How can I argue against homosexual activity?

[John_Weerstra]

I’m on facebook on a message board about the legalization of homosexual marriage and i cant seem to come up with a convincing argument. I’m trying to focus on the issue of homosexual sex but they always have a pretty solid come back.

Here are my arguments with their responses:

1. Sex is for creating life and a homosexual couple cant do that.
   — What about sterile people and those who are too old to conceive children? Should we just strip those people of their rite to marriage?
2. Sodom in the Old Testament was destroyed for participating in homosexual activities.
   — That is a mistranslation of an archaic dialect; it actually means they raped and humiliated the men in the town, and that doesn’t even matter because the OT covenant was thrown out when Jesus came. That’s why we don’t follow any of the other rules in the OT like only eating certain animals. If we don’t follow those rules why do we follow the ones about homosexuality?

 

[Jim_Blackburn]

In response to the first question, point out, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2366) does, that sex must be ordered “per se to the procreation of human life”. This does not mean that every individual act must be fertile but that the act itself must be naturally ordered to procreation. Humanae Vitae (11) explains:

The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, "noble and worthy.’’ It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.

In response to the second question see this excerpt from my article Homosexuality:

What Was Sodom’s Sin?

The word *sodomy *derives from the ancient city of Sodom, which was destroyed after two angels disguised as men were welcomed into Lot’s home and the men of Sodom demanded that they be turned over for the satisfaction of their homosexual desires:
Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them (Gen. 19:5).

It is clear that the townsmen’s demand to “know” the men meant to have homosexual relations with them—Lot offered, in lieu of their acting “so wickedly,” that his two daughters (who had not “known” men) be brought out instead. Lot recognized that the townsmen were not just looking to become acquainted with the strangers; they wanted to satisfy sexual desires. And because the townsmen refused Lot’s offer, their desires were apparently homosexually inclined.

Some people claim that Sodom was destroyed for being inhospitable to the two visitors. But Jude explained that the city was destroyed (at least in part) because the inhabitants indulged in immoral sexual activity (Jude 7). Peter described their sins as “licentiousness” (2 Pet. 2:7). Besides this, Lot certainly showed hospitality to the two men, and if all the townsmen were trying to do was to get acquainted with the strangers, then who was being inhospitable?

Additionally, some have claimed that Sodom was destroyed because the townsmen attempted to rape the two visitors. This argument implies that, had the visitors consented, no sin would have been committed: The sin was not the homosexual act but the aggression of the townsmen. But again, note that Jude condemns the sexual aspect of their activity (which was obviously rampant, as “all” the townsmen were present in the mob), not the “aggression” with which they attempted to commit it.

See also: Why We Are Not Bound by Everything in the Old Law