I sense fear behind the opposition toward homosexuality

[HJ3822]

I understand why the Roman Catholic Church would be against same-sex marriage. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and all that. But what I don’t understand - as this forum highlights - is the fear that extends not only in same-sex marriage, but also anything related to the gay. People ask questions on whether it is okay to prepare a same-sex couple’s taxes (this issue reminds of a case in which some Christians refuse to sell services to gay consumers), attend a homosexual daughter’s wedding, face a homosexual daughter’s legal marriage? Is this sample of Catholics representative of all Catholics? Are all Catholics concerned with issues that seem to be merely tangentially related to same-sex marriage?

 

[WT1]

I understand why the Roman Catholic Church would be against same-sex marriage. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and all that. But what I don’t understand - as this forum highlights - is the fear that extends not only in same-sex marriage, but also anything related to the gay. People ask questions on whether it is okay to prepare a same-sex couple’s taxes (this issue reminds of a case in which some Christians refuse to sell services to gay consumers), attend a homosexual daughter’s wedding, face a homosexual daughter’s legal marriage? Is this sample of Catholics representative of all Catholics? Are all Catholics concerned with issues that seem to be merely tangentially related to same-sex marriage?

Christ taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves and not to judge those neighbors. I can’t speak for others but I do not fear homosexuals nor do I despise them as we are all God’s children.

I am obedient to the church and acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin but once again we are supposed to love the sinner not the sin. There is no doubt in my mind that Christ would minister to the homosexual community and show his love and compassion to them. It is up to each individual to embrace that love, pick up their cross and follow Him.

 

[ChevalierdeJohn]

The following is, I believe, in four parts a relatively comprehensive answer. At the very least, I hope it will illustrate that even if you don’t believe any of the Church’s teachings about sex and marriage, it is obvious that a properly catechized Catholic opposes homosexual acts and homosexual unions not out of fear or dislike, but because of Christian love.

First of all, you are falsely equating the Magisterium of the Church with practicing Catholics. The Church, as an institution, is neither afraid of homosexuality nor does the Church say anything at all on the topic. Individual Catholics, like many Christians and followers of other faiths, can of course simply be wrong about the fundamental beliefs to which all Catholics are called. Unfortunately, many are.

Fortunately, unlike members of many other faith traditions, Catholics have access to a body of theological and and exegetical knowledge which we believe is transmitted by the Holy Spirit. If you do encounter Catholics who are, unfortunately, poorly catechized on matters of same-sex attraction, I invite you to call their attention to what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about homosexuality. The numbers refer to paragraphs in the most recent version of the Catechism.

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Let’s unpack this a bit. Note that the CCC differentiates between a homosexual act (which involves some means of mutual masturbation between members of the same sex) and homosexual tendency (often called “same sex attraction”) which though “objectively disordered” is something which the Church not only does not condemn and which is not a sin, but which the Catechism specifically calls us not to discriminate against in any way.

I repeat. Homosexuality Is Not A Sin. Fornication (sex outside of marriage) is a sin; homosexuality is by definition sex outside of marriage, therefore it is a sin. Being physically attracted to someone of the same sex is not sinful.

Lots of Christians will say that homosexuality is a sin. Often they don’t mean this; modern usage has so polluted the English language (and English has so polluted other languages) that we are seeing the breakdown of communication warned of by Orwell so many years ago. We often speak in symbols that are only intelligible to members of our own in-groups. (For example, many Protestants are upset that Catholics say they “pray to Mary”. Of course Catholics don’t actually mean we pray “to” Mary; we mean that we ask her to pray to God for us, exactly the same way a Protestant might ask his pastor to pray for him. This inaccuracy of linguistic expression causes far too much discord.) Often, unfortunately, when Christians say “homosexuality is a sin” they do mean it; that’s unfortunate because there is nowhere in the Bible or in any established church tradition anywhere written that it is sinful to experience an unavoidable biological reaction. Jesus Christ was without sin; Jesus Christ felt the temptation to do sin. Therefore feeling temptation cannot, by definition, be sinful. Only acting on it is.

Some people will object to the statement that homosexual attraction is “disordered”, falsely calling this bigotry. Many things are disordered. For example, desiring sexual congress with another’s spouse is disordered. Our bodies might have biological reactions to seeing our neighbor’s pretty spouse, but as rational human beings we have the ability to control our passions. A good reason why fantasizing about adultery is disordered is that to desire intercourse with another person with whom we can have no deep and lasting lifelong relationship (because they are promised in marriage to another) is to reduce that person to a sexual object.

Some people will object that two people of the same sex can have a meaningful, deep, and lasting lifelong relationship. This is absolutely true and the Church encourages it. Christ calls us to love our neighbor as we love Him; He doesn’t say “but guys should limit their love only to gals and vice versa.” But nowhere does this imply they must have sexual intercourse.

(Continued in part 2)

 

[ChevalierdeJohn]

(Part 2)

However, because marriage is a sacramental union created by God in order to complete two persons by joining them together, it can only be between one man and one woman. There are people who will deny that there are any meaningful differences between men and women, and quite frankly the only reasonable response is to laugh in their faces; this fallacy denies everything we know about the real biological differences between male and female (including brain chemistry). There is simply no way that a man can provide the full extent of the partnership that a woman provides to another man, and likewise when the roles are reversed. The sexual relationship between a man and a woman in marriage involves every aspect of their being; the act of sexual intercourse simply cannot be divorced from their complementary natures.

Thus because the Church teaches that love between members of the same sex cannot fulfill the completeness of God’s plan for humanity which completes the man with the woman and the woman with the man, and that sexual intercourse, being inseparable from the sexual nature of male and female, cannot be divorced from the holistic marital relationship between man and woman, the Church teaches that members of the same sex, no matter how much they love each other, ought not engage in acts which attempt to mimic sexual intercourse. Because such a physical union cannot possibly provide the complete union for which we are meant, to engage in such an act is to treat the other as an object of sexual lust and not a holistically-loved partner.

The same is true in marriage, by the way. The Church calls on married couples to commemorate their marital communion through physical union, and in fact couples who are not able to consummate their marriage cannot be married in the Church. However, treating one’s spouse as merely a sex object is just as much a sin as is adultery or fornication. (There is also no difference in sin between fornicating outside of marriage and fornicating with a person of the same sex. Both are sex acts outside the promise of complete union formed by marriage - which, again, because one sex cannot provide to itself the completeness provided by the opposite sex, cannot be found in same-sex relationships.)

Many object to all this by saying that it is impossible for a person who feels homosexual attraction to “be themselves”, or it is impossible for them to share a loving relationship with another, without sexual union. To this the Church responds that these people do not understand the idea of “being oneself” nor of “loving relationship”. Someone who has to have intercourse in order to express his love, doesn’t understand what love is. Someone who defines himself by with whom they share sexual relations is severely limiting the extent of their humanity. I like to eat pie, but it ought to sound foolish if I say, “I can’t be myself without eating pie.” It is a social disease of the modern world that too often too many of us define ourselves by what we do. You are not a doctor, a student, a farmer, an office worker. You are not a brown-haired or a blue-eyed or a brown-skinned person. You are not a person from Chicago or Connecticut or California. You are a unique individual whose identity is more than the sum of each of these parts; you most certainly are not defined in your uniqueness by any one thing, such as with whom you take your clothes off in the bedroom. The foundation of the Church’s social teaching (which calls for respect for persons of all colors, creeds, backgrounds and sexual attractions; charity to the poor; care of the environment; fair dealing between labor and capital owners, and so on) is the holistic dignity of the human person.

People will also object that it is not fair to expect people who are attracted to members of the same sex, to forego the physical and emotional pleasure of sexual congress. We don’t laugh in their faces, but we do like to politely point out that the Church is full of people who voluntarily do exactly that - and not just the members of Holy Orders. There is no double standard in the Church for people with same sex attraction; everyone is called to chastity (which means sexual intercourse only between married spouses of opposite sex).

(Continued in part 3)

 

[ChevalierdeJohn]

Part 3

Now, all this is a lot more straightforward than the language it takes me to describe it, and it all follows rationally and logically. I believe that the only objections are rooted either in denial of obvious empirical facts, or in a lack of ethics: the objector’s argument, at its core, must hinge on one or both of denying the obvious empirical differences between men and women, or on accepting as licit the sexual objectification of another for the purposes of the fulfillment of lust.

Many well-meaning people like to challenge the Church’s stand on homosexual sex by saying that what two people do in private isn’t anybody else’s business. But the Church teaches that homosexual sex causes real and lasting spiritual (and in at least some cases emotional and mental) damage to the persons involved. Thus the social teachings of the Church demand that we take an interest.

Many well-meaning people like to challenge the Church’s stand on the definition of marriage by saying that if two people of the same sex want to shack up together and say they are married, it doesn’t harm us and we ought not to object. However, these people need to acknowledge that what we think of as “marriage” is a Christian invention. It didn’t exist prior to the establishment of the Church (or, if you’re Christian, we believe it was re-instituted by Christ after Israel had fallen away from the practice of monogamous lifelong marriage.) Thus the Church is perfectly reasonable to say, “We don’t care how many of you want to redefine marriage to e something it is not. Marriage has a real and distinct form and no amount of wishing is going to change that.” From a social and not a theological perspective, marriage was one of the most influential norms introduced by the Church. In the observation of Christian marriage the paternity of children is not in doubt; the provision of both a mother and a father to a child (statistically extremely important for child development and long-term success and happiness) is ensured barring death of a spouse; the support of the mother during and post-pregnancy is assured; companionship into old age is provided for both spouses; the permanent union of two families is accomplished thus fostering peace and partnership. Because marriage is the foundation of all these social goods (as well as a sacrament provided by God), the Church does right to defend the sanctity of marriage.

I hope you can see that i) the Church does not at all condemn those who feel homosexual attraction, ii) the condemnation by the Church of homosexual acts is exactly the same as the Church’s condemnation of any other illicit sexual act, and iii) the Church in its protection of marriage objects to any redefinition of marriage, not to homosexual unions specifically.

(Continued in part 4)

 

[ChevalierdeJohn]

Part 4 Final

Finally we get back to the example of, let’s say, the mother who wonders whether she ought to attend her daughter’s celebration of said daughter’s legal homosexual union. Charitably assuming that the mother is properly catechized in her faith, we have to then assume that the mother obviously is not going to stop loving her daughter or love her any less just because she is shacking up with another girl. Mothers love their children regardless of what mothers think of their children’s life choices; even more so, God loves all of us infinitely and there is absolutely nothing any of us can think, say, do, or not do to ever cause God’s love for us to waver even the tiniest bit. So why wouldn’t Mom just go along and dance at the party and be in the photos and hug her daughter congratulations?

The answer lies in the concept of scandal, which in this case does not refer to pinky stuff that gets printed in the tabloids, but to the act of leading someone else into sin. When a very, very, very small sample of priests abused their trusted positions to take advantage of children, this was a scandal not because it was a shockingly horrible thing (which it was), but because by betraying their vows those priests almost certainly caused some of those children to leave the Catholic faith, as well as causing emotional and mental trauma that likely led some of those children to engage in unethical or destructive behavior later in life. The Church teaches that “mitigating circumstances” do not excuse the sin; if one is abused as a child, this doesn’t justify growing up to treat other people badly. However, the Church teaches that one who is responsible for another’s fall into sin takes on equal responsibility for it. So if you beat up your wife, that’s a sin. But if I tell you it is okay to beat your wife if you’re really angry at her (it’s not), I am responsible both for leading you into beating your wife (thus damaging you by telling you a lie) and also for your act of beating your wife. “Scandal” means double jeopardy.

In that context, doesn’t it make sense for the mother to agonize over whether to go to her daughter’s “homosexual wedding”? What if by participating the mother leads the daughter to believe Mom agrees with this lifestyle? Again, nothing is going to (in our perfect, hypothetical example) prevent Mom from loving her daughter; however, that doesn’t mean Mom agrees with and supports what she believes are bad life choices. Let’s say if Mom doesn’t attend, on the day before the wedding Daughter calls and says, “You know what Mom, I disagree with your point of view on this, but it’s obviously important to you and I know you love me and you want what you think is best for me. My partner and I decided to hold off on the wedding for a bit; let’s get together and maybe you can explain to me again why you feel the way you do.” If Mom instead had gone to the party, and that led Daughter to go ahead with the legal marriage and to engage in the depersonalization and sexual objectification of her beloved partner, then Mom is in some sense partly responsible for that slide into sin: that’s a scandal.

Now, my personal belief is that refusing to attend your son’s “gay wedding” is not likely to change his mind, and is likely to make him doubt your unconditional love for him, and that after the wedding invites go out is probably way too late to have a “This is what marriage means to Catholics” discussion. So I would say someone in that position ought to politely and lovingly make it clear that they don’t agree with the choice, but that they love their son, will try to love and welcome his partner, and sincerely hope that both will be happy together. And go to the party. (And pray a lot about the situation.)

However, it ought to be understandable that someone in that position is perfectly reasonable to feel “afraid” that they might in some way cause spiritual (or emotional or mental) damage by their apparent support of the gay union.

Catholics aren’t afraid of homosexual attraction, homosexual sex acts, or homosexual union. We’re afraid that in affirming our acceptance of and love for all people who experience or engage in these things, we will become partly responsible for leading such persons into sin. Since we believe sin is at its core a disconnectedness from God, communion with Whom is the source of perfect happiness, that’s simply not something that we want to do to someone we love.

The libertarian or liberal says, “I don’t care what you do with your body, in your life, as long as it doesn’t affect me.” The Catholic, the Christian, says, “I am called to love you, and love is a relationship in which I want what is best for you even at cost to myself; thus I care deeply about what you do, not because I want to control you for my benefit but because I want more than anything else for you to be as perfectly happy as you can be, even if the means of that happiness is that you may be very angry at me for a while because I seem to deny you a source of pleasure that provides false happiness and thereby blocks you from true and eternal joy.”