But how about this? I welcome the celibate man. Everything is fine. He visits our home and family. A year goes by. Everything is nice. Then one day, he says “Hey, just for the record I want to tell you that I am a homosexual”. Ok, now I have to tell the 6 year old boy that?
I don’t understand why you think the man would expect you to tell your 6 year old boy that. Anymore than if a celibate straight man admitted to having a porn addiction. Unless, of course, you accept the extremely uncharitable “gays = pedophiles” assumption, and therefore assume “If I find out anyone with access to my children is gay, I have to warn them, just in case the celibate gay man is also a pedophile and tries to seduce my son into the gay lifestyle”.
Look, it’s a matter of trust. If you’re a celibate man, you can find friends with other celibate men - there are plenty around in parishes. But most of them don’t want to know that you’re sexually attracted to men. In fact, that is a violation of trust among men.
I’m really confused, why is it a violation of trust? So you think gay people either should tell people about their struggles upfront, or remain silent about them forever.
Unless you are assuming all gay men are lusting after every single man they meet? So if a friend came out to you as gay, your first reaction would be "Ewww, you were lusting for me all this time, and you hid it from me so you could indulge in your fantasies by being close to me?
It’s essential to know that! What is a man’s identity? How does his sexuality play into that? What does it mean to have brotherly trust among men? How can men share their deepest thoughts and issues with each other without trust?
I really don’t see how a men could share “their deepest thoughts and issues with each other” if one of the men is remaining quiet about a very important cross he is carrying.
I know what you mean, but keep in mind - it’s difficult for any celibate man to find a place in society. “Why aren’t you married”? That’s actually a good question. But I think, rather than saying “I’m only sexually attracted to men” (which when you think about it enough, opens up a lot of questions and problems), perhaps “I never found the right woman” would be better and just as true. This then opens up the idea (if anyone cared and usually they don’t) that they will find you the right woman.
How is that helpful to the gay person? So if the straight person DOES try to play matchmaker, they now have to make up some other excuse to explain why they don’t want to go on a blind date with their straight friend’s sister’s college roommate. Or worse, continue to lie by omission and go on the date, wasting everyone’s time.
But also - “attraction”. Why is that such a big deal? We make it as if that’s some kind of sacred thing. You can only care for someone who you have “attraction” to?
In my family, going back generations – the men and women spouses had virtually no “attraction” to each other. This didn’t stop them from having big families and staying married to death. Some of these were arranged marriages where neither had an option.
Yes, I know nobody wants to go back to those bad old days - but something to think about?
Are you suggesting it is a good idea for gay men to marry women? Do you also think they should keep their struggles from their wives as well if they go that route? For all I know you do, you think “Well most wives wouldn’t want to know about every time a husband is attracted to another woman. No need for them to know about every time a husband is attracted to a man.”
This part of your post struck a chord with me. Why indeed is the issue of “attraction” now so paramount? It was not always so. The idea was to find a good husband or wife from those who were available. No one rejected a potential spouse just because he or she wasn’t particularly “attracted” to him. Love grows from commitment; it does not appear in full bloom before a commitment is made.
Are you also suggesting it is a good idea for gay men to marry women? I mean, what if you were transported to some alternate dimension where straight sex is forbidden, women and men are kept completely apart, sex is for “unity” only, all children are conceived in a lab, and everyone is expected to enter same-sex unions in order to qualify to raise a child. Do you think you’d be able to marry a man, based on the same idea that attraction in marriage is a minor detail?
ETA: You know what the problem is with the “gays are worse sinners than straight adulterers, porn addicts, etc, because they parade their sins in public” attitude?
No one expects people who struggle with heterosexual sin, or nonsexual sins and temptations to sin, such as urges to beat people up, gossip about them, etc. to actually be completely silent about those crosses, even to their family members, close friends, etc.
Not that it’s usually prudent to tell random people or casual acquaintances something like “hey I struggle with porn and the solitary sin” or “I struggle with the urge to beat up my wife when she’s disrespectful”. But I suspect that no one would be adamant that sharing such struggles with a friend or family members should never happen.
Yet some on CAF really seem to think “all gay people should stay in the closet and carry their cross completely alone except for their confessors and other gays who struggle with this uniquely horrible, shameful sin – and the only other gays they should interact with, is the supervised, chaperoned setting of an anonymous Courage meeting”.
I find that kind of marginalization of gay people to be, perhaps not hateful, but certainly un-Christian.
