Invitation to a Hoe Down

[Newbie2]

I guess everyone is giving the “homosexualist” tripe it’s proper due…ignoring it.

 

[Suspicious_Mind]

I guess everyone is giving the “homosexualist” tripe it’s proper due…ignoring it.

Too many diversions for one topic it seems.

Don’t I know it!! I have several close Australian friends and my sister is married to an Australian (they live in Mackay, Queensland but fortunately were not directly affected by the floods).

Haha, yea well - most of Queensland was alright I guess.

 

[djeter]

I guess everyone is giving the “homosexualist” tripe it’s proper due…ignoring it.

“Homosexualist” is a legitimate term for homosexual activist, one who seeks the normalization or legitimization of homosexual acts. You ignore it at your peril. Read Doug Farrow’s article in this month’s First Things “Blurring Sexual Boundaries.” Hardly “tripe,” as you so graciously put it. Thanks for nothing.

dj

 

[Spirithound]

Is “homosexualist” a real word in either British or American English?

Sure it is. It might not have made it into the Oxford dictionary, but if you understood its meaning, then it can be considered a real word.

 

[Spirithound]

(2) On being created homosexual.

What I am in my original constitution as a person has always-already been given to me by God (Schindler).

If you believe that the created order reflects in any sense the will of a Creator, then homosexuals are created as such. How should such a person go about being human?

This point assumes that homosexuality actually is present in that person’s original constitution. Are there any studies to back this up?

Furthermore, the “original constitution” point implies that all manner of birth defects are God’s positive will, and thus are the best situation for those persons. If, however, birth defects and homosexuality are not part of God’s positive will, but only his permissive will, then the person thusly afflicted must, in a certain sense, work against their given nature to “go about being human”.

 

[djeter]

This point assumes that homosexuality actually is present in that person’s original constitution. Are there any studies to back this up?

Furthermore, the “original constitution” point implies that all manner of birth defects are God’s positive will, and thus are the best situation for those persons. If, however, birth defects and homosexuality are not part of God’s positive will, but only his permissive will, then the person thusly afflicted must, in a certain sense, work against their given nature to “go about being human”.

Excellent points all, Spirithound. Thanks for engaging.

dj

 

[Spirithound]

I’m happy to engage.

(1) Natural-born intersex individuals are a standing refutation of any anthropology which requires of necessity that all human beings are physically either male or female. The existence of these intersex persons, and those which psychology recognizes as suffering from gender dysphoria (including transsexuals) would also indicate that the connection between biological sex and psychological sex may not be a necessary one. To put it bluntly, the human race does not consist simply of persons who are straightforwardly either male or female, whether biologically, psychologically, or (by extension) spiritually.

Disclaimer: My Master’s degree is in linguistics, not biology. I can offer some insights, perhaps direction for research, but probably no real answers.

I recall hearing that the male and female reproductive systems are actually the same system, but having undergone different development over the gestation. So the testicles correspond with the ovaries, and the penis corresponds with the vagina. For this reason, I am curious as to how a person could have both a penis and a vagina (and hopefully someone can correct me if this is not what is meant by “intersex”). Could the answer be a chimera? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)
If so, then that person might not be properly thought of as “one person”. That would require further examination.

If we can affirm that intersexuality is an aberration, we can dismiss it from this discussion since we do not form philosophical norms from aberrance.

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The male-female duality can therefore not be fundamentally and essentially bound up with the existence of the human person as an embodied soul. And the article specifically admits this: the fact that man is a ‘body’ belongs more deeply to the structure of the personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female or, I would add, both or neither (John Paul II); the sexual differentiation of mankind into man and woman is much more than a purely biological fact for the purpose of procreation but unconnected with what is truly human in mankind (Ratzinger).

This paragraph certainly does some injustice to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Yes, he considers it most fundamental to the human person that he be a body, but the very next thing he discusses is how the man, Adam, was in solitude in two ways. First, from the animals, that is, that no animal could function as a suitable helpmate for him, and secondly, deriving from the first, he was without a woman to be in relationship to. Just as the Trinity is relationship, so humans are made to be in relationship, and there is none deeper than the sexual relationship.

Moreover, the scriptural tradition would lead us to posit that the male-female duality is unconnected not only with humanity as such, but with humans as members of the Body of Christ: In Christ there is neither male nor female (the Apostle Paul). To insist on making maleness and femaleness a primary issue in spiritual contexts is to cleave to the Old Covenant and reject the New Order of Christ.

I believe this is a mis-interpretation of that passage. That there is “neither male nor female” in the Body of Christ simply means that we are all equal. It does not affirm that we are all the same. It certainly ignores the physical reality which will be coming at The End.

 

[Spirithound]

(3) I personally believe that the male-female relation is indeed a uniquely privileged one. However, I do not believe that this privileged status requires the suppression or condemnation of relations which do not partake of that status.

This frames the question incorrectly. The privilege of heterosexual relationships does not require the suppression of homosexual relationships. Homosexual relationships must be suppressed because they are against God’s law. And please note that we are talking about sexual relationships, not merely friendship.

It is surely possible for the “love more wonderful than the love of a woman” (2 Samuel 1:26, Jerusalem Bible) to be an expression of and participation in the divine generosity, and it may be fruitful in the spiritual order even if it necessarily lacks “fruitfulness” in the physical order.

This is a terrible misinterpretation of that passage. David and Jonathan were not lovers. Homosexual relationships are not fruitful, even spiritually.

Many homosexual couples do, I suspect, form loving partnerships which do not essentially revolve around physical relations. It has often been pointed out that to make assumptions about the physical relationship between two people who have a life partnership may be quite inappropriate. However, recognizing that homosexual relations are not physically fruitful, it may nevertheless be possible to assert that they are permissible for those to whom heterosexual attraction is not available.

Conjecture.

It may not be ideal (from the Catholic idealist point of view), but it is better than not loving at all (which is to reject the divine itself),

This equivocates on the word “love”. Refraining from an unchaste love in no way rejects the divine.

or trying to sublimate one’s emotional energy and ending up diverting it into promiscuous or exploitative relations.

It is further conjecture that trying to sublimate one’s emotional energy will lead into a promiscuous or exploitative relationship. To posit a causal relationship reduces the human person with same-sex attractions to a mere animal, incapable of controlling himself. God forbids homosexual relationships, AND promiscuous relationships AND exploitative relationships. It is by no means acceptable to divert one’s energy from homosexual relationships to exploitation or promiscuity. God demands perfection.

(The apostle’s dictum “better to marry than burn” might thus be well applied to homosexuals.)

An overzealous apologist might be tempted to make a quick one-liner such as “And you think you’re not going to burn for practicing homosexual relations?” However, this glosses over the three criteria of a mortal sin, and I am trying to be more mature and not go for the cheap points at the expense of better theology.

It is the ideal natural order of things for people to be attracted to the other sex, but if they are not, they must do as best they can. The usual Catholic position is then to assert that “as best they can” is celibacy. This can be disputed. There are good reasons for regarding some sexual proclivities as aberrant, and enjoining repentance and celibacy (as with pedophilia, for example); but homosexuality is too prevalent, too psychologically normal, for this easy response to be appropriate. People who have been created homosexual (or transsexual, for that matter) should be free to be themselves, even as members incorporate in the mystical Body.

This paragraph really has no objective basis. How does the author come to the conclusion that homosexuality is too prevalent, and especially too psychologically normal for this response. For your research, I would suggest looking into the suicide rate of homosexuals, over the last couple decades. Be sure you read the studies with a critical eye, because you know your interlocutors will try to tear them apart.

Finally, we as Catholics affirm that persons with same-sex attractions are completely free to be themselves, however, we acknowledge that their attractions do not constitute a substantial part of themselves.

Even for faithful Catholics, arguing with dogma on the basis of conscience is surely not impossible.

Yes it is.

Even if you consider that homosexual acts are always sinful, they do not obscure or efface the human expression of generous divine love: although sin weighs down and profoundly skews the constitutively generous order of being, sin can never destroy the integrity of this order as naturally given (Schindler).

While it is possible for persons of the same sex, who are attracted to each other, to love each other with the divine love, this is not erotic love, and thus it excludes homosexual acts.