Homophobic? Yes or no

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Kensho said:
I’m sorry – I was not referring to your BIL, but to your MIL. Nor did I mean to imply that you were being angry, inappropriate, or anything at all, but just hoping that if you had to end your relationship with your MIL that you would do it out of a loving motive and in a loving way rather than in a burst of anger and frustration. I told my in-laws off in a wave of rage and I regret it. (I’ve since been mending fences, and my situation is completely different from yours anyway.)

It’s hard to know what to do in your situation. You’re in the middle of a culture that is going to brand you as a bigot if you don’t shut up and keep your viewpoints to yourself, and it’s only going to get worse. Personally, I think you’re right, but because of the culture your son is going to have to grow up in, maybe it’s better if you tell him now that there are people who think that men can get married. You wouldn’t have to go into details. But I wouldn’t blame you if you cut your MIL off over this because she is bullying you and the natural protectiveness she feels toward her son is no excuse.
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Right now, the relationship is stalled because of other issues. And the last conversation ended with my husband hanging up on her after she said “screw you” to him over a petty disagreement (she did not like how long it was taking hubby to cash his $80 birthday check. I have to give this level of detail because I fear people will judge us in thinking we were sitting on a much larger check).

I agree with what we should tell our son, but he is on the autism spectrum, and he would have an extremely difficult time understanding why his uncle would do this if it is sinful. Teaching him social skills is painfully difficult.
 
CatholicSheila said:
I’m curious, did you single out your BIL and his partner or did you choose not to invite anyone who openly sins? Were there any couples there who weren’t married, or who had a child out of wedlock? Anyone divorced and remarried?

I 100% agree with what the church teaches on homosexuality. I’m SAA myself and I choose to remain single and celibate in line with that teaching.

And yes, to answer your first question, you are definitely coming across as homophobic to me.

I applaud you for wanting to teach your son the rights and wrongs of homosexuality, but you don’t get to dictate how your family treat your BIL. If this is such a ‘no discussion’ topic (and I agree you get to make that call for your son) then it is your responsibility to ensure that he isn’t exposed to it. That may mean you have to minimise contact with your in-laws. Otherwise, you have to do what the rest of society does. Teach your son that sin exists, that some people support it but that doesn’t make it right. That is made more difficult by his autism and of course that is going to influence whether removing him from the family is the right decision or not.
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I want to say that I stand in complete admiration of you. I know that must be a difficult cross, one I am not sure I could bear with the grace you are. God bless you.
 
90Domer said:
Um, with my MIL, yes. She will see our lack of a “no thanks” as a “it’s OK to do.”

My son is autistic. No, it is not that simple to say that Grandma is wrong. His ability to read the social environs around him are horrible. He would be confused and continually question what, right now, he cannot hope to understand. Heck, we are still working (going on 6 months) on the social skill about why he should stay away from the class bully versus trying to get bully to like you. That is life on the spectrum.

Before I turn in, this needs to be said. The way my FIL and MIL handled their son coming out of the proverbial closet was terrible. They started bad mouthing (and perhaps bullying) people who did not support their son’s sexuality. My FIL, before he died, would bring up the subject and then randomly pick fights with people who did not support his son (and I am talking the physical part of his relationship). Not only did he do this to friends, he did it to his two other sons and their wives. Now you have a family that is completely torn apart because the four of us did not believe the SS relations are perfectly OK.

That is typical behavior, although I will say they have taken it to a new level. It happens all the time, and a lot of times here on CAF threads. The OP comes in stating he is committing “sin A” and asks for advice. When someone responds in a way that is not completely, one hundred percent , charitable, the whole thread turns into how that person responded. Then the OP basically states “sin A” is okay because of all the bad Catholics. The OP can do or say anything. The responder must be perfect. It sounds like this is what i happening when you take the bait from your MIL. I think what most people on this thread are saying is “don’t take the bait”, not “compromise your morals”.

So why do I care to attempt to reconcile with MIL? Well, she is getting up in age (76) and not in the best of health. We would like to have her see our son. However, we cannot arrange a visit without SSA BIL butting in and insisting he be there with his partner. And we have tried the civil route saying that we will just stay at a motel rather than her apartment in an attempt to make the trip more doable. She will follow with a snarky comment along the lines of “you’re throwing away your money on a hotel when you can stay with me for free? Then don’t complain about therapy bills.” She sees our not staying there as a rejection of her. In a way, it is. We reject her premise on how to house SSA partners.

Yeah, don’t take the bait. Just calmly state while you greatly appreciate the invitation, you will be staying in the hotel. Wash, rinse, repeat. She knows how you feel. Restating will just make her angry and will not give her any new information.

What I have learned is that my SIL wanting to have a family reunion is just not going to work. I came here hoping that someone would have a similar experience or at least tell me that it’s better to be a faithful Catholic than affirm another’s sins to avoid hurt feelings. A few people did affirm that, but I got enough taste of the other to learn that, when it comes to SSA, you best avoid the situation versus hoping someone who doesn’t agree with respect your wishes.

It looks to me like you got the advice “you can catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar.” No compromise on beliefs is needed.
I will choose to avoid and just continue to pray. That’s the safest.
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Yes, praying certainly helps. I feel sorry for your MIL. It seems like she is struggling.
 
So what I am hearing is that hubby and I are now the fault for engaging her with our reasonable requests. Even after we tried taking the charitable route. Well, I don’t buy that. We have feelings too, and it sounds like I have to compromise my faith in order to keep peace. Can’t do it.

Let me try this scenario. I worked in NC where I was the only Catholic. We were having a lunch meeting and the boss was ordering sandwiches. I politely told boss to not bother with me, I would catch lunch later. Boss insisted I order. There were no good non-meat options I would eat, so I politely said again not to worry about me. The boss kept insisting. This went on for like 10 minutes because he could not understand why I would decline a free meal. I finally had to reveal that it was a Friday of Lent and Catholics don’t eat meat and that I didn’t want to order food I would only toss. Guess what? We ordered pizza. I didn’t like that I had to reveal so much info, but my religious views were tolerated and accommodated to boot!

Why can’t the same happen with MIL? Because SSA is so much an emotional hot button. In essence, what you are recommending is that–using the example above–is that I should have eaten meat so as to not hurt co-workers feelings. Well, to me, the two scenarios are nearly equivalent.

And I will ask this again. Why should MIL feelings reign supreme here? We should just tick her off by not explaining our true reasons and have her snark at us all weekend? Is that fair to us? Especially is that fair to our son?
 
90Domer said:
Wow, I have to admit that I am shocked at the amount of people who felt husband and I were homophobic by not inviting an openly SSA couple (where BIL would make it known) to the celebration of my marriage. But I guess most people assume very large weddings where many behaviors can fly under the radar. Not in our case. We invited 25 carefully chosen people, and that was it. We kept the celebration of the sacrament a true celebration of the sacrament.

I also was somewhat surprised that asking my MIL to wear her faithful Catholic face to help us in teaching our special-needs son would be considered rude or outlandish. And many of the assumptions about how we went about it were so untrue. I guess it’s like the FDA–if I didn’t explicitly say I didn’t do something, then I didn’t do it. No benefit of the doubt in this crowd.

So, what did I learn? First, no matter how many priests give me/husband support, there will always be a large number of people even among self-identified Catholics on a faithful Catholic website who think we are/were being homophobic. If that is the response I get here, I feel I have no hope in the “real world.” Second, that there are a larger than expected number of people who feel that bearing witness to the faith (which entails setting a good example for our son) falls a distant second to hurt feelings. Third, that a larger than expected number of people felt we should compromise our faith & morals in favor of bring scandal to the Church.

And to clarify a couple of words that may have been misconstrued, when I talking about not being a sentimentalist, I use the Elizabeth Scalia definition of the word. We do not judge moral truths based on someone’s feelings. We judge moral truths based on right or wrong, as handed down to us through our faith. And when I talk about not bringing scandal to a situation, a use this definition: an attitude or action that causes others to do evil. It is entry 2284 in the CCC, with definitions that follow. Aso, a fellow alum summed it up well here:

catholicexchange.com/the-definition-of-scandal/

In our hearts, we know we did and are doing the right thing. There is no way that we will show through our actions that this SS relationship is good and holy. It simply isn’t.

Thanks for the lively discussion. Happy Spring.
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I don’t think anyone disagrees with your goal (not condoning gay sex and protecting your son from inappropriate information) but you’re coming across as very harsh, unfeeling and aggressive. I think that’s what people are reacting to. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and your way seems inflammatory. We are pointing out how maybe some of your actions and language would have been construed as offensive, thus exacerbating the drama from your MIL’s side. Maybe it’s just the way you write, though. Good luck with the relationships.
 
JackieMom said:
I don’t think anyone disagrees with your goal (not condoning gay sex and protecting your son from inappropriate information) but you’re coming across as very harsh, unfeeling and aggressive. I think that’s what people are reacting to. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and your way seems inflammatory. We are pointing out how maybe some of your actions and language would have been construed as offensive, thus exacerbating the drama from your MIL’s side. Maybe it’s just the way you write, though. Good luck with the relationships.
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Wow, given that my husband set the boundaries, I guess you also feel his tactic is harsh. Once again, wow.
 
90Domer said:
Wow, given that my husband set the boundaries, I guess you also feel his tactic is harsh. Once again, wow.
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You’ve seemed argumentative and defensive since the beginning of this thread. Totally unwilling to consider anyone’s perspective that was in any way critical of your choices. Sorry, just calling it like I see it. I’m sure you understand. There is more than one way to get your point across. I have no idea if your husband’s approach was harsh, I only know that the tone of your writing, words you choose and your inability to see things from other perspectives makes you seem inflexible and lacking in empathy. We are definitely called to maintain our values, but we are also called to compassion and charity. It seems you have the values down, but lack in the other qualities. Maybe it’s an internet thing.

Again, though, good luck with these relationships. I fear you may find there are so many years of hurt that your in-laws will simply never behave as you wish. I hope that is not true and that you are able to work something out.
 
JackieMom said:
I don’t think anyone disagrees with your goal (not condoning gay sex and protecting your son from inappropriate information) but you’re coming across as very harsh, unfeeling and aggressive. I think that’s what people are reacting to. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and your way seems inflammatory. We are pointing out how maybe some of your actions and language would have been construed as offensive, thus exacerbating the drama from your MIL’s side. Maybe it’s just the way you write, though. Good luck with the relationships.
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No, there were people that disagreed with my goal. And yes, as a scientist, I write about 10 orders of magnitude harsher than I converse. Part of my training. Keep to the facts, don’t include emotion.
 
90Domer said:
Well, I could have, but it was causing big fights, so I chose the conservative route. If I thought this BIL would use good judgement, I would have. However, he was and is the type to use occasions as such to make a statement. I did not want that at my wedding. Wasn’t going to take that chance.
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In that case, it sounds like you did the right thing. If you had good reason to believe that he and his partner would turn your wedding into a platform for a pro-homosexuality statement/display, then I can understand not inviting him and his partner.

I listen to Dave Ramsey’s radio show sometimes, and while he mainly gives financial advice, he often recommends a book called *Boundaries *by Henry Cloud, to people who are having issues with maintaining proper boundaries with extended family. Based on the issues you are having with your mother-in-law, it sounds like that might be a good book for you to read.
 
90Domer said:
No, there were people that disagreed with my goal. And yes, as a scientist, I write about 10 orders of magnitude harsher than I converse. Part of my training. Keep to the facts, don’t include emotion.
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I’m confused by this because it seems to me as if your posts are FULL of emotion.

Look, SSA isn’t the only way people can loose Heaven. And honestly, it is MIL’s house, she gets to make the rules about what occurs in her home. You, I, and anyone else don’t have any say in it. It is also her soul and she is the ine who will have to account for her actions on Judgement Day. You will account for yours. Your husband will account for his. I will account for mine. And BEL will account for hers. It isn’t our job to condemn anyone lest we condemn ourselves. Think about the Lord’s Prayer–given to us by Jesus himself. We are called to lead souls to Heaven,not force them, and DEFINETLY not chase them away. Have you ever heard, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar?”

I also have two autistic sons. The older one is almost 20, the younger one is almost 13. Yes, we do struggle with social skills, language, fine motor skills–just about everything really. One son has PDD, the other has Asperger’s. Even though they are both on the spectrum they are very different and each has his own unique struggles. As do their father and I in trying to help them. It makes for many struggles at home, especially with their other siblings. But in no way do I see them as having it worse than anyone else that struggles, is ostracized, or in any other way discriminated by society. It is just different. Like a mama bear, you come out fighting for your cub. No one faults you for that. Why can you not see that MIL is just doing the same thing? You don’t need to agree with her. You don’t need to compromise your principles. You can by all means cut off all contact with her. But don’t do that without much prayer and soul searching. You will have to account for that on Judgement Day. And why worry about where FIL ended up, as you mentioned in one post? If you are as strong in your Catholic beliefs as you say you are, than you know that is in Jesus’ hands and all you need to do is trust that God knows what He is doing. No need to fear, worry or even wonder. We will all end up exactly where we are supposed to at the end if this life. There is no way you could possible see the state of FIL, MIL, BIL or anyone else’s soul. You can only examine your own.
 
Those who support sinful behavior often try to use your moral conscience against you. Cast these attempts aside as if you were swatting a fly. Frankly, I like some homosexual people quite a lot, but these are the types who don’t push their bedroom behavior in my face. When queried about my views, I state them simply and unapologetically. 🙂 Rob
 
RACJ said:
Those who support sinful behavior often try to use your moral conscience against you. Cast these attempts aside as if you were swatting a fly. Frankly, I like some homosexual people quite a lot, but these are the types who don’t push their bedroom behavior in my face. When queried about my views, I state them simply and unapologetically. 🙂 Rob
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Me too. I will tell people exactly what I think, feel and believe. Then it is up to them to decide what they choose to do about it. I can’t dictate their behavior. And it is only my soul that I am curious about. Why waste my time on anyone else’s if they obviously don’t want to change their ways? Life is too short.
 
I am going to make this my last post, as I feel too many people are reading in feelings that are just not there.

As I mentioned, the issues within the family are much larger than just SSA. MIL could not respect little boundaries, so we made them bigger. She couldn’t accept those, so we made them biggest. Now, she has two sons who refuse to visit her and don’t take her phone calls. I have a SIL who hoped for a reconciliation that I now realize won’t happen.

Personally, I have not talked to MIL in months, and they have been the happiest of my life. My husband has not talked to his mom in months, and they have been the happiest of his life. What I posted was mostly a thought experiment to see how much support we would get for trying to raise son a faithful Catholic. Certainly less than I thought.

In reality, we have not see BIL or MIL in years. Both take up too much energy emotionally without any willingness to offer support. And you know what? Everyone likes it better that way. So why did I post? Once again, it was to see how people on a Catholic forum would react. Sorry if it seems deceptive, but it taught me that, once again, people’s feelings come before bearing witness. And no, we still feel it is the most loving thing to do to not affirm someone in their sinfulness. I learned that there are fewer people than I thought who also feel that way.

Happy Easter
 
90Domer said:
So what I am hearing is that hubby and I are now the fault for engaging her with our reasonable requests. Even after we tried taking the charitable route. Well, I don’t buy that. We have feelings too, and it sounds like I have to compromise my faith in order to keep peace. Can’t do it. No one is asking you to compromise your faith. No where in the Catechism does it talk about being obligated to get into the same old arguments over and over again because wold women with gay sons still don’t see things your way. You should absolutely not stay with her if you think that would be approving of sin (I don’t quite get it since you aren’t providing the bed, but whatever, that’s your right) but you don’t have to insist on an argument every time.

Let me try this scenario. I worked in NC where I was the only Catholic. We were having a lunch meeting and the boss was ordering sandwiches. I politely told boss to not bother with me, I would catch lunch later. Boss insisted I order. There were no good non-meat options I would eat, so I politely said again not to worry about me. The boss kept insisting. This went on for like 10 minutes because he could not understand why I would decline a free meal. I finally had to reveal that it was a Friday of Lent and Catholics don’t eat meat and that I didn’t want to order food I would only toss. Guess what? We ordered pizza. I didn’t like that I had to reveal so much info, but my religious views were tolerated and accommodated to boot! I have on both ends of this situation. It is frustrating to be a boss trying to do something like order lunch for your team when someone won’t tell you what they want. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with their boss getting them lunch, even if it is with company money, so sometimes you have to push. As a vegan I have lots of things I can’t eat. I don’t always like having to say it because it makes me sound like a pain, but a lot of times “I’m sorry, don’t worry about me I’ll grab something later. I’m a vegan and that’s difficult to accommodate” works wonders and it gets rid of the discomfort.

Why can’t the same happen with MIL? Because SSA is so much an emotional hot button. In essence, what you are recommending is that–using the example above–is that I should have eaten meat so as to not hurt co-workers feelings. Well, to me, the two scenarios are nearly equivalent. :confused: I think if anything your MIL is the one being forced to eat meat here. No one is asking you to approve of homosexuality in any way, at least not on this thread. You are the one asking your MIL to do something that she’s not ok with. What some of us are saying is that you need to accept your MIL’s views, give up on changing her mind, and decide what if any relationship you can have with her the way she is.

And I will ask this again. Why should MIL feelings reign supreme here? We should just tick her off by not explaining our true reasons and have her snark at us all weekend? Is that fair to us? Especially is that fair to our son? Someone has to be the bigger person here. Either you can put your foot down and stay in a hotel, and if she gets snarky cut the visit short. Or you can argue with her just for the sake of putting her, her son, and her beliefs down. Because when you know it won’t do any good or change her mind, you’re just arguing for the sake of running those things into the ground.
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90Domer said:
I am going to make this my last post, as I feel too many people are reading in feelings that are just not there.

As I mentioned, the issues within the family are much larger than just SSA. MIL could not respect little boundaries, so we made them bigger. She couldn’t accept those, so we made them biggest. Now, she has two sons who refuse to visit her and don’t take her phone calls. I have a SIL who hoped for a reconciliation that I now realize won’t happen.

Personally, I have not talked to MIL in months, and they have been the happiest of my life. My husband has not talked to his mom in months, and they have been the happiest of his life. What I posted was mostly a thought experiment to see how much support we would get for trying to raise son a faithful Catholic. Certainly less than I thought.

In reality, we have not see BIL or MIL in years. Both take up too much energy emotionally without any willingness to offer support. And you know what? Everyone likes it better that way. So why did I post? Once again, it was to see how people on a Catholic forum would react. Sorry if it seems deceptive, but it taught me that, once again, people’s feelings come before bearing witness. And no, we still feel it is the most loving thing to do to not affirm someone in their sinfulness. I learned that there are fewer people than I thought who also feel that way.

Happy Easter
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Please don’t forget that disagreement tends to be louder than agreement. If someone agrees with you, they may just make one short post saying that they agree, or they may not post at all. If someone disagrees, they are more likely to write a longer post explaining why they think you are wrong, and to get into a back and forth discussion/argument on the issue involving multiple subsequent posts.

Personally, I thought I saw a lot of support for your position here.
 
You are not homophobe or a bigot. You are a good and faithful servant of Christ. Well done for your courage
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Yeesh, so now that the whole town has decided to call up the priest because of your MIL’s sins, you’ve spoken to her about this repeatedly, and you’ve decided to keep your son away maybe now is a good time to let this drop.

She is a mother, and he is her son, and at this point the issue has been hashed out, so even if it was anyone’s business, much less that of other parishioners to start with it is no longer.

Like I said, sometimes differences are just too great. Not everyone is meant to have a close relationship with their relatives just because they are related. My mom, brother, and I are estranged from most of our extended family, because they are just awful people. My fiance and I have discussed numerous times under what circumstances we would cut people out of our lives, and sometimes it just does come down to differences that are too great.

Example: Fiance has a very devout family, but we are having a secular wedding, and since he was baptized Catholic it will be invalid. If anyone refused to show up on those grounds we would from then on we would keep them at an extreme distance and not have them around our children. Fortunately that won’t be an issue, but if it had we were fully prepared to cut people out who wouldn’t support our family. Not out of anger or spite, but because we are becoming a family, and if someone can’t support that they can’t still be treated as family, if they won’t recognize the one we are building. If they are that against us getting married, then they can’t be around our children.

Not every family disagreement or estrangement has be be out of anger, just a recognition that the differences are too big and that continuing to attempt a relationship is causing everyone more pain than anything else.
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janlyn…I find this topic difficult, I know we all sin, but I disagree with cutting people out of my life based on their views. I have a granddaughter who has a same sex mate, I totally disagree with the life she has chosen, I do believe that it is a great sin to have sex with same sex people, BUT I would never dis my granddaughter and her mate, if they decide to get married persay, I will be there because I love my granddaughter and her mate. If someone is invited and wants to voice their opinion it is for the host or the people getting married to handle. I am not here to judge people but to love them. My granddaughter and her mate know that (we) her family do not agree with her life style. If the people want to walk away from them because of their beliefs, then good bye, but I will always be nice to them and welcome them into my home. My granddaughter feel the same way. This is just my opinion on how I would handle this. problem.:coolinoff:
 
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