[Con’t]
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Again, it’s all about what the goal is. If the goal is to save people from their sinful lives, wouldn’t you want to avoid using the kind of language that will only push them further away? Or is it more about your “right” to say whatever you want to anyone you want and who cares how they feel? Or is it just about wanting to be the most vehement defender of church teaching?
We all have to decide what our goal is, and we’ll all have to answer for our choice someday. To me, it doesn’t seem worth the risk of losing even one soul to Christ just to be able to use a specific word that hurts others even if we don’t intend it to.
It would seem that the people who would be in a position and with the goal to save people from their sinful lives would be ministers or priests, shepherds of their flocks, groups like Courage and its counterpart organizations connected to other denominations, and individuals involved with same. I have yet to hear the word ‘abomination’ used by a priest in a Sunday Mass sermon, although I have heard an admonition or two for the faithful against fornication and homosexual relations, and not to materially cooperate with the promotion of same sex ‘marriage.’ I have not attended any non-Catholic service so I would not know how or what is preached in sermons elsewhere.
Family members and friends of same sex attracted adults could be in a position to influence against homosexual behavior but it is admittedly not easy. I agree with employing a generous dose of charity and a soft approach.
As for engaging others in discussion in Internet forums, unknown individuals without the benefit of face to face dynamics and ability to read non-verbal demeanor, I think it would depend on the nature of the forum. This is a Catholic forum, this sub-forum dealing specifically with moral theology issues. The only way exchange is possible is keyed text, with written style and method by the writer affecting readers in various and vicarious ways.
It is not surprising that the strong word “abomination” is hard to accept and considered very hurtful. When a same sex attracted reader sees and reads the word, a dark curtain falls. I imagine that the image conjured is an angry God of the Old Testament and the Leviticus verses specifying the act of a man with another man as with a woman as an abomination, worthy of death as punishment. Clear, uncompromising, unequivocal. Hurtful and seemingly antithetical to a loving God.
So when preachers and preachy folk use the word, in the pulpit or Internet, those using said word is thought to be angry, wanting to hurt and punish. I understand this. However, in reading many posts and threads, it seems that participants who admit to same sex attraction also object to and don’t even want to hear “disorder” which the Church uses. Pages and pages of why said word is not appropriate or not acceptable have been submitted by the religious and irreligious alike, and those who may and may not agree that acting on homosexual urge is a sin.
They also do not accept “unnatural,” looking for defenses among other species in the animal kingdom and in the natural world, (as if) imputing human will and capacity for reflection in the lower forms of animals.
As for “sinful” or “morally wrong,” the defiant tell us of course that that holds true only for faithful Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Muslims and other traditional people of faith. Even the kind and tolerant Dalai Lama instructed that homosexual sex is use of the wrong hole for purposes of love and sex. Dissidents under these religions are just that, dissidents. Homosexual practitioners wish to continue with their pet sin and not feel remorse for it.
In honesty, I don’t think there is a word where the same sex attracted or the majority thereof are prepared to accept. It would seem that what is preferred is no discussion at all takes place, because your comeback is invariably “remove the plank from your eyes first” which is really changing the topic. Because, too, the discussion would invariably lead to reasons that homosexual acts should be avoided. How does one argue without the use of even the most benign word such as “disorder” which does not necessarily bring up judgment on the part of the speaker or writer. The disorder when expressed or taken to its conclusion is not good.
Can you understand that your effort to remove the word “abomination” in describing homosexual acts in an objective discourse, which by the way is no invention of any living debater in this forum, comes across as closed minded, as well?
As I already raised, if one is not a current homosexual practitioner, why not set aside the baggage? If one is a current homosexual practitioner, I suppose, it would be harder to do, but I think a dispassionate discourse is not impossible, especially in an anonymous Internet forum. Must it always be a fight about feelings, or feelings getting hurt?
I think the OP bringing this thread for discussion in the Moral Theology subforum is just as appropriate when Catholic members are challenged in the Social Justice subforum to articulate the secular reasons why same sex ‘marriage’ is hurtful to society. If someone gets inappropriate or breaks forum rules, the moderators step in and corrects the situation with banning or suspension of posting privileges.
I don’t think many who don’t live with SSA realize how much negativity is thrown around about SSA. Trust me, we hear enough of it. There are plenty out there with SSA that are chaste and living according to the Church’s teachings. I especially have great respect for those who are only attracted to those of the same sex and choose to be celibate. Celibacy is a hard thing to accomplish. People keep on pushing the negative messages and forgetting the hope, love, and charity.