Homosexuality and Tolerance

[tskrobacz]

I draw no conclusions about canon law. I draw conclusions about some of the arguments presented here: “Same sex couples are infertile so what they do is wrong.” That argument fails because there are opposite sex couples who are infertile and what they do is not wrong. Hence the infertility part of the argument presented is irrelevant.

Infertile sexual relations may be allowed or disallowed. Fertile sexual relations may be allowed or disallowed. You cannot tell if sexual relations are allowed or disallowed from fertility, or the lack of it.

The argument needs to be made based on other factors. Fertility or infertility is irrelevant.

rossum

Rossum, your tagline says it all. Without truth there is no real love. There is truth regarding moral behaviors and there is the Ego which claims it’s own truth. The Catholic teaching is both extremely demanding and extremely merciful. In this tension we bear the cross of truth, love, justice … under teachings that have remained a rock for more than 2000 years.

Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it.
It does penance for the sins of others, but it is not broadminded about sin.
The cry for tolerance never induces it to quench its hatred of the evil philosophies that have entered into contest with the Truth.
It forgives the sinner, and it hates the sin; it is unmerciful to the error in his mind.
The sinner it will always take back into the bosom of the Mystical Body;
but his lie will never be taken into the treasury of His Wisdom.
**Real love involves real hatred:
whoever has lost the power of moral indignation and the urge to drive the buyers and sellers from the temples
has also lost a living, fervent love of Truth. **
Charity, then, is not a mild philosophy of “live and let live”;
it is not a species of sloppy sentiment.
Charity is the infusion of the Spirit of God,
which makes us love the beautiful and hate the morally ugly.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I draw no conclusions about canon law. I draw conclusions about some of the arguments presented here: “Same sex couples are infertile so what they do is wrong.” That argument fails because there are opposite sex couples who are infertile and what they do is not wrong. Hence the infertility part of the argument presented is irrelevant.

A lot of Catholics around here talk as if the word “sex” in the phrase “gay sex” and the phrase “straight sex” referred to the same action. When they argue like that, you’re right, there is no conceivable distinction between an infertile couple and a gay couple, since we allowing that both couples are simply “having sex”.

This argument is historically myopic, however. The Catholic church has historically taught that the problem with homosexual activity is that it necessitates sodomy. Sodomy is not the same type of action as intercourse. It is completely different, both physically and phenomenologically. Sodomy, of course, can be engaged in by people of opposite sexes, and it is just as wrong as when those of the same sex engage in it. Sodomy is always wrong.

I say this as a person who experiences serious temptations to sodomy, with either gender. There is no arbitrary discrimination in saying that certain actions (oral or anal sex) are always wrong. Maybe it sounds silly or bizarre (from your point of view) to forbid such actions. But it’s not arbitrary.

The argument needs to be made based on other factors. Fertility or infertility is irrelevant.

I agree. The Church bases it on other factors, although certain modern theologians are confused about this.

 

[rossum]

Rossum, your tagline says it all.

You are not the first to notice my sig. The original source is Mark Siderits, “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamika Anti-Realism and Canons of Rationality” in S Biderman and B.A. Schaufstein, eds, Rationality In Question (1989). Dordrecht: Brill.

I have not read Siderits but saw the quote in a piece on Nagarjuna. The “Madhyamika” in Siderits’ title refers to the religious and philosophical school of Buddhism that Nagarjuna founded. I have seen the same quote again in other places in reference to the Madhyamika and Nagarjuna - it seems quite popular. The quote is intentionally paradoxical; paradox is necessary to remind us that words are insufficient when trying to describe the fundamental nature of reality.

For a philosophical discussion of Nagarjuna and reality see the web article Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought. The Siderits quote is at the end of section four of the article:

There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

You did ask…

rossum

 

[rossum]

The Catholic church has historically taught that the problem with homosexual activity is that it necessitates sodomy.

You do realise that lesbians are also homosexual and that their relationships do not necessitate sodomy? Again, your argument does not apply to all cases, so it fails. If the Catholic Church allowed female-female same-sex relations then you might have an argument. However, the Church does not allow such relations, so sodomy is obviously irrelevant, unless the definition of “sodomy” is drawn very widely indeed. Such a wide definition would include a great deal of what goes on in heterosexual marriages.

rossum

 

[Prodigal_Son]

You do realise that lesbians are also homosexual and that their relationships do not necessitate sodomy? Again, your argument does not apply to all cases, so it fails. If the Catholic Church allowed female-female same-sex relations then you might have an argument. However, the Church does not allow such relations, so sodomy is obviously irrelevant, unless the definition of “sodomy” is drawn very widely indeed. Such a wide definition would include a great deal of what goes on in heterosexual marriages.

Female/female relations require mutual masturbation (which is not allowed to married couples), essentially. Activity based on the sexual instinct should be ordered toward a one-flesh union, and this is not the case in lesbianism or in any relationship (heterosexual or homosexual) which partakes in sodomy.

 

[Luker]

With all due respect please lets get the facts straight.

1. “Being gay” is a misnomer that implies innateness, it is not.
2. Homosexuality is disordered and as such so are homosexual temptations and desires.
3. There is no credible scientific evidence that proves homosexuality happens before birth.

I totally agree!

 

[inthespirit]

Hi

I’ve pondered this topic a lot and always have to come back to Gen 1:27. (Please forgive this abstract and almost unemotional expression of the Most Omnipotent as I try to explain in laymen’s terms.) The Divine Image in the roman alphabet is expressed as YHWH, which almost all Jewish scholars and intellectuals agree consists of two masculine and two feminine components. The human race contains these components: male and female in hetero- and homo-sexual forms?

ITS

 

[Peter_Plato]

You do realise that lesbians are also homosexual and that their relationships do not necessitate sodomy? Again, your argument does not apply to all cases, so it fails. If the Catholic Church allowed female-female same-sex relations then you might have an argument. However, the Church does not allow such relations, so sodomy is obviously irrelevant, unless the definition of “sodomy” is drawn very widely indeed. Such a wide definition would include a great deal of what goes on in heterosexual marriages.

rossum

I think you are missing the point of Church teaching, which is that teleology serves to order reality, even biological reality. Capabilities are ordered towards discernible ends. It is these ends which define not only purpose but also the nature of morality. It is these ends that also serve as the basis for natural law.

Infertile couples who properly use sexual function are not misusing its purpose. In the end it isn’t a moral shortcoming or choice of theirs that makes them infertile, therefore there is no moral warrant for restricting them from marriage.

The Church, by the way, teaches that intentionally thwarting the procreative aspect of sex without good reason is sinful. Which is why, for example, contraception is sinful. The potential for creating new human life is not a capacity to be taken lightly. Therefore, for example, an infertile couple who have intentionally ‘joined together’ BECAUSE their infertility affords them the possibility of sex without having to ever deal with pregnancy may, in fact, be sinning because they are misusing a gift that is essentially tied to an attitude of profound respect for what life is. It is the absence of a deep appreciation for life itself that is problematic.

So, merely because the Church accepts the reality of a marriage between infertile individuals, does not mean it accepts every attendent motive for why two such individuals would marry. A lesbian couple is by nature misusing sex because, clearly, their sexual behaviour, by intent, can never result in new life. They have made a determined choice to disregard and subjugate the procreative nature of sex to their own intentions.

 

[Catolico65]

Please point out in the Catechism, an encyclical or a writing by a Doctor of the Church that there are always consequences in the material world to sin. Note, in case I wasn’t clear, I am not rejecting the temporal punishment of sin.

The Bible has plenty of examples, you should read it sometime.

 

[rossum]

Female/female relations require mutual masturbation (which is not allowed to married couples), essentially.

The argument was about sodomy. Is mutual masturbation sodomy?

Activity based on the sexual instinct should be ordered toward a one-flesh union, and this is not the case in lesbianism or in any relationship (heterosexual or homosexual) which partakes in sodomy.

Please explain how sodomy can prevent “one-flesh union” when sodomy is possible for heterosexual married couples. Do Catholic married couples who indulge in sodomy get an automatic divorce/annulment? If not, then again your argument fails in that it does not cover all cases.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I think you are missing the point of Church teaching, which is that teleology serves to order reality, even biological reality.

Your teleology is specific to your religion. I am not Christian, so I do not accept your teleology. When acting in a Catholic context, you are allowed your teleology: as with the Catholic Church not remarrying divorcees. Outside the Church, you are constrained by the general rules of law, where certain forms of discrimination are illegal.

Infertile couples who properly use sexual function are not misusing its purpose. In the end it isn’t a moral shortcoming or choice of theirs that makes them infertile, therefore there is no moral warrant for restricting them from marriage.

Which brings us beck to whether or not homosexuality is inborn, a choice or a mixture. Heterosexuality is obviously at least in part a choice, given that there are celibate priests, monks and nuns in many religions. I generally think that the same is true for homosexuality.

A lesbian couple is by nature misusing sex because, clearly, their sexual behaviour, by intent, can never result in new life.

What if the lesbian couple are both past the menopause? Whatever they do, new life is not a possibility. What of a gay man with an orchidectomy? Again, there is no question of intent. All sexual acts must inevitably be infertile. There is no element of choice.

General arguments can only work if they cover all cases. If they do not cover all cases, then they are not general arguments, but partial arguments.

rossum

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

The Bible has plenty of examples, you should read it sometime.

Then post them.

 

[Amandil]

No it is not. The Catholic Church allows infertile people to have coitus, provided they are married. Consummation is required for marriage but fertility is not. An unconsummated marriage can be annulled very easily. An infertile marriage cannot.

It is not a strawman because I am correctly describing the practice of the Catholic Church. If I am incorrect, then please quote me the entry from the Catechism where husbands and wives are forbidden sexual relations if one or the other is infertile.

rossum

It is a strawman because I never said anything about infertile couples. Even still comparing infertile (licit)married couples with homosexual acts is apples and oranges.

These couples, and this is the essential point, always remain open to the be getting of children and God’s creative action. They are never saying “no” to God but “yes”. They are not actively violating God’s creative action in their current state of infertility.

Homosexual acts by their very nature are closed to God’s creative action. By the fact of them being done they are in fact saying “no” to God’s creative action and will on every level. They want it “their way”, not God’s.

Like I said, apples and oranges.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You are not the first to notice my sig. The original source is Mark Siderits, “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamika Anti-Realism and Canons of Rationality” in S Biderman and B.A. Schaufstein, eds, Rationality In Question (1989). Dordrecht: Brill.

I have not read Siderits but saw the quote in a piece on Nagarjuna. The “Madhyamika” in Siderits’ title refers to the religious and philosophical school of Buddhism that Nagarjuna founded. I have seen the same quote again in other places in reference to the Madhyamika and Nagarjuna - it seems quite popular. The quote is intentionally paradoxical; paradox is necessary to remind us that words are insufficient when trying to describe the fundamental nature of reality.

For a philosophical discussion of Nagarjuna and reality see the web article Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought. The Siderits quote is at the end of section four of the article:

There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”

You did ask…

rossum

There is a difference between a paradox and a contradiction. The statement that “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” is a contradiction. The fact that you capitalize the second “Ultimate Truth” in the statement does not make it less an infringement of the logical law of non-contradiction.

Basically, as far as I can tell, it amounts to reserving to yourself the right to subjectively determine the nature of “ultimate truth” without resorting to a claim that “ultimate truth” requires fully ‘objective’ justification. In other words, it is epistemological relativism under the guise of Buddhist profundity, which is to say, “I will believe what I want to believe BECAUSE my subjective beliefs instill in me a far more profound conviction that I am right than any external or objective ‘truths’ that I have encountered.”

Great. Now that probably describes the large majority of introspective thinkers in the world, but it doesn’t demonstrate that your subjective beliefs are, at least, plausible and defensible or any more compelling than the subjective beliefs of others who may not be able to adequately express them in word or art form. Neither does it offer any kind of criteria by which to decide whether any claim is any more valid than any other, not even your signature claim itself. (Yes, I know, THAT is the point of the statement.)

The point being that to claim “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” may superficially appear to be making a profound statement, but ultimately its profundity stops precisely where it verges on being meaningless, especially when it appears to function as an all-purpose fortification against any and all claims contrary to your own.

It, also, appears to be more an expression of Sartre’s mauvaise foi, i.e, of an attitude towards truth, than a statement about truth. That is, your signature is more a statement about your response to truth (and all objective claims about truth) than an actual statement about truth.

It is, I suggest, at least possible that intentionality may lend a kind of ‘aesthetic’ credence or quality to beliefs that may be a function of willfulness more than of ‘truth value.’ I would wonder to what extent this quality bears upon anyone’s convictions regarding ‘the truth,’ including yours (and my own); which is why “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” seems merely a statement of convenience rather than a profound one, to me. I have no reason to think it an adequate description of ‘truth’ except, perhaps, to rationalize a certain subjective attitude towards truth.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The argument was about sodomy. Is mutual masturbation sodomy?

Well, that particular argument was about sodomy. But I don’t think lesbian sex is wrong for the same reason that sex between males is wrong. There are two different reasons here. Lesbianism (in general) falls under a prohibition against masturbation. And of course, some actions gay males or heterosexuals or Catholic married couples take fall under this prohibition too.

Please explain how sodomy can prevent “one-flesh union” when sodomy is possible for heterosexual married couples.

I never said sodomy prevented a one-flesh union. Two people can sodomize one another and then enjoy one-flesh union afterward. But they cannot do this if they are both men.

Do Catholic married couples who indulge in sodomy get an automatic divorce/annulment? If not, then again your argument fails in that it does not cover all cases.

Huh? Catholic married couples sin. This does not make them suddenly not married, or incapable of repenting.

If, per impossible, homosexual couples were capable of marrying in the first place, then committing sodomy would not make them incapable of marrying. But the fact that the only “consummation” of their love is in masturbation or sodomy is where the Catholic objection comes in.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your teleology is specific to your religion. I am not Christian, so I do not accept your teleology. When acting in a Catholic context, you are allowed your teleology: as with the Catholic Church not remarrying divorcees. Outside the Church, you are constrained by the general rules of law, where certain forms of discrimination are illegal.

Well, no, teleology is not specific to “your religion.” It was noticed and acknowledged throughout human history even by pagan religions and has been the predominant principle guiding human thought in almost all cultures. It has only been in the last 200 years or so that secular humanism and scientism have sought to ignore it in order to impose human contrived ends on nature rather than accept the ends that exist in nature itself.

Certainly, it is the prevailing notion that teleology can safely be ignored as humans are eminently capable of contriving new ends and imposing them at will, but such a notion is far from being ‘true’ even though it is being imposed. Apparently, might not only makes right but also makes true.

What is it that makes “general rules of law” authoritative or even “right” if there is no ultimate truth? In fact, how would anyone decide that what appear to be “forms of discrimination” are TRULY “forms of discrimination” that SHOULD be illegal without recourse to TRUTH?

It appears that your argument reduces to “the will of the majority” ought to be imposed merely because it is the will of the majority and not because it has any claim to being right or true.

If no discernible “ends” exist, then absent a definable “good” or “goods” towards which ethical determinations can be guided, it makes absolutely every behaviour as good as any other since end outcomes become irrelevant. I would argue that that is precisely the issue with denying teleology - it simply nullifies ethics and with it eviscerates any justification for law or legal jurisdiction. If state law is not aimed, teleologically, at “the good of the people,” jurisprudence becomes baseless.

To differ on the nature of teleological ends and how goods and ends are to be prioritized is one thing, but to deny teleology itself is something completely different, since it denies the intentionality of reason itself.

But, then, that irrationality seems quite in keeping with your signature -]lie/-] line.

 

[Amandil]

There is a difference between a paradox and a contradiction. The statement that “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” is a contradiction. The fact that you capitalize the second “Ultimate Truth” in the statement does not make it less an infringement of the logical law of non-contradiction.

Basically, as far as I can tell, it amounts to reserving to yourself the right to subjectively determine the nature of “ultimate truth” without resorting to a claim that “ultimate truth” requires fully ‘objective’ justification. In other words, it is epistemological relativism under the guise of Buddhist profundity, which is to say, “I will believe what I want to believe BECAUSE my subjective beliefs instill in me a far more profound conviction that I am right than any external or objective ‘truths’ that I have encountered.”

Great. Now that probably describes the large majority of introspective thinkers in the world, but it doesn’t demonstrate that your subjective beliefs are, at least, plausible and defensible or any more compelling than the subjective beliefs of others who may not be able to adequately express them in word or art form. Neither does it offer any kind of criteria by which to decide whether any claim is any more valid than any other, not even your signature claim itself. (Yes, I know, THAT is the point of the statement.)

The point being that to claim “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” may superficially appear to be making a profound statement, but ultimately its profundity stops precisely where it verges on being meaningless, especially when it appears to function as an all-purpose fortification against any and all claims contrary to your own.

It, also, appears to be more an expression of Sartre’s mauvaise foi, i.e, of an attitude towards truth, than a statement about truth. That is, your signature is more a statement about your response to truth (and all objective claims about truth) than an actual statement about truth.

It is, I suggest, at least possible that intentionality may lend a kind of ‘aesthetic’ credence or quality to beliefs that may be a function of willfulness more than of ‘truth value.’ I would wonder to what extent this quality bears upon anyone’s convictions regarding ‘the truth,’ including yours (and my own); which is why “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” seems merely a statement of convenience rather than a profound one, to me. I have no reason to think it an adequate description of ‘truth’ except, perhaps, to rationalize a certain subjective attitude towards truth.

More and more “rossum” is showing that their attitude towards truth is the liberalist idea of “indiscriminateness”-the notion that to be non-discriminatory is a moral imperative-which he/she is covering with a Buddhist “coloring”.

IOW the only things which are “true” are those things which don’t discriminate.

Anything which does discriminate, which asserts that there is an objective moral order in which there are things which are necessarily better and things which are necessarily worse, aside from the typical liberal tactic of denouncing the better as “evil” and thus lauding and elevating the worse as “good”, he/she just asserts that they’re “true for you” but cannot be true for anyone else because those things are discriminatory.

Never mind that to discriminate is the foundation of all rational thought. Nevermind that he/she is being discriminatory in the very fact that he/she is arguing that his/her attitude and views are “better” than the Church’s teacc khing which he/she is insisting are “worse” because they are discriminatory.

If “nothing is true”, then rossum has no real moral or religious basis to argue at all, and by arguing he/she is not only violating the philosophy of subjectivism but also Buddhism, because if I’m not mistaken isn’t Buddhism about the denial of the ego rather than the assertion of it?

 

[Catolico65]

Well, that particular argument was about sodomy. But I don’t think lesbian sex is wrong for the same reason that sex between males is wrong. There are two different reasons here. Lesbianism (in general) falls under a prohibition against masturbation. And of course, some actions gay males or heterosexuals or Catholic married couples take fall under this prohibition too.

I never said sodomy prevented a one-flesh union. Two people can sodomize one another and then enjoy one-flesh union afterward. But they cannot do this if they are both men.

Huh? Catholic married couples sin. This does not make them suddenly not married, or incapable of repenting.

If, per impossible, homosexual couples were capable of marrying in the first place, then committing sodomy would not make them incapable of marrying. But the fact that the only “consummation” of their love is in masturbation or sodomy is where the Catholic objection comes in.

You are missing the point of God’s intention when He created male and female. Males desire the female body and vice versa and anything else is disordered.

 

[Rau]

I draw no conclusions about canon law. I draw conclusions about some of the arguments presented here: “Same sex couples are infertile so what they do is wrong.” That argument fails because there are opposite sex couples who are infertile and what they do is not wrong. Hence the infertility part of the argument presented is irrelevant.

Infertile sexual relations may be allowed or disallowed. Fertile sexual relations may be allowed or disallowed. You cannot tell if sexual relations are allowed or disallowed from fertility, or the lack of it.

The argument needs to be made based on other factors. Fertility or infertility is irrelevant.

rossum

Correct. Fertility is not pertinent.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

You are missing the point of God’s intention when He created male and female. Males desire the female body and vice versa and anything else is disordered.

I don’t think I denied any of what you just wrote. Although I’m somewhat put off to the focus on being attracted to bodies, not persons. This is a theological error.

JPII:

The sexual urge in man and woman is not fully defined as an orientation towards the psychological and physiological attributes of the other sex as such. These do not and cannot exist in the abstract, but only in a concrete human being, a concrete man or woman … If it is directed towards the sexual attributes as such this must be recognized as an impoverishment or even a perversion of the urge … The natural direction of the sexual urge is towards a human being of the other sex and not merely towards ‘the other sex’ as such. It is just because it is directed towards a particular human being that the sexual urge can provide the framework within which, and the basis on which, the possibility of love arises.

It’s probably better, psychotheologically, to be attracted to *persons *of the same sex than to be attracted to body parts of the opposite sex. But I won’t insist on the point.