Did I read or hear that Anne Rice has a homosexual son or daughter?
My experience is that many parents change their views when they discover that one of their children is gay. This is a result of their unconditional love, and I don’t fault it. I might feel the same way in a similar situation. Anne Rice may go overboard, but I think we should beware of judging her with too much bitterness. She did, after all, return to the Catholic Church after being away for many years. We hailed her upon her return and headlined that return.
The Catholic Church needs to work through its views on gays and come up with a less harsh homophobic position. There seems to be evidence that a high proportion of the Catholic clergy is gay - most of the sex predators victimized teen boys, I believe. Most of those gay priests probably are celibate, and some probably were attracted to the priesthood as a possible ‘cure’ as well as a hiding place for their sexual orientation. Be that as it may, the image of the Catholic Church today is that it is aggressively homophobic, and that should change.
I could not disagree more, with just about everything here. What I have found instead is that:
(1) Catholic parents with a child who has declared himself or herself to be homosexual often do “turn” on the Church, rejecting the Church for the moral teaching itself. Never once have I heard such parents say, "I understand what the teaching is, and agree to it as a Catholic; I just wish the Church were “less harsh” or “less homophobic.” Rather, such parents – when they do turn away – become exacty like Anne Rice in their thinking.
(2) When you scratch the surface, these parents (by their own admission) were always questioners, of key doctrines and dogmas in the Church (Like Anne Rice.) I am limiting my observations, as many as they are, to parents I personally know or who have made it a point to make my acquaintaince. Naturally I cannot speak for the full population of parents of homosexual children; OTOH, there are such here on CAF, and many of them do not have the views Anne Rice (and parents of my acquaintaince do), because these parents first of all understand the teachings of the Church, and second of all accept those.
(3) My children are not homosexual, but I have thought about what my reaction would likely be. I would be extremely sad, first of all. Yet I know the difference between unconditional love and unconditional approval of behavior. A radical difference. These are two completely different things. Right now I disapprove of the (non-sexual) behaviors of one of my children; I also disagree with some of her conclusions about religion. That doesn’t mean my love for her is any less unconditional than it was at her birth. It’s possible to thoroughly embrace someone but not state approval of their choices, nor internally approve, nor "campaign’ for a Church to change so that one’s loved one will feel more comfortable.
I also have friends whose lifestyles are in contradiction to teachings of the RCC. But they’ve been my friends forever and I love them, also, unconditionally. It’s not my role to correct or judge them, particularly if they don’t follow my religion, or have in personal prerogative left the Catholic faith. I will say that I have “corrected” and “disapproved” twice in my life of the behaviors, or intended behaviors, of two adult friends I have known since youth, when the behaviors being done or contemplated had extreme consequences. In both cases I dissuaded them from engaging in further immorality, but I didn’t do so on “Catholic” grounds. I did so based on universally moral grounds which they could relate to.
I have a male friend who is gay, who is part of our extended family, and I love him, also, unconditionally. He’s an atheist. We don’t discuss his private life. I have a relative who has exhibited bi-sexual behaviors in the past but is now single. I love him unconditionally, too. The Catholic Church’s teachings do not prevent me from loving either of these men unconditionally, and they don’t prevent anyone else from doing likewise.