Lost the cultural debate on homosexuality

[Mirdath]

lol, I’m kinda glad to be an observer in this thread and see other people thinking the same as me.

I’ve been in three or four threads with him and nobody has disagreed to this extend… I was feeling a little bit erm…rejected?

I agree, people naturally want to understand themselves by talking with others… but I don’t wanna get involved in the thread though!

Take care, S

I’m actually kind of gladdened. I’ve butted heads with a lot of the people posting here in other threads on this topic and others. It’s nice to see we can come together and stand against the lunacy Eric’s arguing

(also known as, shoutouts to blessedtoo, Ryan L, Michael, and vern… hey guys )

 

[Abira]

It is such a relief to me to hear that there are other people who don’t agree with Other Eric. I was actually considering leaving this website for good, as I find those kind of views so upsetting and offensive. Thank you.

yeah, one of these conversations was my first topic here and it really upset me…I’m glad i persevered though,

S

 

[vern_humphrey]

It is such a relief to me to hear that there are other people who don’t agree with Other Eric. I was actually considering leaving this website for good, as I find those kind of views so upsetting and offensive. Thank you.

Some people talk merely to hear their heads rattle.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

There is a great deal of hate directed at Other Eric here. While I agree that reparitive therapy is not required by the church. Practicing chastity is required and chastity is not simply refraining from sex.

The hatred does not illumine the debate but is an attempt that homosexual lobbies use to shut down debate that homosexuality is not normative and homosexual actions are in fact sinful and grave matter.

As quick as posters here condemn Other Eric, are they so quick to condemn homosexual activity as an abomination, as perverse, as sinful and as grave matter?

While Other Eric is not teaching a requirement (reparative therapy) I do not see how it is opposed to Catholic teaching nor do I see how he is in his words intending hate toward those who struggle with this topic, particularly since he is trying to help them despite being scorned and calumniated in the extreme in this thread.

Pastoral care is needed on both sides, but to the extent that we hide the grave matter that threatens to destroy relationships with God we become complicit in that sin.

This is a very serious topic and calumniating other posters denigrates the severity of an issue where the public is convinced that sexual immorality, perversion and lust are not sins. So convinced, this same public shuts themselves away from the sacraments–and you know what that may mean if they die in such a state. So terrible a price just for sexual immorality?

If Other Eric is wrong in his theology, is he as wrong as the general public is about sexual immorality? Or is he in the wrong in lack of charity as his opponents in this thread who roundly condemn him and not his arguments as they smiley each other?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

You’ll forgive me, but I find this post of yours confused. As I read it, you perceived something wrong about you because you did not know any people with same sex attractions and because you did not hate such people. Perhaps you meant to say that you thought something was wrong with you because you had same-sex attractions of your own? Then you began to feel better because you heard a psychiatrist speak on the homosexual issue and assumed what he said to be true since other psychiatrists said the same thing. From this ***I am supposed to glean what the “real subject” is ***and then “stop.”

I cannot respond to you until I have a better idea of what it is that you are trying to say.

So take a shot at it, most likely it is the subject of your most persistent thoughts.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

There is a great deal of hate directed at ----------- here. While I agree that reparitive therapy is not required by the church. Practicing chastity is required and chastity is not simply refraining from sex.

The hatred does not illumine the debate but is an attempt that homosexual lobbies use to shut down debate that homosexuality is not normative and homosexual actions are in fact sinful and grave matter.

As quick as posters here condemn Other Eric, are they so quick to condemn homosexual activity as an abomination, as perverse, as sinful and as grave matter?

***While --------- is not teaching a requirement (reparative therapy) I do not see how it is opposed to Catholic teaching ***nor do I see how he is in his words intending hate toward those who struggle with this topic, particularly since he is trying to help them despite being scorned and calumniated in the extreme in this thread.

Pastoral care is needed on both sides, but to the extent that we hide the grave matter that threatens to destroy relationships with God we become complicit in that sin.

This is a very serious topic and calumniating other posters denigrates the severity of an issue where the public is convinced that sexual immorality, perversion and lust are not sins. So convinced, this same public shuts themselves away from the sacraments–and you know what that may mean if they die in such a state. So terrible a price just for sexual immorality?

If ----------- is wrong in his theology, is he as wrong as the general public is about sexual immorality? Or is he in the wrong in lack of charity as his opponents in this thread who roundly condemn him and not his arguments as they smiley each other?

Michael
I appreciate your intent however I have simply lived to long to ever under any circumstance blanket a command for “reparative therapy”. In fact I tell you such is joy to the devil. Let me ask you. “Can you go to such a therapy and live happily ever after as a homosexual?” If not then who are you to treat your neighbor as such? (Reference Matthew 22:39) And yet worse is. If we can switch our attraction then do you believe such to be outside of Natural Law or would you simply reject the existence of Natural Law?

 

[kmabba]

Reparative therapy is a joke that simply does not work. One could suggest, and have Biblical basis for it, that gays, just as straight unmarrieds are to be chaste in terms of their station in life. But to suggest that some quasi-therapy can change a person’s fundamental genetic make-up or their personality is simply foolish. No one goes into therapy gay and comes out the other end straight. Some may come out wishing they could be straight and force themselves to behave that way and according to several reports, others are bullied into simply renouncing their homosexuality But who they are and what they are has already been pre-determined. The theory that people choose to be gay has been debunked several times in different research studies. Recent genome research has suggested that homosexuality may be due to genetics. And considering the stigmatization, indignities, lonely isolation and hate crimes gays experience, why would anyone choose to suffer that? It may be relatively safe to be out in some communities such as NYC or LA since there’s alot of support just in numbers. But what about Laramie, Wyoming or anywhere in smalltown USA?

And I don’t think anyone here is spewing hatred towards anyone. Some are ignorant of the facts and realities surrounding homosexuality. Others are shocked, as they should be, about some of the outrageous comments posted by supposed Christians and Catholics. I do agree that the use of icons does tend to trivialize their comments but that does not diminish their comments if you look past it. Posted opinions reflect the character of the one posting.

As for whether homosexuality is a normative practice, as a former primatologist I can assure you that there are numerous sitings of such behavior throughout the animal kingdom in situ. There are even documented pairings that have been observed who behave as thought they are mated. There was a recent report in the news of 2 penguins I believe.

Regarding the Church’s teaching about this issue, it is entirely appropriate for the gay individual to seek pastoral counseling in order to seek an answer for their spiritual dilemma. However, that is assuming that such counseling will not be heavy-handed and judgemental which is all too often hard to find. Once fire and brimstone have been entered into the discussion, people run away in fear. But fear won’t solve their problems and the rigidity of the high muckty-mucks in the Church won’t help the Church to develop loving and compassionate outreaches.

Just as with so many other modern-day issues which confront Rome, they must find a compassionate approach rather than simply falling back solely on pronouncements and edicts of Church teaching or Biblical references. To say it’s an abomination is fine but dismissing any further discussion to help those who are truly in a quandry not of their making is hardly pastoral or Christian. Look to Jesus’ behavior regarding the Samaritan woman or the one with the hemorraghing. WWJD should always be one’s frame of reference whenever approaching those who are stigmatized, marginalized, or in any other manner unaccepted by the status quo.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The Kharisma of Infallibility does not extend to matters of science. The Church can no more dictate a course of treatment for SSA than it can for cancer or heart disease.

The Church can and does pronounce homosexual acts as inherently disordered and call for those with SSA to be chaste.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

It does follow that in order to strive for perfection our sexuality must be appropriately oriented as Chastity subsumes sexuality, it does not obliterate sexuality. The call for chastity must by the definition of chastity assume an attempt to deal with one’s sexuality correctly.
If chastity is the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.
2.
and homosexuality is as the Catechism presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 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.

then the call to perfection in the virtue of chastity means an attempt (which does not include self hatred, rejection of the heart or hate) by the person suffering disorder to move toward healing the disorder.

I don’t know what reparative theory is and on a personal level I do not trust the medical community since the Terry Schiavo case on matters regarding our relationship with God. Who I do trust is the Church founded by Christ explicitly and to that extent Other Eric is spot on in so far as there is a clear call to perfection in Christianity and that requires an attempt at healing.

---

One bad thing is this idea that we should despair of healing or that healing requires rejection of “who” we are. We are in the image of God and created to love, a love that heals. We are not just our sexuality, nor are we our disordered tendencies. Who we really are we will know in heaven, but we still have to strive for that perfection. It seems to me a very evil thing to intimate one cannot change to conform with the virtue of chastity. It is against hope and against the mercy of Christ. I don’t know how to type out what a serious spiritual danger such an attitude is. Our whole journey rests entirely on Christ’s mercy: Everything–His mercy He won for us on the cross, His mercy He extends to us. If you tell someone they cannot change it is like saying they cannot appeal to Christ’s mercy. While we breathe we can appeal to Christ for mercy and grace.

---

We are more than just our sexuality, though our sexuality is a component of us, not us its component. I really think this conversation is too narrow to just be SSA. We are starting with the disorder and a better conversation would be to start with the virtue.

These ideas are in relation to all sexual disorders. I am a prodigal son. I was in the whole secular world and by the time I came back do you think I could change my behaviour on my own that I had bought into for years? Look at the daily threads on pornography etcetera. But I am here to witness that prayer works. It does not obliterate free will, but prayer works.

Prayer heals and Mary intercedes. This is the truth. I am serious as a heart attack.

You think your disorder is more powerful than the Eucharist? You are wrong, wrong, wrong. And to encourage people to simply accept who they are and not to turn to the Lord for grace in their fight with their fallen natures is not a thing I want to do.

I hope this came through all right. I have some personal experience here andI wanted to share, but I don’t want to add to heat without at least adding some light.

May God have mercy on all of us in all our struggles and I pray we all present our problems to Him and praise Him for His goodness.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The Church does not mandate “therapy” for SSA – it mandates prayer and a striving toward perfection for us all.

You think your disorder is more powerful than the Eucharist?

What is “my” disorder?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

The Church does not mandate “therapy” for SSA – it mandates prayer and a striving toward perfection for us all.

What is “my” disorder?

I don;t know. It was a general “you” meaning me too. The point was there is no disorder more powerful than Him.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I don;t know. It was a general “you” meaning me too. The point was there is no disorder more powerful than Him.

Very true – which is why I’m puzzled at the length of this thread. Homosexuals are called to chastity. Alcoholics are called to sobiety. The Church has spoken – very clearly --through the Catechism.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Reparative therapy is a joke that simply does not work. One could suggest, and have Biblical basis for it, that gays, just as straight unmarrieds are to be chaste in terms of their station in life. But to suggest that some quasi-therapy can change a person’s fundamental genetic make-up or their personality is simply foolish. No one goes into therapy gay and comes out the other end straight. Some may come out wishing they could be straight and force themselves to behave that way and according to several reports, others are bullied into simply renouncing their homosexuality But who they are and what they are has already been pre-determined. The theory that people choose to be gay has been debunked several times in different research studies. Recent genome research has suggested that homosexuality may be due to genetics. And considering the stigmatization, indignities, lonely isolation and hate crimes gays experience, why would anyone choose to suffer that? It may be relatively safe to be out in some communities such as NYC or LA since there’s alot of support just in numbers. But what about Laramie, Wyoming or anywhere in smalltown USA?

No unjust discrimination should be tolerated.

The argument is a restatement of the idea that sexuality is immutable and therefore disordered sexuality is immutable. Such a statement is incompatible with Christianity.

If sin enslaves, God frees. When we conform our hearts to His we are not bound to the Law because we naturally follow the law. Christians are called to this state. Your statements seem to indicate that this disorder trumps St. Paul’s theology. I gotta go with St. Paul.

The only mechanism I know for getting to this state (which I am not in either) is to pick up your cross and follow Him.

It seems to me and I could be wrong-- You are telling people with the disorder that its genetically predetermined and therefore their hearts can never rise above the legalistic state. This teaching is incompatible with Christianity and my own experiences with alcoholism (admittedly analogies are imperfect, but the crux is there)

As for whether homosexuality is a normative practice, as a former primatologist I can assure you that there are numerous sitings of such behavior throughout the animal kingdom in situ. There are even documented pairings that have been observed who behave as thought they are mated. There was a recent report in the news of 2 penguins I believe.

Animals are part of this fallen world too. Lambs don’t go lying down with lions unless they wanna be lion chow.

Regarding the Church’s teaching about this issue, it is entirely appropriate for the gay individual to seek pastoral counseling in order to seek an answer for their spiritual dilemma. However, that is assuming that such counseling will not be heavy-handed and judgemental which is all too often hard to find. Once fire and brimstone have been entered into the discussion, people run away in fear. But fear won’t solve their problems and the rigidity of the high muckty-mucks in the Church won’t help the Church to develop loving and compassionate outreaches.

Admonishing your brother is a spiritual work of mercy, but it should not be an occasion of fear. That sounds more like a secular view of our Church. I mean that’s not what I got from Pope JPII or Pope Benedict.

If fear is the assumption a lot of pastoral care will be fruitful to correct the misunderstanding that Christianity is not about fear of hell or fear of the devil but fear of the Lord, fear that we should displease Him, not for punishment’s sake but that someone so holy so good loves us so much we should be afraid of ever displeasing Him Whom we should so rightly adore.

Just as with so many other modern-day issues which confront Rome, they must find a compassionate approach rather than simply falling back solely on pronouncements and edicts of Church teaching or Biblical references. To say it’s an abomination is fine but dismissing any further discussion to help those who are truly in a quandry not of their making is hardly pastoral or Christian. Look to Jesus’ behavior regarding the Samaritan woman or the one with the hemorraghing.

Modern day issue? First thing fallen man did was sew up some fig leaves.

WWJD should always be one’s frame of reference whenever approaching those who are stigmatized, marginalized, or in any other manner unaccepted by the status quo.

See my ealier comment WWMD works for me and I think Jesus would like that I mean I am not qualified to get a whip and start clearing out the wrongdoers from the church even if it is bingo night

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Very true – which is why I’m puzzled at the length of this thread. Homosexuals are called to chastity. Alcoholics are called to sobiety. The Church has spoken – very clearly --through the Catechism.

It has but it could use a bullhorn in regards to the virtue of chastity. This age seems to reject chastity as a virtue.

 

[kmabba]

Oh I agree whole-heartedly that we must all pick up our crosses and follow. And we cannot be redeemed in any way other than our Savior. We can try to conform our hearts to his as much as we can but I have yet to hear from anyone that he/she has reached Christhood and remained there daily. But yes it is what we should strive for.

Sexuality issues have existed all along that’s true but they were not paraded around for all to see. Neither was drug addiction nor alcoholism nor birth control nor abortion nor out of wedlock babies. All of these were dirty little secrets kept well out sight and mind. These have become major cultural issues in the past 40 or 50 years.The Church works within the midst of a culture and while the Church’s teachings never change how they are presented and implemented may. I am addressing 21st century America and any heavy-handed, lay down the law, do it because I said so does not work here today. Have you noticed Americans have an aversion to authority? I was suggesting the Church needs to find better ways to get her teachings across. I believe to a large extent that was what Jesus did in his ministry, showing the Pharisees that their way (the Law) was not God’s way (gentle forgiveness). I am not suggesting the Church change its teachings even though they have from time to time. I am suggesting they change the means by which they apply them in the same way I do in my classroom. Many issues today are the same as yesterday but due to culture changes we need to take different approaches to be successful. That’s what I was suggesting.

If a trait in life is rooted in the genes then no, the individual cannot rise above that no matter what the law says. If a child carries the active gene for sickle cell anemia then that child will be afflicted with that disease no matter what the institutional Church says.Can that child be changed? Yes, through divine intervention, not human. However, that change is in the physical body not the personality or nature. But can the homosexual be changed by divine intervention? Yes, and so can the heterosexual for that matter.

It is interesting that you bring up alcoholism, a disease with known genetic links. For my husband, who’s father’s family were all alcoholics, he too stood a good chance of becoming alcoholic.Living at home together he didn’t drink.But after entering the Navy several years later, with the cultural pressures brought on by his buddies and without me there to ride shotgun for him, he fell. We split up because he saw my oversight as oppressive. His culture was telling him he wasn’t a man because he didn’t drink beer and because he was led around by the nose by his wife.

He became an alcoholic, was forced into AA by the Navy and sobered up. But once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. Behavior modification works but it is not a cure.You’ve stood your ground and that’s good for you. He didn’t. Drug addicts, alcoholics, are not cured but they learn ways to cope and make good decisions.

Considering America is a highly secularized society and although the majority say they believe in God, most of that majority do not attend any church. So the Church cannot reach these people the good old-fashioned way. It has to figure out how to present itself in light of the fact that few people even know about its teachings. And in 21st century America, do you really expect them to bow to some institutional authority, especially one the media keeps telling us is irrelevant for today’s society? I think the issue isn’t relevancy, it’s how to present its message in a manner that is culturally

It is one thing to seek to effect a change in behavior and quite another to club someone over the head with how bad they are. They may be sinners but as you said, God’s grace can change them around. But the so-called reparative counseling often clobbers them with how sinful (read deviant) they are. That approach just doesn’t carry the same effect it did 100 years ago in American society. The goal is to help them lead a better life within the teachings of God. That requires sensitivity to cultural realities.

I am not at all interested in WWMD nor even what I would do. I am only interested in discerning WWJD. That is the standard I live by and Jesus’ acts are very well documented by the Bible. And my comment regarding others in the animal kingdom was put forth to demonstrate this is not something that occurs solely among humans. Certainly a penguin does not make the moral decision, "I think I’ll be a gay penguin!’ And even if it did, what are the odds that he/she would find another gay penguin in the same group? Sexuality is presumably the province solely of the human being; all the lower animals rely on reproductive instinct. Disordered? Like certain cancers? Psychological? Physiological? Perhaps. Genetic? Probably.

 

[Other_Eric]

Other Eric,

Just briefly I think the problem you’re having making your case is that you don’t have anything you can quote from the Church which point-blank says that conversion therapy is required for homosexuals.

You obviously believe that, by implication, conversion therapy is required. But if that is so, isn’t it odd that nowhere has this requirement you believe exists ever been plainly stipulated by the Church?

It would be foolish to refuse antibiotics in the treatment of an infection on the grounds that the Holy See has not infallibly approved this medication or this particular course of treatment. A doctor might trot out all the verses from the Catechism, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas about how such a refusal would gravely contradict the just and natural love of self man is meant to have. Still, one might reply that if everything the Church teaches is strictly construed, that there is no infallible command to love oneself and thus no moral obligation to heal one’s own body. If one is going to embrace a rather legalistic interpretation of the Catechism, one might quite easily turn the entire ethic of one’s self-regard into an embrace of decay rather than eternal life.

In the same way it is uncharitable in the extreme to denigrate or to withhold from individuals with same-sex attractions the therapeutic aid that could very well help them deal with their situation on the grounds that the Church has not specifically embraced it. It is a gross underestimation of such people and an insult to their human dignity to assume that the healing of their sexuality is eternally beyond them.

Is reparative therapy the only way one may experience the healing of one’s sexuality? Perhaps it is not. I am certainly open to the possibility that there are other methods of affecting the same end. This, however, does not impeach the reality that the sexuality in one with same-sex attractions must be healed in order for the practice of chastity to become possible. I happen to prefer reparative therapy because it has a solid psychological foundation and shows the greatest promise. If, however, someone were to come out with some sort of pill or genetic therapy that eliminated same-sex attractions, I would quickly embrace that as well. My point is that it does not matter how one heals one’s sexuality but it does matter that one heals it.

 

[blessedtoo]

While Other Eric is not teaching a requirement (reparative therapy) I do not see how it is opposed to Catholic teaching nor do I see how he is in his words intending hate toward those who struggle with this topic, particularly since he is trying to help them despite being scorned and calumniated in the extreme in this thread.

Michael, my brother, I don’t know if you’ve read this entire thread or if you’ve visited other threads with the same theme, but the concept that our brother, OtherEric continues to push is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for someone with SSA to achieve chastity. And that is not in keeping with Church teaching. In addition, there are several CATHOLIC members on CAF who are SSA and are living chastely. They have consistenty reiterated that their lives are peaceful and faithful to Christ. And yet our relentless friend continues to insist that they are in error. This is my objection. This concept, which he is presenting as Catholic teaching, is Eric’s personal opinion and I believe, very hurtful and misleading to folks who are walking with Christ and working toward the goal of “integration”.

These folks are also very much aware that should they need to avail themselves of therapy, they can and and are encouraged to by the Church. But to state they are somehow incapable of achieving chastity through means such as prayer and trust in God is brutally unfair.

BTW: We all love Eric here. How on earth did you read hate in our frustration?

 

[blessedtoo]

Is reparative therapy the only way one may experience the healing of one’s sexuality? Perhaps it is not. I am certainly open to the possibility that there are other methods of affecting the same end. This, however, does not impeach the reality that the sexuality in one with same-sex attractions must be healed in order for the practice of chastity to become possible. **I happen to prefer **reparative therapy because it has a solid psychological foundation and shows the greatest promise. If, however, someone were to come out with some sort of pill or genetic therapy that eliminated same-sex attractions, I would quickly embrace that as well. My point is that it does not matter how one heals one’s sexuality but it does matter that one heals it.

Wait!!! Is it possible that we may have all reached something sort of like a common ground???

I would ask you to entertain the possibility that a person with SSA can heal through prayer, devotions, practicing chastity and good behavior, and trust in God’s grace.

God bless, OtherEric.

 

[Other_Eric]

Wait!!! Is it possible that we may have all reached something sort of like a common ground???

I would ask you to entertain the possibility that a person with SSA can heal through prayer, devotions, practicing chastity and good behavior, and trust in God’s grace.

God bless, OtherEric.

Common ground we may have, but it is rather limited. Since I continue to maintain that the practice of chastity compels the healing of the sexuality, the decision of one with same-sex attractions not to pursue healing through reparative therapy is especially grave. While I do not deny that healing may be possible through private prayer and devotions, in a practical sense I think that those things, when done to the exclusion of professional assistance, are a gateway to horrific error. In the same way that I would not deny to a child that there is a possibility that Christ may heal his illness supernaturally, I would never suggest that the child discontinue taking his medication in anticipation of that sort of intervention.

 

[blessedtoo]

While I do not deny that healing may be possible through private prayer and devotions, in a practical sense I think that those things, when done to the exclusion of professional assistance, are a gateway to horrific error.

Well, let me ask you then how do you think folks handled this issue in the year 1430 AD, before “therapy” existed?