Why I Call Myself A Gay Christian
May 23, 2012
Joshua Gonnerman
“Why would a Christian identify as gay?”
That was the question posed by many who read my previous piece for First Things, “Dan Savage Was Right.” Of course, there are many gay people who identify as Christian. But commenters were particularly confused because I am a gay man who accepts Christ’s teaching that sex is to be reserved for marriage, and that marriage is between a man and a woman.
This question has been addressed a few times, most recently by my friend Eve Tushnet. But identity questions are nuanced enough that every answer can only be to the question: Why do I identify as gay? Before I can touch on that, I will address some common objections—or rather, one objection that, on being answered, tends to shift its shape and come again.
“You can’t identify as gay,” many said, “because to do so is to say that the label ‘gay’ encompasses you in your totality.” I have no taste for identity politics, but the truth is that all of us do, in fact, navigate complex identities. I identify first as a Christian, secondly as an orthodox Roman Catholic. After that, we find a slew of monikers; an Augustinian, a scholar, a theologian, an American, a single person, a theatergoer, a cook, a pedestrian, and—here comes the controversy—a gay or queer person.
The central locus of my identity, which shapes all other aspects of it, is Christ. But no one, upon honest self-reflection, can realistically claim that this entirely does away with all other aspects of one’s identity. Christ is the foundation which shows how other aspects of my identity can and cannot be expressed, but other aspects of who I am do say something significant about me.
In response, some say specifically that one should not regard homosexuality as a significant part of who one is; the line of reasoning here seems to be that it is exclusively a matter of temptation, and thus is something one fights against (the same variation, differently framed, says that being gay means engaging in or being open to engaging in homosexual activity). For some, this may be true to their experience, and I would agree in that case. It is not, however, my experience (on which, see the interesting thoughts Melinda Selmys offers on her blog distinguishing ordered desire from concupiscent, or lustful, desire).
A further nuance is to claim that any sexual identity is inappropriate for a Christian. While there are interesting questions about whether it is good that sexual identity exists in our culture, the simple fact is that it does exist; further everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Someone who meets me will be more likely to assume that I am struck by a beautiful actress than by a beautiful actor. So if I’m going to be classified—and we often classify for a good reason, in an effort to know something or someone—I would rather be classified truthfully.
The strangest form of the argument I have seen is the claim that gay identity simply does not exist. Of course, the fact that people identify as gay not only proves, but actually constitutes, the existence of gay identity. It is a subjective reality, certainly, but no less real for that.
So, then, we are presented with two different sexual identities for the homosexually-inclined. To identify as “gay” usually means to experience one’s homosexuality, in some way, as valuable. The competing sexual identity (known by many names, but most often “same-sex attracted” or “struggling with same-sex attraction”), indicates, in general, an experience of one’s sexuality as entirely problematic, and thus to be overcome (though, again, “overcoming” has a wide range of meanings here).
Yet there are many things I find valuable about my experience of being gay. Any number of studies indicate that there are real trends of difference between gay people and straight people, however difficult to define. Gay Christians are, perhaps, “called to otherness” as Elizabeth Scalia’s suggested on these pages in an article I consider one of the best things written on the subject. Her suggestion is that people with same-sex desire experience a kind of attraction that, when not concupiscent, is a gift to the Church—a sign of contradiction.
My otherness as a gay man is shared with other people, and we in our shared otherness make a community (community in otherness being an experience I learned to value in the churches of my youth, as we sang with gusto of being “a peculiar people”). Being a gay Christian does not mean one must be separated from one’s gay brothers and sisters or dissent from the teaching of the Church. The more people are willing to stand up and be counted, the more the rift between the church and gay people can be healed, and that’s a goal I, at least, feel the obligation to pursue.
Joshua Gonnerman lives in Washington, D. C., where he is a doctoral student in historical theology at the Catholic University of America.
RESOURCES
Dan Savage Was Right
Eve Tushnet
Elizabeth Scalia, Homosexuality: A Call to Otherness?
Sexual Authenticity
Is ‘Gaydar’ Mostly on the Mark?
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Comments:
5.23.2012 | 8:03am
Dean from Ohio says:
I would ask two questions, to help me understand the author's perspective.
1. Are there more than two genders in reality?
2. Are homosexual inclinations disordered?
Thanks and in the brotherly love of Christ,
Dean
1. Are there more than two genders in reality?
2. Are homosexual inclinations disordered?
Thanks and in the brotherly love of Christ,
Dean
5.23.2012 | 8:34am
Justine says:
AT first, the notion of a Gay Catholic or Christian confounded me a bit, it almost sounded like a oxymoron for a second. I am glad you wrote this article, though, and am proud of you for your honesty! To know that despite such "otherness," there is still a spirit of perserverance in the faith and in following Christ regardless of the cost. People with same-sex attraction, who struggle with it and against temptation for their love of Christ and wanting to conform to Him, play an invaluable role in the Church, I am sure. They carry a particular cross which others don't, and this struggle for chastity for a gay man or woman, when offered up and supplied with the grace of the sacraments, can be very powerful for the goood of souls, to really fight the good fight! Thank you for your courage to confess something that could potentially offend both the gay community and the Christian one as well. But there are also many who would support you and pray for you to be faithful.
5.23.2012 | 10:33am
care says:
"It might be more truthful to say that you are simply a Catholic. Whatever internal struggles you have to live your life in Christ according to the dictates of your conscience seem to me to be more for you and your confessor and spiritual director. There is no need to be a hyphenated Christian, we are all broken and in need of healing, love and acceptance as family in the Church. "
Yeah, this is definitely the first thing I say to anyone who calls himself an Irish Catholic.
Yeah, this is definitely the first thing I say to anyone who calls himself an Irish Catholic.
5.23.2012 | 10:46am
Mark says:
I have sympathy for the cross you bear. It's mysterious and tragic.
And this is the problem - you perhaps see your stance fully consistent with the historic Christian perpsective because you draw that line between being and action, but the fact is, you are missing a huge piece.
Homosexuality is a tragic and mysterious perversion of the natural order. It's tragic that a man cannot find the complementary partnering that we see imaged in Genesis in a woman. It's abnormal for a man to only be able to find that with another man and to deeply desire the embodiment of that desire in a physical way with another male. (And the same with women).
It's uncomfortable, perhaps, to say this, but the fact is - this is the traditional understanding of homosexuality. It does, indeed, go beyond just condemning sodomy.
And yes, it leads us to all kinds of questions of theodicy, perhaps - why does God permit this? But the questions are not unique to the homosexual questions and are, in fact, not nearly as urgent in this case as they are, for example, in asking why God permits babies to be born with Tay-Sachs or with tragic congenital defects.
I'm sorry, but when you try to place this argument within the context of traditional Christian understanding, it doesn't fit. And if that is what you are trying to do - to move beyond that understanding, be honest.
To put it bluntly - in the context of traditional Christian understanding, to say that it is appropriate to identify oneself as a "gay Christian" makes as much sense as it would do identify oneself as a "greedy Christian" or a "self-centered Christian" or an "angry Christian."
So to sum it up: Traditional Christian theological, philosophical and ethical thinking about homosexuality has not defined the desire as neutral. It has defined it as disordered affections and a perversion of the good.
If you think that's wrong, be honest about it.
And this is the problem - you perhaps see your stance fully consistent with the historic Christian perpsective because you draw that line between being and action, but the fact is, you are missing a huge piece.
Homosexuality is a tragic and mysterious perversion of the natural order. It's tragic that a man cannot find the complementary partnering that we see imaged in Genesis in a woman. It's abnormal for a man to only be able to find that with another man and to deeply desire the embodiment of that desire in a physical way with another male. (And the same with women).
It's uncomfortable, perhaps, to say this, but the fact is - this is the traditional understanding of homosexuality. It does, indeed, go beyond just condemning sodomy.
And yes, it leads us to all kinds of questions of theodicy, perhaps - why does God permit this? But the questions are not unique to the homosexual questions and are, in fact, not nearly as urgent in this case as they are, for example, in asking why God permits babies to be born with Tay-Sachs or with tragic congenital defects.
I'm sorry, but when you try to place this argument within the context of traditional Christian understanding, it doesn't fit. And if that is what you are trying to do - to move beyond that understanding, be honest.
To put it bluntly - in the context of traditional Christian understanding, to say that it is appropriate to identify oneself as a "gay Christian" makes as much sense as it would do identify oneself as a "greedy Christian" or a "self-centered Christian" or an "angry Christian."
So to sum it up: Traditional Christian theological, philosophical and ethical thinking about homosexuality has not defined the desire as neutral. It has defined it as disordered affections and a perversion of the good.
If you think that's wrong, be honest about it.
5.23.2012 | 10:51am
Alberto Hurtado says:
Andrew Haines over at the Center for Morality in Public Life has given a quick response to your post. Haines makes a valid point that your thesis of otherness and community doesn't really serve to bind a community together at all in the Christian context. Seems your thesis is more a humanistic enterprise. To Quote Haines:
"I confess, that Gonnerman’s language, here, is excessively (to use his phrase) “peculiar.” What does it mean to say that “we in our shared otherness make a community”? What ever is “shared otherness”? And how on earth should we find it—presumably what he would call “a sign of contradiction”—to be a compelling reason for embracing something like homosexual attraction?
Indeed, poetic language shouldn’t be discouraged. But if Gonnerman’s argument holds up, it appears to be the differences that separate us—and not the common features that unite us—which “make a community.”
To be sure, the Christian gospel, and subsequently a Christian perspective on ethics and sexual morality, is founded upon the mystery of the Incarnation, and upon the seeming impossibility (or contradiction) of the Cross. But “signs of contradiction” (i.e., signs of the toll that sinfulness inflicts upon our nature) aren’t justifications for or the bases of authentic community. They’re instances of its breakdown; hardly the sort of thing we should be celebrating and seeking after to extoll."
"I confess, that Gonnerman’s language, here, is excessively (to use his phrase) “peculiar.” What does it mean to say that “we in our shared otherness make a community”? What ever is “shared otherness”? And how on earth should we find it—presumably what he would call “a sign of contradiction”—to be a compelling reason for embracing something like homosexual attraction?
Indeed, poetic language shouldn’t be discouraged. But if Gonnerman’s argument holds up, it appears to be the differences that separate us—and not the common features that unite us—which “make a community.”
To be sure, the Christian gospel, and subsequently a Christian perspective on ethics and sexual morality, is founded upon the mystery of the Incarnation, and upon the seeming impossibility (or contradiction) of the Cross. But “signs of contradiction” (i.e., signs of the toll that sinfulness inflicts upon our nature) aren’t justifications for or the bases of authentic community. They’re instances of its breakdown; hardly the sort of thing we should be celebrating and seeking after to extoll."
5.23.2012 | 11:06am
Rhinestone Suderman says:
As Steve says, Mr. Gonnerman, it would probably be more honest to identify yourself as Catholic.
After all, many of us are called to "otherness", in different ways, not all of them gay. Parents of special needs kids, single heterosexuals, Christians living and/or working in a secular environment, can all be faced with being treated as "The other."
In fact, Christ Himself warned us that the world would not like us.
I'm honestly less troubled by any questions of gender here, than I am by the fact that you actually defended one, Mr. Dan Savage recently---a man who bullied Christian students at a recent, ironically named, "Anti-bullying conference." Those kids certainly got to experience being treated as "The Other", and might still be suffering the consequences of Savage's singling them out. As your fellow Christians, they're worthy of defense, too.
Care, the "Irish Catholic" example is actually a good one, to illustrate why identity politics in the Church is not a good idea. I remember one commentator (I forget where) expressing the opinion that, for many Irish Catholics, the real object of their devotion isn't the altar, but a map of dear old Eire---"It's a grand auld country, every time!" And Irish/American politics, vis-a-vis the IRA, and Tamany Hall have not always been, well---ahem!---admirable!
In the section of the country I live in, there are often disputes between Irish American/Vietnamese/Hispanic congregations. Playing the identity politics game is usually a bad idea, especially in church.
After all, many of us are called to "otherness", in different ways, not all of them gay. Parents of special needs kids, single heterosexuals, Christians living and/or working in a secular environment, can all be faced with being treated as "The other."
In fact, Christ Himself warned us that the world would not like us.
I'm honestly less troubled by any questions of gender here, than I am by the fact that you actually defended one, Mr. Dan Savage recently---a man who bullied Christian students at a recent, ironically named, "Anti-bullying conference." Those kids certainly got to experience being treated as "The Other", and might still be suffering the consequences of Savage's singling them out. As your fellow Christians, they're worthy of defense, too.
Care, the "Irish Catholic" example is actually a good one, to illustrate why identity politics in the Church is not a good idea. I remember one commentator (I forget where) expressing the opinion that, for many Irish Catholics, the real object of their devotion isn't the altar, but a map of dear old Eire---"It's a grand auld country, every time!" And Irish/American politics, vis-a-vis the IRA, and Tamany Hall have not always been, well---ahem!---admirable!
In the section of the country I live in, there are often disputes between Irish American/Vietnamese/Hispanic congregations. Playing the identity politics game is usually a bad idea, especially in church.
5.23.2012 | 11:07am
Mark says:
"I do not find this recent essay compelling or persuasive. The 'gay' modifier to me indicates some sort of essential lifestyle identification. I am not sure how that lifestyle -- which is more than just an acceptance of one's desires, appetites, and inclinations, but a celebration and often an aggressive affirmation of homosexuality itself -- is compatible with the moral obligations of the faith."
But Steve, this seems to be the very point of the article: identity is subjective. It means only what people intend it and understand it to mean.
Ironically, in making a claim about "what the gay modifier indicates" as if the meaning of words is absolute, you are actually buying into a sort of Gay Essentialism (as do many liberal gays).
But that's as biased and wrong as insisting that "black" means only what, say, the Black Panthers use it to mean, and therefore looking askance at all the manifold ways that identity/minority-status plays out for different people and groups under its umbrella in society.
"However, I am unconvinced that that cultural significance of the term 'gay' can possibly be recovered to be understandable as you seem to intend it."
This is just nonsense, though. The ironic thing here is that almost all GAYS themselves would accept Joshua's claim to be gay (given that he's attracted to men), even if they disagree with his stance of also accepting traditional Christian sexual morality.
So at that point, your claim just looks absurd. If he identifies as gay, and if the gays accept him as gay...then for some external third party to look in on the community and say, "No, that identification is incompatible"...is just ridiculous. That's just not how social constructs work.
Whatever associations you have between "gay" and "sexually libertine"...most young people (and even most people within the gay community) understand "gay" to simply be the sort of slang-shorthand indicating ones attractions based on sex (in the sense of male/female). It is understood as the label of an orientation, not any particular "lifestyle" or even political stance. Bizarrely, it is only conservative Christians who insist it means the latter.
Yes, it probably indicates a more positive relationship to ones attractions than the clinical language of "struggling with same-sex attractions" (as if they're necessarily something "struggled with") but it says nothing about how that positive stance plays out in terms of behavior or moral outlook.
"It might be more truthful to say that you are simply a Catholic."
This is really frustrating. Joshua addresses this in his post. People have all sorts of identifiers: American, white, upper-middle-class, university-educated, male, English-speaker, Star Wars fan, pizza-lover.
None of these should be "central" to our identity, but they all do say something more or less significant and so help people understand us. They're not untrue.
"Whatever internal struggles you have to live your life in Christ according to the dictates of your conscience seem to me to be more for you and your confessor and spiritual director. There is no need to be a hyphenated Christian, we are all broken and in need of healing, love and acceptance as family in the Church."
Again: frustrating. Joshua's whole point here seems to be to question the notion that homosexuality necessarily poses a "struggle" or represents "brokenness" to a psychosexually integrated chaste person.
He's also trying to question the idea that homosexuality should not be publicly shared or identified, but kept secret or discreet ("between you and your confessor"). As a part of identity that many perceive as extremely important to their whole affective experience of life and relating in the word socially as gendered beings, as well as the condition of difference or otherness it implies even apart from the specific content of that otherness...the idea that this difference should be kept under the rug and not form the basis of a community of empathy or identification...just seems like conservatives wishing to pretend that homosexuals don't exist.
But Steve, this seems to be the very point of the article: identity is subjective. It means only what people intend it and understand it to mean.
Ironically, in making a claim about "what the gay modifier indicates" as if the meaning of words is absolute, you are actually buying into a sort of Gay Essentialism (as do many liberal gays).
But that's as biased and wrong as insisting that "black" means only what, say, the Black Panthers use it to mean, and therefore looking askance at all the manifold ways that identity/minority-status plays out for different people and groups under its umbrella in society.
"However, I am unconvinced that that cultural significance of the term 'gay' can possibly be recovered to be understandable as you seem to intend it."
This is just nonsense, though. The ironic thing here is that almost all GAYS themselves would accept Joshua's claim to be gay (given that he's attracted to men), even if they disagree with his stance of also accepting traditional Christian sexual morality.
So at that point, your claim just looks absurd. If he identifies as gay, and if the gays accept him as gay...then for some external third party to look in on the community and say, "No, that identification is incompatible"...is just ridiculous. That's just not how social constructs work.
Whatever associations you have between "gay" and "sexually libertine"...most young people (and even most people within the gay community) understand "gay" to simply be the sort of slang-shorthand indicating ones attractions based on sex (in the sense of male/female). It is understood as the label of an orientation, not any particular "lifestyle" or even political stance. Bizarrely, it is only conservative Christians who insist it means the latter.
Yes, it probably indicates a more positive relationship to ones attractions than the clinical language of "struggling with same-sex attractions" (as if they're necessarily something "struggled with") but it says nothing about how that positive stance plays out in terms of behavior or moral outlook.
"It might be more truthful to say that you are simply a Catholic."
This is really frustrating. Joshua addresses this in his post. People have all sorts of identifiers: American, white, upper-middle-class, university-educated, male, English-speaker, Star Wars fan, pizza-lover.
None of these should be "central" to our identity, but they all do say something more or less significant and so help people understand us. They're not untrue.
"Whatever internal struggles you have to live your life in Christ according to the dictates of your conscience seem to me to be more for you and your confessor and spiritual director. There is no need to be a hyphenated Christian, we are all broken and in need of healing, love and acceptance as family in the Church."
Again: frustrating. Joshua's whole point here seems to be to question the notion that homosexuality necessarily poses a "struggle" or represents "brokenness" to a psychosexually integrated chaste person.
He's also trying to question the idea that homosexuality should not be publicly shared or identified, but kept secret or discreet ("between you and your confessor"). As a part of identity that many perceive as extremely important to their whole affective experience of life and relating in the word socially as gendered beings, as well as the condition of difference or otherness it implies even apart from the specific content of that otherness...the idea that this difference should be kept under the rug and not form the basis of a community of empathy or identification...just seems like conservatives wishing to pretend that homosexuals don't exist.
5.23.2012 | 11:14am
Melinda Selmys says:
Steve, you said that "The "gay" modifier to me indicates some sort of essential lifestyle identification." When someone specifically identifies as a chaste gay man, it's pretty clear that they're not identifying with a lifestyle. More to the point, I think a lot of Christian witness to the LGBTQ community is hamstrung by the fact that we feel compelled to use language in a way that is alienating to that community. For Christians, "gay" refers to a lifestyle, for LGBTQ people it refers to a sexual identity -- to an inborn or deep-seated set of psychological traits and desires. In the interests of trying to evangelize the gay community, a lot more headway can be made by people like Joshua courageously standing up and saying "I'm gay, I'm faithful, I'm chaste, and I'm happy," than by people insisting on an insular Christian understanding of what it means to be gay. For most of us Catholic queers who are "out of the closet," so to speak, our primary concern is to present people in the LGBTQ community with an image of chastity that they can potentially relate to, while at the same time provoking a more humane response to gays and lesbians amongst our Christian brethren.
5.23.2012 | 11:19am
Robert Homan says:
"Yeah, this is definitely the first thing I say to anyone who calls himself an Irish Catholic."
Exactly. This is a great and honest piece, and I thank Joshua for it.
Exactly. This is a great and honest piece, and I thank Joshua for it.
5.23.2012 | 11:41am
PeterG says:
Joshua Gonnerman,
Thanks for the follow-up article addressing my questions (questions that were shared by other readers as well). I worry that identifying as a gay man is an unwise concession to the modern age, with no foundation in the tradition of Catholic Christianity. I am confident that you better understand this history than I do, so I guess that you have found a way to answer this worry.
Here is a confusion that I have regarding this issue, it seems that to identify as such is to accept and somehow strengthen a lifestyle that is immoral – it is ‘loving the sin’ in a secondary way. Obviously I am confusing something, as you are not acting on your attraction, but are following the moral teaching of the Church. How does identifying as gay help or hinder this? Is it more like the reformed alcoholic who identifies as an addict for life, but stays away from alcohol? This is certainly not the way the gay people I know would answer. I do want to understand this better, so I appreciate this discussion you have begun, and I will read the links you posted.
What of those men and women who identify as bisexual or transgendered or etc.? Where do you draw the line regarding sexual identity and Christianity, or can a line be drawn at all? Though you find value in identifying as a gay man, would you change this if you could? If you could be exclusively sexually attracted to women, would you be? Thanks again, and God bless your study.
Peter
Thanks for the follow-up article addressing my questions (questions that were shared by other readers as well). I worry that identifying as a gay man is an unwise concession to the modern age, with no foundation in the tradition of Catholic Christianity. I am confident that you better understand this history than I do, so I guess that you have found a way to answer this worry.
Here is a confusion that I have regarding this issue, it seems that to identify as such is to accept and somehow strengthen a lifestyle that is immoral – it is ‘loving the sin’ in a secondary way. Obviously I am confusing something, as you are not acting on your attraction, but are following the moral teaching of the Church. How does identifying as gay help or hinder this? Is it more like the reformed alcoholic who identifies as an addict for life, but stays away from alcohol? This is certainly not the way the gay people I know would answer. I do want to understand this better, so I appreciate this discussion you have begun, and I will read the links you posted.
What of those men and women who identify as bisexual or transgendered or etc.? Where do you draw the line regarding sexual identity and Christianity, or can a line be drawn at all? Though you find value in identifying as a gay man, would you change this if you could? If you could be exclusively sexually attracted to women, would you be? Thanks again, and God bless your study.
Peter
5.23.2012 | 11:42am
Susan says:
If we all only need agree that the Bible is correct about sexual sin and agree with church dogma regarding sexual purity, is there any reason to not continue to carve sexual sin into additional "otherness" categories? Is there any reason we should not add the other groups that might want to choose to identify themselves by their sexual proclivities: adulterers, fornicators, pedophiles, voyeurs, the incestuous, and so forth? Shouldn't we all take note of how especially difficult their lives are, let them add their self-descriptives, and make sure they don't feel left out of the family of God either? We can have the Pedophiliac Catholic, the Voyeuristic Catholic and so forth... and... anyone who might object or disagree must most certainly be vitriolic, hateful, and bigoted?
5.23.2012 | 11:50am
Bryan Cross says:
Joshua,
The virtue of friendliness is not a disposition toward friendship only with those of the opposite sex. If one's dispositions toward friendship are only toward those of one sex, one does not yet have the virtue of friendliness. So the problem with the man who is sexually attracted to women in an ordinate way but lacks any disposition to form friendships with other men is not that he is not gay, but that he is not yet virtuous. Of course the virtue of friendliness is rightly expressed in different ways to persons of the same or opposite sex, depending also on one's station in life. A married man, for example, cannot have the same kind of friendship with a woman who is not his wife that he can with another man.
But the point is that persons without homoerotic desires can and should have the virtue of friendliness, which is directed toward persons of both sexes. In other words, one does not have to be 'gay' to have the virtue of friendliness. You seem to be co-opting the word 'gay' to refer to something that is intrinsic to the virtue of friendliness, namely, the disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex. But that's just to make all virtuous people 'gay,' which so redefines the term as to be at odds with its normal use. That seems to me to be the mistake in Melinda's post. When one redefines 'gay' to mean the virtuous disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex, then 'gay' becomes merely part of the virtue of friendliness. But the normal usage of the term 'gay' does not mean "dispositions toward virtuous friendship with persons of the same sex." It means rather dispositions or appetites to sexual activity with persons of the same sex. We wouldn't call 'gay' a person who has no sexual attraction to either sex, but has the virtue of friendship.
Of course it would be rather boastful to go around calling oneself a virtuous Christian. But if 'gay' means having an appetite or disposition to sexual activity with persons of the same sex, then publicly identifying oneself as 'gay' implies an embrace of that appetite or disposition, rather than recognizing it as inordinate. So it seems to me that your argument about whether persons should label themselves as 'gay Christians' depends on whether 'gay' means having the disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex, or whether 'gay' means having dispositions or appetites to sexual activity with persons of the same sex. And in my opinion, the term as it is ordinarily used in our broader language community now has the latter meaning.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
The virtue of friendliness is not a disposition toward friendship only with those of the opposite sex. If one's dispositions toward friendship are only toward those of one sex, one does not yet have the virtue of friendliness. So the problem with the man who is sexually attracted to women in an ordinate way but lacks any disposition to form friendships with other men is not that he is not gay, but that he is not yet virtuous. Of course the virtue of friendliness is rightly expressed in different ways to persons of the same or opposite sex, depending also on one's station in life. A married man, for example, cannot have the same kind of friendship with a woman who is not his wife that he can with another man.
But the point is that persons without homoerotic desires can and should have the virtue of friendliness, which is directed toward persons of both sexes. In other words, one does not have to be 'gay' to have the virtue of friendliness. You seem to be co-opting the word 'gay' to refer to something that is intrinsic to the virtue of friendliness, namely, the disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex. But that's just to make all virtuous people 'gay,' which so redefines the term as to be at odds with its normal use. That seems to me to be the mistake in Melinda's post. When one redefines 'gay' to mean the virtuous disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex, then 'gay' becomes merely part of the virtue of friendliness. But the normal usage of the term 'gay' does not mean "dispositions toward virtuous friendship with persons of the same sex." It means rather dispositions or appetites to sexual activity with persons of the same sex. We wouldn't call 'gay' a person who has no sexual attraction to either sex, but has the virtue of friendship.
Of course it would be rather boastful to go around calling oneself a virtuous Christian. But if 'gay' means having an appetite or disposition to sexual activity with persons of the same sex, then publicly identifying oneself as 'gay' implies an embrace of that appetite or disposition, rather than recognizing it as inordinate. So it seems to me that your argument about whether persons should label themselves as 'gay Christians' depends on whether 'gay' means having the disposition to form friendships with persons of the same sex, or whether 'gay' means having dispositions or appetites to sexual activity with persons of the same sex. And in my opinion, the term as it is ordinarily used in our broader language community now has the latter meaning.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
5.23.2012 | 12:01pm
Emina Melonic says:
Excellent article. I have also just read your previous piece (Dan Savage), and have left a comment. I really think that if there is any future of discourse in the public square, there needs to be freedom. And freedom is inevitably connected with a face-to-face relation (to use Levinasian language), and a true recognition of the otherness of the Other. One must remain in the authenticity of the Self, which he possesses, in freedom, in his own conscience which guides him, and yet we also must see the interiority of the Other. Again, thanks for writing this.
5.23.2012 | 12:10pm
Joshua Gonnerman says:
Dean from Ohio:
1. No.
2. When they are instantiate properly sexual desire, yes; on which, see the post on Melinda Selmys' blog Sexual Authenticity, which is linked under Resources.
1. No.
2. When they are instantiate properly sexual desire, yes; on which, see the post on Melinda Selmys' blog Sexual Authenticity, which is linked under Resources.
5.23.2012 | 12:36pm
TradCathPhilProf says:
I don't think ordered desire in Selmys' sense does it for you here. Since you're endorsing it, I'll just take what she says at face value as your position as well. She writes:
When I look at a woman, and see that she is beautiful, that she is desirable, that she is enticing, I'm seeing something that is objectively true: she is objectively a manifestation of the imago dei, she is objectively attractive, and it is objectively legitimate for me to desire to be united with her in the vast communio personarum which is constituted by the Church and by the whole human race. My desire is not disordered in and of itself: it becomes disordered when I direct it, or allow it direct itself, towards something which is forbidden.
While I think she's right that it's possible to recognize and rejoice in a woman's beauty without necessarily lusting after her, that would be the same description that would apply to a heterosexual-inclined person as well. If the same desire can be manifested by a heterosexual, it doesn't seem appropriate to classify it as a "gay" (or "straight") desire. Instead, it's the proper affective response to perceived beauty. Therefore, it's not a meaningful expression of her "gayness."
In other words, as far as I can tell, the only point of insisting on a "gay" identity is to endorse the sexual aspect of the attraction, which towards a member of the same sex must always be "towards something which is forbidden." I would, of course, readily grant that something similar could be true of a "heterosexual identity," a concept which strikes me a similarly misguided. The real objection is the claiming of an "identity" in terms of sexual attraction. This distinction between "ordered desire" and "concupiscence," while certainly a real distinction, does not justify claiming a "gay" identity.
All of that said, I am certainly impressed in your willingness to engage in this discussion and take you at your word that you recognize the authority of the traditional Christian teaching. In light of that fact, however, it's really not clear what good you think you're pursuing in self-identifying with a sexual attraction that is intrinsically disordered.
When I look at a woman, and see that she is beautiful, that she is desirable, that she is enticing, I'm seeing something that is objectively true: she is objectively a manifestation of the imago dei, she is objectively attractive, and it is objectively legitimate for me to desire to be united with her in the vast communio personarum which is constituted by the Church and by the whole human race. My desire is not disordered in and of itself: it becomes disordered when I direct it, or allow it direct itself, towards something which is forbidden.
While I think she's right that it's possible to recognize and rejoice in a woman's beauty without necessarily lusting after her, that would be the same description that would apply to a heterosexual-inclined person as well. If the same desire can be manifested by a heterosexual, it doesn't seem appropriate to classify it as a "gay" (or "straight") desire. Instead, it's the proper affective response to perceived beauty. Therefore, it's not a meaningful expression of her "gayness."
In other words, as far as I can tell, the only point of insisting on a "gay" identity is to endorse the sexual aspect of the attraction, which towards a member of the same sex must always be "towards something which is forbidden." I would, of course, readily grant that something similar could be true of a "heterosexual identity," a concept which strikes me a similarly misguided. The real objection is the claiming of an "identity" in terms of sexual attraction. This distinction between "ordered desire" and "concupiscence," while certainly a real distinction, does not justify claiming a "gay" identity.
All of that said, I am certainly impressed in your willingness to engage in this discussion and take you at your word that you recognize the authority of the traditional Christian teaching. In light of that fact, however, it's really not clear what good you think you're pursuing in self-identifying with a sexual attraction that is intrinsically disordered.
5.23.2012 | 12:37pm
Mark says:
"1. Are there more than two genders in reality?
2. Are homosexual inclinations disordered?"
Joshua has already answered these in a straightforward manner.
But I think some serious deconstruction is in order here:
1) What do you mean by "gender" (rather than "sex")??
2) What do you mean by "homosexual inclinations"??
2. Are homosexual inclinations disordered?"
Joshua has already answered these in a straightforward manner.
But I think some serious deconstruction is in order here:
1) What do you mean by "gender" (rather than "sex")??
2) What do you mean by "homosexual inclinations"??
5.23.2012 | 1:29pm
Ken Colston says:
The author "identifies" himself as an orthodox Roman Catholic. Does he accept the Catechism's claim that the homosexual "inclination is objectively disordered"? (Paragraph 2358) If so, isn't he working to achieve "inner freedom" and "Christian perfection"? (2359) Since 2359 follows 2358, I take it that the Church is calling the author to overcome the homosexual inclination in a way it does not ask the so-called heterosexual to overcome his heterosexual inclination but merely to sacrifice it, in the case of a celibate, or to confine it to his spouse, in the case of the married. Would the heterosexual who is not inclined to do so then be correct in identifying himself as having an adulterous inclination or as being an adulterer of the heart? What would be gained by doing so? If the Church thought that the homosexual inclination has an ontological imprint when she called it an "objective disorder," then why would she ask those who possess this inclination to "seek inner freedom" and "Christian perfection"? So the author must be saying that he hopes that one day he will help make this identification disappear.
5.23.2012 | 1:42pm
Anonymous says:
I keep thinking about PaxRomana's comment to your last article on Dan Savage.
The Holy Father has spoken about the reductive nature of these identifying terms.
I also wonder if manifesting your capital fault (everyone has one) to the world threatens that "otherness" that makes the homosexual so unique.
It is true that God hopes for each and every one of us to reach the state of contemplation, and I wonder if crying out our faults to the world before judgement day is going to help us truly reach that communion with God that transcends all human forms of relationship.
I think the theory (foucoult) of sexual identity politics is flawed from the get-go insofar as its categories limit the reality of the human person.
And I speak as one who can "identify" with that "otherness" you speak of. But, I think its fair to say that everyone has a sense of "otherness," regardless of sexual orientation, since we are all flawed and find our perfect happiness only in reunion with God.
God Bless.
The Holy Father has spoken about the reductive nature of these identifying terms.
I also wonder if manifesting your capital fault (everyone has one) to the world threatens that "otherness" that makes the homosexual so unique.
It is true that God hopes for each and every one of us to reach the state of contemplation, and I wonder if crying out our faults to the world before judgement day is going to help us truly reach that communion with God that transcends all human forms of relationship.
I think the theory (foucoult) of sexual identity politics is flawed from the get-go insofar as its categories limit the reality of the human person.
And I speak as one who can "identify" with that "otherness" you speak of. But, I think its fair to say that everyone has a sense of "otherness," regardless of sexual orientation, since we are all flawed and find our perfect happiness only in reunion with God.
God Bless.
5.23.2012 | 2:02pm
Mark says:
TradCathPhilProf:
I "understand" your objection to Selmys's idea when you say "While I think she's right that it's possible to recognize and rejoice in a woman's beauty without necessarily lusting after her, that would be the same description that would apply to a heterosexual-inclined person as well. If the same desire can be manifested by a heterosexual, it doesn't seem appropriate to classify it as a 'gay' (or 'straight') desire. Instead, it's the proper affective response to perceived beauty. Therefore, it's not a meaningful expression of her 'gayness.'"
However, I think you're off. Yes, beauty/aesthetic appreciation is a good that can be recognized by everyone, male or female, gay or straight.
But what if instead of beauty I said "sexual attractiveness"? What if we phrase it so that I'm not talking about finding a woman "beautiful," but finding her "hot" (on the erotic end of the spectrum) or "cute" (on the infatuated end of the spectrum)??
Surely, sexual attractiveness (which I don't think recognizing is at all the same as saying you desire to HAVE sex with that person) in a person is a real good, both physically and in personality. If that trait really exists, and if its okay for heterosexuals to recognize and appreciate it (even, say, in people other than their spouse)...then it must be a real objective good, like beauty. And yet (unlike the "cold" aesthetic sort of beauty) it also seems to be a good that presumably only a person with an androphilic or gynephilic "antenna" for picking up on such a good can recognize fully.
Now, something is either good or it isn't, though different people may have different temperaments (ie, some people just naturally enjoy eating their vegetables, others don't. Some people like the mental challenge of chess, for others that takes a "stretch" or is an acquired taste or never suits their temperament.) Likewise, the trait or Form or Idea of "male sexual attractiveness" or "female sexual attractiveness" (a specific subset of beauty I'd argue can only be recognized fully in men by androphiles, and only in women by gynephiles)...must be a real good, even if not everyone is "attuned" to it, I don't think it's possible to say that being attuned to a given good (assuming it's a real good) is wrong for males or for females, as if there are really in humanity two separate sexual appetites with two separate objects.
I "understand" your objection to Selmys's idea when you say "While I think she's right that it's possible to recognize and rejoice in a woman's beauty without necessarily lusting after her, that would be the same description that would apply to a heterosexual-inclined person as well. If the same desire can be manifested by a heterosexual, it doesn't seem appropriate to classify it as a 'gay' (or 'straight') desire. Instead, it's the proper affective response to perceived beauty. Therefore, it's not a meaningful expression of her 'gayness.'"
However, I think you're off. Yes, beauty/aesthetic appreciation is a good that can be recognized by everyone, male or female, gay or straight.
But what if instead of beauty I said "sexual attractiveness"? What if we phrase it so that I'm not talking about finding a woman "beautiful," but finding her "hot" (on the erotic end of the spectrum) or "cute" (on the infatuated end of the spectrum)??
Surely, sexual attractiveness (which I don't think recognizing is at all the same as saying you desire to HAVE sex with that person) in a person is a real good, both physically and in personality. If that trait really exists, and if its okay for heterosexuals to recognize and appreciate it (even, say, in people other than their spouse)...then it must be a real objective good, like beauty. And yet (unlike the "cold" aesthetic sort of beauty) it also seems to be a good that presumably only a person with an androphilic or gynephilic "antenna" for picking up on such a good can recognize fully.
Now, something is either good or it isn't, though different people may have different temperaments (ie, some people just naturally enjoy eating their vegetables, others don't. Some people like the mental challenge of chess, for others that takes a "stretch" or is an acquired taste or never suits their temperament.) Likewise, the trait or Form or Idea of "male sexual attractiveness" or "female sexual attractiveness" (a specific subset of beauty I'd argue can only be recognized fully in men by androphiles, and only in women by gynephiles)...must be a real good, even if not everyone is "attuned" to it, I don't think it's possible to say that being attuned to a given good (assuming it's a real good) is wrong for males or for females, as if there are really in humanity two separate sexual appetites with two separate objects.
5.23.2012 | 2:18pm
Matt Yonke says:
Joshua -- Thanks for writing this and putting yourself out there to help advance this discussion.
Can you expand on what exactly you find valuable about the "gay" part of your identity? It seems you mean, in part, that it allows you to minister to others who are also attracted to those of the same gender, but beyond that I can't see what the value you see in what, to people who don't share your circumstances, looks like a detrimental part of an identity. One that could be used for sanctification, but nonetheless something to be overcome or battled against rather than valued.
I ask not to imply that there is nothing valuable there, just that I couldn't glean much of what you find valuable about "the gay part" of your identity from the article and I'd like to understand better what you mean.
Can you expand on what exactly you find valuable about the "gay" part of your identity? It seems you mean, in part, that it allows you to minister to others who are also attracted to those of the same gender, but beyond that I can't see what the value you see in what, to people who don't share your circumstances, looks like a detrimental part of an identity. One that could be used for sanctification, but nonetheless something to be overcome or battled against rather than valued.
I ask not to imply that there is nothing valuable there, just that I couldn't glean much of what you find valuable about "the gay part" of your identity from the article and I'd like to understand better what you mean.
5.23.2012 | 2:43pm
Steve Schuh says:
Many Christians incongruously believe that the human desire to love and be loved is fundamental and God-given, but the intrinsic direction of that desire – if it’s discovered to be same-sex – is irrelevant and illusory. Which is it?
Congrats to Joshua and others who stubbornly cling to reality in opposition to the masses of Christians who would have them live a more theologically convenient lie.
Congrats to Joshua and others who stubbornly cling to reality in opposition to the masses of Christians who would have them live a more theologically convenient lie.
5.23.2012 | 3:02pm
Melinda Selmys says:
TradCathPhilProf writes "While I think she's right that it's possible to recognize and rejoice in a woman's beauty without necessarily lusting after her, that would be the same description that would apply to a heterosexual-inclined person as well. If the same desire can be manifested by a heterosexual, it doesn't seem appropriate to classify it as a "gay" (or "straight") desire. Instead, it's the proper affective response to perceived beauty. Therefore, it's not a meaningful expression of her "gayness." "
To be clear, I don't exactly identify as "gay" -- I tentatively use the word "queer" which I think more accurately covers my experience of myself as being somehow "other," not really straight, but none the less capable of having a functional and very happy heterosexual marriage, not very gender-typical, and yet convinced that I am essentially feminine. In any case, I would suggest that for most heterosexual people there isn't a point where their interior freedom manifests itself in the form of a decision to look with our without lust at a person of the same sex. This is what I think is a meaningful expression of queerness, gayness, whatever you want to call it: that there is a decision there that is being made which is fundamentally alien to the heterosexual person. I've worked pretty hard to get that interior freedom, but having worked for it I can't help but notice that the freedom which the practice of chastity grants me does not look very much like what Ken Colston seems to be imagining when he talks about overcoming the homosexual inclination. It is a freedom to choose to decline the temptation, to turn the temptation into an occasion of grace, it is not the freedom to not be tempted. I think it's reasonable to call that a manifestation of "gayness." I also think that it's reasonable to me to assert that I don't believe that there is ever going to be a point where this particular thorn in my flesh is going to be taken away, and that it's much more fruitful to try to turn that into an opportunity to more deeply appreciate the ways in which God's grace suffices.
To be clear, I don't exactly identify as "gay" -- I tentatively use the word "queer" which I think more accurately covers my experience of myself as being somehow "other," not really straight, but none the less capable of having a functional and very happy heterosexual marriage, not very gender-typical, and yet convinced that I am essentially feminine. In any case, I would suggest that for most heterosexual people there isn't a point where their interior freedom manifests itself in the form of a decision to look with our without lust at a person of the same sex. This is what I think is a meaningful expression of queerness, gayness, whatever you want to call it: that there is a decision there that is being made which is fundamentally alien to the heterosexual person. I've worked pretty hard to get that interior freedom, but having worked for it I can't help but notice that the freedom which the practice of chastity grants me does not look very much like what Ken Colston seems to be imagining when he talks about overcoming the homosexual inclination. It is a freedom to choose to decline the temptation, to turn the temptation into an occasion of grace, it is not the freedom to not be tempted. I think it's reasonable to call that a manifestation of "gayness." I also think that it's reasonable to me to assert that I don't believe that there is ever going to be a point where this particular thorn in my flesh is going to be taken away, and that it's much more fruitful to try to turn that into an opportunity to more deeply appreciate the ways in which God's grace suffices.
5.23.2012 | 3:31pm
JDD says:
Steve Schuh,
A healthy direction of a desire isn't just whatever I 'discover' it to be.
peace,
JDD
A healthy direction of a desire isn't just whatever I 'discover' it to be.
peace,
JDD
5.23.2012 | 3:59pm
Dean from Ohio says:
Thanks, Joshua.
If I've understood your response to my second question correctly, your definition of disordered seems similar to the Living Bible's wording of Jesus' warning on adultery in Matt. 5:28: "Whoever looks at a woman with the hope of going to bed with her ...."
That, contrasted with just thanking and praising God for creating such beauty, even though it is not, and never will be, for my consumption.
If I've understood your response to my second question correctly, your definition of disordered seems similar to the Living Bible's wording of Jesus' warning on adultery in Matt. 5:28: "Whoever looks at a woman with the hope of going to bed with her ...."
That, contrasted with just thanking and praising God for creating such beauty, even though it is not, and never will be, for my consumption.
5.23.2012 | 4:29pm
Scotty Linscott says:
I agree with you Christ is the foundation of our lives. The word gay is an adjective, while Christian is the noun. One discribes, the other is. (Hopefully that makes sense.)
Grace and mercy to you and on your journey of faith.
Grace and mercy to you and on your journey of faith.
5.23.2012 | 5:04pm
Mike Melendez says:
I think part of the problem people are having with the chosen identifier, "gay", is the use the word has been put to by, for lack of a better term, gay activists. The note on Black Panther use of the word "black" applies, however, they are much further from the popular media than the aforementioned gay activists.
The use I refer to is the effort to erase the dividing line between homosexual attraction and corresponding sexual activity. Said activists would have us believe that the desires must be fulfilled, the desires (possibly) being innate. I think this is of a piece with the current broad heterosexual culture in this country.
Clearly, Joshua, not to mention Eve Tushnet, do not agree with that approach having chosen a higher standard for themselves. That leaves the confusion factor. I can't help but think we straights have the problem just as badly. Just consider Maureen Dowd's recent op-ed. For some people, her writing makes sense. Perhaps, Joshua's approach helps seek a way out of the problem.
The use I refer to is the effort to erase the dividing line between homosexual attraction and corresponding sexual activity. Said activists would have us believe that the desires must be fulfilled, the desires (possibly) being innate. I think this is of a piece with the current broad heterosexual culture in this country.
Clearly, Joshua, not to mention Eve Tushnet, do not agree with that approach having chosen a higher standard for themselves. That leaves the confusion factor. I can't help but think we straights have the problem just as badly. Just consider Maureen Dowd's recent op-ed. For some people, her writing makes sense. Perhaps, Joshua's approach helps seek a way out of the problem.
5.23.2012 | 5:33pm
Mark says:
"That, contrasted with just thanking and praising God for creating such beauty, even though it is not, and never will be, for my consumption."
Well, who even says that sex acts are the "consumption" of such beauty or even sexual attractiveness? Isn't looking, isn't talking with a person, can't loving a person be, as long is there is no lust or deliberate entertainment of arousal or unnatural (genital) pleasure?
Can't even a flower poison if you were to EAT it still have a beautiful odor when you SMELL it? Is it wrong to smell of such a flower or celebrate your love of the smell, even know that to consume it through eating is poison? As far as I know, we don't eat pretty smelling flowers most of the time anyway, though some flowers are edible.
If a gay man sacrifices his life out of "that sort" of love for a partner ("romantic" love, "eros," whatever you want to call it; I'm not convinced it necessarily involves a desire for sex acts)...is this wrong or intrinsically disordered? If someone claimed it was, I simply couldn't buy that.
Well, who even says that sex acts are the "consumption" of such beauty or even sexual attractiveness? Isn't looking, isn't talking with a person, can't loving a person be, as long is there is no lust or deliberate entertainment of arousal or unnatural (genital) pleasure?
Can't even a flower poison if you were to EAT it still have a beautiful odor when you SMELL it? Is it wrong to smell of such a flower or celebrate your love of the smell, even know that to consume it through eating is poison? As far as I know, we don't eat pretty smelling flowers most of the time anyway, though some flowers are edible.
If a gay man sacrifices his life out of "that sort" of love for a partner ("romantic" love, "eros," whatever you want to call it; I'm not convinced it necessarily involves a desire for sex acts)...is this wrong or intrinsically disordered? If someone claimed it was, I simply couldn't buy that.
5.23.2012 | 6:16pm
Bill says:
Refreshing Mr. Gonnerman. It's good to find a public voice that champions both honesty and orthodoxy. Bravo!
5.23.2012 | 6:32pm
Tim S says:
Awesome essay, Joshua!
What stood out to me as answering the questions about the value of identifying as gay is this little passage: "While there are interesting questions about whether it is good that sexual identity exists in our culture, the simple fact is that it does exist; further everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Someone who meets me will be more likely to assume that I am struck by a beautiful actress than by a beautiful actor. So if I’m going to be classified—and we often classify for a good reason, in an effort to know something or someone—I would rather be classified truthfully."
The principal value served in identifying as gay is truth. We Catholics have a long tradition of upholding truth even for its own sake: after all, our tradition teaches it is always a sin to tell a lie, no matter how small. Moreover, as an important function of communication is to bind people together in the knowledge of each other, it can be wrong even to cover up a truth when doing so thwarts this function. Given this respect for truth for its own sake, it seems strange that so many Catholics are not only willing but eager to advise gay men and women to bury the truth about themselves and keep it from others. Either they don't regard the truth as valuable for its own sake, or they don't recognize that hiding an identity-involving fact about oneself out of fear or shame exposes one to a life (though one could hardly call it that) of loneliness, self-hatred and despair.
What stood out to me as answering the questions about the value of identifying as gay is this little passage: "While there are interesting questions about whether it is good that sexual identity exists in our culture, the simple fact is that it does exist; further everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Someone who meets me will be more likely to assume that I am struck by a beautiful actress than by a beautiful actor. So if I’m going to be classified—and we often classify for a good reason, in an effort to know something or someone—I would rather be classified truthfully."
The principal value served in identifying as gay is truth. We Catholics have a long tradition of upholding truth even for its own sake: after all, our tradition teaches it is always a sin to tell a lie, no matter how small. Moreover, as an important function of communication is to bind people together in the knowledge of each other, it can be wrong even to cover up a truth when doing so thwarts this function. Given this respect for truth for its own sake, it seems strange that so many Catholics are not only willing but eager to advise gay men and women to bury the truth about themselves and keep it from others. Either they don't regard the truth as valuable for its own sake, or they don't recognize that hiding an identity-involving fact about oneself out of fear or shame exposes one to a life (though one could hardly call it that) of loneliness, self-hatred and despair.
5.23.2012 | 6:45pm
Anna says:
Mark, you write, "It's tragic that a man cannot find the complementary partnering that we see imaged in Genesis in a woman. "
Are singleness and celibacy "tragic"? Your comment seems to completely dismiss all single and celibate vocations.
I'd like to contend that being single (or married for that matter) do not change how people experience a range of complementary relationships. People cultivate deep, lasting, and abiding friendships with both men and women all throughout their life. It is possible to look at other people, share with other people, and celebrate a deep communion as members of the human race, regardless of questions of sexual desire.
All people have deep patterns of relating. It's not particularly uncommon for a man to have another man as his closest confidant and for a woman to have another woman as her closest confidant. Many spiritual directors would say that it is good and healthy to allow like to inform the experience of like. Women can help other women grow in our understanding how to be women, just as men can help other men grow in their understanding how to be men. As a woman, I can say that many women experience a significant urge to gossip in these closest of relationships. That urge to gossip must be resisted to grow towards Christ. Gossip is an attitude of the heart as much as it is a distinct action. It's important that Christians take time to discern the attitudes of the heart and direct these attitudes toward Christ.
Are singleness and celibacy "tragic"? Your comment seems to completely dismiss all single and celibate vocations.
I'd like to contend that being single (or married for that matter) do not change how people experience a range of complementary relationships. People cultivate deep, lasting, and abiding friendships with both men and women all throughout their life. It is possible to look at other people, share with other people, and celebrate a deep communion as members of the human race, regardless of questions of sexual desire.
All people have deep patterns of relating. It's not particularly uncommon for a man to have another man as his closest confidant and for a woman to have another woman as her closest confidant. Many spiritual directors would say that it is good and healthy to allow like to inform the experience of like. Women can help other women grow in our understanding how to be women, just as men can help other men grow in their understanding how to be men. As a woman, I can say that many women experience a significant urge to gossip in these closest of relationships. That urge to gossip must be resisted to grow towards Christ. Gossip is an attitude of the heart as much as it is a distinct action. It's important that Christians take time to discern the attitudes of the heart and direct these attitudes toward Christ.
5.23.2012 | 7:10pm
Gil says:
Mr. Gonnerman believes my claim that there is no such thing as a gay identity is a strange argument. But if there is such a thing as a gay identity, what is it? Mr. Gonnerman writes: “…the fact that people identify as gay not only proves, but actually constitutes, the existence of a gay identity. It is a subjective reality, certainly, but no less real for that.”
OK, in a subjective sense a person can be anything, including a pea in a pod (literally in his subjective experience). And if a group of persons believe they are peas, they can get together and become peas in a pod.
The point I was making is that many persons calling themselves gay along with those who embrace the notion of a gay identity who do not view themselves as gay are very well established professionals working in schools across the country who are having a powerful impact on children. They come with books, magazines, videos and a host of other media that is very clear on what constitutes a gay identity, and it always involves the acceptance of same-sex practices as healthy and can in a loving relationship heighten intimacy with the significant other. This information OBJECTIVELY establishes a gay identity, and it is used, among other things, to identify children experiencing same sex attraction and then having those children assigned to “gay support groups” where their “objective gay identity” will be elaborated on, and, as I argued earlier, they will then be encouraged to embrace same sex acts as healthy and life-affirming. This is my concern.
Mr. Gonnerman is claiming that he rejects the 99.9999 percent of what in mainline media and the larger culture in general clearly establishes as a gay identity. That’s like a NRA member insisting he rejects our Second Amendment right to bear arms, believing the carrying of a weapon is always intrinsically disordered.
Mr. Gonnerman doesn’t give much information to help us understand what his subjective gay identity actually means. For example, he writes that the gay identity means “to experience one’s homosexuality, in some way, as valuable.” He then goes on to insist that “there are many things I find valuable about my experience of being gay.” Like what? He doesn’t elaborate. I would like to know. I’m talking about something valuable that is unique to his experience of being gay.
I just want to be clear that what I am witnessing by the vast collective of gay activists is the insistence that there is an objective, ontologically based, gay identity, and I am convinced that is a lie. And those isolated, rare individuals like Mr. Gonnerman who do not believe in an objective gay identity but believe we must embrace it as true anyway because it can be subjectively experienced are blind to the reality that in promoting a gay identity they are in fact promoting the work of the vast majority of gay activists, especially in their organized efforts to turn children into “gay persons”. And they do this with the full knowledge that most children who experience same sex attraction grow out of it or otherwise transition away from it unless they are taken by the “experts” early on and indoctrinated into believing they are gay persons.
Children are being taught that homosexually oriented sex is on par with heterosexually oriented sex and therefore must be accepted as an equally valid path to intimacy (something I’m sure Mr. Gonnerman utterly rejects). This lie can be told on a mass scale because we embrace the lie that there is such a thing as a sexual identity. Yes, subjectively you can, as Mr. Gonnerman makes clear, embrace a sexual identity, but that would be living a lie, and we will as a culture continue to indoctrinate children into embracing this lie as long as we embrace the lie of sexual identity, no matter what any same-sex oriented Catholic decides to be celibate.
OK, in a subjective sense a person can be anything, including a pea in a pod (literally in his subjective experience). And if a group of persons believe they are peas, they can get together and become peas in a pod.
The point I was making is that many persons calling themselves gay along with those who embrace the notion of a gay identity who do not view themselves as gay are very well established professionals working in schools across the country who are having a powerful impact on children. They come with books, magazines, videos and a host of other media that is very clear on what constitutes a gay identity, and it always involves the acceptance of same-sex practices as healthy and can in a loving relationship heighten intimacy with the significant other. This information OBJECTIVELY establishes a gay identity, and it is used, among other things, to identify children experiencing same sex attraction and then having those children assigned to “gay support groups” where their “objective gay identity” will be elaborated on, and, as I argued earlier, they will then be encouraged to embrace same sex acts as healthy and life-affirming. This is my concern.
Mr. Gonnerman is claiming that he rejects the 99.9999 percent of what in mainline media and the larger culture in general clearly establishes as a gay identity. That’s like a NRA member insisting he rejects our Second Amendment right to bear arms, believing the carrying of a weapon is always intrinsically disordered.
Mr. Gonnerman doesn’t give much information to help us understand what his subjective gay identity actually means. For example, he writes that the gay identity means “to experience one’s homosexuality, in some way, as valuable.” He then goes on to insist that “there are many things I find valuable about my experience of being gay.” Like what? He doesn’t elaborate. I would like to know. I’m talking about something valuable that is unique to his experience of being gay.
I just want to be clear that what I am witnessing by the vast collective of gay activists is the insistence that there is an objective, ontologically based, gay identity, and I am convinced that is a lie. And those isolated, rare individuals like Mr. Gonnerman who do not believe in an objective gay identity but believe we must embrace it as true anyway because it can be subjectively experienced are blind to the reality that in promoting a gay identity they are in fact promoting the work of the vast majority of gay activists, especially in their organized efforts to turn children into “gay persons”. And they do this with the full knowledge that most children who experience same sex attraction grow out of it or otherwise transition away from it unless they are taken by the “experts” early on and indoctrinated into believing they are gay persons.
Children are being taught that homosexually oriented sex is on par with heterosexually oriented sex and therefore must be accepted as an equally valid path to intimacy (something I’m sure Mr. Gonnerman utterly rejects). This lie can be told on a mass scale because we embrace the lie that there is such a thing as a sexual identity. Yes, subjectively you can, as Mr. Gonnerman makes clear, embrace a sexual identity, but that would be living a lie, and we will as a culture continue to indoctrinate children into embracing this lie as long as we embrace the lie of sexual identity, no matter what any same-sex oriented Catholic decides to be celibate.
5.23.2012 | 7:42pm
Chris C. says:
The organization Courage, which affirms magisterial teaching of the faith, and is recognized by the Pontifical Council on the Family, strongly recommends against self-identifying as "gay" for those with same sex attraction(SSA). To do so, in their view, places a stumbling block in front of those seeking a life of holiness. There is simply no reason to so identify, if one is committed to living a sanctified life. It adds nothing to ones witness beyond, if necessary and when appropriate, acknowledging that one is a committed Catholic who at times, struggles with SSA. One who battles any other disordered affectation, would hopefully do likewise. Courage embraces Catholic teaching on matters of sexual morality. They have the full support of the Church in their ministry. Maybe those with SSA should follow their lead, regarding identifying as "gay."
5.23.2012 | 7:51pm
Gil says:
I'm working with two young adults (early 30s, victims of the sexual revolution and drug culture) who are trying to exit 15 years of extensive drug use and sexual obsession (I never really took to replacing the word "obsession" with "addiction", the former delving more deeply and accurately into the patterns of obsessive behaviors).
The most difficult problem is getting them to recognize that they have 15 years of elaborate matrices of thought and behavior that idealized destructive behavior, something that will never be totally overcome biochemically, for, as neuroscientists now know with certainty, repetitive thoughts and behaviors CHANGE the brain, forming new patterns of bio-chemical and hormonal interactions that make the now unwanted behavior still at some levels desirable.
All I can do is keep insisting that they continue developing new environments of thought and behavior to counteract the negative matrices so intricately engrained, and that over time they will begin to have new experiences that they could have never imagined, trapped as they were in drug and sex obsessions.
My sense is that Mr. Gonnerman and Ms. Selmys, intelligent and sensitive as they are, have not yet fully exited the matrices of gay and lesbian culture (this should be obvious), and are trying to find a way to throw in the towel at some level by convincing themselves they and other persons with disordered sexual desires have a gay, lesbian, transgendered, fetishist, voyeuristic or whatever sexual identity that must be affirmed in some way by the Church for justice to have its way.
The most difficult problem is getting them to recognize that they have 15 years of elaborate matrices of thought and behavior that idealized destructive behavior, something that will never be totally overcome biochemically, for, as neuroscientists now know with certainty, repetitive thoughts and behaviors CHANGE the brain, forming new patterns of bio-chemical and hormonal interactions that make the now unwanted behavior still at some levels desirable.
All I can do is keep insisting that they continue developing new environments of thought and behavior to counteract the negative matrices so intricately engrained, and that over time they will begin to have new experiences that they could have never imagined, trapped as they were in drug and sex obsessions.
My sense is that Mr. Gonnerman and Ms. Selmys, intelligent and sensitive as they are, have not yet fully exited the matrices of gay and lesbian culture (this should be obvious), and are trying to find a way to throw in the towel at some level by convincing themselves they and other persons with disordered sexual desires have a gay, lesbian, transgendered, fetishist, voyeuristic or whatever sexual identity that must be affirmed in some way by the Church for justice to have its way.
5.23.2012 | 9:26pm
ALS says:
To clarify, Joshua, you view your homosexual identity as a part of who you are and the positives outweigh the negatives? Do you view your identity as problematic? Do you approve of counseling or therapy to try to change that identity?
It makes sense to me that if something is "disordered", as a sexual attraction to a member of the same gender is, isn't that something that should be addressed? Would it be like any other type of psychological problem? For instance, a heterosexual may have certain desires that may be disordered as well - an addiction to pornography, a sexual fetish, etc. that he would likely seek out help in overcoming. Do you not put same-sex attraction / "gayness"/ etc. in this category?
Thank you for considering a response. I am really trying to understand what you are saying. Thank you for being so honest.
It makes sense to me that if something is "disordered", as a sexual attraction to a member of the same gender is, isn't that something that should be addressed? Would it be like any other type of psychological problem? For instance, a heterosexual may have certain desires that may be disordered as well - an addiction to pornography, a sexual fetish, etc. that he would likely seek out help in overcoming. Do you not put same-sex attraction / "gayness"/ etc. in this category?
Thank you for considering a response. I am really trying to understand what you are saying. Thank you for being so honest.
5.23.2012 | 10:32pm
Gil says:
Here's a quote from Chantal Delsol:
"The suppression of spiritual referents is precisely what conferred on secular referents their abusive status as absolutes. The return of spiritual referents alone would make possible the destruction of idols: idolatry cannot be avoided except through the recognition of transcendence." (The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, 167)
The sex liberationists have been at it for 50 years, attacking the language of transcendence that the Church holds dear and displacing it with its own language. The word made real by the Catholic Church that speaks to the dignity of every human being is "person" (prior to the Church's interpretation of the word, it represented something akin to "persona", a mask). It makes sense that every gnostic attempt to undermine the Church begins with undermining its language, especially and most importantly its language of transcendence, and the word “person” points to our full dignity in God’s image and likeness.
As one commenter made clear, it automatically becomes problematic when one puts a modifying adjective before the word Christian, for it inescapably at some level reduces the gestalt of the human person made in God’s image and likeness, having the effect of subsuming the gestalt of the person into a particular, a mangling of the transcendent to make it fit an idolatrous, reductive image.
The deeper we move into the life of Christ and embrace being a member of his body, the more we are able to let go of functional/utilitarian identities, allowing the modifiers to instead identify function, not the person, and when it’s a destructive function, that should be clarified, for then it is in direct opposition to the person, a function to be avoided. And all one need do is ponder the destruction wrought by the word “gay”, especially on the minds of youth in sex education classes, and you can see it on display at “gay pride parades”.
Sex liberationists insist on displacing spiritual referents that reveal who we as Christians are, especially the nuptial mystery of who we are, with their secular referents that diminish us, to make us over in their own image and likeness. “Gay person” is just one example.
"The suppression of spiritual referents is precisely what conferred on secular referents their abusive status as absolutes. The return of spiritual referents alone would make possible the destruction of idols: idolatry cannot be avoided except through the recognition of transcendence." (The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, 167)
The sex liberationists have been at it for 50 years, attacking the language of transcendence that the Church holds dear and displacing it with its own language. The word made real by the Catholic Church that speaks to the dignity of every human being is "person" (prior to the Church's interpretation of the word, it represented something akin to "persona", a mask). It makes sense that every gnostic attempt to undermine the Church begins with undermining its language, especially and most importantly its language of transcendence, and the word “person” points to our full dignity in God’s image and likeness.
As one commenter made clear, it automatically becomes problematic when one puts a modifying adjective before the word Christian, for it inescapably at some level reduces the gestalt of the human person made in God’s image and likeness, having the effect of subsuming the gestalt of the person into a particular, a mangling of the transcendent to make it fit an idolatrous, reductive image.
The deeper we move into the life of Christ and embrace being a member of his body, the more we are able to let go of functional/utilitarian identities, allowing the modifiers to instead identify function, not the person, and when it’s a destructive function, that should be clarified, for then it is in direct opposition to the person, a function to be avoided. And all one need do is ponder the destruction wrought by the word “gay”, especially on the minds of youth in sex education classes, and you can see it on display at “gay pride parades”.
Sex liberationists insist on displacing spiritual referents that reveal who we as Christians are, especially the nuptial mystery of who we are, with their secular referents that diminish us, to make us over in their own image and likeness. “Gay person” is just one example.
5.23.2012 | 10:58pm
Clare says:
Rhinestone Suderman--sure, the descriptor Irish Catholic, like gay Catholic, can become a matter of identity politcs rather than a recognition of a specific community or facet of identity. But that doesn't mean it has to, or usually is. To pretend that the woman who references Irish Catholicism as a way of signalling how a unique and complex interplay of Holy Church, parochial prejudices, and family sins has shaped her is worshipping ould Eire is absurd--to tell a faithful gay Catholic that his honest self-identification is "identity politcs" is breathtakingly arrogant.
5.23.2012 | 11:12pm
Jonathan says:
Thanks for your thoughts. As a gay Christian who holds the same view of Christ's teachings you do it was good to hear your perspective. I've never really used the term "gay" for myself-- except in this post-- because the word "gay" always has the connotation that I am seeking relationships with other mine. Also, while unremitting and overwhelming my attractions to people of the same sex are not exclusive. That further complicates things.
"The more people are willing to stand up and be counted, the more the rift between the church and gay people can be healed, and that’s a goal I, at least, feel the obligation to pursue."
Powerful words indeed.
My question is this:
Is using the language of "men/ women with same-sex attraction" (popular among many Catholics and orthodox Christians) hopelessly alienating? Should we abandon such language altogether?
"The more people are willing to stand up and be counted, the more the rift between the church and gay people can be healed, and that’s a goal I, at least, feel the obligation to pursue."
Powerful words indeed.
My question is this:
Is using the language of "men/ women with same-sex attraction" (popular among many Catholics and orthodox Christians) hopelessly alienating? Should we abandon such language altogether?
5.23.2012 | 11:47pm
edmond says:
My apology to the administrator for not trying to sound politically correct in my original post, but I think the parable of the prodigal son cuts through the mystique that you call "otherness". Coming back to the father in full repentance is the lesson that Christ teaches us. The father's line "because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again" says it all. The prodigal son comes back to the father leaving his past behind. Can one love Christ and his "identity" with equal passion and without dying to self?
5.24.2012 | 1:48am
John says:
I could label myself as gay, as I am attracted to my fellow males. Why don't I? Because the Church teaches that homosexuality (or the inclination thereof) is a sinful passion. It is not a chosen passion, but it is sinful and a result of the darkening of the human Nous due to the Fall. Why would I identify myself as a sinful passion?
I also struggle with gluttony, so should I also be openly gluttonous? Should I wear my proclivity to gossip and envy on my sleeve?
This is different from being an American or a cook. The conflation of sinful passions with other aspects of our personality is what muddies the waters when it comes to homosexuality and Christianity. As soon as homosexuality becomes "just another thing that makes me, me", it becomes much harder to call a spade a spade.
These things do not define me, except insofar as they are the sinful tendencies I am battling in my life. As such, they are not for public consumption.* They are between me, my priest, and God. It is not a denial of the passions' existence to "hide" them, but we are not to air our dirty laundry for the world to see. That is pride—another sinful tendency.
The sinful thoughts and actions that spring from my same-sex-attractedness is something that separates me from God. Yes, it is something to be overcome. (This does not mean becoming straight, but it does mean struggling.) As such, all I have to say to it is "Get behind me, Satan," as often as I must.
(* Yes, I realize I posted them here. It's only because it's necessary to explain my point, and I want to avoid crazy hypotheticals. Pray for me.)
I also struggle with gluttony, so should I also be openly gluttonous? Should I wear my proclivity to gossip and envy on my sleeve?
This is different from being an American or a cook. The conflation of sinful passions with other aspects of our personality is what muddies the waters when it comes to homosexuality and Christianity. As soon as homosexuality becomes "just another thing that makes me, me", it becomes much harder to call a spade a spade.
These things do not define me, except insofar as they are the sinful tendencies I am battling in my life. As such, they are not for public consumption.* They are between me, my priest, and God. It is not a denial of the passions' existence to "hide" them, but we are not to air our dirty laundry for the world to see. That is pride—another sinful tendency.
The sinful thoughts and actions that spring from my same-sex-attractedness is something that separates me from God. Yes, it is something to be overcome. (This does not mean becoming straight, but it does mean struggling.) As such, all I have to say to it is "Get behind me, Satan," as often as I must.
(* Yes, I realize I posted them here. It's only because it's necessary to explain my point, and I want to avoid crazy hypotheticals. Pray for me.)
5.24.2012 | 10:07am
Qoheleth says:
I would say that it's important to distinguish between the different levels of self-descriptor. As you say, there are a number of different ways that people describe themselves, and not all of them have equal significance. I think one can distinguish at least four levels below the fundamental level of Saint-vs.-Heathen, as follows:
1. Ontological. A descriptor in this class is a fundamental and unignorable part of one's nature. The only major identity descriptor I can think of that falls into this class is sex.
2. Associated with identity, but not ontological. These are things that do go to the root of how you think of yourself, but aren't part of your inmost nature. For the most part, they tend to have to do with the culture that you're part of, either by birth or choice; nationality and class are the most obvious. (Vocation should perhaps go here as well.)
3. Significant, but not associated with identity. These are things that affect how you view the world, but are properly viewed as accidental to your personality, not integral. All physical handicaps are level-3 descriptors; it is absurd, for instance, to call paraplegia insignificant, but nor is it correct to say that paraplegics are properly part of a separate culture from the rest of us.
4. Useful, but not significant. These are things that help to pick you out of a crowd, but oughtn't to have any effect on your personality. "Blonde", for instance, is such a descriptor; so is "left-handed"; and so, properly considered, is "black".
(Of course, any level-3 or -4 descriptor might acquire the de-facto status of a level-2, if those who bore it were excluded from the culture of their birth and forced to form a separate culture of their own. This is essentially what happened with Jim Crow laws in the previous two centuries, and what an awful lot of deaf people are trying to do to themselves now. But that doesn't alter the essential nature of the descriptor.)
Now, the question becomes where on this list sexual deviations fall. I would say that a minor deviation, such as a foot fetish, would be a level-4, and that homosexuality is significant enough to rise to level 3. In other words, if it's legitimate to refer to yourself as "a paraplegic Christian", then it is legitimate to refer to yourself as "a homosexual Christian". But this, of course, does not imply that you allow your homosexuality the same role in forming your personality that you do to, say, your native language. You embrace level-2's; you endure level-3's; you merely acknowledge level-4's. I think that's the real distinction.
1. Ontological. A descriptor in this class is a fundamental and unignorable part of one's nature. The only major identity descriptor I can think of that falls into this class is sex.
2. Associated with identity, but not ontological. These are things that do go to the root of how you think of yourself, but aren't part of your inmost nature. For the most part, they tend to have to do with the culture that you're part of, either by birth or choice; nationality and class are the most obvious. (Vocation should perhaps go here as well.)
3. Significant, but not associated with identity. These are things that affect how you view the world, but are properly viewed as accidental to your personality, not integral. All physical handicaps are level-3 descriptors; it is absurd, for instance, to call paraplegia insignificant, but nor is it correct to say that paraplegics are properly part of a separate culture from the rest of us.
4. Useful, but not significant. These are things that help to pick you out of a crowd, but oughtn't to have any effect on your personality. "Blonde", for instance, is such a descriptor; so is "left-handed"; and so, properly considered, is "black".
(Of course, any level-3 or -4 descriptor might acquire the de-facto status of a level-2, if those who bore it were excluded from the culture of their birth and forced to form a separate culture of their own. This is essentially what happened with Jim Crow laws in the previous two centuries, and what an awful lot of deaf people are trying to do to themselves now. But that doesn't alter the essential nature of the descriptor.)
Now, the question becomes where on this list sexual deviations fall. I would say that a minor deviation, such as a foot fetish, would be a level-4, and that homosexuality is significant enough to rise to level 3. In other words, if it's legitimate to refer to yourself as "a paraplegic Christian", then it is legitimate to refer to yourself as "a homosexual Christian". But this, of course, does not imply that you allow your homosexuality the same role in forming your personality that you do to, say, your native language. You embrace level-2's; you endure level-3's; you merely acknowledge level-4's. I think that's the real distinction.
5.24.2012 | 11:25am
Mark says:
Qoheleth, I like your system of descriptors; it's useful, though I wouldn't insist it is some sort of absolute (or theological) classification.
As for everyone else, the double-speak being promoted here is astounding. As Tim S says, this is just a matter of Truth. Yet so many people are promoting, essentially, 1984-style denial of a simple matter-of-fact psycho-emotional (and sociological) experience.
I will say it again: it is absolutely arrogant for conservative Christians to tell gays "what gay means" or "what it must imply."
Gay, simply put, means only that one is attracted to the same sex. It is an indicator of sexual orientation, nothing more nothing less. Now, "attraction" and "sexual orientation" are both rather complicated constructs, but the fact is they do exist in our culture and the verbal and mental gymnastics that some here are trying to push to avoid what is really (by most people outside these circles) understood as simply a straightforward descriptor of orientation...is really part of an agenda of shaming and denial.
If you're "same sex attracted," you're gay in our society. Get over it. It doesn't mean you have to have any particular "lifestyle" or moral views or political agenda. Even among gays there are different "camps" and "schools."
Furthermore, this constant reduction of homosexuality to its lusts here is astounding, given that I doubt most people think of their heterosexuality that way. Desire to engage in homosexual sex acts is disordered passion (though, I'd argue that it's "merely" a degree of concupiscence, like heterosexual lusts, and not "objectively" disordered as if it is different in nature, and that the latter understanding results from a mis-definition or misunderstanding of what sexual orientation even IS or means.) Homosexuality, however, is not to be reduced to "an inclination to engage in homosexual sex," and homosexual Christians living celibately do not necessarily "struggle with" it anymore than heterosexual celibates "struggle with" or against their heterosexuality.
As for everyone else, the double-speak being promoted here is astounding. As Tim S says, this is just a matter of Truth. Yet so many people are promoting, essentially, 1984-style denial of a simple matter-of-fact psycho-emotional (and sociological) experience.
I will say it again: it is absolutely arrogant for conservative Christians to tell gays "what gay means" or "what it must imply."
Gay, simply put, means only that one is attracted to the same sex. It is an indicator of sexual orientation, nothing more nothing less. Now, "attraction" and "sexual orientation" are both rather complicated constructs, but the fact is they do exist in our culture and the verbal and mental gymnastics that some here are trying to push to avoid what is really (by most people outside these circles) understood as simply a straightforward descriptor of orientation...is really part of an agenda of shaming and denial.
If you're "same sex attracted," you're gay in our society. Get over it. It doesn't mean you have to have any particular "lifestyle" or moral views or political agenda. Even among gays there are different "camps" and "schools."
Furthermore, this constant reduction of homosexuality to its lusts here is astounding, given that I doubt most people think of their heterosexuality that way. Desire to engage in homosexual sex acts is disordered passion (though, I'd argue that it's "merely" a degree of concupiscence, like heterosexual lusts, and not "objectively" disordered as if it is different in nature, and that the latter understanding results from a mis-definition or misunderstanding of what sexual orientation even IS or means.) Homosexuality, however, is not to be reduced to "an inclination to engage in homosexual sex," and homosexual Christians living celibately do not necessarily "struggle with" it anymore than heterosexual celibates "struggle with" or against their heterosexuality.
5.24.2012 | 11:50am
DeaconJR says:
Dear Mr. Gonnerman--
We need to move from the abstract to the concrete, relative to any claim that there are indeed some "homosexual inclinations" that are *not* "objectively disordered."
I find this a highly problematic claim since there is nothing I have ever seen in Scripture, Tradition, or magisterial teaching to support the claim, and because the claim of the Church is that "homosexual inclinations" are *objectively* disordered. The use of the term "objectively" would seem to rule out potential "exceptions" in much the same way as the term "intrinsically" does.
So, help me out, please--can you offer at least a couple concrete examples of a "homosexual inclination" (or if you prefer "homo-erotic" or "same-sex" desire) that is *not* objectively disordered?
I think doing so would help the conversation immensely.
God bless you,
Deacon JR
We need to move from the abstract to the concrete, relative to any claim that there are indeed some "homosexual inclinations" that are *not* "objectively disordered."
I find this a highly problematic claim since there is nothing I have ever seen in Scripture, Tradition, or magisterial teaching to support the claim, and because the claim of the Church is that "homosexual inclinations" are *objectively* disordered. The use of the term "objectively" would seem to rule out potential "exceptions" in much the same way as the term "intrinsically" does.
So, help me out, please--can you offer at least a couple concrete examples of a "homosexual inclination" (or if you prefer "homo-erotic" or "same-sex" desire) that is *not* objectively disordered?
I think doing so would help the conversation immensely.
God bless you,
Deacon JR
5.24.2012 | 12:44pm
Jeff Coe says:
Joshua;
Thanks for your comments and it brought a little light to some thoughts of mine. But I have a question and or some comments and would love to hear back. I am a gay man and at the present no longer in any church and a lot has to do with me being in relationship with another Christian man. Having been a part of the ex-gay community for many years I chose not to "act out" sexually and lived a celibate life. But in the end could no longer identify as ex-gay for I had come to accept that my identity had never changed sexually even with all the prayer, bible study, accountability, even excorcism or casting out of demons. And I knew that celibacy was truly a gift, not something I had been called to. As well I knew that it was wrong or evil to demand that me as a gay Christian man be called to celibacy and not able to love another and live a single life. I as well have seen how the church responds to singles as they get older and it is not a healthy or pretty picture.
So my question or thought is what makes your perspective that much different than someone who identify's as ex-gay. The only real difference is that you are saying that you are gay and not SSA. But you are still buying into the belief that morally it is wrong to be gay and to actually be in any form of relationship with another. Which is the stance of the ex-gay movement. And so we continue on with the attack and belief that being gay and especially a gay man it is all or we are only about sex and that is what many on the right label us with but in cloaked meanings and words.
Why is it wrong to love and to be able to love openly and freely another man and still adhere to the beliefs and teachings of Christ? Till those in the church really begin to openly discuss the issues and actually get to know and truly meet other believers who are gay and ok with their sexuality we will continue the dogma, lies and illusions of what it means to be gay, and continue to force people into the darkness and hiddenness of the closet where you know anything can and does happen.
Thanks for your comments and it brought a little light to some thoughts of mine. But I have a question and or some comments and would love to hear back. I am a gay man and at the present no longer in any church and a lot has to do with me being in relationship with another Christian man. Having been a part of the ex-gay community for many years I chose not to "act out" sexually and lived a celibate life. But in the end could no longer identify as ex-gay for I had come to accept that my identity had never changed sexually even with all the prayer, bible study, accountability, even excorcism or casting out of demons. And I knew that celibacy was truly a gift, not something I had been called to. As well I knew that it was wrong or evil to demand that me as a gay Christian man be called to celibacy and not able to love another and live a single life. I as well have seen how the church responds to singles as they get older and it is not a healthy or pretty picture.
So my question or thought is what makes your perspective that much different than someone who identify's as ex-gay. The only real difference is that you are saying that you are gay and not SSA. But you are still buying into the belief that morally it is wrong to be gay and to actually be in any form of relationship with another. Which is the stance of the ex-gay movement. And so we continue on with the attack and belief that being gay and especially a gay man it is all or we are only about sex and that is what many on the right label us with but in cloaked meanings and words.
Why is it wrong to love and to be able to love openly and freely another man and still adhere to the beliefs and teachings of Christ? Till those in the church really begin to openly discuss the issues and actually get to know and truly meet other believers who are gay and ok with their sexuality we will continue the dogma, lies and illusions of what it means to be gay, and continue to force people into the darkness and hiddenness of the closet where you know anything can and does happen.
5.24.2012 | 12:46pm
Mark says:
Deacon: Think of any heterosexual "inclination" that a man has regarding anyone other than a wife, and I think you have your answer (just translate that over to a homosexual man for men).
5.24.2012 | 1:12pm
M. L. Quinn says:
I think this is a subject that desperately needs to be addressed in the church. The writing here, and the perspective, are eloquent and challenging in a very positive way. Kudos.
5.24.2012 | 1:24pm
Elisabeth says:
Why can there not be a distinction made between "gay" as most of society sees it (i.e., an active lifestyle in conformity with one's 'sexual orientation') and the "gay" Mr. Gonnerman seems to be using?
It seems that if one can accept the fact that many people in our society are of an abnormal and disordered sexual orientation coined as "gay", then just as the Church embraces those fighting with other tragic results of the Fall (that is, sin in general), so too should it not seem problematic for a Catholic to claim to be "gay" and still in communion with the Church, if the distinction between an active lifestyle and a disordered tendency without action is made. I will not claim to even begin to understand what it is like to carry this cross, but it seems that there is nothing wrong with putting it in the category of disordered passions as a result of the Fall. And if that is true, then good for Mr. Gonnerman, and anyone else, who embraces such a cross in life and tries to use it for the glory of God.
God bless you, Mr. Gonnerman, for your bravery and honesty.
It seems that if one can accept the fact that many people in our society are of an abnormal and disordered sexual orientation coined as "gay", then just as the Church embraces those fighting with other tragic results of the Fall (that is, sin in general), so too should it not seem problematic for a Catholic to claim to be "gay" and still in communion with the Church, if the distinction between an active lifestyle and a disordered tendency without action is made. I will not claim to even begin to understand what it is like to carry this cross, but it seems that there is nothing wrong with putting it in the category of disordered passions as a result of the Fall. And if that is true, then good for Mr. Gonnerman, and anyone else, who embraces such a cross in life and tries to use it for the glory of God.
God bless you, Mr. Gonnerman, for your bravery and honesty.
5.24.2012 | 2:55pm
TradCathPhilProf says:
Mark (responding to his comment @ 5.23.2012 | 11:02am),
I was responding to what Selmys wrote, and what she wrote was "beauty" not "sexual attractiveness" so I think it would be unreasonable to claim that was I said was "off" even if what you write regarding "sexual attractiveness" were correct. As I happens, I do not think it is as I will address below.
Let us begin by making some distinctions, as several different claims are in play here. My original point, directed at Joshua Gonnerman was simply that his argument for self-identifying as a "gay Christian" is not adequately supported by the distinction Selmys draws between ordered and concupiscent desire. As far as I can make it out, the argument Gonnerman offers is something like this:
(1)One should include those "aspects of who I am" that "say something significant about me" as a part of my self-identiy.
(2) I regard my "homosexuality as a significant part of who" I am
(3) Therefore, I should include my homosexuality as part of my self-identity
His appeal to Selmys is part of an attempt to forestall an objection against (2) to the effect that (2) is incompatible with his separate claim that "The central locus of my identity, which shapes all other aspects of it, is Christ" where that is taken to include a commitment to the tradition teaching of the Church that "men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies" possess an "inclination, which is objectively disordered" (CCC, 2358). Basically he wants to claim that understood in the right way (as an ordered desire) the self-recognition of homosexuality as significant part of his self-identity will not conflict with the primacy of his embrace of orthodoxy. My original claim above is that this fails.
This reason for this is simple. As I pointed out above, the distinction between ordered desire and concupiscence is a real one. The question is whether it applies in this case. I think it does not, at least it does not apply in to the sort of affective response that Selmys describes in the original quote ("I see that she is beautiful, that she is desirable, that she is enticing...."), because while I absolutely accept that such an affective response is possible (and good), it is in no way specifically characteristic of a *homosexual* affective response, but could, and *should* be manifested in a properly ordered heterosexual. As such, it does not pick out a good specific to a possessing a homosexual orientation or tendencies (even those which are not acted upon or embraced).
Mark claims that this point might apply to "the 'cold' aesthetic sort of beauty" but not to the sort of good of "sexual attractiveness" which "presumably only a person with an androphilic or gynephilic 'antenna' for picking up on such a good can recognize fully." It is precisely this second claim that I reject.
First we need to take care of language here. I suspect that what Mark has in mind is not a *recognition* of a propositional truth (e.g. X is sexually attractive), but rather that someone with the right kind of "antenna" can "pick up on" the good that is "sexual attractiveness" because they can feel in a certain way, or, better yet, have a certain kind of affective response (i.e. possess a certain sensibility). In other words, the claim seems to be that possessing the right kind of "antenna" makes one sensitive to a real good that one would not otherwise be sensitive to.
The reason it it can't be a recognition of a propositional truth is obvious. I can recognize or (legitimately) accept as true propositions for which my only evidence is non-affective (e.g. on authority, mathematical truths, etc.). To the point at hand, even though I have no personal sexual attraction to Brad Pitt, etc. I can recognize that he is sexually attractive. Indeed, there are women that I personally do not find sexually attractive (in no sense, even the figurative one, do my loins stir in contemplating them), but I can absolutely recognize that they are sexually attractive (it seems I happen not to be sexually attracted to women of a certain race, but I absolutely understand that other men are attracted to them, and indeed that in a fully objective sense they are sexually attractive). So we can set asside the point that I need to have a certain kind of affective response in order to recognize a propositional truth, even a propositional truth for which an affective response is appropriate. (Consider the analogous point that a color-blind person can recognize and accept the proposition that "grass is green" without himself being capable of the affective response that is appropriate to the visual perception of green grass.)
Let us now to the real question: is there a sense in which a real good of "sexual attractiveness" can only be "fully recognized" by someone with the right kind of "antenna" and does possessing that kind of "antenna" then always constitute a good. Let's consider another analogy. It is commonly believed (and let us accept it for the sake of argument) that the loss of one sense makes the others more keen. The classic example would be a blind person who thus possesses a particularly keen sense of hearing.
If we ask – *is a keen sense of hearing a good?* – I think that the most plausible answer is – *yes, of course*. Now suppose (again for the sake of argument) this keeness of hearing were only possible for a blind person, that a sighted person simply (in principle) could not develop this level of auditory sensitivity. Now let us ask – *is the blindness a good*? I think the answer is just as obvious – *no* – even though that blindness is a necessary condition for the achievement of a different good. Suppose something similar is the case here with Mark's "androphilic or gynephilic 'antenna'"; even if he is correct that sexual attrativeness is a good (which I grant) and even if he is correct that only those with the right kind of "antenna" will be fully affectively sensitive to that good (which I'll grant for sake of argument) it does not follow that the means to the achievement of that affective sensibility is therefore always a good. An end can be good, without all the means to achieving that end being good.
So a woman's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attractiveness can perhaps be a real good, without it's being the case that a homosexual man's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attrativeness is a good given that the latter is only possible in virtue a malformation of his properly ordered sensibilities as man (i.e. male human being). This is similar to the case above in in the blind man's acute hearing is a *per se* good without its being the case that his blindness is a *per se* good.
Of course, all of this talk of disordered or malformed only makes sense within the context of an objective reality of the properly ordered sensibilities. This is ultimately why Gonnerman's claims fail. There is nothing good, per se, in possessing a homosexual sensibility / inclinations *even if* following Mark that makes possible something else which is a good.
I was responding to what Selmys wrote, and what she wrote was "beauty" not "sexual attractiveness" so I think it would be unreasonable to claim that was I said was "off" even if what you write regarding "sexual attractiveness" were correct. As I happens, I do not think it is as I will address below.
Let us begin by making some distinctions, as several different claims are in play here. My original point, directed at Joshua Gonnerman was simply that his argument for self-identifying as a "gay Christian" is not adequately supported by the distinction Selmys draws between ordered and concupiscent desire. As far as I can make it out, the argument Gonnerman offers is something like this:
(1)One should include those "aspects of who I am" that "say something significant about me" as a part of my self-identiy.
(2) I regard my "homosexuality as a significant part of who" I am
(3) Therefore, I should include my homosexuality as part of my self-identity
His appeal to Selmys is part of an attempt to forestall an objection against (2) to the effect that (2) is incompatible with his separate claim that "The central locus of my identity, which shapes all other aspects of it, is Christ" where that is taken to include a commitment to the tradition teaching of the Church that "men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies" possess an "inclination, which is objectively disordered" (CCC, 2358). Basically he wants to claim that understood in the right way (as an ordered desire) the self-recognition of homosexuality as significant part of his self-identity will not conflict with the primacy of his embrace of orthodoxy. My original claim above is that this fails.
This reason for this is simple. As I pointed out above, the distinction between ordered desire and concupiscence is a real one. The question is whether it applies in this case. I think it does not, at least it does not apply in to the sort of affective response that Selmys describes in the original quote ("I see that she is beautiful, that she is desirable, that she is enticing...."), because while I absolutely accept that such an affective response is possible (and good), it is in no way specifically characteristic of a *homosexual* affective response, but could, and *should* be manifested in a properly ordered heterosexual. As such, it does not pick out a good specific to a possessing a homosexual orientation or tendencies (even those which are not acted upon or embraced).
Mark claims that this point might apply to "the 'cold' aesthetic sort of beauty" but not to the sort of good of "sexual attractiveness" which "presumably only a person with an androphilic or gynephilic 'antenna' for picking up on such a good can recognize fully." It is precisely this second claim that I reject.
First we need to take care of language here. I suspect that what Mark has in mind is not a *recognition* of a propositional truth (e.g. X is sexually attractive), but rather that someone with the right kind of "antenna" can "pick up on" the good that is "sexual attractiveness" because they can feel in a certain way, or, better yet, have a certain kind of affective response (i.e. possess a certain sensibility). In other words, the claim seems to be that possessing the right kind of "antenna" makes one sensitive to a real good that one would not otherwise be sensitive to.
The reason it it can't be a recognition of a propositional truth is obvious. I can recognize or (legitimately) accept as true propositions for which my only evidence is non-affective (e.g. on authority, mathematical truths, etc.). To the point at hand, even though I have no personal sexual attraction to Brad Pitt, etc. I can recognize that he is sexually attractive. Indeed, there are women that I personally do not find sexually attractive (in no sense, even the figurative one, do my loins stir in contemplating them), but I can absolutely recognize that they are sexually attractive (it seems I happen not to be sexually attracted to women of a certain race, but I absolutely understand that other men are attracted to them, and indeed that in a fully objective sense they are sexually attractive). So we can set asside the point that I need to have a certain kind of affective response in order to recognize a propositional truth, even a propositional truth for which an affective response is appropriate. (Consider the analogous point that a color-blind person can recognize and accept the proposition that "grass is green" without himself being capable of the affective response that is appropriate to the visual perception of green grass.)
Let us now to the real question: is there a sense in which a real good of "sexual attractiveness" can only be "fully recognized" by someone with the right kind of "antenna" and does possessing that kind of "antenna" then always constitute a good. Let's consider another analogy. It is commonly believed (and let us accept it for the sake of argument) that the loss of one sense makes the others more keen. The classic example would be a blind person who thus possesses a particularly keen sense of hearing.
If we ask – *is a keen sense of hearing a good?* – I think that the most plausible answer is – *yes, of course*. Now suppose (again for the sake of argument) this keeness of hearing were only possible for a blind person, that a sighted person simply (in principle) could not develop this level of auditory sensitivity. Now let us ask – *is the blindness a good*? I think the answer is just as obvious – *no* – even though that blindness is a necessary condition for the achievement of a different good. Suppose something similar is the case here with Mark's "androphilic or gynephilic 'antenna'"; even if he is correct that sexual attrativeness is a good (which I grant) and even if he is correct that only those with the right kind of "antenna" will be fully affectively sensitive to that good (which I'll grant for sake of argument) it does not follow that the means to the achievement of that affective sensibility is therefore always a good. An end can be good, without all the means to achieving that end being good.
So a woman's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attractiveness can perhaps be a real good, without it's being the case that a homosexual man's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attrativeness is a good given that the latter is only possible in virtue a malformation of his properly ordered sensibilities as man (i.e. male human being). This is similar to the case above in in the blind man's acute hearing is a *per se* good without its being the case that his blindness is a *per se* good.
Of course, all of this talk of disordered or malformed only makes sense within the context of an objective reality of the properly ordered sensibilities. This is ultimately why Gonnerman's claims fail. There is nothing good, per se, in possessing a homosexual sensibility / inclinations *even if* following Mark that makes possible something else which is a good.
5.24.2012 | 3:43pm
PaxRomana says:
Mark says:
Deacon: Think of any heterosexual "inclination" that a man has regarding anyone other than a wife, and I think you have your answer (just translate that over to a homosexual man for men).
No, the "inclination" that a man has regarding a woman other than his wife isn't "intrinsically disordered." Every man I've ever known has told me that he's been attracted to plenty of other women--this inclination is not disordered. It is quite natural, and mustn't be acted upon. It may at first be an example of concupiscence, and if dwelt on, can become lust, and if acted upon can become adultery. The desire I may have for another man is not ordered to an objective good--quite the contrary. There are no means by which they can ever be ordered towards a good, whereas a philanderer's desire for another woman, though concupiscent, and sinful, if acted upon, are not intrinsically disordered, as sex between man and woman is in accord with the Natural Law. What makes it disordered is the context in which the sex act occurred. This is very different than my case, where my desires for other men are "intrinsically disordered," in and of themselves. In no way can the inclination ever be redeemed to the point where it can find fulfillment, or ordered to any objective good. Heterosexual inclinations, however, are inherently in accordance with what is an objective good for man--they become disordered through our will.
Deacon: Think of any heterosexual "inclination" that a man has regarding anyone other than a wife, and I think you have your answer (just translate that over to a homosexual man for men).
No, the "inclination" that a man has regarding a woman other than his wife isn't "intrinsically disordered." Every man I've ever known has told me that he's been attracted to plenty of other women--this inclination is not disordered. It is quite natural, and mustn't be acted upon. It may at first be an example of concupiscence, and if dwelt on, can become lust, and if acted upon can become adultery. The desire I may have for another man is not ordered to an objective good--quite the contrary. There are no means by which they can ever be ordered towards a good, whereas a philanderer's desire for another woman, though concupiscent, and sinful, if acted upon, are not intrinsically disordered, as sex between man and woman is in accord with the Natural Law. What makes it disordered is the context in which the sex act occurred. This is very different than my case, where my desires for other men are "intrinsically disordered," in and of themselves. In no way can the inclination ever be redeemed to the point where it can find fulfillment, or ordered to any objective good. Heterosexual inclinations, however, are inherently in accordance with what is an objective good for man--they become disordered through our will.
5.24.2012 | 3:53pm
DeaconJR says:
Mark wrote:
***Deacon: Think of any heterosexual "inclination" that a man has regarding anyone other than a wife, and I think you have your answer (just translate that over to a homosexual man for men). ***
But that "translation" does not comport with the Church's teaching on the meaning of eros and the "spousal meaning" of the body. You see, this is part of the problem here--"eros" is not merely some gender-blind and ambigous "force" in the mind of the Church...at least not according to Pope Benedict...
This is why I ask for something "concrete" as an example. Even your suggestion remains abstract. It is, I think, imperative to the conversation to have even *one* example of a "homosexual inclination" that is not "objectively disordered" ...
God bless you
Deacon JR
***Deacon: Think of any heterosexual "inclination" that a man has regarding anyone other than a wife, and I think you have your answer (just translate that over to a homosexual man for men). ***
But that "translation" does not comport with the Church's teaching on the meaning of eros and the "spousal meaning" of the body. You see, this is part of the problem here--"eros" is not merely some gender-blind and ambigous "force" in the mind of the Church...at least not according to Pope Benedict...
This is why I ask for something "concrete" as an example. Even your suggestion remains abstract. It is, I think, imperative to the conversation to have even *one* example of a "homosexual inclination" that is not "objectively disordered" ...
God bless you
Deacon JR
5.24.2012 | 5:19pm
Joe says:
"My otherness as a gay man is shared with other people, and we in our shared otherness make a community (community in otherness being an experience I learned to value in the churches of my youth, as we sang with gusto of being “a peculiar people”)."
I would like to be able to affirm the essay, but we are a Peculiar People, not a disordered one. Why should inclinations be regarded as especially defining if they are not acted on?! Especially disordered ones? Being gay is a cross to bear, not a badge to wear. And given sexuality and strong passions are involved, it seems more than a little risky to go around affirming people in their gayness.
I would like to be able to affirm the essay, but we are a Peculiar People, not a disordered one. Why should inclinations be regarded as especially defining if they are not acted on?! Especially disordered ones? Being gay is a cross to bear, not a badge to wear. And given sexuality and strong passions are involved, it seems more than a little risky to go around affirming people in their gayness.
5.24.2012 | 5:22pm
epb says:
Catholic, Conservative & Queer? Me too! Didn't know there was anyone else like me "out there" -- and in DC to boot.
Yes, everyone comes to Christ in need of healing -- mercy, conversion... irrespective of how wounded.
Keep the faith, bro.
Yes, everyone comes to Christ in need of healing -- mercy, conversion... irrespective of how wounded.
Keep the faith, bro.
5.24.2012 | 5:48pm
Mark says:
JeffCoe:
"So my question or thought is what makes your perspective that much different than someone who identify's as ex-gay. The only real difference is that you are saying that you are gay and not SSA."
I can't speak for Joshua, but I'm pretty sure one of the huge differences is that Joshua doesn't seem to buy into the notion that sexual orientation can or should change (not for everyone, at least).
"But you are still buying into the belief that morally it is wrong to be gay and to actually be in any form of relationship with another."
I think the whole point of this article is that he doesn't think it's morally wrong to BE gay, and as for "any form of relationship"...he has said nothing one way or another on this question. He's promoted chastity, he hasn't said one way or another whether this means being "alone" forever.
I'm sure this point would be debated. Certainly I can't imagine many of the conservatives here liking it. But let's remember that, in itself, Church teaching addresses only sex acts (and lusts for those acts). Not love, not relationships, not identity, not communities, not "lifestyles" (whatever that means!)
TradCathPhilProf:
"Basically he wants to claim that understood in the right way (as an ordered desire) the self-recognition of homosexuality as significant part of his self-identity will not conflict with the primacy of his embrace of orthodoxy."
I'm not sure how people here are understanding "identity." Perhaps most heterosexuals take for granted how pervasively sexuality colors all their interactions, relationships, their whole paradigm, their whole (as the Catechism says) "affective life."
People are speaking here as if "identity" means some sort of political affiliation or choice. It's really not. Identity is simply a recognition of what experiences have been most important in the development of one's personality, personal narrative, psyche, etc.
The Truth can never be in conflict with a central Christian identity. And if the Truth is that being gay, or black, or American, or whatever (but it's much more obvious for a minority-status as opposed to majority) has been integral to their whole experience in life, has had a huge effect on their self-narrative through the world, then that's something to be embraced.
"it is in no way specifically characteristic of a *homosexual* affective response, but could, and *should* be manifested in a properly ordered heterosexual. As such, it does not pick out a good specific to a possessing a homosexual orientation"
Yet you go on to recognize that there is an affective sensibility that only androphiles or gynephiles possess, even if other people can recognize it "propositionally." But a male androphile is a homosexual, and a female gynephile. A lesbian woman's affective response to a woman's attractiveness is therefore meaningfully different than the "propositional" response of a heterosexual woman.
"So a woman's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attractiveness can perhaps be a real good, without it's being the case that a homosexual man's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attrativeness is a good given that the latter is only possible in virtue a malformation of his properly ordered sensibilities as man (i.e. male human being)."
Well, but it's not. There are bisexuals. It's not like an affectational response to men is necessarily conditional on the lack of one to women. And who is to say that the presence of one for women is necessarily a good either for a man called to celibacy? There are goods present in a lack of affectational response too; a gay man, for example, can relate to women without the emotional complication.
"This is similar to the case above in in the blind man's acute hearing is a *per se* good without its being the case that his blindness is a *per se* good."
But, as I said, this analogy falls apart. Where is a gay man blind? In a lack of affectational response to women (and the presence merely of a "propositional" one?) But then straights are "blind" to the attractiveness of one sex too (at least in the affectational response). And what of bisexuals?
"There is nothing good, per se, in possessing a homosexual sensibility / inclinations *even if* following Mark that makes possible something else which is a good."
What do you mean nothing good per se? What's good in a woman's androphilia that isn't good in a man's? That it enables/serves as an incentive for having children, I'll grant. But if you think that the goods of sexuality in the broad sense (in the sense that, again as the Catechism says, it touches our whole affective lives) can be so strictly reduced to, essentially, a sort of funnel pushing people towards marriage and mating...I have to think this is a rather narrow view.
Pax:
"Every man I've ever known has told me that he's been attracted to plenty of other women--this inclination is not disordered."
Exactly, though: the point is there is "attraction" which isn't lust. Which is more just the spice of life, and doesn't particularly "incline" towards any sort of lust or sex acts. And yet such attraction is most definitely sexed, homosexual or heterosexual (or, perhaps rather, androphilic or gynephilic).
"The desire I may have for another man is not ordered to an objective good--quite the contrary."
Depends WHAT the desire IS exactly. A desire for acts for the purpose of genital arousal and/or stimulation? Of course THAT is disordered.
But I think it's rather simplistic to say that attraction can be reduced to "desire for sex with that person." Frankly, desire itself is rather subjective, and it's really up only to the person himself to say what the end of his attraction is, to say what constitutes the fulfillment of his feelings, what the specific object of his desire is, or whether there even is any; sometimes a "glow" from an attractive person smiling at us or talking to us is enough in itself.
"There are no means by which they can ever be ordered towards a good"
Sure they can. Attraction, gay or straight, can add a magnetism to friendships even that are not sexual. Maybe one of the parties doesn't even swing that way. One can follow aesthetic appreciation up "Plato's ladder" to the Form of Beauty. One can choose to motivate oneself towards self improvement for the sake of a love object, or can choose self-sacrifice for them motivated by love.
I pity anyone who thinks eros is reducible ultimately to a desire for sex acts (disordered or otherwise). Such people's romantic experiences must be very small.
"In no way can the inclination ever be redeemed to the point where it can find fulfillment, or ordered to any objective good."
Yes, this is the implicitly homophobic and shaming narrative Joshua is trying to deconstruct, I think.
"This is why I ask for something 'concrete' as an example. Even your suggestion remains abstract. It is, I think, imperative to the conversation to have even *one* example of a "homosexual inclination" that is not 'objectively disordered'..."
A cute guy is on a corner with a vest and tin can collecting money for charity, a gay guy's heart skips a beat, he puts in an extra dollar, the cute guy smiles at him, the gay guy walks off with a little extra glow and a spring in his step.
If this wouldn't be wrong for a (let's say married) straight man with a pretty girl who was not his wife, it isn't for a homosexual either.
Please, we could come up with a MILLION of these.
"So my question or thought is what makes your perspective that much different than someone who identify's as ex-gay. The only real difference is that you are saying that you are gay and not SSA."
I can't speak for Joshua, but I'm pretty sure one of the huge differences is that Joshua doesn't seem to buy into the notion that sexual orientation can or should change (not for everyone, at least).
"But you are still buying into the belief that morally it is wrong to be gay and to actually be in any form of relationship with another."
I think the whole point of this article is that he doesn't think it's morally wrong to BE gay, and as for "any form of relationship"...he has said nothing one way or another on this question. He's promoted chastity, he hasn't said one way or another whether this means being "alone" forever.
I'm sure this point would be debated. Certainly I can't imagine many of the conservatives here liking it. But let's remember that, in itself, Church teaching addresses only sex acts (and lusts for those acts). Not love, not relationships, not identity, not communities, not "lifestyles" (whatever that means!)
TradCathPhilProf:
"Basically he wants to claim that understood in the right way (as an ordered desire) the self-recognition of homosexuality as significant part of his self-identity will not conflict with the primacy of his embrace of orthodoxy."
I'm not sure how people here are understanding "identity." Perhaps most heterosexuals take for granted how pervasively sexuality colors all their interactions, relationships, their whole paradigm, their whole (as the Catechism says) "affective life."
People are speaking here as if "identity" means some sort of political affiliation or choice. It's really not. Identity is simply a recognition of what experiences have been most important in the development of one's personality, personal narrative, psyche, etc.
The Truth can never be in conflict with a central Christian identity. And if the Truth is that being gay, or black, or American, or whatever (but it's much more obvious for a minority-status as opposed to majority) has been integral to their whole experience in life, has had a huge effect on their self-narrative through the world, then that's something to be embraced.
"it is in no way specifically characteristic of a *homosexual* affective response, but could, and *should* be manifested in a properly ordered heterosexual. As such, it does not pick out a good specific to a possessing a homosexual orientation"
Yet you go on to recognize that there is an affective sensibility that only androphiles or gynephiles possess, even if other people can recognize it "propositionally." But a male androphile is a homosexual, and a female gynephile. A lesbian woman's affective response to a woman's attractiveness is therefore meaningfully different than the "propositional" response of a heterosexual woman.
"So a woman's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attractiveness can perhaps be a real good, without it's being the case that a homosexual man's affective sensibility to Brad Pitt's sexual attrativeness is a good given that the latter is only possible in virtue a malformation of his properly ordered sensibilities as man (i.e. male human being)."
Well, but it's not. There are bisexuals. It's not like an affectational response to men is necessarily conditional on the lack of one to women. And who is to say that the presence of one for women is necessarily a good either for a man called to celibacy? There are goods present in a lack of affectational response too; a gay man, for example, can relate to women without the emotional complication.
"This is similar to the case above in in the blind man's acute hearing is a *per se* good without its being the case that his blindness is a *per se* good."
But, as I said, this analogy falls apart. Where is a gay man blind? In a lack of affectational response to women (and the presence merely of a "propositional" one?) But then straights are "blind" to the attractiveness of one sex too (at least in the affectational response). And what of bisexuals?
"There is nothing good, per se, in possessing a homosexual sensibility / inclinations *even if* following Mark that makes possible something else which is a good."
What do you mean nothing good per se? What's good in a woman's androphilia that isn't good in a man's? That it enables/serves as an incentive for having children, I'll grant. But if you think that the goods of sexuality in the broad sense (in the sense that, again as the Catechism says, it touches our whole affective lives) can be so strictly reduced to, essentially, a sort of funnel pushing people towards marriage and mating...I have to think this is a rather narrow view.
Pax:
"Every man I've ever known has told me that he's been attracted to plenty of other women--this inclination is not disordered."
Exactly, though: the point is there is "attraction" which isn't lust. Which is more just the spice of life, and doesn't particularly "incline" towards any sort of lust or sex acts. And yet such attraction is most definitely sexed, homosexual or heterosexual (or, perhaps rather, androphilic or gynephilic).
"The desire I may have for another man is not ordered to an objective good--quite the contrary."
Depends WHAT the desire IS exactly. A desire for acts for the purpose of genital arousal and/or stimulation? Of course THAT is disordered.
But I think it's rather simplistic to say that attraction can be reduced to "desire for sex with that person." Frankly, desire itself is rather subjective, and it's really up only to the person himself to say what the end of his attraction is, to say what constitutes the fulfillment of his feelings, what the specific object of his desire is, or whether there even is any; sometimes a "glow" from an attractive person smiling at us or talking to us is enough in itself.
"There are no means by which they can ever be ordered towards a good"
Sure they can. Attraction, gay or straight, can add a magnetism to friendships even that are not sexual. Maybe one of the parties doesn't even swing that way. One can follow aesthetic appreciation up "Plato's ladder" to the Form of Beauty. One can choose to motivate oneself towards self improvement for the sake of a love object, or can choose self-sacrifice for them motivated by love.
I pity anyone who thinks eros is reducible ultimately to a desire for sex acts (disordered or otherwise). Such people's romantic experiences must be very small.
"In no way can the inclination ever be redeemed to the point where it can find fulfillment, or ordered to any objective good."
Yes, this is the implicitly homophobic and shaming narrative Joshua is trying to deconstruct, I think.
"This is why I ask for something 'concrete' as an example. Even your suggestion remains abstract. It is, I think, imperative to the conversation to have even *one* example of a "homosexual inclination" that is not 'objectively disordered'..."
A cute guy is on a corner with a vest and tin can collecting money for charity, a gay guy's heart skips a beat, he puts in an extra dollar, the cute guy smiles at him, the gay guy walks off with a little extra glow and a spring in his step.
If this wouldn't be wrong for a (let's say married) straight man with a pretty girl who was not his wife, it isn't for a homosexual either.
Please, we could come up with a MILLION of these.
5.25.2012 | 12:41am
Joshua Gonnerman says:
Jonathan,
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of "gay." As such, it is not clear to me how much sense it makes for both to refer to the same person, but there is of course no hard and fast rule on tue question; the only absolute rule is that Christ is the absolute.
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of "gay." As such, it is not clear to me how much sense it makes for both to refer to the same person, but there is of course no hard and fast rule on tue question; the only absolute rule is that Christ is the absolute.
5.25.2012 | 10:30am
DeaconJR says:
I highly recommend that readers carefully, carefully consider the items below as being fundamentally important to this topic:
A quote from the CDF, 1986:
“In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration [from 1975], however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” (no. 3, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1986)
And, while the following is “non-magisterial,” Karol Wojtyla’s “Love and Responsibility” (1960) is an important “prelude” to JPII’s “Theology of the Body,” and it directly mentions homosexuality only two times (whereas TOB doesn’t at all, it seems)—and the mentions are, importantly, in the context of the “sexual urge” and of “sensuality” (rather than sexual *behavior*). I will let the passages speak for themselves:
(p. 49, L&R): “Moreover, the sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman. Inevitably, then, the sexual urge in a human being is always in the natural course of things directed toward another human being—this is the normal form which it takes. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes as such this must be recognized as an impoverishment or even a perversion of the urge. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes of a person of the same sex we speak of a homosexual deviation. Still more emphatically do we speak of sexual deviation if the urge is directed not toward the sexual attributes of a human being but towards those of an animal. The natural direction of the sexual urge is towards a human being of the other sex and not merely towards ‘the other sex’ as such. It is just because it is directed towad a particular human being that the sexual urge can provide the framework within which, and the basis on which, the possibility of love arises.”
(p. 105, L&R): “In analysing what is called sensuality in this light, we must state that it is something more than an ordinary reaction of the senses to an object, to a person of the other sex. Sensuality always implies experiencing a particular value bound up with this sensory awareness. Specifically we are concerened with a sexual value, connected above all with the body of a person of the other sex (we ignore for the moment those perversions in the context of which a sexual value may be connected with a person of the same sex, or not with a person at all but with an animal or an inanimate object)….”
A quote from the CDF, 1986:
“In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration [from 1975], however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” (no. 3, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1986)
And, while the following is “non-magisterial,” Karol Wojtyla’s “Love and Responsibility” (1960) is an important “prelude” to JPII’s “Theology of the Body,” and it directly mentions homosexuality only two times (whereas TOB doesn’t at all, it seems)—and the mentions are, importantly, in the context of the “sexual urge” and of “sensuality” (rather than sexual *behavior*). I will let the passages speak for themselves:
(p. 49, L&R): “Moreover, the sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman. Inevitably, then, the sexual urge in a human being is always in the natural course of things directed toward another human being—this is the normal form which it takes. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes as such this must be recognized as an impoverishment or even a perversion of the urge. If it is directed towards the sexual attributes of a person of the same sex we speak of a homosexual deviation. Still more emphatically do we speak of sexual deviation if the urge is directed not toward the sexual attributes of a human being but towards those of an animal. The natural direction of the sexual urge is towards a human being of the other sex and not merely towards ‘the other sex’ as such. It is just because it is directed towad a particular human being that the sexual urge can provide the framework within which, and the basis on which, the possibility of love arises.”
(p. 105, L&R): “In analysing what is called sensuality in this light, we must state that it is something more than an ordinary reaction of the senses to an object, to a person of the other sex. Sensuality always implies experiencing a particular value bound up with this sensory awareness. Specifically we are concerened with a sexual value, connected above all with the body of a person of the other sex (we ignore for the moment those perversions in the context of which a sexual value may be connected with a person of the same sex, or not with a person at all but with an animal or an inanimate object)….”
5.25.2012 | 1:33pm
PaxRomana says:
JJoshua Gonnerman says:
Jonathan,
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of "gay." As such, it is not clear to me how much sense it makes for both to refer to the same person, but there is of course no hard and fast rule on tue question; the only absolute rule is that Christ is the absolute.
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a result of rejecting any notion that we HAVE a sexual identity, other than being male or female. It liberates me, and others like me who live with same sex attractions, from any bizarre notion that we are somehow a different form/classification of man that my neighbor. It is descriptive, in the same way I might say "I live with sleep apnea." It divorces the need for it to being very essential to who I am. It places it in its proper context, in far orbit around the center of my person as made in the image and likeness of God. For those who identity as a "gay, chaste Catholic," they profess that their identity is first and foremost as a man, made in the image of God. All else orbits around this, but it seems that the import and gravity given to the notion of "being gay" makes "being gay" nearly equal in gravity to their central identity. Everything within them orbits around these two central facets of their person, like a double solar system. For someone who is "same sex attracted," like me, one of the most distant satellites of my person is my sexual attractions. It's not an identifier, or identity: it's a descriptor of a facet of my person, (and one of the least interesting, quite honestly), and it is in its proper place.
Jonathan,
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of "gay." As such, it is not clear to me how much sense it makes for both to refer to the same person, but there is of course no hard and fast rule on tue question; the only absolute rule is that Christ is the absolute.
In my experience, "same-sex attracted" arises as a result of rejecting any notion that we HAVE a sexual identity, other than being male or female. It liberates me, and others like me who live with same sex attractions, from any bizarre notion that we are somehow a different form/classification of man that my neighbor. It is descriptive, in the same way I might say "I live with sleep apnea." It divorces the need for it to being very essential to who I am. It places it in its proper context, in far orbit around the center of my person as made in the image and likeness of God. For those who identity as a "gay, chaste Catholic," they profess that their identity is first and foremost as a man, made in the image of God. All else orbits around this, but it seems that the import and gravity given to the notion of "being gay" makes "being gay" nearly equal in gravity to their central identity. Everything within them orbits around these two central facets of their person, like a double solar system. For someone who is "same sex attracted," like me, one of the most distant satellites of my person is my sexual attractions. It's not an identifier, or identity: it's a descriptor of a facet of my person, (and one of the least interesting, quite honestly), and it is in its proper place.
5.25.2012 | 1:49pm
Mark says:
"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil"
I think it's rather arrogant of the CDF to try to tell people what homosexuality "is" as if it has an essence. If the claim that some people make here is true that homosexuality does not even ontologically exist, then buying into this sort of Essentialism in defining it seems like rather a contradiction.
Obviously, if you DEFINE "the particular inclination" as a tendency ordered towards a particular moral evil, then it is by definition ordered towards a particular moral evil. Duh, that's a tautology.
But as I've said here, people may simply be defining "homosexuality" differently (and inaccurately). If you define it as a desire for gay sex then, yeah, it's lust and objectively disordered. But is a social construct like "sexual orientation" reducible to an "essential" definition like this? I'd argue that by the very fact of being a construct rather than a natural category, it cannot be.
I think the question of what object or objects a set of feelings or pattern of affectational responses is "ordered towards"...is therefore rather a subjective one.
Indeed, it seems odd to me to claim that homosexuality is "intrinsically ordered" towards gay sex, because that implies that it does in fact have an objective and determinate telos! But that notion of homosexuality possessing an objective telos raises some serious questions for those who would claim it is unnatural and disordered.
In fact, it seems to me, the only way to maintain the (true) claim that homogenital acts are disordered and unnatural...is to admit that they do not in fact constitute the telos of any appetite, that no desire is in fact specifically ordered towards them; at least, not in themselves as a proper object or end (obviously some people improperly desire them at least a means).
I think the recent Canadian bishop's statement is much more accurate in saying that homosexuality is disordered INASMUCH AS it inclines to homogenital acts. Inasmuch as it DOESN'T however, it isn't. The passions are morally neutral in this sense, and I think it would be utterly reductionist to define sex acts as the only thing that can properly be constructed as objects of sexuality or orientation, as if sex acts are the only thing sexuality can ultimately incline one towards (what about art? If a man rights a symphony out of homoerotic love for another man, is that "Intrinsically disordered"?? Puh-leeze.)
In this sense I think JPII's phenomenological analysis of human sexual response is simply off. I don't think the object of the sexual appetite is a member of the opposite sex (or the same, or an animal, or whatever paraphilia you might have). The object of the appetite considered as regards Reason is the marital act in its holism. But the lower or sensual appetite only ever responds to sensory "fragments" of the holistic good, and hence fallen concupiscence inasmuch as these fragments can be "assembled incorrectly."
But the holistic good (the marital act) contains BOTH a male and a female body. Therefore, responsiveness to male "pieces of that picture" seem no more problematic than responsiveness to female "pieces of the picture". The disorder would come, then, not in the OBJECT of the appetite (as if homosexuals actually have a different object to their sexual appetite; a theologically problematic concept to say the least!) but simply in how these fragments are "assembled" into a whole picture.
However, it is no more inevitable that a homosexual will assemble the fragments he responds to into something bad than it is for a heterosexual. Case in point: male heterosexuals are known to be motivated by their heterosexuality into watching LESBIAN porn (it involves women, after all!) Here, we see heterosexuality "pointing to" a homosexual act. Likewise, some gay men are known to watch STRAIGHT porn ("for the man.") So here is homosexuality "pointing towards" a heterosexual act!
Sexuality is complicated, and I would not assume that heterosexuality (broadly speaking, a concern with and spectrum of affectational responsiveness to the opposite sex as such) necessarily indicates or "inclines towards" any particular or even heterosexual ACT, and neither would I assume that homosexuality (a concern with and spectrum of affectational responsiveness to the same sex as such) necessarily indicates or even inclines towards any particular or even homosexual ACT.
How basic sensory affectational responses or patterns of relating and feeling are constructed into specific "desires"...is extremely subjective and contingent and far from inevitable.
I think it's rather arrogant of the CDF to try to tell people what homosexuality "is" as if it has an essence. If the claim that some people make here is true that homosexuality does not even ontologically exist, then buying into this sort of Essentialism in defining it seems like rather a contradiction.
Obviously, if you DEFINE "the particular inclination" as a tendency ordered towards a particular moral evil, then it is by definition ordered towards a particular moral evil. Duh, that's a tautology.
But as I've said here, people may simply be defining "homosexuality" differently (and inaccurately). If you define it as a desire for gay sex then, yeah, it's lust and objectively disordered. But is a social construct like "sexual orientation" reducible to an "essential" definition like this? I'd argue that by the very fact of being a construct rather than a natural category, it cannot be.
I think the question of what object or objects a set of feelings or pattern of affectational responses is "ordered towards"...is therefore rather a subjective one.
Indeed, it seems odd to me to claim that homosexuality is "intrinsically ordered" towards gay sex, because that implies that it does in fact have an objective and determinate telos! But that notion of homosexuality possessing an objective telos raises some serious questions for those who would claim it is unnatural and disordered.
In fact, it seems to me, the only way to maintain the (true) claim that homogenital acts are disordered and unnatural...is to admit that they do not in fact constitute the telos of any appetite, that no desire is in fact specifically ordered towards them; at least, not in themselves as a proper object or end (obviously some people improperly desire them at least a means).
I think the recent Canadian bishop's statement is much more accurate in saying that homosexuality is disordered INASMUCH AS it inclines to homogenital acts. Inasmuch as it DOESN'T however, it isn't. The passions are morally neutral in this sense, and I think it would be utterly reductionist to define sex acts as the only thing that can properly be constructed as objects of sexuality or orientation, as if sex acts are the only thing sexuality can ultimately incline one towards (what about art? If a man rights a symphony out of homoerotic love for another man, is that "Intrinsically disordered"?? Puh-leeze.)
In this sense I think JPII's phenomenological analysis of human sexual response is simply off. I don't think the object of the sexual appetite is a member of the opposite sex (or the same, or an animal, or whatever paraphilia you might have). The object of the appetite considered as regards Reason is the marital act in its holism. But the lower or sensual appetite only ever responds to sensory "fragments" of the holistic good, and hence fallen concupiscence inasmuch as these fragments can be "assembled incorrectly."
But the holistic good (the marital act) contains BOTH a male and a female body. Therefore, responsiveness to male "pieces of that picture" seem no more problematic than responsiveness to female "pieces of the picture". The disorder would come, then, not in the OBJECT of the appetite (as if homosexuals actually have a different object to their sexual appetite; a theologically problematic concept to say the least!) but simply in how these fragments are "assembled" into a whole picture.
However, it is no more inevitable that a homosexual will assemble the fragments he responds to into something bad than it is for a heterosexual. Case in point: male heterosexuals are known to be motivated by their heterosexuality into watching LESBIAN porn (it involves women, after all!) Here, we see heterosexuality "pointing to" a homosexual act. Likewise, some gay men are known to watch STRAIGHT porn ("for the man.") So here is homosexuality "pointing towards" a heterosexual act!
Sexuality is complicated, and I would not assume that heterosexuality (broadly speaking, a concern with and spectrum of affectational responsiveness to the opposite sex as such) necessarily indicates or "inclines towards" any particular or even heterosexual ACT, and neither would I assume that homosexuality (a concern with and spectrum of affectational responsiveness to the same sex as such) necessarily indicates or even inclines towards any particular or even homosexual ACT.
How basic sensory affectational responses or patterns of relating and feeling are constructed into specific "desires"...is extremely subjective and contingent and far from inevitable.
5.25.2012 | 3:23pm
Michael says:
I’ve very much enjoyed and have gained much from the gay contributions to this thread and am especially grateful for Joshua’s thoughtfulness, both in his articles and in his response on this thread.
These are muddy issues, and I think Joshua is right that the only way through them is to adhere to the “absolute rule that Christ is the absolute.” To proclaims that “Christ is Lord” is to acknowledge that rule governs all things.
Growing up Roman Catholic and being taught by monks gave me great appreciation for the profound witness of chastity. That witness is something I miss in the Protestant church, but I have gained another profound witness in the Methodist reconciling congregation I belong to.
In this congregation, we have gay and lesbian couples who have been together for 10, 20, and even 30 years, several of them with children, and all of them devoted to the gospel. Visitors seeking merely validation don’t stay long as they realize that we are there to worship and commit ourselves to Christ. The bulk of the congregation, meanwhile, is straight, supportive, and busy raising our own kids. In short, it is a small but ordinary congregation.
These are muddy issues, and I think Joshua is right that the only way through them is to adhere to the “absolute rule that Christ is the absolute.” To proclaims that “Christ is Lord” is to acknowledge that rule governs all things.
Growing up Roman Catholic and being taught by monks gave me great appreciation for the profound witness of chastity. That witness is something I miss in the Protestant church, but I have gained another profound witness in the Methodist reconciling congregation I belong to.
In this congregation, we have gay and lesbian couples who have been together for 10, 20, and even 30 years, several of them with children, and all of them devoted to the gospel. Visitors seeking merely validation don’t stay long as they realize that we are there to worship and commit ourselves to Christ. The bulk of the congregation, meanwhile, is straight, supportive, and busy raising our own kids. In short, it is a small but ordinary congregation.
5.25.2012 | 5:38pm
Gil says:
DeaconJR,
Thanks much for those important clarifications, especially from John Paul II: "Moreover, the sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman. Inevitably, then, the sexual urge in a human being is always in the natural course of things directed toward another human being—this is the normal form which it takes."
When I talk with young persons (teens and adults), the most difficult thing for them to grasp, inundated as they have been by parents and the larger culture in the conceptual lies of sex liberationists, is that there is a clear distinction between approaching a person as an object or as simply, although complexly, as a person. This is especially true in the realm of sexuality, which is centered in the ultimate creative act, our most depth-oriented participation in the creative act of God. The sexuality of man, for instance, is in its gestalt sense (not abstracted in any way from the gestalt) always directed towards union with the Other, woman, and vice versa. Any other sex oriented desire will only thwart that culmination, a culmination which, for both man and woman, reveals more deeply who they are as persons, and thus they become that much closer to being the image and likeness of God, and why the nuptial mystery is for a Christian so vital to understand. For example, when the Scribes and Pharisees are preparing to stone a woman for committing adultery, Jesus first kneels before the woman and writes something in the dirt. Many scholars through the centuries could not help but wonder what he wrote, but it is truly irrelevant what he wrote. The communication was in what Jesus did physically, kneeling before the woman, revealing the nuptial relationship between man and woman.
When a person approaches another person as an object of desire and not as a person, an act of idolatry takes place. Jean Luc Marion explains in his book "God Without Being" that every idolatrous act is constituted not by the object, but by the gaze of the idolater. In other words, when an idolater stares at a golden calf or a woman or man with the focus of interior titillation (sensual pleasure derived from abstraction) taking place, it is always self-worship, for the act itself is constituted by the gaze. In other words, all acts of idolatry are self worship.
I can understand a "gay Christian" angrily saying, "Look at all the heterosexually oriented Christians out there committing acts of idolatry, reducing their partners to abstract configurations (objects) for their pleasure and self-aggrandizement! Why can't we do the same? Why can't we, too, be affirmed in this dynamic?”
Actually, I have heard arguments tantamount to this, and the answer of course is that we don't broaden our acceptance of sin to overcome sin. We simply acknowledge how far we as Christians have distanced ourselves from God, and how even our priests and bishops have participated in this distancing beginning with the rejection of Pope Paul VI's encyclical, "Humanae Vitae". And now, in repentance begin our journey back to Our Lord (daily conversion) so we once again can be a community of love, which is a community that in no way encourages persons to journey down a road of perdition.
Mr. Gonnerman,
Your write, “In my experience, ‘same-sex attracted’ arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of ‘gay.’”
You are missing the point, and you are missing the point not because you lack intelligence or the ability to reason, but because your mind is fixed in the lie that there is such a thing as a sexual identity. For example, when persons like me use the phrase “same sex attraction” we are talking about a person who, for whatever reason, is fixed in a same sex orientation, which does not constitute an identity any more than a person fixed in a heterosexual orientation. As I explained above, many heterosexually oriented persons approach sexuality idolatrously, meaning they approach the Other as a sex object, not as a person. This does not mean they in their sinful approach towards union with an Other (which is no approach at all) makes them a person with a sexual identity. They are simply in a movement that constitutes evil, approaching a person with plans of using that person as a sexual object, a negation (what evil always is) of the good, a good which would be an approach to the Other in union (and between two men it would be an approach towards each Other in friendship, which involves a deep love for the Other, and having put my life on the line for friends, including friends trapped in the sexual identity “gay”, I know the depths of this love, and to turn the Other, a male, into a sex object is an assault on that friendship, a thwarting of it, the same as a husband turning his wife into a sex object thwarts their union). Yes, the union between two males or two females in an abiding friendship is a deep love indeed. How great it was when Jesus said to his disciples, “I call you friends.” But one discovers one’s person in the friendship that involves the gestalt of who the Other is, not something abstracted from that gestalt.
“Gay” will always have the connotation of an Other being designated as a sex object, and although at one time this wasn’t true of the word “homosexual”, because of the politicization of that word, it now too has the same connotation as “gay”. This is why persons like me prefer using the phrase “same-sex attracted”, not to designate a sexual identity as you believe, but to point out that a person for some reason has a sexual orientation that is in opposition to nuptial fulfillment (including a life that is celibate, as with Catholic priests). Do you understand that you are attempting to turn the phrase “same-sex attracted” into a classification of sexual identity as a resistance to the fact that there is no such thing as a sexual identity, that, in fact, “gay person” is an abstraction that thwarts a person from becoming fully who he/she is as a person? “Gay person” as well as “gay Christian” simply affirms for sex liberationists that an abstraction can somehow constitute who a person is. This is a totalitarian impulse, for it would reduce a person to being less than who he/she is as a person.
Thanks much for those important clarifications, especially from John Paul II: "Moreover, the sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman. Inevitably, then, the sexual urge in a human being is always in the natural course of things directed toward another human being—this is the normal form which it takes."
When I talk with young persons (teens and adults), the most difficult thing for them to grasp, inundated as they have been by parents and the larger culture in the conceptual lies of sex liberationists, is that there is a clear distinction between approaching a person as an object or as simply, although complexly, as a person. This is especially true in the realm of sexuality, which is centered in the ultimate creative act, our most depth-oriented participation in the creative act of God. The sexuality of man, for instance, is in its gestalt sense (not abstracted in any way from the gestalt) always directed towards union with the Other, woman, and vice versa. Any other sex oriented desire will only thwart that culmination, a culmination which, for both man and woman, reveals more deeply who they are as persons, and thus they become that much closer to being the image and likeness of God, and why the nuptial mystery is for a Christian so vital to understand. For example, when the Scribes and Pharisees are preparing to stone a woman for committing adultery, Jesus first kneels before the woman and writes something in the dirt. Many scholars through the centuries could not help but wonder what he wrote, but it is truly irrelevant what he wrote. The communication was in what Jesus did physically, kneeling before the woman, revealing the nuptial relationship between man and woman.
When a person approaches another person as an object of desire and not as a person, an act of idolatry takes place. Jean Luc Marion explains in his book "God Without Being" that every idolatrous act is constituted not by the object, but by the gaze of the idolater. In other words, when an idolater stares at a golden calf or a woman or man with the focus of interior titillation (sensual pleasure derived from abstraction) taking place, it is always self-worship, for the act itself is constituted by the gaze. In other words, all acts of idolatry are self worship.
I can understand a "gay Christian" angrily saying, "Look at all the heterosexually oriented Christians out there committing acts of idolatry, reducing their partners to abstract configurations (objects) for their pleasure and self-aggrandizement! Why can't we do the same? Why can't we, too, be affirmed in this dynamic?”
Actually, I have heard arguments tantamount to this, and the answer of course is that we don't broaden our acceptance of sin to overcome sin. We simply acknowledge how far we as Christians have distanced ourselves from God, and how even our priests and bishops have participated in this distancing beginning with the rejection of Pope Paul VI's encyclical, "Humanae Vitae". And now, in repentance begin our journey back to Our Lord (daily conversion) so we once again can be a community of love, which is a community that in no way encourages persons to journey down a road of perdition.
Mr. Gonnerman,
Your write, “In my experience, ‘same-sex attracted’ arises as a sexual identity from an explicit rejection of ‘gay.’”
You are missing the point, and you are missing the point not because you lack intelligence or the ability to reason, but because your mind is fixed in the lie that there is such a thing as a sexual identity. For example, when persons like me use the phrase “same sex attraction” we are talking about a person who, for whatever reason, is fixed in a same sex orientation, which does not constitute an identity any more than a person fixed in a heterosexual orientation. As I explained above, many heterosexually oriented persons approach sexuality idolatrously, meaning they approach the Other as a sex object, not as a person. This does not mean they in their sinful approach towards union with an Other (which is no approach at all) makes them a person with a sexual identity. They are simply in a movement that constitutes evil, approaching a person with plans of using that person as a sexual object, a negation (what evil always is) of the good, a good which would be an approach to the Other in union (and between two men it would be an approach towards each Other in friendship, which involves a deep love for the Other, and having put my life on the line for friends, including friends trapped in the sexual identity “gay”, I know the depths of this love, and to turn the Other, a male, into a sex object is an assault on that friendship, a thwarting of it, the same as a husband turning his wife into a sex object thwarts their union). Yes, the union between two males or two females in an abiding friendship is a deep love indeed. How great it was when Jesus said to his disciples, “I call you friends.” But one discovers one’s person in the friendship that involves the gestalt of who the Other is, not something abstracted from that gestalt.
“Gay” will always have the connotation of an Other being designated as a sex object, and although at one time this wasn’t true of the word “homosexual”, because of the politicization of that word, it now too has the same connotation as “gay”. This is why persons like me prefer using the phrase “same-sex attracted”, not to designate a sexual identity as you believe, but to point out that a person for some reason has a sexual orientation that is in opposition to nuptial fulfillment (including a life that is celibate, as with Catholic priests). Do you understand that you are attempting to turn the phrase “same-sex attracted” into a classification of sexual identity as a resistance to the fact that there is no such thing as a sexual identity, that, in fact, “gay person” is an abstraction that thwarts a person from becoming fully who he/she is as a person? “Gay person” as well as “gay Christian” simply affirms for sex liberationists that an abstraction can somehow constitute who a person is. This is a totalitarian impulse, for it would reduce a person to being less than who he/she is as a person.
5.25.2012 | 8:23pm
Tim S says:
It seems like this discussion has been hampered by (1) a lack of clarity about what it means to identify as something and (2) a certain vagueness about what calling “the homosexual inclination” a disorder means and implies.
To the first issue, there are at least three ways of understanding identity. Having a gay identity can be understood in a weak sense, as meaning that if you have same sex attractions and if someone asks if you’re gay, you’re not held back by fear or shame from giving an honest answer. That is, it’s no big deal to “identify” yourself as gay when you want or need to. A stronger sense of identity can apply in other contexts however: in this sense, to identify as gay means to accept one’s gayness as one of the most important characteristics that make you identifiable as a unique person. Finally, ‘identity’ can also refer to one’s group identity: for instance, having an Irish identity would mean that you feel you “belong with” other Irish people.
In the first and third senses of identity, I don’t think there’s any issue with a Catholic identifying himself or herself as gay. As I argued earlier, it is in fact bad for a person whose sexual attractions are predominantly and persistently for people of the same sex not to have a gay identity in the first sense, since it prevents him or her from getting close to anyone and will ultimately lead to a life of loneliness and despair. For the third sense, it seems obviously good to identify with those who are like you. Others are free to argue that it is in fact evil, but I seriously doubt they can do so without falling into the trap of claiming that gay people themselves, and not merely their “inclination,” are disordered. That just leaves, then, the second sense.
The objection to accepting one’s gayness as an important trait that makes one a unique person has so far been a vague insistence that “it’s a disorder”. First of all, the fact that something is a disorder has no bearing on the question of whether or not it is (as a matter of fact) identity-involving. For example, deaf people include deafness as part of their identity, i.e., they consider it a trait that contributes in an important way to who they are. In this, it seems to me that they’re right, since, as verbal communication lies so close to what it means to be human, the need to do without it surely affects one’s feeling of belonging with hearing human beings and thereby affects not only one’s group identity but personal identity as well. Similarly, since a heterosexual orientation lies so close to what it means to be human, not having such an orientation affects the sense of belonging with other people and, again, thereby necessarily affects or even complicates one’s identity.
Thus, being gay or having same sex attraction is necessarily an identity-involving trait. But, of course, the objection was not that gayness doesn’t affect one’s identity, but that it shouldn’t because it’s a disorder. Here, however, we meet the second issue I pointed out at the beginning, namely, the studied unclarity in these ideas of “the homosexual inclination” and “disorder.” The plausibility of the claim that “the homosexual inclination” is ordered to a moral evil and therefore a “disorder” comes from a readiness in Western culture to equate gayness with an insatiable desire for gay sex. Much could be said about this, but I will only note that there is no sensible justification for equating these two things, and that even a cursory glance at Plato’s dialogues shows a way of construing gayness (as opposed to “the homosexual inclination” or an insatiable desire for gay sex) in a positive light.
To the first issue, there are at least three ways of understanding identity. Having a gay identity can be understood in a weak sense, as meaning that if you have same sex attractions and if someone asks if you’re gay, you’re not held back by fear or shame from giving an honest answer. That is, it’s no big deal to “identify” yourself as gay when you want or need to. A stronger sense of identity can apply in other contexts however: in this sense, to identify as gay means to accept one’s gayness as one of the most important characteristics that make you identifiable as a unique person. Finally, ‘identity’ can also refer to one’s group identity: for instance, having an Irish identity would mean that you feel you “belong with” other Irish people.
In the first and third senses of identity, I don’t think there’s any issue with a Catholic identifying himself or herself as gay. As I argued earlier, it is in fact bad for a person whose sexual attractions are predominantly and persistently for people of the same sex not to have a gay identity in the first sense, since it prevents him or her from getting close to anyone and will ultimately lead to a life of loneliness and despair. For the third sense, it seems obviously good to identify with those who are like you. Others are free to argue that it is in fact evil, but I seriously doubt they can do so without falling into the trap of claiming that gay people themselves, and not merely their “inclination,” are disordered. That just leaves, then, the second sense.
The objection to accepting one’s gayness as an important trait that makes one a unique person has so far been a vague insistence that “it’s a disorder”. First of all, the fact that something is a disorder has no bearing on the question of whether or not it is (as a matter of fact) identity-involving. For example, deaf people include deafness as part of their identity, i.e., they consider it a trait that contributes in an important way to who they are. In this, it seems to me that they’re right, since, as verbal communication lies so close to what it means to be human, the need to do without it surely affects one’s feeling of belonging with hearing human beings and thereby affects not only one’s group identity but personal identity as well. Similarly, since a heterosexual orientation lies so close to what it means to be human, not having such an orientation affects the sense of belonging with other people and, again, thereby necessarily affects or even complicates one’s identity.
Thus, being gay or having same sex attraction is necessarily an identity-involving trait. But, of course, the objection was not that gayness doesn’t affect one’s identity, but that it shouldn’t because it’s a disorder. Here, however, we meet the second issue I pointed out at the beginning, namely, the studied unclarity in these ideas of “the homosexual inclination” and “disorder.” The plausibility of the claim that “the homosexual inclination” is ordered to a moral evil and therefore a “disorder” comes from a readiness in Western culture to equate gayness with an insatiable desire for gay sex. Much could be said about this, but I will only note that there is no sensible justification for equating these two things, and that even a cursory glance at Plato’s dialogues shows a way of construing gayness (as opposed to “the homosexual inclination” or an insatiable desire for gay sex) in a positive light.
5.25.2012 | 11:26pm
Tony says:
Putting together what TradCathPhilProf says, and what Deacon JR says: it is important to recall that the end goal of the Christian is not merely that all out outward acts be wholesome, but also our inward desires be wholesome, pure and integrated. We cannot always force our inward desires into the mold we want them to be in just by willing it, but (because of the grace of Christ overcoming wayward fallen nature) we can indeed hope for it, and we MUST hope for its fulfillment in the next life, anyway.
But what does that mean for the concrete situation of a man with homosexual inclinations? It means that not only must he do battle with his disordered desires for sex with men, and not consent to such desires, but also that he must battle all those other, non-sexual desires that are coordinate with, complicit with, and integrated with the explicitly disordered desires for sex with men. Thus, the wholesome intention to be one, whole, complete, integrated male is inherently inconsistent with embracing those non-sexual desires, affections, and fancies that are consistent with female behavior and not with male behavior. Society includes customs (entirely reasonable and sound in themselves) of behavior and activity that distinguishes the separates the roles of men and women in vast particulars outside the bedroom. A man willingly taking on (non-sexual) behaviors that socially belong to women is disordered: not as severely disordered as gay sexual behavior, to be sure, but it is still contrary to the integrated wholeness of a man who is pure through and through. And a man willing to be content with such desires is a man who is not yet fully committed to the singleness of integrity that Christ calls us to.
Few of us are wholly committed to Christ-like integrity in every aspect of our lives. But at least we can note our failures to be so committed, and call those defects what they really are: disorders and imperfections. We should want to be cleansed of all of our imperfections, not merely our most grievous ones.
But what does that mean for the concrete situation of a man with homosexual inclinations? It means that not only must he do battle with his disordered desires for sex with men, and not consent to such desires, but also that he must battle all those other, non-sexual desires that are coordinate with, complicit with, and integrated with the explicitly disordered desires for sex with men. Thus, the wholesome intention to be one, whole, complete, integrated male is inherently inconsistent with embracing those non-sexual desires, affections, and fancies that are consistent with female behavior and not with male behavior. Society includes customs (entirely reasonable and sound in themselves) of behavior and activity that distinguishes the separates the roles of men and women in vast particulars outside the bedroom. A man willingly taking on (non-sexual) behaviors that socially belong to women is disordered: not as severely disordered as gay sexual behavior, to be sure, but it is still contrary to the integrated wholeness of a man who is pure through and through. And a man willing to be content with such desires is a man who is not yet fully committed to the singleness of integrity that Christ calls us to.
Few of us are wholly committed to Christ-like integrity in every aspect of our lives. But at least we can note our failures to be so committed, and call those defects what they really are: disorders and imperfections. We should want to be cleansed of all of our imperfections, not merely our most grievous ones.
5.28.2012 | 1:41pm
Mark says:
"It means that not only must he do battle with his disordered desires for sex with men, and not consent to such desires"
Sure, but as I said above...it's not at all clear to me that "heterosexuality" necessarily involves desire for any particular act with the opposite sex, or that "homosexuality" necessarily involves desire for any particular act with other members of the same.
We have to battle lust, but "homosexuality" is not necessarily lust anymore than "heterosexuality" is (because we all know heterosexuality, as describing a sexual orientation, is never limited to just one's spouse, obviously).
Indeed, the act that "sexual orientation" of either sort most usually inclines towards...is probably just something as trivial and minor and morally neutral as giving someone on the bus a second glance.
As TimS says above, the construction of "homosexuality" as "wanting to have sex with men"...seems to be a huge part of the problem here. There's no doubt some gays construct it in this essentialist way, but why should the Church accept that sort of essentialism? Homosexuality or homosexual attraction, generally speaking, are just a construct meaning a general socio-emotional concern with and particular pattern of affective response to members of the same sex. It's quite a leap to draw a line immediately from there to sex acts!
"but also that he must battle all those other, non-sexual desires that are coordinate with, complicit with, and integrated with the explicitly disordered desires for sex with men."
This I think gets much more controversial and dangerous. "Coordinated with"? "Complicit with"? "Integrated with"? What are you talking about??
Different feelings of different natures and different ends are, at most, CONSTRUCTED with the experience of sexual arousal or desire for sex acts. But I'd say at that point, the correct response is to simply deconstruct the connection, rather than to battle these in-themselves neutral phenomena.
"Thus, the wholesome intention to be one, whole, complete, integrated male is inherently inconsistent with embracing those non-sexual desires, affections, and fancies that are consistent with female behavior and not with male behavior."
No, because outside reproduction, what is "consistent with female and not with male" behavior is just a construct.
"Society includes customs (entirely reasonable and sound in themselves) of behavior and activity that distinguishes the separates the roles of men and women in vast particulars outside the bedroom. A man willingly taking on (non-sexual) behaviors that socially belong to women is disordered: not as severely disordered as gay sexual behavior, to be sure, but it is still contrary to the integrated wholeness of a man who is pure through and through."
Hahaha, no. The Church has no moral teachings on "gender." The Church's teachings are about sex (both in the sense of male/female, and genital acts). The Church has no teachings about "masculine/feminine" as if anyone is morally bound to gender roles or scripts outside those things in which physical sex itself is relevant. THIS, however, I think gets to the heart of a lot of the institutional homophobia among conservatives...
Sure, but as I said above...it's not at all clear to me that "heterosexuality" necessarily involves desire for any particular act with the opposite sex, or that "homosexuality" necessarily involves desire for any particular act with other members of the same.
We have to battle lust, but "homosexuality" is not necessarily lust anymore than "heterosexuality" is (because we all know heterosexuality, as describing a sexual orientation, is never limited to just one's spouse, obviously).
Indeed, the act that "sexual orientation" of either sort most usually inclines towards...is probably just something as trivial and minor and morally neutral as giving someone on the bus a second glance.
As TimS says above, the construction of "homosexuality" as "wanting to have sex with men"...seems to be a huge part of the problem here. There's no doubt some gays construct it in this essentialist way, but why should the Church accept that sort of essentialism? Homosexuality or homosexual attraction, generally speaking, are just a construct meaning a general socio-emotional concern with and particular pattern of affective response to members of the same sex. It's quite a leap to draw a line immediately from there to sex acts!
"but also that he must battle all those other, non-sexual desires that are coordinate with, complicit with, and integrated with the explicitly disordered desires for sex with men."
This I think gets much more controversial and dangerous. "Coordinated with"? "Complicit with"? "Integrated with"? What are you talking about??
Different feelings of different natures and different ends are, at most, CONSTRUCTED with the experience of sexual arousal or desire for sex acts. But I'd say at that point, the correct response is to simply deconstruct the connection, rather than to battle these in-themselves neutral phenomena.
"Thus, the wholesome intention to be one, whole, complete, integrated male is inherently inconsistent with embracing those non-sexual desires, affections, and fancies that are consistent with female behavior and not with male behavior."
No, because outside reproduction, what is "consistent with female and not with male" behavior is just a construct.
"Society includes customs (entirely reasonable and sound in themselves) of behavior and activity that distinguishes the separates the roles of men and women in vast particulars outside the bedroom. A man willingly taking on (non-sexual) behaviors that socially belong to women is disordered: not as severely disordered as gay sexual behavior, to be sure, but it is still contrary to the integrated wholeness of a man who is pure through and through."
Hahaha, no. The Church has no moral teachings on "gender." The Church's teachings are about sex (both in the sense of male/female, and genital acts). The Church has no teachings about "masculine/feminine" as if anyone is morally bound to gender roles or scripts outside those things in which physical sex itself is relevant. THIS, however, I think gets to the heart of a lot of the institutional homophobia among conservatives...
5.29.2012 | 1:05pm
2cents says:
Mark -" The Church has no teachings about "masculine/feminine" as if anyone is morally bound to gender roles or scripts outside those things in which physical sex itself is relevant. "
how about Mulieris Dignitatem (1988)? And "Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality"?
Theology of the Body also talks about the complimentarity of the sexes. We could not have that complimentarity without gender roles - and not just as those roles concern the sexual act itself. That is also one of the reasons marriage between one MAN and one WOMAN is so important - children need a mother and a father to see the different gifts / the "genius" of each gender in order to fully experience their humanity.
how about Mulieris Dignitatem (1988)? And "Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality"?
Theology of the Body also talks about the complimentarity of the sexes. We could not have that complimentarity without gender roles - and not just as those roles concern the sexual act itself. That is also one of the reasons marriage between one MAN and one WOMAN is so important - children need a mother and a father to see the different gifts / the "genius" of each gender in order to fully experience their humanity.
5.29.2012 | 10:51pm
Michael says:
2cents,
“That is also one of the reasons marriage between one MAN and one WOMAN is so important - children need a mother and a father to see the different gifts / the "genius" of each gender in order to fully experience their humanity”
This is a lovely idea, but like so many theories, it is undone by the kind of real world experience that Jesus directed us to. Jesus didn’t care whether the Samaritan worshiped in Jerusalem. He only cared that the Samaritan was good. Similarly, I’ve seen several gay and lesbian couples raise good, faithful children.
I think it’s past time that we put aside theories about how the world is supposed to work and embrace the mystery of grace.
“That is also one of the reasons marriage between one MAN and one WOMAN is so important - children need a mother and a father to see the different gifts / the "genius" of each gender in order to fully experience their humanity”
This is a lovely idea, but like so many theories, it is undone by the kind of real world experience that Jesus directed us to. Jesus didn’t care whether the Samaritan worshiped in Jerusalem. He only cared that the Samaritan was good. Similarly, I’ve seen several gay and lesbian couples raise good, faithful children.
I think it’s past time that we put aside theories about how the world is supposed to work and embrace the mystery of grace.
5.30.2012 | 11:27am
Mark says:
"How about Mulieris Dignitatem (1988)? And 'Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality'? Theology of the Body also talks about the complimentarity of the sexes. We could not have that complimentarity without gender roles - and not just as those roles concern the sexual act itself."
Citing things that were put out IN the context of the culture wars of the past 40 years isn't exactly the best way to demonstrate perennial teaching.
No one is saying men and women are not different, even psychologically, socially, emotionally, etc. There are real differences, and to what degree they are "nature" or, rather, social constructs, isn't really important.
I never said men and women aren't different. "Gender" may be a social construct. So is "sexual orientation." Being a construct doesn't make either any less "real."
What I did say was that, like sexual orientation, "gender" is a category without import in moral theology. I said that the Church's moral teachings address sex, not gender. This is true. Like "sexual orientation," the deposit of faith has no knowledge of "gender" as a category abstracted from physical sex.
There is, generically speaking, a complementarity between the sexes that goes beyond the reproductive act. However, the texture of this is vague. And, more importantly, does not constitute some sort of moral norm. Rather, this recognition (even in Church sources, I would argue) is meant to be DEscriptive rather than PROscriptive.
Saying "Women (generally) are more..." and giving some descriptor is simply a statement of a demographic reality for the species as a whole (just like saying "Men are attracted to women") on which a symbolic language can be built. This description, however, doesn't condemn queerness. It is not a moral teaching that people must adhere (slavishly or otherwise) to gender scripts.
The Church is smart enough not to turn an "is" into an "ought" here. A pattern of similarity among women or among men does not equal some sort of moral imperative for all women or all men to embrace some sort of conformism in their temperaments or personalities as if broad gen(d)er-alizations constitute a moral norm for each individual. They don't.
The Church's moral teachings in themselves concern only sex, not "gender," not orientation.
Citing things that were put out IN the context of the culture wars of the past 40 years isn't exactly the best way to demonstrate perennial teaching.
No one is saying men and women are not different, even psychologically, socially, emotionally, etc. There are real differences, and to what degree they are "nature" or, rather, social constructs, isn't really important.
I never said men and women aren't different. "Gender" may be a social construct. So is "sexual orientation." Being a construct doesn't make either any less "real."
What I did say was that, like sexual orientation, "gender" is a category without import in moral theology. I said that the Church's moral teachings address sex, not gender. This is true. Like "sexual orientation," the deposit of faith has no knowledge of "gender" as a category abstracted from physical sex.
There is, generically speaking, a complementarity between the sexes that goes beyond the reproductive act. However, the texture of this is vague. And, more importantly, does not constitute some sort of moral norm. Rather, this recognition (even in Church sources, I would argue) is meant to be DEscriptive rather than PROscriptive.
Saying "Women (generally) are more..." and giving some descriptor is simply a statement of a demographic reality for the species as a whole (just like saying "Men are attracted to women") on which a symbolic language can be built. This description, however, doesn't condemn queerness. It is not a moral teaching that people must adhere (slavishly or otherwise) to gender scripts.
The Church is smart enough not to turn an "is" into an "ought" here. A pattern of similarity among women or among men does not equal some sort of moral imperative for all women or all men to embrace some sort of conformism in their temperaments or personalities as if broad gen(d)er-alizations constitute a moral norm for each individual. They don't.
The Church's moral teachings in themselves concern only sex, not "gender," not orientation.
5.30.2012 | 10:54pm
PaxRomana says:
Mark said:
I never said men and women aren't different. "Gender" may be a social construct. So is "sexual orientation." Being a construct doesn't make either any less "real."
Yes it could, if the construct is a false one. John Paul II teaches in Veritatis Splendor that the behavioral sciences are fine--just so long as they align with the truth about the human person. There are all kinds of social constructs that are "real," in that they exist in the mind of some sort of social engineer somewhere, but because someone has created a social construct does not make it true. The notion of "gender" reminds of C. S. Lewis's cautionary words in The Abolition of Man: "Let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make him into that: not on any ground of imagined value, but because we want him to be such. Having mastered our environment, let us now master ourselves and choose our own destiny."
As John Paul II wrote:
"In fact, while the behavioural sciences, like all experimental sciences, develop an empirical and statistical concept of "normality", faith teaches that this normality itself bears the traces of a fall from man's original situation — in other words, it is affected by sin. Only Christian faith points out to man the way to return to "the beginning" (cf. Mt 19:8), a way which is often quite different from that of empirical normality. Hence the behavioural sciences, despite the great value of the information which they provide, cannot be considered decisive indications of moral norms. It is the Gospel which reveals the full truth about man and his moral journey."
Because these social constructs are "real," and have gained a certain "normality," it is does not make them true about man. They provide great information, but it is the Gospel, and the Church, that reveals the full truth about man.
Social constructs are just that: socially constructed. They sometimes are true, and sometimes not, and simply because they exist in a society does not mean that we should give them heed. Gender does have import in moral theology. It is a false anthropology of man, and the Church doesn't acknowledge the concept as true about the human person. Gender theories, as opposed to the concrete reality of the two sexes leads to all kinds of chaos, such as the "five gendered theory," or the belief that men and women have one sex, but have another gender, which is all counter to the truth revealed to us through Scripture and the Church.
I never said men and women aren't different. "Gender" may be a social construct. So is "sexual orientation." Being a construct doesn't make either any less "real."
Yes it could, if the construct is a false one. John Paul II teaches in Veritatis Splendor that the behavioral sciences are fine--just so long as they align with the truth about the human person. There are all kinds of social constructs that are "real," in that they exist in the mind of some sort of social engineer somewhere, but because someone has created a social construct does not make it true. The notion of "gender" reminds of C. S. Lewis's cautionary words in The Abolition of Man: "Let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make him into that: not on any ground of imagined value, but because we want him to be such. Having mastered our environment, let us now master ourselves and choose our own destiny."
As John Paul II wrote:
"In fact, while the behavioural sciences, like all experimental sciences, develop an empirical and statistical concept of "normality", faith teaches that this normality itself bears the traces of a fall from man's original situation — in other words, it is affected by sin. Only Christian faith points out to man the way to return to "the beginning" (cf. Mt 19:8), a way which is often quite different from that of empirical normality. Hence the behavioural sciences, despite the great value of the information which they provide, cannot be considered decisive indications of moral norms. It is the Gospel which reveals the full truth about man and his moral journey."
Because these social constructs are "real," and have gained a certain "normality," it is does not make them true about man. They provide great information, but it is the Gospel, and the Church, that reveals the full truth about man.
Social constructs are just that: socially constructed. They sometimes are true, and sometimes not, and simply because they exist in a society does not mean that we should give them heed. Gender does have import in moral theology. It is a false anthropology of man, and the Church doesn't acknowledge the concept as true about the human person. Gender theories, as opposed to the concrete reality of the two sexes leads to all kinds of chaos, such as the "five gendered theory," or the belief that men and women have one sex, but have another gender, which is all counter to the truth revealed to us through Scripture and the Church.
5.31.2012 | 10:19am
Mark says:
I'm not sure what you're even talking about here. "Gender" is real. No one said anything, here at least, about their being "five" of them! Gender is just a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts abstracted from physical sex. As such, in itself, I don't think anyone can disagree that it exists, even if you don't think it can or should be actually separated from physical sex but rather is like an aspect of it. But in itself, the concept is non-controversial.
5.31.2012 | 10:52pm
Tony says:
Mark: Gender is just a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts abstracted from physical sex.
I think you are equivocating on "gender" here. If you don't want to cause more confusion than already exists, you need to define some terms. For example, what does Genesis mean when it says "Male and female he created them"? Does it mean purely the biological differences of different sex organs? Does it mean something more than that? Is that "something more" correctly delineated under the expression "sex" or under "gender"? Is saying a person is "male" a reference to his sex or to his gender? Is that two descriptions or one? These questions have all been confused in today's society, partly intentionally.
It is "clear" that there are biological males and females. I put that in quotes because there are more than a few feminists who dispute even that claim, saying that even calling someone "biologically male" is a defeat of good understanding. But we have to start somewhere. I simply reject such as obfuscation.
The teaching of Mulieris Dignitatem, Familiaris Consortio, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, and scads of earlier teaching, is that "male" and "female" can be seen and manifest in the outward physical organs, but has other dimensions in additional facets of nature: It reflects in psychological, sociological, cognitive, and affective differences.
By what name would you like to refer to the resulting conflation of all these characteristic differences? (It is a wholly different question, is the characterization valid, and how far is it valid. To even discuss the matter, it is necessary to CALL it something, even for the sake of hypothesis.) Some people think that this conflation of physical, psychological, and affective differences can be put under the word "gender", although others disagree. Some people think the whole smorgasbord is correctly placed under "sex", as in saying "that person's sex is male" is a claim about all of them - biological organs, psychological and affective characteristics. Others disagree.
If you claim that "gender" is a construct of those who merely talk about the ways humans are different, the conceptual framework isn't representative of reality. But it is necessary, in evaluating this claim, to be clear on what "gender" means in this claim, and the argument (if any). Define, or flounder.
Me, I don't care whether you use the term "sex" or "gender", as long as you recognize that the Church claims that the meaning of "male" and "female" in Genesis is not limited to physiological organs, but refers to 2 distinct ways of being human under many different dimensions of human wholeness. In Genesis, "male" and "female" were made in God's image not merely on the biological level, but on other levels, so that male images God differently psychologically than female does.
To be perfect as a human is to be fully and perfectly either male or to be fully and perfectly female. There are no other options. To be fully and perfectly male is to be fully and perfectly God-loving as a male is designed to do it, and woman-loving as a male is designed to do it, man-loving as a male is designed to do it, to be fully and perfectly sound and integrated in psychology as a male, and in affective relations as a male. It is impossible to aspire to perfection as a biological male while embracing an affective disorder than makes one relate affectively as if a female. And it cannot be anything other than a disorder, a failure of integration, for a person who is biologically male to affectively relate as a female. Since there are only 2 ways of being human, and these 2 ways refer integratedly to all these dimensions in which image God, there is no way to be half one and half the other and be an integrated human being.
I think you are equivocating on "gender" here. If you don't want to cause more confusion than already exists, you need to define some terms. For example, what does Genesis mean when it says "Male and female he created them"? Does it mean purely the biological differences of different sex organs? Does it mean something more than that? Is that "something more" correctly delineated under the expression "sex" or under "gender"? Is saying a person is "male" a reference to his sex or to his gender? Is that two descriptions or one? These questions have all been confused in today's society, partly intentionally.
It is "clear" that there are biological males and females. I put that in quotes because there are more than a few feminists who dispute even that claim, saying that even calling someone "biologically male" is a defeat of good understanding. But we have to start somewhere. I simply reject such as obfuscation.
The teaching of Mulieris Dignitatem, Familiaris Consortio, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, and scads of earlier teaching, is that "male" and "female" can be seen and manifest in the outward physical organs, but has other dimensions in additional facets of nature: It reflects in psychological, sociological, cognitive, and affective differences.
By what name would you like to refer to the resulting conflation of all these characteristic differences? (It is a wholly different question, is the characterization valid, and how far is it valid. To even discuss the matter, it is necessary to CALL it something, even for the sake of hypothesis.) Some people think that this conflation of physical, psychological, and affective differences can be put under the word "gender", although others disagree. Some people think the whole smorgasbord is correctly placed under "sex", as in saying "that person's sex is male" is a claim about all of them - biological organs, psychological and affective characteristics. Others disagree.
If you claim that "gender" is a construct of those who merely talk about the ways humans are different, the conceptual framework isn't representative of reality. But it is necessary, in evaluating this claim, to be clear on what "gender" means in this claim, and the argument (if any). Define, or flounder.
Me, I don't care whether you use the term "sex" or "gender", as long as you recognize that the Church claims that the meaning of "male" and "female" in Genesis is not limited to physiological organs, but refers to 2 distinct ways of being human under many different dimensions of human wholeness. In Genesis, "male" and "female" were made in God's image not merely on the biological level, but on other levels, so that male images God differently psychologically than female does.
To be perfect as a human is to be fully and perfectly either male or to be fully and perfectly female. There are no other options. To be fully and perfectly male is to be fully and perfectly God-loving as a male is designed to do it, and woman-loving as a male is designed to do it, man-loving as a male is designed to do it, to be fully and perfectly sound and integrated in psychology as a male, and in affective relations as a male. It is impossible to aspire to perfection as a biological male while embracing an affective disorder than makes one relate affectively as if a female. And it cannot be anything other than a disorder, a failure of integration, for a person who is biologically male to affectively relate as a female. Since there are only 2 ways of being human, and these 2 ways refer integratedly to all these dimensions in which image God, there is no way to be half one and half the other and be an integrated human being.
5.31.2012 | 10:58pm
PaxRomana says:
@Mark:
Well, of course, people have argued for a "five gender theory." Not here--not on a Christian blog--at least not yet. But that's exactly the point. We have confused gender with sex, to the point where it is considered "real" by you, and countless others, and eventually such crazy notions will begin to be propagated by Christians as being true. We already know that plenty of Christian churches support the "transgendered" population in their belief that their real gender is different than their physical sex, which creates chaos within the person. The entire notion of a "transgendered" person comes about when we separate physical sex from our God given masculinity or femininity, our maleness and femaleness.
Your argument that "gender is just a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts extracted from physical sex" proves that you have adopted terms and concepts that stem from the sexual revolution, since that's where the term "gender" originated.
As R. V. Young points out in his article on the subject at Touchstone Magazine, "The first edition of the OED (1933) lists sporadic usages of “gender” for “sex” from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries, but notes that such usage is “now only jocular.” The second edition (1989) adds this to the entry: “In mod. (esp. feminist) use a euphemism for the sex of a human being, often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes.” It gives 1963 as the date of the first such usage of “gender.”
Before the sixties, “gender” was largely confined to marking the distinctions between “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter” nouns and pronouns in various languages. The gender of a noun is quite often purely arbitrary or, if you will, “socially constructed”; that is, there is no particular reason why the Spanish word for pen (la pluma) is “feminine” while a pencil (el lápiz) is “masculine.” Or why in Latin, French, and Spanish the hand (manus, la main, la mano) is “feminine,” while the foot (pes, le pied, el pie) is “masculine.”
The application of the term “gender” to the difference between men and women thus implies, without the argument ever being made, that the differential roles of men and women in family and society are as arbitrary as the gender of nouns. The routine use of “gender” to identify as men or women, test-takers, applicants for driver’s licenses and insurance policies, and virtually all those who fill out almost any kind of document marks the bureaucratic imposition of the feminist view of the sexes on society as a whole.
Two linguistic developments over the past several decades have thus been effected by academic and media elites: “gender” has been substituted for “sex” as the designation of the distinction between men and women, and “homosexual” and “heterosexual” have been accepted as legitimate terms for distinguishable classes of persons.
The first development provides an official linguistic approval for the feminist notion that distinctions between men and women are based, not on the intrinsic nature of humankind, but on arbitrary social constructs. The second, conversely, asserts that the compulsion to commit sodomy results not from any disorder, moral, spiritual, or psychological, but from an inherent “homosexual” nature. Apart from the obvious contradiction, further ironies are involved in these verbal manipulations."
Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-10-036-f#ixzz1wVDLyhGC
The concept of gender is a novel one in the history of human thought, and the Church wisely avoids speaking of "gender," but rather speaks only of the concrete physiological, moral and spiritual realities of "Male" and "Female." There are distinct differences between the two sexes, given them by God. These differences are not merely anatomical, or merely "abstracted from physical sex." The woman is a responder; the male is an initiator. These are God given attributes of our physical sexuality. The Catechism is clear that we must embrace our "sexuality," not our gender.
"2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out."
"Sexual identity" here is not talking about one's "heterosexuality" or "Homosexuality," or "queerness," but rather is talking about the concrete reality of our physical maleness or femaleness. It is not talking about "gender" roles either. There are concrete differences between the sexes that go beyond mere anatomical differences alone. These are seen as a "physical, moral and spiritual difference." Are male and female "moral and spiritual" differences mere scripts abstracted from physical sex? These differences are not merely "a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts" as you seem to believe. They are real, and implanted in us by God, in our maleness and femaleness.
The Church continues to expand on the concrete differences between the sexes:
"2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way."
One very negative outcome of the Feminist movement was to deny that there are any differences between men and women, other than physical differences. Thus they coined and propagated the term "gender" to talk about any differences that were outside of the physical realities of man and woman, to the point that one of my very feminist colleagues spoke of her husband as being feminine, while she was masculine, which is utter hogwash.
Well, of course, people have argued for a "five gender theory." Not here--not on a Christian blog--at least not yet. But that's exactly the point. We have confused gender with sex, to the point where it is considered "real" by you, and countless others, and eventually such crazy notions will begin to be propagated by Christians as being true. We already know that plenty of Christian churches support the "transgendered" population in their belief that their real gender is different than their physical sex, which creates chaos within the person. The entire notion of a "transgendered" person comes about when we separate physical sex from our God given masculinity or femininity, our maleness and femaleness.
Your argument that "gender is just a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts extracted from physical sex" proves that you have adopted terms and concepts that stem from the sexual revolution, since that's where the term "gender" originated.
As R. V. Young points out in his article on the subject at Touchstone Magazine, "The first edition of the OED (1933) lists sporadic usages of “gender” for “sex” from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries, but notes that such usage is “now only jocular.” The second edition (1989) adds this to the entry: “In mod. (esp. feminist) use a euphemism for the sex of a human being, often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes.” It gives 1963 as the date of the first such usage of “gender.”
Before the sixties, “gender” was largely confined to marking the distinctions between “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter” nouns and pronouns in various languages. The gender of a noun is quite often purely arbitrary or, if you will, “socially constructed”; that is, there is no particular reason why the Spanish word for pen (la pluma) is “feminine” while a pencil (el lápiz) is “masculine.” Or why in Latin, French, and Spanish the hand (manus, la main, la mano) is “feminine,” while the foot (pes, le pied, el pie) is “masculine.”
The application of the term “gender” to the difference between men and women thus implies, without the argument ever being made, that the differential roles of men and women in family and society are as arbitrary as the gender of nouns. The routine use of “gender” to identify as men or women, test-takers, applicants for driver’s licenses and insurance policies, and virtually all those who fill out almost any kind of document marks the bureaucratic imposition of the feminist view of the sexes on society as a whole.
Two linguistic developments over the past several decades have thus been effected by academic and media elites: “gender” has been substituted for “sex” as the designation of the distinction between men and women, and “homosexual” and “heterosexual” have been accepted as legitimate terms for distinguishable classes of persons.
The first development provides an official linguistic approval for the feminist notion that distinctions between men and women are based, not on the intrinsic nature of humankind, but on arbitrary social constructs. The second, conversely, asserts that the compulsion to commit sodomy results not from any disorder, moral, spiritual, or psychological, but from an inherent “homosexual” nature. Apart from the obvious contradiction, further ironies are involved in these verbal manipulations."
Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-10-036-f#ixzz1wVDLyhGC
The concept of gender is a novel one in the history of human thought, and the Church wisely avoids speaking of "gender," but rather speaks only of the concrete physiological, moral and spiritual realities of "Male" and "Female." There are distinct differences between the two sexes, given them by God. These differences are not merely anatomical, or merely "abstracted from physical sex." The woman is a responder; the male is an initiator. These are God given attributes of our physical sexuality. The Catechism is clear that we must embrace our "sexuality," not our gender.
"2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out."
"Sexual identity" here is not talking about one's "heterosexuality" or "Homosexuality," or "queerness," but rather is talking about the concrete reality of our physical maleness or femaleness. It is not talking about "gender" roles either. There are concrete differences between the sexes that go beyond mere anatomical differences alone. These are seen as a "physical, moral and spiritual difference." Are male and female "moral and spiritual" differences mere scripts abstracted from physical sex? These differences are not merely "a conceptual abstraction of social roles and behavioral scripts" as you seem to believe. They are real, and implanted in us by God, in our maleness and femaleness.
The Church continues to expand on the concrete differences between the sexes:
"2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way."
One very negative outcome of the Feminist movement was to deny that there are any differences between men and women, other than physical differences. Thus they coined and propagated the term "gender" to talk about any differences that were outside of the physical realities of man and woman, to the point that one of my very feminist colleagues spoke of her husband as being feminine, while she was masculine, which is utter hogwash.
6.1.2012 | 11:10am
Mark says:
"I think you are equivocating on 'gender' here. If you don't want to cause more confusion than already exists, you need to define some terms. For example, what does Genesis mean when it says 'Male and female he created them'? Does it mean purely the biological differences of different sex organs? Does it mean something more than that? Is that 'something more' correctly delineated under the expression 'sex' or under 'gender'? Is saying a person is 'male' a reference to his sex or to his gender? Is that two descriptions or one? These questions have all been confused in today's society, partly intentionally."
Male and female refer to sex.
I don't really know if it's correct to say that a person has "a gender." A gender-identity, probably. But "gender" as a word in itself is not, primarily, used as if it is a simple binary feature of an individual person. Rather, it's used to describe the conceptual category of traits along a (socially constructed, whether rooted in innate biology or not) spectrum of "masculine" to "feminine." Unlike sex, gender is not so much an individual category label, but rather the social phenomenon/construction OF sex, or of things seen as in relation to it.
Personalities and behaviors and social roles and scripts (and even secondary and tertiary physical features) can thus be constructed as "gendered" or analyzed under that aspect. Some of these constructions are derived from demographic patterns that are indeed very much are the result of innate biology (certainly, there is likely a large biological component in the fact that men, as a group, tend to be more competitive, whereas women, as a group, tend to be more cooperative, etc). Others are much more arbitrary or historically and culturally contingent.
We all have a sense of gender-identity based on how we relate our sex to the unique mix of where we perceive various aspects of ourselves as falling along that spectrum of more masculine or more feminine in our culture.
But I don't think it's precise to say an individual has "a gender" except as a sort of metonymy referring to sex (because some people are uncomfortable referring to male/female as "sex" because of how "sex" also means sex-acts, it seems). Gender is definitely a real feature (even, seemingly, a very basic category) of how we perceive and construct the world of human behavior (especially behavior), so it probably more correct to say that people have gender, rather than "a gender," exactly because it is a conceptual abstraction from sex that involves a social perception/valuation of less concrete traits with reference TO sex.
"To be perfect as a human is to be fully and perfectly either male or to be fully and perfectly female. There are no other options. To be fully and perfectly male is to be fully and perfectly God-loving as a male is designed to do it, and woman-loving as a male is designed to do it, man-loving as a male is designed to do it, to be fully and perfectly sound and integrated in psychology as a male, and in affective relations as a male. It is impossible to aspire to perfection as a biological male while embracing an affective disorder than makes one relate affectively as if a female. And it cannot be anything other than a disorder, a failure of integration, for a person who is biologically male to affectively relate as a female."
In truth, "as a man is designed to do it" is incredibly subjective when it comes to "man-loving" and "woman-loving." That's the point. Outside the question of desire for sex acts specifically, the idea that a pattern of affective response to this or that sex is "the male way" or "the female way" doesn't really make any sense. Separated from a notion that they are remote preparations for sexual interaction specifically, there is nothing particularly male or female about certain emotional responses to males or females.
"Masculine" or "feminine" is another question, as those evaluations are based on a sort of majoritarian notion derived from what is most TYPICAL in males or in females. But as I said before, and that's really my main point: there is no moral norm in Catholicism that "men must be/act masculine" or "women must be/act feminine."
That is not to say that masculinity and femininity are spiritually irrelevant. Indeed, gender seems to be a universal phenomenon. Humans naturally evaluate traits of other human beings (and even extrapolate into inanimate creation) with reference to sex and to whether something seems more typical of males or of females, where it fits along that spectrum. This "lens" for evaluating the world, this paradigm...is inescapable, and creates a rich world of symbolism that the faith certainly draws upon, and is iconic of how our nature as relational beings is encoded into the very structure of our mechanisms for constructing reality.
BUT: gays see and evaluate and categorize things according to gender just as much as heterosexuals. And, in truth, even a labelling of "masculine" or "feminine" is more complicated, as gender is a hardly a simplistic construction; so, for example, you have ideas like "Wearing pink is feminine. Unless a really confident man does it, then it's VERY masculine because of how it shows he's secure in his masculinity and thus able to transgress the 'first order' simplistic categorization of that behavior."
Likewise, homosexuals do not self-identify as "loving men like a woman" or anything like that (and likely would find your assertions there insulting). Perhaps the lusts can be called effeminate. But only the lusts. In fact, many have a very strong identity as a male, whether or not they identify as terribly "masculine." Some may identify their love for men as "feminine" (not female), but others find models by which to construct it as, actually, "masculine" in a lot of ways or for different reasons.
Male and female refer to sex.
I don't really know if it's correct to say that a person has "a gender." A gender-identity, probably. But "gender" as a word in itself is not, primarily, used as if it is a simple binary feature of an individual person. Rather, it's used to describe the conceptual category of traits along a (socially constructed, whether rooted in innate biology or not) spectrum of "masculine" to "feminine." Unlike sex, gender is not so much an individual category label, but rather the social phenomenon/construction OF sex, or of things seen as in relation to it.
Personalities and behaviors and social roles and scripts (and even secondary and tertiary physical features) can thus be constructed as "gendered" or analyzed under that aspect. Some of these constructions are derived from demographic patterns that are indeed very much are the result of innate biology (certainly, there is likely a large biological component in the fact that men, as a group, tend to be more competitive, whereas women, as a group, tend to be more cooperative, etc). Others are much more arbitrary or historically and culturally contingent.
We all have a sense of gender-identity based on how we relate our sex to the unique mix of where we perceive various aspects of ourselves as falling along that spectrum of more masculine or more feminine in our culture.
But I don't think it's precise to say an individual has "a gender" except as a sort of metonymy referring to sex (because some people are uncomfortable referring to male/female as "sex" because of how "sex" also means sex-acts, it seems). Gender is definitely a real feature (even, seemingly, a very basic category) of how we perceive and construct the world of human behavior (especially behavior), so it probably more correct to say that people have gender, rather than "a gender," exactly because it is a conceptual abstraction from sex that involves a social perception/valuation of less concrete traits with reference TO sex.
"To be perfect as a human is to be fully and perfectly either male or to be fully and perfectly female. There are no other options. To be fully and perfectly male is to be fully and perfectly God-loving as a male is designed to do it, and woman-loving as a male is designed to do it, man-loving as a male is designed to do it, to be fully and perfectly sound and integrated in psychology as a male, and in affective relations as a male. It is impossible to aspire to perfection as a biological male while embracing an affective disorder than makes one relate affectively as if a female. And it cannot be anything other than a disorder, a failure of integration, for a person who is biologically male to affectively relate as a female."
In truth, "as a man is designed to do it" is incredibly subjective when it comes to "man-loving" and "woman-loving." That's the point. Outside the question of desire for sex acts specifically, the idea that a pattern of affective response to this or that sex is "the male way" or "the female way" doesn't really make any sense. Separated from a notion that they are remote preparations for sexual interaction specifically, there is nothing particularly male or female about certain emotional responses to males or females.
"Masculine" or "feminine" is another question, as those evaluations are based on a sort of majoritarian notion derived from what is most TYPICAL in males or in females. But as I said before, and that's really my main point: there is no moral norm in Catholicism that "men must be/act masculine" or "women must be/act feminine."
That is not to say that masculinity and femininity are spiritually irrelevant. Indeed, gender seems to be a universal phenomenon. Humans naturally evaluate traits of other human beings (and even extrapolate into inanimate creation) with reference to sex and to whether something seems more typical of males or of females, where it fits along that spectrum. This "lens" for evaluating the world, this paradigm...is inescapable, and creates a rich world of symbolism that the faith certainly draws upon, and is iconic of how our nature as relational beings is encoded into the very structure of our mechanisms for constructing reality.
BUT: gays see and evaluate and categorize things according to gender just as much as heterosexuals. And, in truth, even a labelling of "masculine" or "feminine" is more complicated, as gender is a hardly a simplistic construction; so, for example, you have ideas like "Wearing pink is feminine. Unless a really confident man does it, then it's VERY masculine because of how it shows he's secure in his masculinity and thus able to transgress the 'first order' simplistic categorization of that behavior."
Likewise, homosexuals do not self-identify as "loving men like a woman" or anything like that (and likely would find your assertions there insulting). Perhaps the lusts can be called effeminate. But only the lusts. In fact, many have a very strong identity as a male, whether or not they identify as terribly "masculine." Some may identify their love for men as "feminine" (not female), but others find models by which to construct it as, actually, "masculine" in a lot of ways or for different reasons.
6.1.2012 | 11:48am
Mark says:
"Well, of course, people have argued for a 'five gender theory.' Not here--not on a Christian blog--at least not yet. But that's exactly the point."
I think Tom was right to say we needed to define terms, because my last post should make clear that, according to the meaning of "gender" I am using, the idea of "five genders" doesn't even make any sense, as gender is a spectrum between things constructed as more typical of or associated with males ("masculine") and those more typical of or associated with females ("feminine"). There are only two poles for this spectrum to move between.
I think the "five sexes" theory actually refers to sex rather than gender, arguing that different types of intersexed/hermaphroditic bodies could be classified as different physical sexes, even, based on different combinations of the genital features presented. However, I'd say even that is still based around a framework of ultimately a male and a female pole, because certain parts are still clearly "male" or "female" (even if an intersexed body can be said to have female gonads but male external genitalia, etc).
Other theories sometimes use the word "gender" to indicate the question of sexual identity, either in the form of queerness (related to significant gender non-conformity) or an internal perception of sex (not gender, mind you, but sex itself) that is dissonant with the body (ie, transsexualism). However, that's not how I'm using "gender" here.
"We already know that plenty of Christian churches support the 'transgendered' population in their belief that their real gender is different than their physical sex, which creates chaos within the person. The entire notion of a 'transgendered' person comes about when we separate physical sex from our God given masculinity or femininity, our maleness and femaleness."
This is, I think, a confusing use of "gender." Trans people feel as if their internal or neurological sense of SEX itself is different than their physical sex. It is not, for them, a question merely of gender, but of sex. They do not just perceive themselves as "feminine males" or something like that (and thus conclude their bodies should change), but rather as females "with the wrong body." In itself (though inevitably it will touch on questions of gender for them)...this is a question of sex identity, not gender.
"The first development provides an official linguistic approval for the feminist notion that distinctions between men and women are based, not on the intrinsic nature of humankind, but on arbitrary social constructs."
Well, I think what it indicates is a realization that, outside genital acts, sex is a relevant identifier basically only inasmuch as it is used as the basis of evaluation regarding the social construction of gender (which is a "performance" of a script, or scripts, associated with sex, rather than a physical trait like sex itself).
"The second, conversely, asserts that the compulsion to commit sodomy results not from any disorder, moral, spiritual, or psychological, but from an inherent 'homosexual' nature. Apart from the obvious contradiction, further ironies are involved in these verbal manipulations."
Well, as I've said in this thread, I think defining homosexuality as "a compulsion to commit sodomy" is incorrect, on both the liberal Gay Essentialist side, and the conservative homophobic side.
Nevertheless, in itself, constructions of homosexuality that make it inseparable from sodomy in essence or definition ARE problematic morally in the ways you point out. You are correct here. This sort of essentialism leads to real problems when invoked by either conservatives (to condemn) or liberals (to justify).
Defining a new "nature" as if the homosexual is a separate species of creature with simply an utterly different telos to their sexuality and/or genital acts...threatens the unity of humanity and the human good, but then does create further complications based on the fact that this claim is used to deconstruct the idea that even heterosexuality has a procreative telos, which then collapses the two categories back together under the notion of a single non-procreative telos for all human sexuality. It was actually a very clever (if devious) bait-and-switch on the part of the libertines.
But the mere recognition of homosexuality itself as one feature of people who can, based on that similarity, thus be constructed together as a category is not problematic at all. You can't throw the gay baby out with the bathwater.
"one of my very feminist colleagues spoke of her husband as being feminine, while she was masculine, which is utter hogwash."
But it's not. In terms of their personalities, that may just be true. We all know couples like that, I think.
I think Tom was right to say we needed to define terms, because my last post should make clear that, according to the meaning of "gender" I am using, the idea of "five genders" doesn't even make any sense, as gender is a spectrum between things constructed as more typical of or associated with males ("masculine") and those more typical of or associated with females ("feminine"). There are only two poles for this spectrum to move between.
I think the "five sexes" theory actually refers to sex rather than gender, arguing that different types of intersexed/hermaphroditic bodies could be classified as different physical sexes, even, based on different combinations of the genital features presented. However, I'd say even that is still based around a framework of ultimately a male and a female pole, because certain parts are still clearly "male" or "female" (even if an intersexed body can be said to have female gonads but male external genitalia, etc).
Other theories sometimes use the word "gender" to indicate the question of sexual identity, either in the form of queerness (related to significant gender non-conformity) or an internal perception of sex (not gender, mind you, but sex itself) that is dissonant with the body (ie, transsexualism). However, that's not how I'm using "gender" here.
"We already know that plenty of Christian churches support the 'transgendered' population in their belief that their real gender is different than their physical sex, which creates chaos within the person. The entire notion of a 'transgendered' person comes about when we separate physical sex from our God given masculinity or femininity, our maleness and femaleness."
This is, I think, a confusing use of "gender." Trans people feel as if their internal or neurological sense of SEX itself is different than their physical sex. It is not, for them, a question merely of gender, but of sex. They do not just perceive themselves as "feminine males" or something like that (and thus conclude their bodies should change), but rather as females "with the wrong body." In itself (though inevitably it will touch on questions of gender for them)...this is a question of sex identity, not gender.
"The first development provides an official linguistic approval for the feminist notion that distinctions between men and women are based, not on the intrinsic nature of humankind, but on arbitrary social constructs."
Well, I think what it indicates is a realization that, outside genital acts, sex is a relevant identifier basically only inasmuch as it is used as the basis of evaluation regarding the social construction of gender (which is a "performance" of a script, or scripts, associated with sex, rather than a physical trait like sex itself).
"The second, conversely, asserts that the compulsion to commit sodomy results not from any disorder, moral, spiritual, or psychological, but from an inherent 'homosexual' nature. Apart from the obvious contradiction, further ironies are involved in these verbal manipulations."
Well, as I've said in this thread, I think defining homosexuality as "a compulsion to commit sodomy" is incorrect, on both the liberal Gay Essentialist side, and the conservative homophobic side.
Nevertheless, in itself, constructions of homosexuality that make it inseparable from sodomy in essence or definition ARE problematic morally in the ways you point out. You are correct here. This sort of essentialism leads to real problems when invoked by either conservatives (to condemn) or liberals (to justify).
Defining a new "nature" as if the homosexual is a separate species of creature with simply an utterly different telos to their sexuality and/or genital acts...threatens the unity of humanity and the human good, but then does create further complications based on the fact that this claim is used to deconstruct the idea that even heterosexuality has a procreative telos, which then collapses the two categories back together under the notion of a single non-procreative telos for all human sexuality. It was actually a very clever (if devious) bait-and-switch on the part of the libertines.
But the mere recognition of homosexuality itself as one feature of people who can, based on that similarity, thus be constructed together as a category is not problematic at all. You can't throw the gay baby out with the bathwater.
"one of my very feminist colleagues spoke of her husband as being feminine, while she was masculine, which is utter hogwash."
But it's not. In terms of their personalities, that may just be true. We all know couples like that, I think.
6.2.2012 | 3:36pm
Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons says:
Dear Joshua,
I think that we would agree that self-knowledge is essential to self-identity. This self-knowledge would include the degree of male confidence in one’s God-given gifts. In our experience many males with SSA lack this vital aspect of self-knowledge.
A review of international research studies published in peer reviewed journals cited may be helpful in understanding the struggle with confidence in males with SSA, as well as results of Dr. Spitzer’s research. Several major research studies of adult and adolescent males with SSA have also demonstrated low self-esteem as being a major conflict in their lives. The first study from the Netherlands of 7,076 adults demonstrated that lesser quality of life in men was predominantly explained by low self-esteem. The authors recommended the importance of finding out how lower sense of self-esteem comes about in homosexual men. (1.) In a 2010 Israeli study of ninety homosexual and 109 heterosexual men with mean age of 26 and with no significant differences with respect to country of birth, ethnic origin, education level, military service, or participation in psychotherapy, homosexual young adults scored lower on the self-esteem measure and higher on narcissism compared to their heterosexual counterparts.(2.) A 2011 UK study of 10,000 adolescents was notable for boys with some same-sex experience reporting less self-esteem and more experiences of forced sex. (3.)
In Spitzer’s study on the healing of SSA the participants were presented with a list of several ways that therapy might have been “very helpful” (apart from change in sexual orientation). Notable were feeling more masculine (males) or more feminine (females) (87%) and developing more intimate nonsexual relations with the same sex (93%). (4.) Growth in male confidence regularly results in a resolution of the same sex attractions and subsequently, the false homosexuality identity.
1. Sandfort, T.G., et al. (2003) Same-sex sexuality and quality of life: findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study. Arch Sex Behav. 32: 15-22. 2. Rubinstein, G. (2010). Narcissism and Self-Esteem Among Homosexual and Heterosexual Male Students. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 36:24–34. 3. Parkes, A., et. al. (2011). Comparison of teenagers’ early same-sex and heterosexual behavior: UK data from the SHARE and RIPPLE studies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 27-35 4. Spitzer, R.L. (2003) “Can some gay men and lesbians change their orientation? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32: p. 412.
I think that we would agree that self-knowledge is essential to self-identity. This self-knowledge would include the degree of male confidence in one’s God-given gifts. In our experience many males with SSA lack this vital aspect of self-knowledge.
A review of international research studies published in peer reviewed journals cited may be helpful in understanding the struggle with confidence in males with SSA, as well as results of Dr. Spitzer’s research. Several major research studies of adult and adolescent males with SSA have also demonstrated low self-esteem as being a major conflict in their lives. The first study from the Netherlands of 7,076 adults demonstrated that lesser quality of life in men was predominantly explained by low self-esteem. The authors recommended the importance of finding out how lower sense of self-esteem comes about in homosexual men. (1.) In a 2010 Israeli study of ninety homosexual and 109 heterosexual men with mean age of 26 and with no significant differences with respect to country of birth, ethnic origin, education level, military service, or participation in psychotherapy, homosexual young adults scored lower on the self-esteem measure and higher on narcissism compared to their heterosexual counterparts.(2.) A 2011 UK study of 10,000 adolescents was notable for boys with some same-sex experience reporting less self-esteem and more experiences of forced sex. (3.)
In Spitzer’s study on the healing of SSA the participants were presented with a list of several ways that therapy might have been “very helpful” (apart from change in sexual orientation). Notable were feeling more masculine (males) or more feminine (females) (87%) and developing more intimate nonsexual relations with the same sex (93%). (4.) Growth in male confidence regularly results in a resolution of the same sex attractions and subsequently, the false homosexuality identity.
1. Sandfort, T.G., et al. (2003) Same-sex sexuality and quality of life: findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study. Arch Sex Behav. 32: 15-22. 2. Rubinstein, G. (2010). Narcissism and Self-Esteem Among Homosexual and Heterosexual Male Students. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 36:24–34. 3. Parkes, A., et. al. (2011). Comparison of teenagers’ early same-sex and heterosexual behavior: UK data from the SHARE and RIPPLE studies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 27-35 4. Spitzer, R.L. (2003) “Can some gay men and lesbians change their orientation? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32: p. 412.
7.28.2012 | 6:51pm
Alex Haiken says:
Nearly every person who acknowledges an aversion to homosexuality does so on the basis of what he or she believes the Bible has to say. In their mind, there is no doubt whatsoever about what the Bible says and what the Bible means. Their general argument goes something like this: Homosexuality is an abomination and the homosexual is a sinner. Homosexuality is condemned in both the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, if we are to be faithful to the clear teachings of Scripture we too must condemn homosexuality. Needless to say, this premise is being widely debated among evangelicals today and seriously challenged by biblical scholars, theologians and religious leaders everywhere.
It rarely occurs to any of us that our reading of Scripture is profoundly colored by our own cultural context and worldview. In light of the post above and since I happen to speak and write on this topic, I thought you might find some of these posts of particular interest and relevance. I would particularly recommend the following:
“Genesis 19: What Were the Real Sins of Sodom?"
"Leviticus 18: What Was the Abomination?"
"Romans 1: What Was Paul Ranting About?"
"Romans 2: Paul's Bait and Switch"
“Genesis 1: Turning the Creation Story into an Anti-Gay Treatise”
"Why No One in the Biblical World Had a Word for Homosexuality"
“Exegesis: Not For the Faint in Heart”
(Links to these and more posts may be found by simply clicking the link below and then selecting the “Archives” page.)
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
It rarely occurs to any of us that our reading of Scripture is profoundly colored by our own cultural context and worldview. In light of the post above and since I happen to speak and write on this topic, I thought you might find some of these posts of particular interest and relevance. I would particularly recommend the following:
“Genesis 19: What Were the Real Sins of Sodom?"
"Leviticus 18: What Was the Abomination?"
"Romans 1: What Was Paul Ranting About?"
"Romans 2: Paul's Bait and Switch"
“Genesis 1: Turning the Creation Story into an Anti-Gay Treatise”
"Why No One in the Biblical World Had a Word for Homosexuality"
“Exegesis: Not For the Faint in Heart”
(Links to these and more posts may be found by simply clicking the link below and then selecting the “Archives” page.)
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
3.1.2013 | 2:04pm
sean Brown says:
Talked about this in my blog http://whyaretheregaychristians.blogspot.com/?m=1
And the way I see it both parties are just as implicated in this controversy. On both sides you have cherry-picking. Why follow a religion at all, if you can't follow it to the letter.
And the way I see it both parties are just as implicated in this controversy. On both sides you have cherry-picking. Why follow a religion at all, if you can't follow it to the letter.
3.18.2013 | 10:31pm
Benjamin says:
This is an outrage it is an abomination for men to treat other men like women and for women to treat other women like men. this is proof of this being so: For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (Romans 1:26, 27 NKJV) so repent or (for Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (I John 2:15 NKJV) For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. (I John 2:16 NKJV)) it will be evidence against your allegiance.
I do not find this recent essay compelling or persuasive. The "gay" modifier to me indicates some sort of essential lifestyle identification. I am not sure how that lifestyle -- which is more than just an acceptance of one's desires, appetites, and inclinations, but a celebration and often an aggressive affirmation of homosexuality itself -- is compatible with the moral obligations of the faith.
I appreciate that for you it indicates an sense of otherness -- and indeed the Body of Christ is comprised of many parts, each of which God uses for completeness and each of which is called to individual perfection and holiness. And the homosexual can indeed contribute a perspective and a challenge to the entire Body of Christ to radically love without necessarily understanding. However, I am unconvinced that that cultural significance of the term "gay" can possibly be recovered to be understandable as you seem to intend it.
It might be more truthful to say that you are simply a Catholic. Whatever internal struggles you have to live your life in Christ according to the dictates of your conscience seem to me to be more for you and your confessor and spiritual director. There is no need to be a hyphenated Christian, we are all broken and in need of healing, love and acceptance as family in the Church.
Pax,
Steve