Homosexual Acts are Not Against the Natural Law

[Rau]

…
So what kind of Catholic do you want to be? The kind that loves the Church so much that you close your eyes to her faults and continue to think and do things that hurt others? Or do you want to be the kind of Catholic who loves the Church so much that you’re willing to go through the pain of looking these problems in the face so that you can do something about it? …

Can you clarify what you mean exactly by “these problems”?

What would you like Catholics to do about “these problems”? What would you like the Church to do?

 

[Rau]

Anybody know what happened to posts subsequent to #79. There is a large time gap (24 hours) after that post, suggesting some were removed?

 

[DrTaffy]

Anybody know what happened to posts subsequent to #79. There is a large time gap (24 hours) after that post, suggesting some were removed?

For a while, due to a glitch, all posts were subject to approval by a moderator before being posted. Seems to be sorted now, but presumably accounts for what you refer to.

 

[religioussoup]

It seems to me that homosexual acts are not against the Natural Law.

The argument to the contrary usually goes as follows:

1. God created the universe and everything in it not haphazardly but with purpose.
2. We can discover God’s intention by analyzing his design of the universe and everything in it.
3. The male reproductive system and the female female reproductive system are designed for each other.
4. Therefore, God’s plan for human sexuality involves opposite sex relations.
5. The male reproductive system is not designed for another the male reproductive system. The same is true for the female reproductive systems.
6. Therefore, same sex relations are not part of God’s plan.

The problem is that this argument focuses on the external design of the body while ignoring the internal design. Although we don’t fully understand the causes of homosexuality at this time, it has become increasingly clear that some people are simply designed to have same-sex attraction. If so, then God was the designer.

Now why would God design some people for opposite-sex relationships in their exterior body but same-sex relationships in their interior life? I have no idea. But it doesn’t really matter. If God designed it that way, then who am I to judge?

So if we want to respect the Natural Law, then we have to accept same-sex relations because it seems to be the case that God himself designed some people that way on the inside even if not on the outside. To put it crudely, even if the exterior parts don’t fit, the interior ones sure do.

I believe same-sex attraction is okay. It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t affect my life. If other people are that way, who am I to judge?

 

[Rau]

This is an interesting point. Sexual intimacy goes beyond biological sex for the purpose of procreation and is a part of emotional intimacy and love in a relationship.

Absolutely. But the male sexual act delivers sperm. Is this not suggestive of the appropriate partner for such an act? Do you see any rationale for two men to exchange sperm - by “design” as some would suggest!

 

[Rau]

I believe same-sex attraction is okay. It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t affect my life. If other people are that way, who am I to judge?

I’m not sure any judgement on SSA is called for, other than to observe we’d rather no person was faced with this or any other difficult cross.

 

[Rau]

You are conflating the purpose of sperm with the purpose of sex. If we did the same with the ovum, one would think women would exclusively have sex during their fertile period, or that their fertile period would be constant. People bonding is congruent with forming relationships, which can certainly include child rearing… but if the prerequisite for children is not just sperm delivery, but emotional bonding, bonding which can and should exist even in childless couples, then perhaps that is the primary goal of sexual intimacy. Otherwise any unsuccessful fertilization should have a corresponding lack of pleasure, bonding, ecstasy, etc., right? Why would non procreative sex (as in, sex that does not result in offspring regardless of intent) still “work” in all those other areas?

No, I’m not conflating the two. I am pointing out that the presence of sperm in the sexual act is a bright road sign which declares something about who is the natural partner for the act. That sex has many fruits explains that sex is not solely for procreation. But we cannot imagine a world where a man seeks out the bonding attributes of sex with another man, and then seeks out a woman should he desire to procreate. How more rational is it to recognise that all the fruits of sexual relations (intimacy, bonding, procreative potential) are bound together, and that the underlying reason for that is that the bonding of man and woman fundamentally helps them raise their offspring, who require nurturing for many years.

 

[religioussoup]

I’m not sure any judgement on SSA is called for, other than to observe we’d rather no person was faced with this or any other difficult cross.

I am not judging whatsoever. I’m not sure what judgement you are referring to.

 

[QuidVeritasEst]

Hello. (This is my first post on this website, never really been up for this sort of zeal before, but I though I’d dive in with a controversial question)

I imagine a lot of people in these comments sections will have rather abrupt answers for you. Many will have been brought up in devout Catholic households, and had little contact with gay persons. Not that their contributions are invalid, but they might be too…severe.

I have grown up in liberal central England, I know and am friends with quite a few people who are gay, and quite frankly, were I to give hedance to Church teachings publicly around where I live, I’d be mobbed and derided as a detestable bigot.

However, having said all that, I still have come to disagree with gay-marriage. I think the problem you have in your manner of looking at it is that you make people identical to their desires, as if their desires identify them in some way. Homosexuality is scientifically proven to be natural, and so is attraction to the opposite sex (though, that requires little proof). Nobody is arguing that whether it is natural or not says anything as to the morality of the act.

It is natural for straight people to be attracted to the opposite sex, but this does not mean that desire always leads to good. If people have casual sex using contraception, they actively seek to prevent life, and relativise it as less of a responsibility and more as something that will be nice to have when they are ready.

Gay Marriage is similar - gay sex is entirely self-gratifying, there is no implicit good. Therefore, it does not nurture any form of love between the two - they do not will each other’s good, they will the other to be there for their own sake.

 

[Rau]

I am not judging whatsoever. I’m not sure what judgement you are referring to.

The same judgment you referred to in saying:

religioussoup:

If other people are that way, who am I to judge?

So perhaps we agree.

 

[religioussoup]

Ohhhhh you thought I meant that I was actually judging homosexuals. I should’ve made my voice more clear. I simply asked myself “What kind of a person would I be if I judged someone else based on who they loved?”.

 

[Thorolfr]

Absolutely. But the male sexual act delivers sperm. Is this not suggestive of the appropriate partner for such an act? Do you see any rationale for two men to exchange sperm - by “design” as some would suggest!

Saliva in the mouth has an enzyme called amylase which begins the process of digesting food thus indicating that one use of the mouth is for eating and digesting food. So does this amylase indicate that the mouth has only one purpose and should not be used for anything else such as talking or licking a stamp or kissing a spouse? Since virtually everyone would agree that the mouth can be used for several other things besides eating and digesting food despite the fact that it has amylase in it, why should we suppose that the presence of sperm means that the penis and sex can only be used for delivering the sperm for procreation?

BTW, two kissing spouses might exchange amylase even though they are not trying to digest each other.

 

[Rau]

Ohhhhh you thought I meant that I was actually judging homosexuals. I should’ve made my voice more clear. I simply asked myself “What kind of a person would I be if I judged someone else based on who they loved?”.

No, I didn’t think that. You remarked “who are you to judge SSA in others”. I concurred, remarking that SSA in fact does not call for a judgement.

SSA is an inclination to certain attractions, love is not the same. But I agree with you, Love is good.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I can think of no logical reason to have sex with another men, other than that I don’t want to be alone my whole life. I’ve been talking to priests about this for a while. And, quite frankly, if you read any of my threads… all I’m doing is trying to find a community to go to.

I want the Church to have an answer for people like me. I don’t want to live alone.
“It is bad for man to be alone”.

I’m really hoping that somehow I can live and have peace, and not be miserable and suffering from depression bc I’m gay. But… how long should I wait?

So, logically, if I wanted to be a functioning person, who wasn’t miserable, and utterly depressed… then I might start dating men. For the first time in my life.

I’m 22, almost 23. I’m not going to be miserable my whole life. I’m really hoping and praying that God can make lifelong chastity seem a little more appealing, and a little less depressing to me. I want to follow the Church’s teaching, but so far, I’ve followed the Church’s teaching… and I have depression, I’ve dropped out of school, and I live with other people to survive. I don’t belong where I am, bc I can’t even support myself.

I don’t want to support myself, bc I don’t want to be alone for my whole life.

A Catholic community could change this. A relationship could change this, as well, though. …

See point #16 below, I think it will be beneficial for you

It is unfortunate that close friendships these days are so often presumed to include a sexual relationship - almost as if it were obligatory. If I understand you, you wish to do what is right. You are the only such person.

Have you been in contact with the Courage organisation?

As Courage treats homosexuality like an addiction it is of marginal utility for a virgin.

There are a number of serious systemic issues in this thread, on the forum and in society that result in both sides talking past each other on the topic of homosexuality/SSA

1. There is the faulty assumption that because people are a particular way that God made them that way, the reality is due to Original Sin all sorts of things went wrong with creation, homosexuality (by which I mean attraction, not sex) could be one of them.
2. There is the unwarranted assumption that SSA is the opposite of OSA, while this might seem intuitively true there is no theological proof.
3. There is the false belief that the etiology of SSA could affect the validity of Catholic teaching regarding it; even if SSA is proven to be biological in origin that does not change in the slightest the immorality of “homosexual acts” by which is meant sex.
4. There is the false belief that marriage is about love, it is not, it is about procreation.
5. It is important to remember that celibacy is a greater good than marriage in Catholic teaching, as such trying to make gay people straight so they can marry someone of the opposite sex is not spiritually beneficial.
6. There is the false belief that people with SSA must stay away from close relationships with the same sex.
7. There is the false belief that God destroyed the city of Sodom because the inhabitants tried to rape the angels, this is false, if you read Genesis 18 it becomes clear that God was planning to obliterate the city before the angels were sent. Additionally see Ezekchiel 16.
8. There is the false belief that sodomy only refers to gay sex, Augustine does not refer to it as solely that; sodomy in fact refers to all inherently sterile acts including those between a man and a woman, masturbation and sex where there are attempts to deliberately thwart procreation such as condoms.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

1. Constantly repeating the clobber verses from the Bible does not help, all it does is annoy the LGB people who have heard it for the umpteenth time.
2. There is the false belief that gay sex being intrinsically disordered makes it a special kind of bad, it doesn’t, indeed fornication is considered intrinsically disordered.
3. Some people use the terms “homosexuality” to refer to people who are sexually active, this is an incorrect usage of the word and it seriously hampers communication.
4. Conservatives need to remember that gay people are human beings and not issues to be attacked.
5. Trying to use the argument that gay sex is immoral and proof is the rate of STDs is an androcentric and stupid argument because one can take it and use it to claim that heterosexual sex is sinful because it has a higher rate of STD spread than lesbian sex.
6. People need to remember that sins do not necessarily have consequences in this life.
7. When the Catechism talks about the homosexual inclination as objectively disordered it refers to it only so far as it is a desire for sex with the same sex as can be evinced from the Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same-Sex Attraction piece put out by the Canadian Catholic Bishops, see Paragraph 6 specifically.
8. People these days have forgotten that friendship can very much be love, of a spiritually beneficial kind, see St. Gregory of Nazianzen’s Oration 43 particularly 19 and 20 (he is talking about his beloved Basil)

1. And when, as time went on, we acknowledged our mutual affection, and that philosophy was our aim, we were all in all to one another, housemates, messmates, intimates, with one object in life, or an affection for each other ever growing warmer and stronger. Love for bodily attractions, since its objects are fleeting, is as fleeting as the flowers of spring. For the flame cannot survive, when the fuel is exhausted, and departs along with that which kindles it, nor does desire abide, when its incentive wastes away. But love which is godly and under restraint, since its object is stable, not only is more lasting, but, the fuller its vision of beauty grows, the more closely does it bind to itself and to one another the hearts of those whose love has one and the same object. This is the law of our superhuman love. I feel that I am being unduly borne away, and I know not how to enter upon this point, yet I cannot restrain myself from describing it. For if I have omitted anything, it seems, immediately afterwards, of pressing importance, and of more consequence than what I had preferred to mention. And if any one would carry me tyrannically forward, I become like the polyps, which when they are being dragged from their holes, cling with their suckers to the rocks, and cannot be detached, until the last of these has had exerted upon it its necessary share of force. If then you give me leave, I have my request, if not I must take it from myself.

1. Such were our feelings for each other, when we had thus supported, as Pindar has it, our “well-built chamber with pillars of gold,” as we advanced under the united influences of God’s grace and our own affection. Oh! How can I mention these things without tears.

We were impelled by equal hopes, in a pursuit especially obnoxious to envy, that of letters. Yet envy we knew not, and emulation was of service to us. We struggled, not each to gain the first place for himself, but to yield it to the other; for we made each other’s reputation to be our own. We seemed to have one soul, inhabiting two bodies. And if we must not believe those whose doctrine is “All things are in all;” yet in our case it was worthy of belief, so did we live in and with each other. The sole business of both of us was virtue, and living for the hopes to come, having retired from this world, before our actual departure hence. With a view to this, were directed all our life and actions, under the guidance of the commandment, as we sharpened upon each other our weapons of virtue; and if this is not a great thing for me to say, being a rule and standard to each other, for the distinction between what was right and what was not. Our associates were not the most dissolute, but the most sober of our comrades; not the most pugnacious, but the most peaceable, whose intimacy was most profitable: knowing that it is more easy to be tainted with vice, than to impart virtue; just as we can more readily be infected with a disease, than bestow health. Our most cherished studies were not the most pleasant, but the most excellent; this being one means of forming young minds in a virtuous or vicious mould.

source

1. Chastity does not mean a life devoid of love, see point #16
2. That something is not genetic does not mean it is a choice or caused by life experiences; hormonal exposure in utero can have a major effect.
3. That Athenian aristocrats engaged in gay sex does not mean they experienced SSA, see prison where people who would never engage in gay sex outside of prison do so.

 

[meltzerboy]

Hello. (This is my first post on this website, never really been up for this sort of zeal before, but I though I’d dive in with a controversial question)

I imagine a lot of people in these comments sections will have rather abrupt answers for you. Many will have been brought up in devout Catholic households, and had little contact with gay persons. Not that their contributions are invalid, but they might be too…severe.

I have grown up in liberal central England, I know and am friends with quite a few people who are gay, and quite frankly, were I to give hedance to Church teachings publicly around where I live, I’d be mobbed and derided as a detestable bigot.

However, having said all that, I still have come to disagree with gay-marriage. I think the problem you have in your manner of looking at it is that you make people identical to their desires, as if their desires identify them in some way. Homosexuality is scientifically proven to be natural, and so is attraction to the opposite sex (though, that requires little proof). Nobody is arguing that whether it is natural or not says anything as to the morality of the act.

It is natural for straight people to be attracted to the opposite sex, but this does not mean that desire always leads to good. If people have casual sex using contraception, they actively seek to prevent life, and relativise it as less of a responsibility and more as something that will be nice to have when they are ready.

Gay Marriage is similar - gay sex is entirely self-gratifying, there is no implicit good. Therefore, it does not nurture any form of love between the two - they do not will each other’s good, they will the other to be there for their own sake.

Is your last statement–that “gay sex is entirely self-gratifying…it does not nurture any form of love…they do not will each other’s good, they will the other to be there for their own sake”–something that your several gay friends’ told you or something you observed? IOW, where did you get this idea from?

 

[esieffe]

Right now, I am chalking it up to original sin. While Baptism strengthens us against the call of sin, the influence of it is still there in some reduced form. It seems that from childhood, some people have a proclivity for certain types of sins. Environment can be a huge factor for many, but not ALL.

Aside from environmental genetic mutation based on environmental toxins, radiation or something, I don’t know what other explanations there are. This does not of course excuse the sin, rather it may be a way for God to create a cross so to speak, which we must over come or carry, in the maturation process of getting spiritually fit.

Just a theory, based on tidbits of information, and conjecture.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Hello. (This is my first post on this website, never really been up for this sort of zeal before, but I though I’d dive in with a controversial question)

Welcome to the thread and thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut…but I have to ask…

Homosexuality is scientifically proven to be natural, and so is attraction to the opposite sex (though, that requires little proof).

When did that scientific breakthrough occur…??

 

[Rau]

… why should we suppose that the presence of sperm means that the penis and sex can only be used for delivering the sperm for procreation?

We should not suppose that - it does not follow.

But we can observe that sex does deliver sperm, and it is the only way that sperm is delivered. We can note that sperm is the only way for a man to procreate.

We can then think about the special bonding intrinsic to the sexual act. Why is it that this bonding is tied up in an act that also delivers sperm?

And then, the penny may drop. The sexual act combines intimate human pair bonding and procreative potential because the former is so important to the latter. So how is man an appropriate sexual partner for a man? He is not - the two men have chosen the wrong means to bond! After all, what is to happen should the men desire to procreate - choose other sexual partners?

Two men should feel entitled to be as “close” and loving as appropriate. I hope they would see that sexual relations is neither necessary nor intrinsic to their relationship.

 

[Thorolfr]

1. There is the false belief that the etiology of SSA could affect the validity of Catholic teaching regarding it; even if SSA is proven to be biological in origin that does not change in the slightest the immorality of “homosexual acts” by which is meant sex.

If SSA was demonstrated to be in some way genetic in origin, it would certainly raise the question of why God would purposely put something into someone’s genetic makeup that would cause them to have disordered desires that could lead to immoral acts. It would raise questions about why a just God would burden some people with this but not others.