I agree that very few, if any, people can be made gay or straight. However, many parents do blame their son’s boyfriend for making their son gay if they find out about his sexual orientation by meeting his boyfriend. It’s an irrational belief and response, but it’s a response I think one needs to take into consideration when deciding how to come out.
I think it’s been fairly well-established that trying to chance your sexual orientation is at best impossible and at worst emotionally harmful. That’s why I actually think the Catholic Church takes a much better stance on the issue than some of the Evangelical churches - it doesn’t say that gay people must make themselves straight or that their desires alone are evil, just that they need to practice chastity.
I totally agree. Unfortunately, though, there are some Catholics who treat homosexual orientation like it is a disease.
Kolya. For me, I find Protestantism very difficult to really accept. . . the whole “I (BIG, MIGHTY, ME) have condescended to Accept Jesus”. . . as if that mere person was on a par with God, making a judgment or purchase. (This “accept Jesus” thing can seem so often to be a kind of intellectual consumerism).
A disease is an abnormal condition that affects the body of an organism. It is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. Itmay be caused by factors originally from an external source, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.
Let me guess, next you’re going to talk about us Catholics and how we “worship Mary”? (Or about the Orthodox and how they “worship pictures”?)
Well if you look at it that way you could say that all ‘sin’ is a moral disease. And as such, we are all diseased. Happy thought
Obviously your boyfriend didn’t make you gay.
I think that you made were intelligent suggestions except for the last point. Your final statement seems immature because it becomes a sort of blackmail. How would you feel if the parents were to say to a practising homosexual child not to show up anymore as long he has a partner. Would you suggest the same thing if the child were a junkie and he would try to bring his dealer along? I think that the OP should follow your first set of suggestions, they are very reasonable and sensitive.
What you call blackmail I call reasonable conditions.
That seems incredibly callous. Cutting one’s parents out of your life because they will not adjust to your own lifestyle, despite their own beliefs and conscience. Very selfish and very heartless.
What is very selfish and heartless is to be unwelcoming to your child’s boyfriend/girlfriend simply because of race, gender, or any other equally stupid reasons. A son asking his parents to be at least minimally welcoming and charitable to his boyfriend, instead of being heartless, is a pretty reasonable request.
I’m not even saying the parents need to accept the relationship as moral. I’m just saying the parents need to be minimally charitable enough to welcome the boyfriend on holidays and at family events (like they would a girlfriend).
It is not ‘seared into their conscience’ by the Church, as you put it. The Church does not brain-wash anyone, nor does it force anything upon anyone.
Understood. But you can understand how to your parents the boyfriend is the collaborator in your actions. Your parents love you, and believe in you as a good person, and don’t know the boyfriend from Adam. You can understand how they therefore may see the boyfriend as the one who led you into wrong acts. Now, that may be objectively wrong, indeed, you may have been the instigator, or you may each have taken an equal role.
What on earth are you talking about here? How does race feature in this discussion?
No, comparing homosexual behaviors to dating someone from a different race is a logical fallacy and a cope out. Homosexual behaviors exist because of free while race is not because of free will. You did not answer my comment about the junkie and his dealer, do you think that the patents should be welcoming the pusher at their house because his drugs make their son feel good? Should the parents of a 14 year old accept her partner that is older than her father because they are in love? Should the parents accept a son that brings multiple partners to the holiday’s events because he is entrenched in polyamory? Sould the parents accept a son that goes around beating gay people just because they exists? All these are moral issues that a Catholic cannot accept, they can and should still love their child and be ready to die for him but they must reject those behaviors or they will participate into the sin. I have worked and I assume that I work now with gay people and I do treat them the same way of any other colleague, if they are good I push them for promotions,and if they are bad I try to mentor them. Of course sometimes they catch me off guard with their mannerism, but I have the same reaction for people from other cultures, the trick is to love them all and not to participate in sin, it is possible without seriously offending too many people.