The "mythical homosexual person" revisited ... Catholic World Report

[at9009]

P.S. if anyone has a good way to respond to what I quoted, let me know.

One way to respond, I can think of is this. First, there is this false narrative of only two options: to either ignore Catholic teaching and seek a same sex partner for support and love or follow Catholic teaching and be single alone and basically living in a cold empty apartment without love. While it may be true that being a gay/ssa Catholic who adheres to church teaching may mean without romantic love, it does not mean without love entirely and does not mean a lone. (Here is a kinda good article relating to being single that should not be alone: washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/02/10/being-single-shouldnt-mean-being-alone/?utm_term=.1208fd9defe0.

Second, the person is right somewhat. We cannot make a vocation for gay/ssa people out of what they can’t and should not do. Eve Tushnet wrote a book (“Gay and Catholic”) with that as her thesis. Here is a quote during an interview where she talks a little about it:

I wrote the book to correct a mistake I made when I first became Catholic. At that time I thought what I was supposed to do, as a gay Christian, was work really hard to understand the theology behind Church teaching, and avoid sexual sin. That’s fine as far as it goes, but you can’t make a life out of intellect and abstinence. You need a vocation of “yes,” not a vocation of “no.” So the book is about making a fruitful, loving life: finding the “yes” that God is speaking to you.

Finally, with regard to denial. That is an aspect of Christianity where we are called to deny ourselves to follow Christ. We kind should expect to have some trials and pains this side of heaven. For one, it can be part of our sanctification process and we do live in a broken world. A thing to think about with this is how best to support gay/ssa Christians in adhering to a traditional sexual ethic when the times get hard. There is a general pattern of things that happen when a person in this situation loses faith. First, there is often this feeling of struggling alone. With this often leads to a situation where the victories against temptations begin to feel alone and an unending battle and the failures begin to feel inevitable. With little support, it often leads to a loss of faith and one leaving the faith altogether or it leads to total despair.

 

[StudentMI]

I remember that thread. Ugh. I don’t personally see the point in the linguistic argument over homosexual or gay and SSA. All the latter does is use a philosophically pleasing term that alienates those homosexual persons outside of a small group within the Church. It is also not mandated that we use the term SSA by the Church despite what users may think. One can be a faithful Catholic and use the term homosexual or gay. There’s no sin in such.

 

[at9009]

I remember that thread. Ugh. I don’t personally see the point in the linguistic argument over homosexual or gay and SSA. All the latter does is use a philosophically pleasing term that alienates those homosexual persons outside of a small group within the Church. It is also not mandated that we use the term SSA by the Church despite what users may think. One can be a faithful Catholic and use the term homosexual or gay. There’s no sin in such.

Seemingly not on here or at places like Crisis Magazine. Apparently it’s okay to assume the worst and exercise zero charity if someone dare uses the three letter word over the three letter acronym. In all honestly by using SSA, there is a substantial minority who definitely use it as a means to make gay people go away and disappear into the back of the pews because there is no interest in helping them with their crosses. Nope they just see ‘THE GAYS’ as the enemy and not people.

There are places like spiritiualfriendship and people like Preston Sprinkle and others who are much better to talk with.

 

[Peter_J]

Seemingly not on here or at places like Crisis Magazine.

I just pray that Catholic World Report isn’t turning into another Crisis.

 

[StudentMI]

Seemingly not on here or at places like Crisis Magazine. Apparently it’s okay to assume the worst and exercise zero charity if someone dare uses the three letter word over the three letter acronym. In all honestly by using SSA, there is a substantial minority who definitely use it as a means to make gay people go away and disappear into the back of the pews because there is no interest in helping them with their crosses. Nope they just see ‘THE GAYS’ as the enemy and not people.

There are places like spiritiualfriendship and people like Preston Sprinkle and others who are much better to talk with.

I’ve said it before, it’s a theologically pleasing term to some that erases a very present problem and doesn’t really convert anyone. People use it like the Church said it’s the only appropriate term and anyone who says gay or homosexual is anathema to the Church. Or they act like the Church said every homosexual person must join Courage or else. I hope this isn’t logically foolish, but I look at Courage like the Benedictines or something. Just because they exist doesn’t mean we can’t have the Franciscans or Dominicans.

Or a book that receives an Imprimatur. Just because it did doesn’t mean another book on the same subject but from a different perspective can’t be written and receive an Imprimatur. Courage doesn’t have to be the only organization that gay Catholics can join. We could make other ones.

But those who really push the term SSA and Courage are most often not homosexual or members themselves. They just do it to put the subject away. Not evangelizing anyone, sadly.

 

[at9009]

I hope this isn’t logically foolish, but I look at Courage like the Benedictines or something. Just because they exist doesn’t mean we can’t have the Franciscans or Dominicans.

I look at it pretty much the same way. It works for some, but it is **definitely **not the solution for everyone. Ron Belgau actually wrote a good article about this topic: spiritualfriendship.org/2015/09/20/spiritual-friendship-and-courage-on-the-need-for-variety-in-ministry/

 

[StudentMI]

I look at it pretty much the same way. It works for some, but it is **definitely **not the solution for everyone. Ron Belgau actually wrote a good article about this topic: spiritualfriendship.org/2015/09/20/spiritual-friendship-and-courage-on-the-need-for-variety-in-ministry/

I’ll check that site out. Thanks.

It just frustrates me that people do this, feel self-righteous, and then wonder why gay adults leave the Church. Why their kids don’t want anything to do with the Church. Rather than looking at their situation, why not examine what your parish and our Church did to minister to them?

 

[at9009]

I’ll check that site out. Thanks.

It just frustrates me that people do this, feel self-righteous, and then wonder why gay adults leave the Church. Why their kids don’t want anything to do with the Church. Rather than looking at their situation, why not examine what your parish and our Church did to minister to them?

A lot of it is they simply don’t see the individual with the cross. They see a political and social entity to do culture war battle with. If we kinda get sacrificed in the process, they don’t seem to notice unfortunately. I think people like Wesley Hill who wrote Washed and Waiting and Ron Belgau have done a lot to show the human side of the cross.

 

[Peter_J]

I’ve said it before, it’s a theologically pleasing term to some that erases a very present problem and doesn’t really convert anyone. People use it like the Church said it’s the only appropriate term and anyone who says gay or homosexual is anathema to the Church. Or they act like the Church said every homosexual person must join Courage or else. I hope this isn’t logically foolish, but I look at Courage like the Benedictines or something. Just because they exist doesn’t mean we can’t have the Franciscans or Dominicans.

Or a book that receives an Imprimatur. Just because it did doesn’t mean another book on the same subject but from a different perspective can’t be written and receive an Imprimatur. Courage doesn’t have to be the only organization that gay Catholics can join. We could make other ones.

But those who really push the term SSA and Courage are most often not homosexual or members themselves. They just do it to put the subject away. Not evangelizing anyone, sadly.

Not disagreeing with you exactly, but I’ve been catholic my whole life (a few decades) and I rarely hear anyone even say “SSA”. So perhaps it’s kind of a nonissue.

 

[Peter_J]

A lot of it is they simply don’t see the individual with the cross.

Just so. It’s much like when I discuss the topic of adoption with people who seem to have forgotten that we’re talking about a living breathing child.

 

[StudentMI]

Not disagreeing with you exactly, but I’ve been catholic my whole life (a few decades) and I rarely hear anyone even say “SSA”. So perhaps it’s kind of a nonissue.

Oh absolutely. But I have been part of Courage and heard it, and on here and in more conservative circles.

And don’t think I’m just blaming those who use SSA for this. The ‘do anything you want’ crowd who want gay marriages are part of it as well. The individual gay Catholic is being presented with two sides diametrically opposed to each other that both push perhaps some truths but also drastically distort the full, simple truth of the Church. And I’m not entirely including Courage in that as most groups I’ve heard of are more rational than the NARTH types that became infamous. Actually the group I did belong to basically broke up for a few years after a few conversion therapy fans took control and drove everyone away.

 

[JimG]

The subject of the CWR interview wrote a book called “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay.” But I get the impression that he would not call himself “straight” either. He seems to be opposed to using identifiers based on sexual feelings of any sort.

Some time back “First Things” magazine published an article titled “Against Heterosexuality.” It took the position that the terms heterosexual and homosexual were historically rather new inventions, less than 150 years old, and need not be used as primary human identifiers.

 

[StudentMI]

The subject of the CWR interview wrote a book called “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay.” But I get the impression that he would not call himself “straight” either. He seems to be opposed to using identifiers based on sexual feelings of any sort.

Some time back “First Things” magazine published an article titled “Against Heterosexuality.” It took the position that the terms heterosexual and homosexual were historically rather new inventions, less than 150 years old, and need not be used as primary human identifiers.

And no one would disagree. But people who use those terms rarely mean just because they’re gay they’re in a pride parade in a jockstrap. And those terms are common place now. Burying the Church’s head in the sand won’t do anything useful.

Alcoholic is also fairly new. So is bipolar, near sighted, obsessive compulsive, schizophrenic, etc.

 

[JimG]

And no one would disagree. But people who use those terms rarely mean just because they’re gay they’re in a pride parade in a jockstrap. And those terms are common place now. Burying the Church’s head in the sand won’t do anything useful.

Alcoholic is also fairly new. So is bipolar, near sighted, obsessive compulsive, schizophrenic, etc.

It’s true, there are a lot of descriptive terms that we use to describe ourselves and others. But it seems of fairly recent vintage that we consider descriptors based on sexual feelings to be so primary to our identity.

 

[at9009]

It’s true, there are a lot of descriptive terms that we use to describe ourselves and others. But it seems of fairly recent vintage that we consider descriptors based on sexual feelings to be so primary to our identity.

Neither of us is using it as our primary identifier. But to argue that the three letter acroynm is so much better then the three letter word gay is akin to telling a blind person they are not blind but suffering from lack of sight. It has absolutely no difference in meaning to mean so the semantic fight over it is essentially worthless. When other Catholics only fixate on how I am or if I am even allowed to talk at all about my cross and my experiences it is incredibly frustrating. Especially when a lot seem to want nothing more for us to not exist and use SSA as a means to essentially silence us. One can use SSA if they prefer that is fine. It doesn’t bother me. To mandate it is rather idiotic in my opinion especially offensive is to act as if Catholic teaching requires it.

The people at spritualfriendship and speakers like Ron Belgau and Eve Tushet work in a different way of outreach than courage and I personally seem them as far more effective and interested in figuring out how to live a celibate vocation in a world that devalues friendship and idolatrizes marriage (especially in many Christian circles)

 

[Peter_J]

The subject of the CWR interview wrote a book called “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay.” But I get the impression that he would not call himself “straight” either.

I think quite a lot of so-called ex-gay people will, if questioned carefully, say that they still are not “straight” and indeed fit most people’s definition of homosexual.

Actually, one of the few good things I can think to say about the group NARTH is that they make clear unambiguous claims about changing people from homosexual to heterosexual.