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Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia under fire by students for talk on homosexuality
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kozlosap
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The “reality” is that first world countries, those with the highest level of education for their citizens, are far more accepting of and inclusion of LGBT people in all accepts of social discourse. Thank goodness I live in one of those countries!
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Joie_de_Vivre
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Men who exclusively engage in sex with women are less likely to get HIV from twenty times the number of partners as MSM males simply because the partners of the former are much less likely to have it to begin with and you can’t get HIV from people who don’t have HIV/AIDS.
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InSearchofGrace
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Since we are discussing a specific phrase now, “homosexual lifestyle”, a phrase the Sister reportedly used in her talk (which in my view is not necessarily offensive, or should be regarded as offensive by chaste gays and lesbians, not taken in the way the word “retarded” is for mentally challenged individuals as you analogized), did you just indicate “homosexual lifestyle” is inherently offensive language?
In your postings, you seem given to use of superlatives and inapplicable descriptors, are you not, with favored descriptions like “vastly” or “massively” in making pronouncements on gay behavior and thought. Do you represent a big LGBT youth group (in the NoVA area?) and just how big is it, if I may ask. You sure come across as if you hold personal knowledge of “vast” and “massive” members in that population plus their straight friends, speaking as though you have full proof research and polling of same.
There are homosexual youth and adults, including Catholics, who reject the Church, because of scriptural condemnation on homosexual behavior and consistent Church teaching that it is sinful. Since gay youth sees society giving a nod to active homosexuality on one hand, and on the other hand the Church teaching remains unchanged with her proscription of it, it is not surprising that the Church as an authority and her position are rejected. Further, they buy into false meanings of words (compassion and charity, as good examples) and attach malice to use of otherwise neutral and plain terms by most non-gay speakers and writers among professionals and members of society. As a group now empowered, a consequence of SS"M" and other relatively recent gay friendly legal and social developments, homosexuals now feel justified in imposing an LGBT lexicon on the culture. They are feeling expansive, at liberty, to act as thought and language police.
As to your inquiry, my argument is not that use of polite words towards someone leads to acceptance of sin. I do raise the potential of the message you send in effect, that is, sin being or remaining acceptable to that someone, becoming an unintended result or consequence. In that case, you might as well forget about that someone’s conversion. There is double speak in what you convey, with seeming little or no concern to distortion of language, whether intended or not, adding to the challenge of our Church and her teachers in communicating with gays and lesbians.
You may think you are being pragmatic in advocating for non-use of certain words of expression, based on supposed non-acceptability by gays and lesbians, if and whenever deemed offensive. Else, the communicator is rendered a poor evangelizer or teacher, or worse, worthy of being kicked out.
Where does it end, as I asked, and how does continued capitulation help evangelization?
“People don’t deny principles by being overtly evil. They deny it by being pragmatic.” ~ words of Dr. Ken Howell, scholar and gifted teacher on Catholic thought, who, because of a student complaint, suffered a similar fate as Sr Jane Dominic in her recent talk to students at CCHS. Dr. Howell was hired by the University of Illinois (sure, UL is not Notre Dame) to teach a class on Catholicism, a subject that covered natural moral law. As aid to the discussion, he explained natural moral law as applied to homosexual behavior in an e-mail to the students. Of course, said law is in opposition to homosexuality, duh, which riled homosexuals in the class and sympathizers in the school who reject said moral law. The good professor was fired.
If in fact it was Sister’s use of the phrase “homosexual lifestyle” that caused in part the fallout that put Sister out of commission as regards her future speaking engagements, that is really a sad sad blow to efforts to the dissemination of truth and learning.
I have spent a lot of time in reading the posts from you, PS, and Joie de Vivre, all running along the same line in reaction to mine. There are projects and tasks staring at me, screaming to be attended to. I hope this post sufficiently explains the position I take on the argued use of “homosexual lifestyle.”
In close, below is my takeaway from this yet another sorry news of a lost battle in winning souls:
It is lamentable that Sr. Jane Dominic’s good work is put to a stop as decided by Aquinas College because a few took offense to accordingly objectionable parts of her talk, not even verifiable, stemming from a petition by an offended attendee at Charlotte Catholic High School with others joining in, many not even present at the talk. The remarks of admitted gay responders in their postings to the petition were utterly vile, unfair, and inordinate. At any rate, I doubt there will be many candidates who could pick up where Sister’s teaching stops. But hope springs eternal and there will be another in her place. That next gifted person will need prayers for strength and much more in terms of the support from the faithful.
The pedagogy of the ignorant and the lost is made much difficult with underminers from the ranks of the faithful, Catholics witting and unwitting in what they believe may be essential in evangelization but are in fact obstacles. To win souls, Catholics need to be part of the solution, not the problem.
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SMGS127
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First off, yes, “homosexual lifestyle” has become offensive in and of itself (though perhaps inherently was not the correct word), precisely because the majority of people who use the phrase mean something vastly different than your definition, much like the majority of people use “retarded” differently than its clinical definition, which is why it has been removed from clinical manuals.
Considering I just converted last year and moved to DC even later than that, I have not exactly had the time to start a Courage-style group, if that’s what you’re asking. If you’re talking about the active LGBT community, I have belonged to several (very large) LGBT groups in New England and Texas for years before my religious conversion. Most of my best friends are LGBT, and I am virtually the only one in my group that opposes same-sex “marriage,” and my friends all know and are supportive of my position on the issue, with one notable atheist [non-LGBT] exception. I have met, at the very minimum, hundreds of gay and lesbian people, as well as quite a few transgendered people (although that’s a completely separate issue), and I know people in the club scene and people in the support community who are not into clubbing. I also have had enough experience in both scenes [somewhat unfortunately] to know the general proportions. In fact, at the request of my straight female friends, I have also been clubbing with them in their straight clubs, and I am well aware of the straight club/party scene as well and its proportions. You will find that the straight and gay club/party scenes are almost identical outside the artistic choices (music, decorations, cleaner bathrooms in gay clubs), the genders of the partners dancing, and the likelihood of sex (which is almost entirely due to the non-risk of pregnancy and the extremely low STD transmission rate among lesbians/extremely high libido of men).
If you have any more questions about my background in the community, feel free to PM me. I am not shy about talking about it to people who absolutely know that I oppose same-sex behavior as grave matter and sinful.
I don’t know why you think this. For sure, the arguments those who support SS’M’ use are glittered with “love” and “support,” but they mean it honestly. They aren’t meaning to be malicious and deceptive; they aren’t trying to be Satan, even if they’re unwittingly doing his work for him. Again, my entire friend group from college supports SS’M’ wholeheartedly, and they all know I oppose it, and only one of them is rude to me about my opposition. Even my out gay and lesbian friends are completely fine with it, because they know I’m not doing it out of condescension or hatred or false stereotypes.
Honestly, all I can say to this is that I see no way in which the phrase “actively gay” detracts from the Church’s teaching at all. And I will defer to PS’s comment about you requiring a necessary reason to use an inflammatory phrase over a non-inflammatory phrase. I see no necessary reason to use “homosexual lifestyle,” a phrase rife with all sorts of innuendos and false stereotypes, over “actively gay,” when the phrase you are describing is “actively gay.”
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SMGS127
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Did you not see earlier in the thread where I said it was ridiculous she wasn’t teaching anymore? I felt she could use it as a learning moment, but she clearly is a good teacher. And her not teaching anymore was not the object of these students; all they wanted was an apology and a change of school rules.
And promptly rehired immediately after because of the protest of his own students. You’re making my point for me. Politeness wins souls. Clinging to offensive phrases for no reason other than not wanting to use words that the community identifies with, no matter what the kids think, only provides us with situations like this. There is a reason that Dr. Howell’s situations and the good Sister’s situation ended so differently. Dr. Howell’s students thought he treated them with respect when informing them of Church teaching. The kids at the assembly clearly thought the Sister was disrespecting their LGBT friends with false statistics and inflammatory phrases. And I have no doubt that BOTH people had fantastic intentions in their teaching. Yet only one of them made his audience think their intentions were right-hearted. That should give you pause.
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Corki
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The term is nothing more than a linguistic shortcut to describe someone who is acting on their same-sex attraction.
I don’t see it as any more offensive than saying that a person is living a single lifestyle or a married lifestyle or an Amish lifestyle. Nor do I think we can avoid everything that *might *cause offense to somebody, sometime.
But if you want the term to go away, what do you offer as an alternative? What is the other term that you claim would “accomplish equally well” the task of concisely conveying the meaning without causing offense?
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SMGS127
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I apologize; I was trying to give an example of a mild form of debauchery performed by heterosexuals when I had much more graphic examples of brothels, strip clubs, porn, etc. etc. I could have chosen from. I do not identify heterosexuals with any of those things, and neither should gay people be identified by their most perverse members.
Again, you are only seeing the most offensive of the parade. Go to a parade in person (but make sure it’s LGBT; people confuse LGBT Pride parades and other parades all the time, especially BDSM
) if you don’t believe me. The media only covers the worst of the worst so as to make the most viewers watch. And rightwing media is the worst, as they have an agenda to make gays LOOK like they have some horrible “lifestyle.”
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Prodigal_Son
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Well, if you want to talk about people who are gay and sexually active, say “gay and sexually active” or “actively gay”. If you want to talk about gay people who are promiscuous, say “promiscuous gay people”.
I actually have the same objection to the term “single lifestyle”. There is no single lifestyle. Different single people behave in radically different ways, so that saying that someone lives a “single lifestyle” is completely uninformative.
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Corki
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But the “homosexual lifestyle” encompasses more than “gay and sexually active”. As I noted, it includes anyone who is acting on their same-sex attraction. “Actively homosexual” is fine, I suppose, but it infers sexual activity which is not necessarily inferred by “homosexual lifestyle”.
My point is just that there is no comparable term to “homosexual lifestyle” that would avoid offense. But, if it makes you happy, I will try to use “actively homosexual” instead of “homosexual lifestyle” and then leave it to interpretation whether that means sexually active or just acting on their attractions. I won’t use “gay”. That term is offensive as well and I already avoid it whenever possible.
‘Single lifestyle’ is an umbrella term. There is no one single lifestyle but a single person is living a different lifestyle than a married person. Someone living a homosexual lifestyle (or who is actively homosexual, if you wish) is living a different lifestyle than someone who is not acting on their same-sex attraction. That lifestyle might mean being sexually active and monogamous, being promiscuous with members of the same sex or being in non-sexual same-sex romantic relationships. But it is still an umbrella term that covers a group of behaviors that are characterized by their homosexual activity.
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Prodigal_Son
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It took me until the end of your post to figure out what distinction you were making here. Personally, I don’t think a person dating another person of the same sex would be offended by being called an “active homosexual”. At the very least, I think they would find it less offensive than “living a homosexual lifestyle”, which clearly implies sexual behavior, and is evocative of untrue stereotypes.
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Corki
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I see what you are saying although I never considered ‘homosexual lifestyle’ to be limited to sexual activity. Would the term mean the same to the general public? Would most people understand “active homosexual” to be inclusive of sexual and non-sexual behaviors? If so, it’s a good alternative. I promise to try to use that term instead.
(now if we could just get rid of the term “homophobic”)
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Prodigal_Son
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Thanks for that. I am certainly open to some term other than “active homosexual”, if there’s something more accurate and inoffensive.I see what you are saying although I never considered ‘homosexual lifestyle’ to be limited to sexual activity. Would the term mean the same to the general public? Would most people understand “active homosexual” to be inclusive of sexual and non-sexual behaviors? If so, it’s a good alternative. I promise to try to use that term instead.
Well, it’s occasionally accurate, but WAY overused. It is a weapon of warfare, actually, and it is often quite effective in making intelligent people look like fools.
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InSearchofGrace
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That was lost in the overall bias you showed favoring the offended side (and their supporters), an apparent knee-jerk response, and against Sr Jane Dominic on the talk she gave in question. You reached your conclusions in your own words below in the absence of any transcript or record of the talk, your assumptions reached on incomplete information from the reaction of one side, that of the original complainant and people joining the petition not all of whom were present at the lecture.
Just re-read what you wrote in big part. With two competing sides both with arguable defenses, why is it you give full benefit of the doubt to the students and nothing at all to the Sister?
And my point is this: It is easy to find and exaggerate offense, take shots make a small issue bigger than it is, when it is really a simple rejection of the teaching and also the teacher.
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Path_Finder
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The upper echelons of society of the Greek and Roman Empire is where homosexuality thrived, not so much with the lower classes, this by itself proves it is a choice. It was a lifestyle choice of the aristocrats as well.
I don’t think we take offense if we hear someone is living the “Bachelor Lifestyle”.
I don’t think we take offense if we hear someone is living the “Bachelor Lifestyle”.
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SMGS127
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Why do you consider “gay” to be offensive? I mean, I know that the reason the word was originally used to describe gays and lesbians was as a derogatory slur by those who despised them, and that it later had to be forcibly taken back by the LGBT community as a “Good As You” slogan, but it doesn’t retain the hateful slang it used to mean. Its old usage has now been replaced by the word “f****t.”
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TCEL
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This is very interesting. My question then, is why hasn’t the same thing become true of the term “homosexual lifestyle?” Why hasn’t the gay community tried to re-claim that term?
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SMGS127
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How do you reclaim the term “lifestyle” to mean every single gay person? In the same vein, how do you even call “going to work, paying rent, going out to dinner once and awhile, making sure the two of you can pay off loans and car payments too” a lifestyle in any aspect? It was a lot easier with an adjective that literally meant something completely different originally (e.g. “happy” became “f****t” became “homosexual”). With lifestyle, no matter how you splice it, people are still going to think of a lifestyle. They’re not going to think of two people living together, talking about pop culture in their kitchen over dinner.
I mean, I’m sure the gay community would love to take back that word too, but it seems significantly harder to do. They have, however, started to take back the word “d**e” as you will hear lesbians use it quite a bit. I used to use it all the time too until I really upset one of my bisexual friends who hated the word. Maybe one day they will take “lifestyle” back and it will become usable in evangelization
. But for now, it is still extremely offensive.
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retire_early
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…coming in at the tail end of this thread, but wanted to jump in at the issue of the word “gay”.
I, too, don’t like using that word to refer to homosexual people.
First of all, it was originally used as a slam against homosexual people…name-calling, if you will. Not nice. And also, I’m against slang in general.
Second, the word had a more useful role as an adjective to mean happy, light-hearted, cheerful, etc. I used to read poems and prose using gay in that way. “…but the child who is born on the Sabbath day is blithe and bright and bonny and gay.”
Third, my grandmother’s nickname was “Gay”, which was pretty common back then for people named Gabrielle. “Gay” had a very grandmotherly and cheerful connotation for me for a long time, then the “gay” community appropriated it. Of course, I give them points for taking a disparaging term and totally demolishing the harrassing intent, but it seems like stealing. Hardly anyone today would use “gay” in everyday conversation to mean happy, etc.
I, too, don’t like using that word to refer to homosexual people.
First of all, it was originally used as a slam against homosexual people…name-calling, if you will. Not nice. And also, I’m against slang in general.
Second, the word had a more useful role as an adjective to mean happy, light-hearted, cheerful, etc. I used to read poems and prose using gay in that way. “…but the child who is born on the Sabbath day is blithe and bright and bonny and gay.”
Third, my grandmother’s nickname was “Gay”, which was pretty common back then for people named Gabrielle. “Gay” had a very grandmotherly and cheerful connotation for me for a long time, then the “gay” community appropriated it. Of course, I give them points for taking a disparaging term and totally demolishing the harrassing intent, but it seems like stealing. Hardly anyone today would use “gay” in everyday conversation to mean happy, etc.
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GraceSofia
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The saddest part of this is that Sister’s voice has been silenced. While the student who wrote the petition may not have wanted that to happen, we can be sure lobby groups like PFLAG most certainly are pleased about it. The goal is to be sure that Catholic teaching on homosexuality and marriage is NOT taught in schools. 
We won’t know for a while, but this may have been a watershed, a “Martin Niemoller Moment.”
We won’t know for a while, but this may have been a watershed, a “Martin Niemoller Moment.”
For a very short time. He was axed later by the university. As even Bill Maher has noted, if you cross the “gay mafia,” you do get whacked. The Suppression of Christian Speech on American Campuses: Dr. Ken Howell’s Story
I prefer the word “homosexual” over “gay,” as well. It is an intentionally misleading word; I believe it is a harmful euphemism. The homosexual lifestyle is not* gay* or happy at all, and we do no favours to our youth by misleading them by using the term “gay.” Just like we do no one any favours by pretending that a same-sex “marriage” is equivalent to holy matrimony. Just like we do no one any favours by pretending that “marriage equality” means anything other than an invented special “right” for homosexual pairs.
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