Difficult articles on homosexuality

[JosephJohn]

Defending the church’s teaching on homosexuality has always been considerably harder for me than some of the other contentious issues like birth control or abortion or the like.

I have trouble seeing the natural law argument since one could imagine a same sex couple who truly have self sacrificial love for each other, are sexually exclusive, and committed having a very similar relationship with one another as an infertile straight married couple would. In many cases (depending on your view of certain other peripheral sexual acts) they would be doing exactly the same things granted the act could never come to it’s fulfilling conclusion. Now I will not compromise on a church teaching- even a hard one- so I tried to understand better or to find some infallible source to back this up.

There is an article by the medium which tries to undermine the traditional biblical passages used to support our position. I don’t know the original languages so I can’t refute the writers position. If someone could help nailed down that these biblical passages refer to homosexual acts that would help. Apparently there is a pair of Saints Sergius and Bacchus who folks argue were basically gay married. I can find absolutely no primary source to support this so it might be an outright fabrication… but maybe someone knows a better way to refute that claim. Finally the early church seems much more to condemn pedophilia (quite rightly) than homosexuality- many argue this is the practice the Bible also condemns. Are there traditional examples of very specific rebukes towards adult same sex acts?

 

[puppson]

That homosexuality activity is evil is the word of God, direct. That marriage is only between one man and one woman is the act of God, underscored by the act and word of Jesus Christ.
That help?
When we go looking for ways to justify sin and for loopholes, we are listening to the devil and heading down the broad path to destruction. Don’t go there.

 

[JosephJohn]

Sorry friend, I mis-clicked and posted without the meat of my question. The last paragraph above clarifies that there are some groups, specifically the Medium, who argue that is in fact not the argument scripture makes. I am not an expert in scripture so I don’t have the tools to refute them.

 

[Fauken]

Finally the early church seems much more to condemn pedophilia (quite rightly) than homosexuality- many argue this is the practice the Bible also condemns.

I’m no expert, but it’s probably because pedophilia was more “acceptable” at that time than homosexuality. Weren’t the Greeks infamous for it between older men and younger boys? In Roman society, homosexuality was only acceptable if you were a man not, shall we (or they) say, acting as the woman in the pair. Even its acceptance of homosexuality wasn’t uniform.

 

[Cruciferi]

Homosexuality | Catholic Answers Tract

 

[puppson]

There are plenty who seek to twist God’s word so they can feel good about engaging in homosexual activity. Their motivation is transparent, and they are false teachers. Whole churches have been lost to the devil this way.

 

[JosephJohn]

Fair point. This is not a personal struggle of mine. But I am in the church in large part because I believe she alone is intellectually consistent among all other ways of looking at the world. I also think we have more credibility when we talk about abortion or promiscuity or our duty to the poor because people can see we are being intellectually consistent.

If I knew both biblically and extra biblically why we see it this way I think I’d be less tempted to compromise on this teaching when I talk to people who do struggle with this. I’m looking to find the way that this teaching is something any gay person could understand and believe

 

[puppson]

Pagans practicing pederasty and engaging in homosexual activity: “In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Romans 1: 27. Crystal clear. Wicked acts then, wicked acts today. Always have been, always will be.

 

[Thorolfr]

Fair point. This is not a personal struggle of mine. But I am in the church in large part because I believe she alone is intellectually consistent among all other ways of looking at the world. I also think we have more credibility when we talk about abortion or promiscuity or our duty to the poor because people can see we are being intellectually consistent.

There are a lot of Catholics, especially younger ones, who have problems with the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality:

A 2018 study on young adults leaving the Catholic Church found people stopped identifying as Catholics at a median age of 13, long before they ceased attending a parish. The report adds to the picture of a church that more people are leaving and that fewer ever want to return to.

At a Nov. 29 symposium prior to the start of the Santa Clara Faith Formation Conference, researchers from St. Mary’s Press discussed the findings from their study. Titled “Going, Going, Gone: the Dynamics of Catholic Disaffiliation,” the report presented an in-depth look at stories of the men and women who left Catholicism.

Robert McCarty, one of the study authors, told the audience that about a third of respondents left over church teaching, most often that on same-sex marriage and homosexuality.

“Young people see dealing with the gay community as an issue of social justice and human dignity, not an issue of sexuality,” he said.

Study shows young adults leaving church start down that path at age 13

To find Catholics who have left the church, start looking at the faces in the pews, according to a recent report.

www.ncronline.org

 

[Dugtrio1]

It is difficult to convince people to behave a certain way because God said so. We have to show the behaviour or rule is good for society.

 

[Thorolfr]

Pagans practicing pederasty and engaging in homosexual activity: "In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

One of the problems with this bible verse is that many gay men have never had any relations with women or been sexually attracted to women, so they can hardly be described as abandoning something that they have never done.

 

[John_Martin]

Human acts are “human” because of a knowing about the act. The act is not “complete” simply because of its material presence. Some of the things we do are simply “animal acts”, such as blinking, where we do not imagine blinking as a thing to accomplish, nor do we regard it as a successful accomplishment when we actually blink our eyes. But a human act is when material being is ordered to match an “idea”.

In the Scripture, human sexual action is referred to as a man and woman “knowing” each other. Their procreation is “human”, rather than animal, due to knowing, and a “correct knowing” that matches reality. Here is what I wrote about it elsewhere: https://softvocation.org/2018/05/24/knowing/
What is the knowing of a homosexual man and man or a homosexual woman and woman about their supposed union? Can they know actual success or is their activity never known as complete and effective?

 

[yankeesouth]

Remember that the Church did not make up these teachings. These are the teachings of Jesus. So in a way you are saying Jesus got it right on abortion but not on marriage. Many fall into the protestant trap of separating Jesus from His Church. So, for example, we hear from liberal politicians who identify as Catholic… "i don’t agree with the Church’s teaching on this or that’.

Now say… ‘I don’t agree with Jesus on this or that teaching’.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Apparently there is a pair of Saints Sergius and Bacchus who folks argue were basically gay married.

Unless I’m mistaken, this can basically be traced to a 1994 book by John Boswell, whose methodology and conclusion are, at best, highly contentious, if not just downright dismissed. This article from a Greek Orthodox canonist addresses some of the problems with Boswell’s idea. Specifically, the rite of adelphopoiesis, which Boswell basis his argument on (from a possibly bad translation), doesn’t resemble an actual marriage in the region at the time. To quote the end of the article:

However, Byzantine marriage was celebrated as a process that united families as well as spouses in a series of rituals, not in one rite that mainly affected its participants. Simply put, adelphopoiesis was certainly a kind of union between two individuals, but to make this institution equivalent to matrimony necessitates a perspective and context foreign to the late Byzantine Church.

 

[QwertyGirl]

Can they know actual success or is their activity never known as complete and effective?

I guess that depends on what their goal is. Probably not the same for everyone. Pretty sure the couple, themselves, will know if their activity was complete and effective. Probably no ambiguity for them.

 

[Thorolfr]

Ludricous sophistry and a falsely narrow and contemporary interpretation of the Koine Greek.
Best leave the Biblical hermeneutics to others.

That bible verse also talks about the men being inflamed with lust. Lust usually refers to an unbridled, uncontrolled and excessive desire for something whether it be sex or money or power. It’s bad regardless of one’s sexual orientation. The relations of many gay men are no more excessive than those of the average straight couple, so I don’t see how this verse could apply to them.

 

[yankeesouth]

There are a lot of Catholics, especially younger ones, who have problems with the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality:

Yes they walk away from Jesus…

Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”

After this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with him

 

[puppson]

I don’t see how this verse could apply to them

Because you aren’t interpreting the verse correctly, in context.

 

[puppson]

You are correct. Some think the Church should teach falsely or water teachings down so much that they’re essentially false, to attract young people. In short, they think the whole Church should apostasize.

 

[Norseman82]

I have trouble seeing the natural law argument since one could imagine a same sex couple who truly have self sacrificial love for each other, are sexually exclusive, and committed having a very similar relationship with one another as an infertile straight married couple would. In many cases (depending on your view of certain other peripheral sexual acts) they would be doing exactly the same things granted the act could never come to it’s fulfilling conclusion.

How about this for a natural law argument: The parts don’t fit.

The medical term for our “parts” is the reproductive system, not the recreational system.