action other than the act of letting go in love and being fully present to each other, where true unity takes place, and where all kinds of physical sensations in the context of letting go will be experienced, including orgasms that are not aimed at but spontaneously received in love with an absolute openness to new life, and never in a subtle, imperceptible or consciously anxious negation of the ecstatic reception of the whole person one is uniting with, for in aiming for orgasm one will inescapably in some degree impose a future moment on the present, the eternal now, the only place true union can occur. In this ultimately intimate act of letting go, in the normally terrifying act of opening up one’s whole being to the other to be destroyed or received, a mere touch can be more mysteriously ecstatic than any orgasm that was aimed at, and in fact, the whole orgasm-seeking dynamic will eventually disappear in the ecstasy of being open to and receiving the gestalt of each other, which includes gifting and receiving the entire reality of the other, including the soul.


As I stated earlier, obedience is fundamentally a listening, and a truly intimate/obedient act is never an action with an aim other than a letting go and receiving the other in total openness; any other act will only rupture the listening.


Selmys’ and Foucault’s sexual history is an elaborate Gnostic adventure that essentially is a process to justify hedonist aims, central to sexual liberation, that are always impediments to the true union of complementary others which is always a restoration that just wasn’t possible until Jesus first stated its absolute condition/commitment in the nuptial mystery of marriage and his promise that the kingdom is here in this eternal now. Selmys, like Foucault, is still trapped in a sexual identity. But she is different from Foucault in that she has a faith that can at some point set her free.