``Where the
Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of
Antioch, 1st c. A.D
Dealing With Homosexuality
(Please note: This page is for adults only)
Homosexuality is not a sin.
Yes, you read that correctly. Homosexuality is not a sin, and the
Church doesn't teach otherwise. You see, homosexuality is a disorder,
no
more a sin in se than
clinical depression or bipolar disorder. What is sinful is sexually acting on homosexual desires. This
is straight out of the Catechism, which reads:
2357
Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who
experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons
of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the
centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains
largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents
homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always
declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." 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.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual
tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively
disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted
with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust
discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are
called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are
Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the
difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of
self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of
disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and
should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
The inclination is disordered; homosexual acts are sinful. This should be very easy to
comprehend, but some of the discourse on the topic going on out there
in certain religious circles reflects confusion or, at least, a sloppy
and dangerous use of language.
Then, too, and sadly, in over-reaction to the evil doings of
homosexualist
activists (not all of whom are homosexual, and not all homosexuals are
Leftist activists), a backlash mentality exists in some people, an
inordinate anger that is taken out on all those who suffer from
homosexuality, no matter their committment to living chaste lives. This
anger makes them prone to lashing out, leads them to such things as
referring to all homosexuals, active
or not, as "sodomites," and closes their hearts to even trying to truly empathize with the
struggles homosexuals endure. This sort of attitude is wrong and
extremely unhelpful and dangerous. It drives homosexuals away from
Christ when it is He they need more than anything.
About
Homosexuality
There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that there is a "gay gene"
that causes homosexuality (I, myself, personally know of a set of
identical twins, one of whom is heterosexual while the other is
homosexual). Even a strictly Darwinian view of life should make it
clear that homosexuality is not something that would be sexually
selected for, at least not directly, thereby making it less likely for
a homosexual to pass on
his genetic material. No, a homosexual is not "born that way," contrary
to what Lady
Gaga sings.
On the other hand, homosexuals do
not choose to become attracted to members of their own sex. A
false dichotomy exists that's based on the idea that either
homosexuality is
genetic in origin or it's a
choice. But that is a fallacy, a matter of sloppy thinking.
There's no gene that causes people to love liver and onions either, but
one either likes the taste of that dish, or one doesn't, with no
"choice" involved. It is what it is.
There may be genetic and/or hormonal influences
in the origins of
homosexuality, however; imagine a young
boy whose genetic make-up causes him to be of a sensitive temperament, possibly an artistic
type who's not interested in or not talented at traditionally
masculine pursuits, a personality type that can often cause him to be
mocked, bullied, and ostracized by others of his sex. Then imagine that
boy
being
raised in a family with a dominant mother, and either a more passive,
submissive father, an emotionally cold and distant father, an outright
abusive father, or a completely absent father -- a dynamic that doesn't
give the boy what he needs in order to identify with
that father and, hence, the masculine world, a problem that is later
eroticized, resulting in homosexuality. That sort of family
dynamic is very common, and while one son of such a family might end up
heterosexual, the son with the sort of personality just described, a
personality that is influenced by
his genetics and the hormones he received in utero, might turn out to be
homosexual.
There's also the matter of sexual abuse as a potential cause or
influence in the formation of a homosexual orientation. Homosexuals are
much more
likely to have a history of having been sexually abused than
non-homosexuals. From a study called, "Comparative data of childhood
and adolescence molestation in heterosexual and homosexual persons,"
found in the October 2001 edition of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, my
emphasis:
In research with
942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported
a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did
heterosexual men and women. Forty-six
percent of the homosexual men in
contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual
molestation. Twenty-two percent
of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual
women reported homosexual molestation.
A homosexual doesn't choose his personality inclinations or the family
dynamics that shaped his upbpringing, nor did he choose to be abused if
he was. But these sorts of phenomena can influence a child such that he
or she comes to not identify with the sex he or she (henceforth simply
"he") was born into. It is, in part, this
failure to fully idenfity with one's own sex,
and the eroticizing of the struggle to do so, that is the basis
of homosexuality.
This is a condition that should break our hearts and cause us to want
to reach out to these men and women! They are broken, as all of
us are in different ways, and are so very much in
need of the Divine Physician to be healed! They need Jesus Christ, as
we all do, and rhetoric that's marked by nasty language drives so many
of them away from Him! I am very concerned and angry about how a
(thankfully small) sub-set of my co-religionists deals with and talks
about this
issue, and because of the plague of homes led by single mothers, with
no fathers around, all coupled with the normalization of homosexual
sex, I envision that we'll have many, many more people in
the future who'll struggle with same sex attraction. I don't
want a single one of these precious souls to be lost due to lack of
charity on the part of those who are called to be the most charitable
of all!
Scylla and
Charybdis
Greco-Roman mythology tells the tale of two monsters who lived in the
Straits of Messina, the area of the Mediterranean that separates Italy
from Sicily. One was Scylla, seen in the natural world as an
outcropping of dangerous rock; the other was Charybdis, envisioned as a
whirlpool by sailors. When seamen navigated this area, they had to be
careful to avoid the rocks and the whirlpool lest they perish, and this
gives us an analogy for what we, as Catholics must do when it comes to
dealing with the matter of homosexuality.
Scylla: Normalizing
Homosexuality and Condoning Homosexual Sex
On
the one side, there are those who try to normalize homosexuality, that
is, who try to treat homosexuality as non-disordered. Their first great
triumph was to get homosexuality removed from the DSM-III in 1973. The
"DSM-III" is an earlier incarnation of the "Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual," the book used by mental health clinicians to make consistent
psychiatric diagnoses (as of this writing, the 5th edition is in use,
i.e., the "DSM-V"). The removal of homosexuality from the catalogue of
psychological disorders was very controversial and the result of
political lobbying. You can read
about it here1 (pdf file). The take-away point:
In his scholarly
analysis of the American Psychiatric Association’s reversal of the
diagnostic classification of homosexuality, Ronald Bayer (1981) states:
“the result was not a conclusion based upon an approximation of the
scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was instead an action
demanded by the ideological temper of the times” (p. 3-4).
These attempts to normalize homosexuality and to get the world to see
homosexual sex as just a "lifestyle choice" have been incredibly
successful (to read how it happened, see this remarkable article "The Books Were a Front for the Porn").
In a mere few decades, we've gone from a society which
correctly understood homosexuality to be a disorder, to one in which
homosexual "marriage" is the law of the land. Incredible! And
dangerous. Active
homosexuals, as a group (two
very important qualifications) live lives that are brutal, sickly, and
short. Homosexuals are at a much higher risk of having other mental
disorders,
engaging in suicidal ideation, substance abuse, and self-harm than are
non-homosexuals.2One out
of every five homosexual men in the United States is infected
with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and half of them are unaware
they're infected.3 The domestic lives of bisexuals and
homosexuals tend much more often than those of heterosexuals to be
marked by violence. From an Atlantic Monthly article4:
In 2013, the CDC
released the results of a 2010 study on victimization by sexual
orientation, and admitted that “little is known about the national
prevalence of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking
among lesbian, gay, and bisexual women and men in the United States.”
The report found that bisexual women had an overwhelming prevalence of
violent partners in their lives: 75 percent had been with a violent
partner, as opposed to 46 percent of lesbian women and 43 percent of
straight women. For bisexual men, that number was 47 percent. For gay
men, it was 40 percent, and 21 percent for straight men.
Most shockingly, a 1997 study, "Modelling the impact of HIV disease on
mortality in gay and bisexual men," published in the "International
Journal of Epidemiology," relates that homosexual men have lifespans
that are typically much, much shorter than those of heterosexual men.
From the abstract, my emphasis:
In a major
Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual
men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of
mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men
currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday.
Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre
are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by
all men in Canada in the year 1871.
It's astounding that in a society that's hysterical about the health
effects of tobacco use, homosexual sex is given a pass, isn't it?
Then there's the "gay lifestyle" -- which, mind you, and please
understand this, not all homosexuals -- active or not -- engage in. But
many, many do. And that "lifestyle" is marked by a frantic sort of
promiscuity, a sexual degradation born of self-hatred -- and that
results in even more self-hatred. In the male homosexual world, it's
frantic not only because it's born of testosterone-driven male
sexuality and like-minded partners, but because it's fueled by very
serious neuroses, a desperate need for masculine affirmation, for
acceptance by other men.
Researchers Alan P. Bell, a psychologist, and Martin S. Weinberg, a
sociologist, in their book, "Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity
Among Men and Women," published in 1978, report that 83% of the
homosexual men they surveyed estimated that they'd had had sex with 50
or more partners. 43% of their respondents put their number at 500 or
more partners. And 28% -- more than one out of every four -- claimed to
have had sex with 1,000 or more partners. 70% of them said that over
half of their sexual encounters were with strangers in "one-night
stands." Even those who claim to be "married" tend to have "open
relationships." A New York Times article4 reveals this:
New research at
San Francisco State University reveals just how common open
relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay
Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50
percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with
the knowledge and approval of their partners.
And those are just the couples who've consciously arranged to have open
"marriages," never mind those who don't have such an arrangement but
have extra-"marital" sex anyway.
This sort of behavior leads to disease -- HIV-AIDS, monkeypox,
syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, human papillomavirus, herpes,
shigellosis, giardiasis, amebiasis, campylobacteriosis,
cryptosporidiosis, hepatitis B and
C, increased risk of anal cancer, etc. And in addition to pathogens are
medical conditions that arise
-- hemorrhoids, anal fissures, fecal incontinence, rectal
prolapse, etc. These sorts of diseases and conditions are highly
prevalent
in "the gay community" and are just one of the reasons why homosexual
sex was illegal for so long, and why LGBT activism that goes beyond
simply affirming the human dignity of those with same sex attraction
and condones homosexual sex is against good social order.
No, the not un-common (but, again, not
universal, even for active homosexuals) "gay lifestyle" is certainly
not just one healthy choice
among many; it is a death wish come to life. It's horribly, tragically
sad. And it is sinful, with not just temporal, but eternal
consequences. Those who attempt to normalize homosexuality and, worse,
condone homosexual sex are the "Scylla" we must radically avoid.
Charybdis:
Overreaction and Hatred
In
reaction to these realities, some Christians become filled with
disgust, and very understandably so. The stereotypical "homosexual
lifestyle" is disgusting.
Seeing those sorts of behaviors as disgusting is a sensible, natural,
gut-level reaction, but even more importantly, it's how we are called
to see such things. They are sins. They separate us from God, and
separation from God is death. Those of us with children or
grandchildren have an additional layer of concern; we don't want our
children to have to grow up in a world in which such behaviors are seen
as non-sinful and perfectly OK.
Treating homosexuals qua
homosexuals as disgusting is an entirely different matter, however. Too
often people hear someone admit to being a homosexual, and then proceed
to make a myriad of assumptions -- e.g., that he's an active
homosexual;
that, if active, he is unrepentant and thinks that that sin is OK; that
he's promiscuous; that he engages in anal sex; that he condones gay
"marriage"; that he's involved with the stereotypical "gay lifestyle"
just
described; that he's a radical Leftist; that he hates the Church,
etc. To do this is tragically wrong.
An especially hideous example of this sort of reaction can be seen in
the actions of members of the Westboro Baptist "Church," a group that
infamously pickets the funerals of American soldiers and carries signs
reading "God Hates Fags!" No, God most definitely does not "hate fags";
He wants for homosexuals to live lives of chastity (as we're all
commanded to do) and to come to Him so they can have eternal life.
Hatred, scapegoating, judgmentalism, and inordinate anger are the
Charybdis we need to keep ourselves safe from.
The Path Between
Scylla and Chaybdis
Between that sort of ugliness and the
attitudes of the secular world, including those of "progressive"
so-called "Christian" types who don't believe in the realities of sin
or of Hell, and the "God Hates Fags" nastiness is a spectrum. And what
Christ's Church teaches is very
clearly laid out in the Catechism quoted above. We are to differentiate
between someone's being a
homosexual on the one hand, and the behaviors
of those who act on
homosexual desires on the other. And regarding those who do act on
homosexual
desires, we are to differentiate between the actions of those who are
sexually active without repentance, and those who strive for chastity
but sometimes stumble, fall, go to Confession,
and strive to sin no more. This is how Catholics approach all sorts of
sins and (fellow!) sinners.
We are to treat homosexuals with charity and sensitivity, and to engage
them using prudence. If you are treating homosexuals as nothing but
emobidments of their sexual inclination, you are not doing it right. I
encourage everyone to read these pages on this
site: Conversion of the Heart
and Judging Others. When meeting a
homosexual, one should assume the best: that he is chaste or at least
striving for chastity. One shouldn't leap to all sorts of conclusions
based solely on the fact that
that person is sexually attracted to members of his own sex. We need to
try to understand that
struggle and how difficult it is for a homosexual who is trying to live
the Christian life to even "come out" and be honest about who he is and
what his problems are. We need to never
shame a homosexual for having the disorder he has any more than we'd
shame someone for being clinically depressed. If it
becomes clear that the person is, in fact, an unrepentant active homosexual, the
two pages just linked to should help in guiding you on how and even
whether
to react in terms of fraternal correction, and I have more to say about
that below...
Dealing With
Homosexuals
I so hate to have to say that I've seen from some -- thankfully only a very
small subset -- of my co-religionists some
very strange ideas and reactions when the topic of homosexuality comes
up, but I have. And here are a few of them.
"Homosexuals
shouldn't call themselves 'homosexual' because that's 'identifying'
with a sin"
Well, no it isn't, because homosexuality
isn't a sin; it's a disorder. Acting
on
homosexual desires is sinful, but being
homosexual isn't. Homosexuality is a disorder, and it's no more
unseemly for a homosexual to refer to himself as "homosexual" than it
is for a person with bipolar disorder to refer to himself as a
"manic-depressive."
People refer to themselves as "lawyers," "blondes,"
"homemakers," "plumbers," "gymnasts," "clinical depressives,"
"kleptomaniacs," "jugglers," etc., all the time, and no one gets bent
out of shape
because they think that the people who do so are "ontologically
defining themselves" solely
in terms of
those words. The aforementioned "lawyers," "blondes," "homemakers,"
etc., could also also
describe themselves as "well-read," "studious," "sports fans,"
"chronically tardy," "Catholic," and so forth. So why is it only when
it comes to homosexuality that adjectives and
nouns are somehow "limiting," are seen as precluding the use of other
such
descriptive words, and are treated as philosophically meaningful in
some particularly
"ontological" way? A person who
reveals he is a homosexual might also reveal in
a different situation that he is a "surfer," an "Historian," or a
"stamp collector." None of those
words and phrases say anything about who he is in some "ontological"
sense, but they are perfectly good English words that indicate
something about what that person and his life are like.
"But homosexuals
calling
themselves 'homosexuals' is indicating that's all they are!"
No more than an
attorney calling himself a "lawyer" is saying that's all he is. In a
different situation, the same person who describes himself as a
"homosexual" might also refer to himself as a
"bowler" or a "bird-watcher" or an "Anglophile." None of these things
limit him to being just those things, and people know this when they
hear any other adjective ("blond" or "tall") or noun ("doctor" or
"pianist") used to describe someone. But for some reason, when a
homosexual uses the word "homosexual" to describe himself, all of a
sudden some people get strange about it.
"Homosexuals don't
exist"
Yes, I've actually read this. What people who say such a thing are
trying to convey is that homosexuality isn't part of God's plan,
that no one was "created homosexual," that God desires everyone to be
heterosexual, that inside the self-proclaimed homosexual's psyche is
a heterosexual just dying to get out, and, so, homosexuals don't exist.
They like to point out that the word "homosexual" is new, so, ergo,
homosexuals, at least, didn't exist until recently.
All of this is silliness. It's akin to saying "cancer patients don't
exist" just
because God doesn't positively will cancer or any other evil on
someone. And as to the assertion about the word "homosexual" not
existing until recently, we also didn't know much about Germ Theory
until the 19th century, but, I assure you, germs caused disease before
then. And besides, the fact of homosexuality was most definitely known
before our English word for it was coined.
This sort of thing is semantic pedantry that really has no
place in serious discussions -- or at the very least, most especially,
it has no place in
discussions that have the goal of
saving souls. Talking like that
wastes people's time, does no good, offers no help. If you talk that
way, please, just stop.
Some say that a homosexual should refer to his struggles only in terms
of his having "same sex attraction," but for the life of me, I don't
see
how this isn't a matter of "six on the one hand, half a dozen on the
other." "Homosexuality" refers to the condition of being attracted to
members of one's own sex -- i.e., "same sex attraction." What is the
"ontological difference" between the sentences: "I'm a
homosexual," "I'm homosexual," "I'm attracted to people of my own sex,"
and "I have same sex attraction"? There is none.
"Homosexuals should
just be quiet about it. No one needs to know what their sexual
preferences are!"
Well, no one needs to know that a
person with bipolar disorder is manic-depressive, or that a person has
prostate cancer, either, but there's nothing sinful in
relating the information. I think it shows a great lack of
imagination to not understand why a homosexual would tell others
about his orientation. How is he to get help? How is he to get
help in avoiding near occasions of sin (imagine, for ex., a homosexual
being asked by a "hot guy" to go camping with him and share a tent for
a weekend)? How is he supposed to respond to the typical questions
people get asked, such as, "So, you married? Got a girlfriend?" How is
he supposed to respond to the matchmakers out there who want to
fix him up with the nice girls they know? How is he to go about being who he
is, and being known for who
he
truly is, in the world,
which is
one of the basic requirements for friendship and intimacy? Why
should homosexuals go about their lives feeling as if they should hide
the
Truth about themselves? And, if asked directly, should they lie?
("mind your own business" sounds like a good response, too --
at first: in reality, it'd lead the interlocuter to assume the person
is
homosexual, because if he weren't, he'd simply say no).
Most people want to live lives of integrity,
to have their
public and private lives consistent, and to simply be, and be known
as, who
they truly are. People don't want to go about
their lives feeling as if there's some dark and shameful secret they
must hide from others. Homosexuals, being people, feel the same way. If
it were up to me, homosexuals would definitely be "out of the closet,"
matter-of-factly relating who they are and what their struggles are,
with no shame
whatsoever. And in a Christian world, the people around them would
embrace them as just people who have a certain struggle, as
we all have struggles, and
help them follow Church teaching. I want
homosexuals both out of the closet and out of the bathhouse.
Another consideration: men who suffer from homosexuality should refrain
from entering the seminary until and unless they've completely overcome
their homosexual orientation (which can sometimes happen, both through
natural means, such as therapy and simple maturation, and through
grace, though this isn't typical). How are we supposed to make sure our
seminaries don't become little "lavender mafias" if homosexuals feel
pressured to hide their identities? Further, can you think of a better
way to
entice Catholic men who suffer from same sex attraction to enter the
seminary than to make them feel as if they must
hide who they are and that they can't relate who they are to others
without shame? What better way for a Catholic homosexual to find cover
for why he's not
interested in marriage and girls, etc., than to join the seminary?
Watch the almost perfect movie "Marty," made in 1955 and starring
Ernest Borgnine, and imagine if his character had actually been
homosexual while enduring the pressures to marry that the movie
portrayed! This, I believe, is a large part of the reason why so many
homosexuals flocked
to the
priesthood "back in the day" and why the "spirit of Vatican II," the
effeminization of the liturgy, the revolutionary madness, got a
foothold
after that Council. And it explains why the vast majority of
cases of priestly sexual abuse are not
matters of pedophilia and did not involve female victims, but are
manifestations of
homosexual ephebophila -- the abuse of physically sexually mature teenaged boys,
known as "chickens" in the gay world
There's another point in all of this, maybe the most important point of
all when it comes to understanding the struggles involved in same sex
attraction: So many people treat homosexuality as just a "sexual kink,"
no different from a fetish. They think of homosexuality solely in terms of genital sex. But
their doing so is a great insult, really, and a gross misunderstanding
of just how deeply the disorder goes. I'll post here an article about
eros, one that so well explains something that must be understood in
order to deal compassionately with homosexuality. This comes from the
blog "Fare Forward":
In About Love,
Pieper states that “eros is all demanding and needing love,” and Lewis
agrees, classifying eros as a characteristic “need love.” Eros, then,
is apparently something very distinct from philia (friendship), storge
(natural affection) or agape-caritas (self-sacrificial love), and at
first look it seems obvious that eros is “lower” than these types of
love. Eros is primarily a desire, and desires are appetitive, and
appetites indicate the natural inclination to fulfill ourselves. But
for what is eros a desire?
At this point, Pieper suggests, one must step back and
consider the broader context in which we must always situate questions
of the nature of love. Love, of whatever form, is ultimately
fulfillment or perfection. Without love, man is not truly himself. Man
needs to love and be loved in order to be whole, in order to perfect
his nature as a creature. We were created for love, by Love Himself, as
St. John attests in his letters.
Given this conceptual framework, eros can be understood as
the powerful longing, kindled by the beauty of the beloved, for the
achievement of completion or wholeness in the beloved; it elicits in us
a deep desire for union or communion with another in which we seek
completion. Eros, therefore, openly acknowledges the need for
completion in the other. This should not surprise us: if we were made
for love, we are incomplete as individuals. The communion of love can
only occur between persons; indeed, this reality is expressed fully in
one of the central mysteries of Christian faith, the inner life of the
Holy Trinity, which can fairly be called a loving communion of persons.
The implication of this fact may startle us: in erotic love,
man loves not only for the sake of the beloved, but for his own sake,
too. We are accustomed to thinking of authentic love as an affirmation
of the beloved’s good at the expense of our own, to giving without
counting the cost, loving without an eye for our own desires and
fulfillment. Yet the longing for self-fulfillment with another is
constitutive of the human condition. As St. Thomas Aquinas repeatedly
said, we cannot choose not to pursue our own happiness; this holds true
even in our most altruistic and charitable moments. We are, as
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained in a 1991 speech,
ontologically oriented toward and attuned to the pursuit of the
transcendent goods of truth, goodness and beauty. All of our loves are
“for our own sake.”
Eros is not purely self-referential or self-seeking, however:
it does not seek to instrumentalize the other for the self’s sake. In
erotic love, Pieper observes, we say to the beloved, “It’s good that
you exist—good not just for you, nor just for me, but for us.” In eros,
we find ourselves enchanted by another to the extent that, without much
effort, we truly love another as we love ourselves. For many of us, the
first time we woke up in the morning and regularly thought about
someone other than ourselves was when we were first in love, or in
eros. We all have seen how spontaneously and effortlessly we can
appreciate and affirm the beloved when we are “in love” with him or her.
At this point, it should be apparent that sexual attraction
is quite distinct from eros, just as eros can exist between persons in
the absence of sexual attraction. Think of the great mystic saints,
like Theresa of Ávila, who express their prayer experiences as
rapturous, ecstatic, erotic. Eros and sexual attraction are certainly
distinct. Yet there is a reason that they are often considered together.
If eros is the desire, permeating all facets of our being,
for union with another person, and if both body and soul are
constitutive of, not accidental to, human persons, then the way that we
seek this union will be both spiritual and bodily. Beauty—and not just
physical beauty—kindles eros in us, and since beauty for us is
perceived sensually, our response in turn will include a sensual or
bodily response. Our bodies, which on the one hand demarcate our
separateness, are the vehicles through which we strive to realize our
desire for union. Lewis frames this erotic phenomenon with his typical
grace: “The longing for a union which only the flesh can mediate while
the flesh, our mutually excluding bodies, renders it forever
unattainable can have the grandeur of a metaphysical pursuit.”
Our erotic desires transcend our bodies’ ability to satisfy
them. Especially in erotic love, we want to become one with the
beloved, but we mustn’t think of this oneness only in physical terms—
or only in non-physical terms, for that matter. The fullness of eros is
the inter-communion of whole persons, two separate “I”s coming together
as one while remaining distinct. This union is reflected and truly
embodied in the act of intercourse, which is sacramental in this sense,
but no amount of sexual satisfaction can exhaust our erotic desires;
they cannot be exhausted at all. Lewis wrote that, “What happens in
erotic love is thus not ‘gratification’ but an opening of the sphere of
existence to an infinite quenching that cannot be had at all ‘here.’”
Our culture has been confused about this point ever since sex
became a marketable product. In order to commodify sexual pleasure,
enterprises have to market it as a concrete, instrumental and “no
strings attached” service. Yet when sex is divorced from eros—when what
brings persons together in the embrace of intercourse is not a love
that desires and respects the beloved as a person but is just plain
lust—then the “union” achieved in such an embrace is only a simulacrum,
a doppleganger. Alienation, disenchantment, disgust, bitterness, and
hostility are the common results of such encounters, as the partners
realize that neither of them could give or take through a sharing of
their bodies what they each longed for in the seat of their souls. John
Paul II referred to such reciprocally objectifying encounters as
“mutual masturbation.”
Our sexuality and erotic love are meant to be complementary,
and without eros, our sexual love will only be frustrating, rather than
sacramental. Eros plays an integrative role in bringing our bodies and
souls into pursuit of the human good of communion that we seek through
love.
Homosexuals have
that same erotic longing for completion in another. Keep in mind the
line in the above article about how eros "permeat[es] all
facets of our being". This is why
treating homosexuality as "just a sexual kink" and in terms of nothing
but genital sex misses a much larger problem.
Because of their disorder, the sexual acts active homosexuals engage in
while
striving for communion are utterly futile. This futility helps
explain why the "gay lifestyle" is so sexually frenzied, so very
neurotic and marked by self-medication and violence. They are looking
for completion in people who cannot
complete them even in the imperfect but fruitful and sanctified way a
married couple complete each other.
Read again that Lewis quote about eros: "The longing for a union which
only the flesh can mediate while the flesh, our mutually excluding
bodies, renders it forever unattainable can have the grandeur of a
metaphysical pursuit." That pertains to heterosexual sex, the marital
union ordained by God and by which another soul enters the world, so
you can imagine the frustration
involved in a homosexual's attempts to satisfy his erotic longings! He
so desperately wants to be affirmed
as a man and to feel "as one" with
another
-- but he tries to do this with another who is too much like him to
make him feel whole! It's no wonder at all why homosexual sex is often
so frantic! It's an impossible situation.
That erotic need is one we all
have, and ignoring it when it comes to homosexuals, speaking of
homosexuality as nothing but a dirty desire to have hot sex with some
guy, misses the very crux of the disorder, and dehumanizes those who
suffer from same sex attraction. It also completely ignores the real
and true friendships and emotional caring many homosexuals have for
each other, especially those who consider themselves "married."
Of course, many homosexuals "dehumanize"
and degrade themselves -- as do many heterosexuals. When thinking about
the stereotypical "gay lifestyle," think, too, of the
porn-addicted
straight man who compulsively masturbates or beds women, or of the
young
woman,
raised without a father, who promiscuously uses sex to get the
masculine affirmation she never got as she was growing up. It isn't our
job to "pile on"; it is our job to help raise up those who degrade
themselves, to help them to see that God is calling to them. It's our
job to teach them that the only
thing that will truly
complete them, that will truly
"fill them up," is union with God, with Truth. But we can't teach them
this, we
can't help them, if
we turn them away with bitter attitudes, scapegoating, sloppy or angry
language, and judgmentalism.
"OK, I can see
telling family, maybe, but why tell anyone else?"
Tell one,
tell all. You tell your family, then your little sister tells her
best friend, and then that best friend tells everyone. Then there's a
whispering campaign going on about you. Who'd want to live that way? Is
there no imagination in some people that'd allow them to empathize with
a person's wanting to walk the earth with integrity, with the ability to say,
head held high, "this is me, this is what I'm like, these are my
struggles" without feeling as
if there's some secret that needs to be hidden away from
everyone? Should all people with disorders do the same thing? What purpose would
that serve, anyway? And can you imagine how that would leave a person
wide open to blackmail attempts, to handing power over their lives to
other people? Why is this so hard to understand?
"No one needs to
know such private information about anyone else! This is all just
Oprah, tell-all, psychobabble nonsense! There's just no need to go
around telling everyone you're homosexual!"
I certainly am not advising homosexuals to go around meeting people
with a, "Hi, nice party, eh? I'm John, and I'm homosexual. And you are
---?" And to think that that is what I am advocating is pure silliness.
Nor am I encouraging anyone to publicly reveal the details of his sex
life or his deepest sexual desires. Not at all. I strongly believe
in honoring the differences between the private and public realms, and
lament the modern tendency to make one's private problems the business
of strangers. I am simply talking about the ability of a person to let
another person
know he is homosexual when the circumstances for such a topic come
up, and to not feel as if he has something he must hide at all costs --
e.g.,
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you with a girl for the entire
twenty years I've known you!" "Welll, to be honest, I'm homosexual."
"You've just got to meet my cousin. She's an anthropologist, too, and I
know you're just her type!" "Aww, that's sweet, thanks, but just so you
know,
I'm homosexual, so that likely wouldn't work out."
Pretty simple, in my opinion. No sordid details. Just a simple
statement of fact that allows the other to know and understand what the
homosexual is enduring and struggling with.
"No one should refer
to himself as homosexual unless he's an active homosexual" or
"Anyone who calls himself a homosexual is an active homosexual"
"Homosexual" is the word used for someone who is solely sexually
attracted to
members of his own
sex. That would apply to someone who is attracted to his own sex
whether he were sexually active
or not.
As to the latter statement, people who say this are simply wrong. I've
met many who are honest about their suffering from same sex attraction and who
are committed to living chaste lives and following Christ. There are many of them!
"Homosexuals should
be called what they are: sodomites!"
Some
homosexuals are sodomites; some aren't -- with some being perfectly
chaste. Of course, too, much depends on how
"sodomy" is defined. Various statutes in the United States have defined
it as oral or anal sex between two people -- including the heterosexual
and married --
and any sexual activity with an animal. But if it's defined -- as it
most commonly is nowadays -- as just anal sex, which is how Common Law
defined it, then let it be known that anal sex is the least-practiced
homosexual act (oral sex, mutual masturbation, and frottage come out
ahead. This is not to say that anal sex is rare among male
homosexuals; it most certainly is not: receptive anal intercourse is
practiced by up to 90 percent of gay men who have sex with men,
according to International Rectal Microbicides Advocates).
Let it be known, too, that anal sex is something that
heterosexual couples engage in as well, now more than ever. According
to one
American study, between the years
of 2006 and 2008, 44 percent
of straight men and 36 percent of straight women between the ages of 25
and 44 admitted to having had
anal sex at least once in their lives6 -- and those
numbers have undoubtedly
skyrocketed due to pornography. The
National Center for Biotechnology
Information gives us this information, "About a third of
heterosexual couples in Britain are thought to use anal sex as an
occasional method of sexual expression, with about 10% using it as a
preferred or regular method. Perhaps two thirds of gay men practise
anal sex as a regular part of their sexual repertoire. This means that,
in absolute numbers, there are more heterosexuals having anal sex than
there are gay men."7
It should be kept in mind, as well, that heterosexuals sometimes engage
in
homosexual sex, sometimes on a lark, sometimes out of a felt
"necessity." Prison rape is generally committed by heterosexual men
who don't have the opportunity to engage in heterosexual sex and who
abuse other men while, presumably, fantasizing about women. This
problem
is so common that, in fact, in the United States, more men are raped
than women are.8 This phenomenon
further illustrates that engaging in homosexual sex is a choice, but
homosexuality -- being solely attracted to members of one's own sex --
is not.
The point to all
the above: Those who seem to truly hate homosexuals and see them as
nothing but "sinners" rather than as "fellow sinners," who see them as
the worst sort of sinner -- "sodomites" -- rather than as people who
are suffering from a disorder, are being rather
hypocritical unless their rage against the practice of anal sex is
also focused also on the many heterosexuals who engage in it.
Finally, no matter how Common Law or the typical modern person defines
it, "sodomy," to the Church, isn't limited to anal intercourse alone.
It even includes the sin of onanism (masturbation). St. Peter Damian,
Doctor of the Church, in his Liber Gomorrhianus ("The Book of
Gomorrah") writes about four forms of sodomy:
Four types of
this form of criminal wickedness can be distinguished in an effort to
show you the totality of the whole matter in an orderly way: some sin
with themselves alone; some by the hands of others; others between the
thighs; and finally, others commit the complete act against nature
[anal intercourse]. The ascending gradation among these is such that
the last mentioned are judged to be more serious that the preceding.
Indeed a greater penance is imposed on those who fall with others than
those who defile only themselves; and those who complete the act are to
be judged more severely than those who are defiled through femoral
fornication. The devil's artful fraud devises these degrees of failing
into ruin such that the higher the level the unfortunate soul reaches
in them, the deeper it sinks in the depths of hell's pit.
So if you're prone to go on about "sodomites," you're likely
talking about yourself unless you've never masturbated.
"But homosexuality
is a sin that cries out to Heaven!"
No, "homosexuality" isn't a sin at all, let alone a sin that cries out
to Heaven; the sin of
Sodom is, certain actions
are, and 1) not all homosexuals are active homosexuals; 2) not all
active homosexuals engage in sodomy as typically defined (anal sex);
and 3) as said, heterosexuals
engage in sodomy as well, as typically defined (see just above).
Further,
unless the person who uses this line of thinking is as equally
concerned with the other three sins that cry
out to Heaven --
defrauding the wage-earner, oppression of the poor, and willful murder
-- then I call hypocrisy. I dislike the term "homophobia" because
"phobia" means "fear," which typically most certainly isn't
what is actually
experienced by those at the receving end of that slur, but I do think
that there is something to the accusation that those
who scream the loudest and
most inordinately angrily and
unjustly about homosexuality and homosexuals are thereby
exhibiting behaviors that may well be indicative of
unacknowledged homosexual desires they, themselves, have -- an
accusation that is
borne out by research.9
Finally, the Douay Catholic Catechism of 1649, Chapter XX, describes
the sin of Sodom like this: "The sin of Sodom, or carnal sin against
nature, which is a voluntary shedding of the seed of nature, out of the
due use of marriage, or lust with a different sex." The sin of Sodom
simply does not pertain only to homosexual sodomy and other homosexual
acts; it pertains to many
different forms of the illicit use of our sexual faculties. It includes
adultery, fornication, masturbation, etc. None of this is to deny the
gravity of the sin of Sodom; the point is to stop the singular focus on
homosexuals when this sin is mentioned, and to remind people of the
other three sins that also "cry out to Heaven."
"I don't want
homosexuals around my kids! They're child molesters!"
Most homosexuals are not pedophiles or child molesters. Most homosexuals are as repulsed by
child sex abuse as anyone else. However, homosexuals, as a group, are disproportionately victims of
abuse themselves, and sadly,
those who are sexually abused when young are more likely to go on to
become abusers.
In daily life, though, we don't typically deal with percentages and
odds and
disproportions; we deal with human beings. Because most homosexuals are
not child
sex abusers, because of the fact that if you're talking to a
homosexual, the odds are that he is very much not a pedophile, it'd be an awful
thing to treat a given homosexual as such
simply because of his orientation.
On the other hand, it's almost impossible for a parent to do too much
to protect his children when it comes to sexual abuse. Trust your gut
instinct when it comes to keeping your children safe! If a given person
-- whether homosexual or heterosexual -- feels "hinky" to you in any way, then by all means prevent his -- or her!10
--
being
alone with your child. If you have no evidence that that person is, in
fact, a child molester, then treat him with charity and give him all
benefit of the doubt in terms of how you deal with him personally --
but trust your gut and
protect your children. You can do this without making
unwarranted accusations, shaming, engaging in slander, forgetting about
the
supreme importance of charity, etc. But better safe than sorry when it
comes to the safety and innocence of our children.
With regard to the topic of the sex abuse of the young, note, too, that
there's a difference between pedophilia (attraction to
pre-pubescent children) and ephebophilia (attraction to post-pubsecent
youth), the latter of which is very common in the homosexual world (see
this pdf of a Twitter/X
thread about this topic). For
example, the clerical sex
abuse scandals that rocked the
human element of Holy Mother Church were overwhelmingly cases of homosexual
ephebophilia and not pedophilia (the media, of course, called it
"pedophilia" so as to arouse even more hatred against the Church).
While the law in the United States treats pedophilia and ephebophilia
as the same, the differences between a 6 year old and a 16-year old are
pretty obvious. But any non-marital sexual touching is sinful, and
whether the victim of an adult is 6 or 16, he is a
victim. No adult -- especially one in a position of authority, and most especially one who's been
given spiritual authority -- should ever sexually touch an under-aged
person.
"I don't want to
even have to talk to my kids about homosexuality! I want them to be
innocent!"
If you don't talk to your kids about such things, the world will. On
that you can rely. Parents have to get very clear about the fact that there is a huge difference between
innocence and ignorance. The latter is not good, is not a
virtue, and serves no one! Even a very young child can understand the
concept of "disorder." There's no need to go into the details of
the various forms of homosexual sexual activity; the goal is to simply
let your
children know what homosexuality is in a manner that is tailored to the
level of their intellectual and emotional maturity.
"Mommy, what does 'homosexual' mean?"
"Well, son, God's design is for men and women to fall in love, marry,
and have children, right? Now, you know how sometimes people get sick?
Well, sometimes people can get emotionally or intellectually sick --
the ways they feel or think can be sick. Understand? Well, a homosexual
is someone who, instead of feeling what a man should feel for a woman,
has those sorts of feelings for other men. And there are women who have
those feelings for other women instead of for men; they're called
lesbians. These folks didn't choose to be sick in that way, so we have
to help them get better and pray for them. Some homosexuals don't
realize they're sick, and think their sickness is normal, so we have to
pray for them the most so they come
to know they have a problem and will ask Jesus to help them."
Pretty simple. Nothing prurient. Nothing to incite the imagination in
an unhealthy direction. Just the facts, straight-up, with love. Nothing
to panic over. A typical four-year old would likely have such an
exchange, and then file it away while changing the subject to ask for
ice cream or what have you. Maybe a few more questions would follow --
e.g., 'How did they get sick?" -- and if that happens, just answer them
with the same sort of calm, respectful, loving tone, and then move on.
Innocence preserved; ignorance eradicated.
Dealing with Being Homosexual
If you are homosexual, don't think "God made me gay." He didn't. He
also didn't "make" someone else to be born with no legs, or another
person to be born prone to depression, either. Those are disorders.
But, indeed, He made you. And you, through whatever combination of
nature and nurture, are homosexual. And He made you, like everyone
else, to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world so you can be
happy with Him in the next. And He loves you. He loves you very, very
deeply.
You are called to sexual continence if your
orientation isn't healed (which can sometimes
happen, though isn't typical) and you then marry someone of the
opposite sex. But you are not
alone! Know that priests and religious are also called to
continence, as are all unmarried
heterosexuals! Don't walk the earth thinking you are being
singled out for suffering in a special way because you cannot licitly
engage in
sexual acts centered on your homosexual longings. You are not! You also
don't have to deprive yourself of
friendship and non-sexual intimacy!
In an ideal world, you should be able, when the situatiton arises, to
simply state the Truth about your struggle without shame, to be able to
live as a whole person with no sense of having some "deep, dark secret"
you need to hide away. You have a disorder, but that in no way makes
you a bad person, it doesn't make you less beloved by God, and it
doesn't -- or shouldn't, anyway -- make you any less welcome to His
Church. Let no one shame you simply because you have a set of struggles
he doesn't! Don't let anyone make you feel unwelcome in Christ's
Church! I think you'll find, though, that most Catholics will be very
understanding. I certainly hope that's the case. Hold your head up!
You would likely benefit from therapy -- not necessarily "conversion
therapy" for
the purpose of "making you straight," but therapy for the purpose of
understanding your present and past struggles, dealing with any trauma
you may have endured, finding ways to break any bad habits you may have
acquired, forming new habits, coming to terms with your sex and
learning how to relate to other members of it, and coming up with
general coping
strategies and ways of avoiding "triggers."
Above all, though, stay close to Jesus, His Church, and the Sacraments.
Develop a good
prayer life. Take inspiration from the Saints and their writings.
Take care to avoid near occasions of sin, as we all must. Balance
focusing inward and trying to understand yourself so you can heal with
focusing
outward and serving others. Learn how to truly forgive if abuse or
emotional neglect played a role in your orientation. Get support from
Catholics
who follow the example of the
Master of Love, Who is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And be wary, staying far away from any parish or group that
waters down Catholic teaching in order to be inordinately "inclusive,"
that treats
acting on homosexual desires as non-sinful. There are many such
entities out there, sadly, but you, like all of us traditional Catholics, might
need to go out of your way to find a place to worship that preserves
the Faith undiluted. You are
called to sainthood, as we all are, but
you won't make it if you lie to yourself or swallow lies others tell
you, even if those others are priests and religious.
Why You are Not
Called to the Priesthood
After giving the catechism's teachings on homosexuality, the 2005
Vatican directive, "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the
Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual
Tendencies," says,
In the light of
such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for
Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it
necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting
the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders
those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual
tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture".
Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that
gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must
in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the
ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.
Different, however, would be the case in which one were
dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a
transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet
superseded. Nevertheless, such tendencies must be clearly overcome at
least three years before ordination to the diaconate.
As to the "negative consequences" referred to, one of the most obvious
is the clerical sexual abuse scandals
that are now rocking the Church. These scandals are overwhelmingly
matters of homosexual ephobophilia, that is, the sexual abuse of
physically sexually mature teenaged boys and young men. It is not
pedophilia; it's a gay thing.
Male homosexuality is a disorder that centers around the eroticizing of
the struggle to identify with the masculine world, the world of the
father. Because of this, and because a priest is a spiritual father,
you should not strive for ordination until and unless you are truly
healed of your disorder -- which, again, can
happen, though it isn't
typical. A few articles about fatherhood and its incredible importance
(these links are off-site and will open in new browser windows):
In addition to the spiritual fatherhood aspects of the priesthood,
there's the fact that heterosexual seminarians make the sacrifice of
marriage when they promise celibacy, a sacrifice you can't make because
you're not drawn to sacramental marriage. It may be a sad thing to you
that, barring healing from your disorder, you won't have a wife and
children, but you wouldn't be "giving
that up" if you entered the seminary. You wouldn't be making the same
sacrifices.
In a seminary, too, you'd be surrounded by other young men in a very
close setting, a situation that would likely be a great temptation, an
occasion of sin for you, and a source of discomfort for heterosexual
seminarians.
Your inability to be ordained, though, in no
way means you are not valuable to the Church and can't bring many gifts
to Her! There are lots of people with disorders out here in the world!
The inability to become a
priest isn't a personal slam
against you as an individual, as a valuable human being. Women, too,
can't be ordained, but it's a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom the
Church considers the very greatest
of all God's creatures! An
inability to be ordained doesn't
mean
you're not important! You -- perhaps you're an artist, a musician, a
writer, an apologist, a master gardener, a filmmaker, a bricklayer, an
attorney, or any of a thousand
other things that could serve the Church and Her people well! You are important, my friend -- called to
Love, called to serve, called to sainthood! Say yes to Christ!
This article, which is
off-site and will open in a new browser window, might help you
understand things: Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests.
Some Final
Comments
Comment needs to be made about the
hypersexualization going on in our society and how it harms the ability
of members of one sex, most especially men, to bond with one another. I
used to give tours in a medical museum, and in its entryway hangs a
late
19th c. photograph of a group of male doctors -- some sitting, some
standing. One of the seated
physicians has his hand on the knee of the doctor sitting next to him,
a perfectly natural and lovely expression of friendship. But seen with
eyes twisted by hyper-sexualized 21st. c. thinking, those two doctors
are seen as having been homosexuals. Another such photograph:
We're all the time seeing historical friendships being twisted and
interpreted as being homosexual relationships because of the
hypersexualized manner in which we see things nowadays.
As an Italian American, I come from a sub-culture that is very
physically expressive, with half of my ancestors hailing from a place
where men and women greet each other with kisses on the cheek and warm
embraces. While "WASPy" America is very different from Italy, even the
men of the United States used to have a very diffierent approach to
male expressions of affection for each other. The Art of Manliness
website has a page called "Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male
Affection"11 that is quite
revealing, as are many of the comments on the post -- reactions that
betray how many men are starving for genuine, wholesome intimacy with
other men, a striving that is frustrated by how so many minds have been
made filthy and "paranoid" because of how our society sees sex and lust
where
they don't actually exist.
The Art of Manliness website chalks up the change in how we see
physical expression of affection between men to the change in how we
see homosexuality -- i.e., to how we've come to see homosexuality as an
"identity." Me, I see things differently. Men who are solely sexually
attracted to other men do, in fact, exist, and ignoring that fact, like
all ignorance, serves no one. The problem lies in how we react to that fact. If being a homosexual is, wrongfully,
seen as sinful in itself, if homosexuals qua
homosexuals are scapegoated and seen as "the sinners
of all sinners," then it's understandable that men, out of fear of
being
seen as "one of them," would become wary of
physically expressing their love for each other. But if homosexuality
is seen as the disorder
that it is, a disorder that doesn't have to be acted upon sexually, and
if homosexuals are not just treated with charity, but truly thought of
with charity, then we can restore the ability of men to become intimate
and physically expressive with each other without fear of others
leaping to conclusions (which people shouldn't be doing in the first
place). J. Bryan Lowder,
a homosexual writer for Slate, writes about all of this in an article
called "Another Casualty of Homophobia: Platonic Male Affection."12
In that article, he writes:
On a trip to
southern Spain a few years ago, my partner and I were invited to a
friend’s home for Shabbat dinner. As we were seated at the table, our
host, a maternal and physically affectionate gay man, continually
petted us as he brought fragrant Sephardic food to the table. This is
common among gay men and thus did not surprise me. But to this day I
remember how my body froze when the other guest—a quiet but warm
straight man—rose from his seat, picked up a kippah, gently placed it
on my head, and patted the back of my neck. His platonic touch was
totally nonchalant for him, and yet it electrified me—not because I
found it erotic, but because, at that moment, I realized how rare that
kind of fraternal male touch had been in my life. Straight men weren’t
supposed to express affection this way.
Of course, Mediterranean cultures like Spain and Italy
possess a higher degree of male homosocial comfort—it is not at all
strange there to see two men walking with their arms around one
another, sleeping on each other’s shoulder, holding hands, or even
sharing a quick friendly kiss. But as Mark Greene recently observed
over at The Good Men Project, trying that kind of thing in the U.S.
could get you a black eye:
In America in
particular, if a young man attempts gentle platonic contact with
another young man, he faces a very real risk of homophobic backlash
either by that person or by those who witness the contact. This is, in
part, because we frame all contact by men as being intentionally sexual
until proven otherwise. Couple this with the homophobia that runs
rampant in our culture, and you get a recipe for increased touch
isolation that damages the lives of the vast majority of men.
The sad thing is that the non-sinful, often exuberant sort of
physically-expressed, natural male affection that we see in those old
photographs is precisely the sort of thing that can help homosexuals
come to feel truly accepted by other men and can help them heal. While
few
heterosexual men would be happy to be perceived erroenously as being
homosexual for physically expressing affection toward other men, it's
just that sort of courage that we need in order to help de-sexualize
what is perfectly normal and good. We need to eradicate the
hypersexualization that's been going on for way too long now, replacing
it with Truth and Love, making for a culture that is marked by warmth
and
deep friendship instead of isolation and fear.
When it comes to that male bonding, though, it's important to
understand that young boys, in order to identity with the masculine
world, have to make a great psychic break with the feminine world, the
world of mother. The feminine world is typically the entire universe to
young children, beginning with the Ever-Present Mother, who is followed
by teachers who are almost always women. The young
are drowning in the feminine, and nowadays so many of of them don't
have fathers in their lives at all. The failure of young boys to
separate
from the world of women and to then identify with the world of men is
precisely
what homosexuality is when eroticized! So, to some degree, the banter
of young boys that mocks the feminine ("you throw like a girl!", "girls
have cooties!") and that which is perceived to be feminine, including
homosexuality, is
natural. "That's gay!" is not mockery of the disorder; it's mockery of
homosexual actions, the stereotypical lifestyle associated with active
homosexuality (and the word "gay" connotes acceptance of the idea that
it's OK to act on homosexual desires in a way that the word
"homosexual" or the phrase "SSA" -- "Same Sex Attracted" -- doesn't; it
brings to mind various unhealthy sub-cultures and behaviors that
healthy, young, masculine boys are right to look askance at).
If you're homosexual, don't take such banter personally. Females have
to learn that same lesson, and it's clear that radical feminists
haven't. They see such talk as "hate." But it isn't; teasing, "busting
each others' chops," and banter are how males bond. Of course, there
are lines, and some young males can be inordinate in their use of that
sort of talk, with some becoming complete jerks, or even violent
(they're
undoubtedly the ones most likely to have sexual orientation struggles
of their own; see footnote 9). And
children should most definitely be taught to not hurt the feelings of
others for no good reason.
But the need for young boys to separate
themselves from the
feminine and to guard against being seen as feminine can't be
pathologized away without danger. So understand the
reasons for such talk, and grow a sense of humor about it, as healthy
girls and women have to do. I encourage you to do that even as I
encourage
parents to teach their children to understand and love those who
struggle with homosexual disorder, and to be careful with others'
feelings.
Preventing Your
Children from Having to Struggle With Homosexuality
1. Stay close to Christ and His Church and pray for your children. Ask
their guardian angels to
protect them. Don't just talk the talk; walk the walk, developing a
true and deep relationship with Lord Christ so that you have a profound
conversion of the
heart.
2. Work to have a happy marriage, a marriage in which the husband and
wife respect each other. Be
consistent and unified in your approach to disciplining your kids, and
be not only just, but merciful to them. Make sure that the father is
the head of your "domestic church,"
your home -- in a manner
of which Christ would approve. Headship means that when the
husband
and wife disagree (which implies that the wife's ideas are heard,
respected, and taken into account), but a decision must be made, then
the husband's decision prevails; it in no way means that the wife is
the husband's maid, slave, child, etc., that her voice and opinions
don't matter, that she has no say in what happens in the family and to
her life.
Further, it entails the husband being so loving toward his wife that he
is willing to die to protect her. He is to love her as Christ loves the
Church. An imbalance in either direction -- e.g., if the wife
has headship or if the husband is emotionally or physically abusive --
can help create a family
dynamic that fosters the development of homosexuality. If any
personality disorder (especially any of the "Cluster B" personality
disorders -- i.e., borderline, narcissistic, antisocial, or histrionic
personality disorders) affects you or your spouse, get help and deal
with them.
3. Emotionally affirm your children -- by which is meant: Listen to
them. Don't deny what
they are feeling, don't treat the emotional world as unimportant. Teach
your children to
understand their emotions, to name them, comprehend their true origins,
and master and order them -- dealing with them and expressing them in a
moral and healthy
way. Pay attention to emotions that masquerade as other emotions --
e.g., anger is often a mask for sadness, and sadness is often a mask
for anger -- that is, the inordinately angry are often truly,
preconsciously, experiencing sadness, and vice versa. Learn to cut
through emotional layers to get to underlying, core problems, and teach
your
children to do this.
Fathers, love, guide, and mentor your male child, even if he is
temperamentally different from you and has different interests. Your
job is to help your boy identify as male and to embrace his
masculinity, even if his ways of expressing that masculinity aren't
exactly like yours. Listen to him, spend time with him, do things with
him, teach him masculine skills, include him in your masculine
pursuits. Engage him in activities that are "just for the guys" and
that he'd enjoy (he might not like football, but will love baseball; he
might not like fixing cars, but might love air shows or a natural
history museum, etc.). When he's young, engage him in rough-and-tumble
play, teaching him to grapple. Express pride in him for his
accomplishments, and show him lots of affection, including physical
affection. Develop the moral virtues
so that you'll be someone worthy of emulating.
Mothers, never emotionally use your male child as a surrogate husband.
Don't use him for emotional consolation, and don't burden him with the
responsibility for your emotional well-being and need for emotional
intimacy. Also, don't emotionally coddle him, don't pit him against his
father, don't complain about his father to him, and don't undermine his
father's attempts to bond with his son
("Oh, don't do that; it's so rough! He might get hurt!"). Prepare to do
what every mother must do: let her child grow up, individuate, and grow
apart from her.
Both parents: do all you can to ensure your child has members of his
own sex to play and socialize with. Don't allow older siblings,
especially same-sex siblings, to bully your younger children.
4. Allow your children to use their gifts and express themselves
without stuffing them tightly into traditional gender roles.
Traditional gender roles exist because they reflect Nature. Most girls
are girly; most boys are boyish. But there are outliers, and that is
fine. If
you have a son who prefers painting to football, encourage him in his
artistic pursuits and neither pressure him to become the
"football-playing son" of your dreams nor shame him in any way for
being who he is and being interested in what he's interested in. If
you have a daughter who's more into playing softball than with dolls,
let her be and love her like crazy. While no one is "born gay," we are
born with gifts, aptitudes and temperaments. Those things do
come from God, and disallowing their fulfillment and expression will
result in misery. Quashing outliers also causes resentment and anger,
and leads them to band
together and foment revolution, which is a big reason why we're
enduring the social situation we
have now. Nor is quashing outliers good for the outliers themselves.
Besides,
just think of how boring the world would be if we were all exactly
alike! Love your children for who they are and encourage them to use
the gifts they've been given, within the bounds of Love and a sane
social order!
5. Keep your children safe from sexual abuse. Teach your children that
sexual abusers are out there, but do so without making them feel inordinately afraid, without
overstating the problem and causing them to walk the world in fear.
Teach them how to keep themselves safe, about what sexual abuse is,
what to do if someone tries to cross boundaries with them (like showing
them dirty pictures), what to do
if they
are, in fact, (God forbid) abused, etc. Teach them to recognize when
they feel something is "off" -- and teach them what to do about it
(e.g., leave immediately, tell someone, etc.). Role-play with them,
giving them the language and skills to firmly refuse and run away,
fight, scream, kick, bite -- whatever they have to do to safely stop a
sexually abusive situation. Don't let them be coy and passive about
this! "You touch me and I'll kill ya!" is in no way out of order. And,
finally, know the signs of sexual abuse
and watch for them. If
you see any such signs, talk to your child about them, and listen to what he says.
6. Teach your children about sex, homosexuality, and other things they
need to learn from you rather
than learning about them from secular sources. Do so in a manner
consistent with their intellectual and emotional maturity, guarding
their innocence without letting them remain ignorant. Know that
demonizing homosexuals is not only wrong, but will undoubtedly
backfire; the moment your child goes out into the world, meets
homosexuals, and sees that most are just "nice" people trying to get
through life, he will come to question what you've taught him, mistrust
your understanding of things in general, and see you as unloving,
unfair, and unjust. And know this: if you've wrongly taught him that
your unjust and false
perceptions of homosexuals and homosexuality are "what the Church
teaches," you imperil his very soul
by tempting him to walk away from the Faith. Please be careful with the
language you use: differentiate between "homosexual" and "actively
homosexual," and between "homosexual" and "homosexual activist," etc.
7. Know that confusion about sexual orientation and even gender
identity is not uncommon during puberty, but is usually "outgrown." My
hunch is that this sort of confusion will likely become even
more common given the increasing number of fatherless children, the
normalization of homosexuality, the condoning of homosexual sex, the
cheapening of sex in general, the seeming omnipresence of pornography,
and media attempts to make being
homosexual and expressing gender dysphoria "cool." If your child
is experiencing such confusion, talk to him about it without shaming
him in any way whatsoever, try to understand what he deeply needs and
then give it to him. Very importantly, keep him away from any group
that'd slap
a label on him, push him into adopting an "identity," and encourage him
to adopt a lifestyle and peer group that'd "lock him into" that
"identity."
8. Keep your children far, far away from pornography. It is poison! Use
filters to keep your child safe while surfing the internet. Consider
only allowing him to use a computer that is in a public room of your
home. Think about whether he should have a smart phone and, if so, how
he should use it, what limits should be placed on its use, etc. If you
have a problem with pornography yourself, deal with it. This site, a
secular one, called Your Brain On Porn, might help (link will open in
a new browser window).
9. If your child does turn out to be homosexual, make sure he knows the
teachings of the Church, and continue to love him like crazy. As with
anyone, never shame him for having a disorder! Do not
threaten, shun, punish, yell, or do anything that'd cause the child to
write you off as a source of help and love. If he is unrepentantly actively homosexual
or an activist type, do what you have to do to protect your other
children from any poisonous ideology he might spew,
remain firm in your faith, and don't cave in order to assuage or out of
fear of "losing" your child, but never turn off the love and the prayer
for his soul.
Love and prayer that bring him to Christ are precisely what he needs
the most!
Marriage is, of course, a sacrament between a man and a woman, with the
primary purpose of bearing and educating children. That's what it is
and always will be until the end of time, and the State has an absolute
interest in maintaining that definition and supporting the institution
of marriage. Many nations, though, have legalized homosexual
"marriage." This should never have happened. But homosexuals -- active
or not -- have legitimate concerns about such things as the ability to
have someone treated as a family member for purpose of hospital
visitations, to have someone legally allowed to act for a medical
patient when that patient is unable to act for himself, etc. All of
those concerns are ones that are not only homosexuals might have;
anyone with no family (or estranged family) should have the legal
ability to deal with such things by way of contract such that a named
friend could act in place of next of kin. Instead of homosexual civil
"marriages," a one-stop means to legally identify someone as
next-of-kin for legal purposes should be devised.
While on the topic: don't let anyone tell you that the legalization of
gay "marriage" is about equality. Before two people of the same sex
were allowed to civilly "marry," the laws applied equally to all. A
straight man couldn't marry a man, and a straight woman also couldn't
marry a woman. Neither could homosexual people marry members of their
own sex. Perfectly equal. And perfectly logical given that marriage
isn't about intense feelings and romance (though those are, or at least
can be, good
things); it has as its primary purpose the begetting and raising of
children, which two people of the same sex cannot do. Further, there is
no way to sanely and legally define "consummation" when it comes to
"marriage" between two people of the same sex. And, finally, the goal
with legalizing "gay marriage" was always about abolishing the
traditional family. Writer Masha Gessen let that cat out of the bag at
the 2012 Sydney Writer's Festival. Have a listen:
BBC Earth: Are There Any Homosexual Animals? Note
that whether or not homosexual behavior exists in animals or not, we
human beings are more than just
animals; we are made in the image of God and are moral creatures,
gifted with reason. Chimpanzees are aggressive; that doesn't mean we
should be. They also fling their feces at each other; that doesn't mean
we should. Male bears cannibalize bear cubs born of other fathers; that
doesn't mean we should eat our babies. Nonetheless, homosexuality as
it's known in the human world does not, in fact, exist among wild
animals.
Courage
Catholic ministry serving those who struggle with same sex attraction.
There is another group for "Catholic" homosexuals, a group called
"Dignity." This second group is not faithful to the teachings of the
Church; they
are "progressives" who push for change in Church teaching, condone
homosexual acts, etc. Stay far away from them.
Footnotes:
1
This pdf file is offered here with the kind permission of Dr. Stephen
Krason, publisher of "The Catholic Social Science Review." URL:
http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org
2 "A
systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm
in lesbian, gay and bisexual people", by King, Semlyen, Tai, Killaspy,
Osborn, Popelyuk. URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18706118
Retrieved: February 24, 2017.
3 "Study puts HIV rate among gay men at 1
in 5," by Darryl Fears, Washington Post. URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/23/AR2010092306828.html
Retrieved: February 24, 2017.
4 "A Same-Sex Domestic Violence Epidemic Is Silent," by Maya
Shwayder of the Atlantic Monthly. URL:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/a-same-sex-domestic-violence-epidemic-is-silent/281131/
Retrieved: February 24, 2017.
5 "Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an
Open Secret," by Scott James, New York Times. URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html Retrieved February
24, 2017. Of course, this NYT article lauds such behavior, even
intimating that heterosexuals have much to learn from it. A quote:
"'The traditional American marriage is in crisis, and we need insight,'
he said, citing the fresh perspective gay couples bring to matrimony.
'If innovation in marriage is going to occur, it will be spearheaded by
homosexual marriages.'”
8 See "More men are raped in the US than
women, figures on prison assaults reveal" from the Daily Mail. URL:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449454/More-men-raped-US-women-including-prison-sexual-abuse.html
Retrieved: March 3, 2017
9 See the study, "Is homophobia associated
with homosexual arousal?". URL:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014 Abstract:
The authors
investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual
men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals.
Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a
group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on
the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson
& W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit
erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian
videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They
also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry,
1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the
heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men
showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The
groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently
associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is
either unaware of or denies.
Of course, scientific studies these days have extremely serious
problems with regard to reproducibility, political bias, and a lack of
peer review (see
http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo22/bunk-science-peer-review.php),
but the abstract above seems to me to fit human nature and our
propensity to use defense mechanisms, in this case, reaction formation.
10 While most
pedophiles and ephebophiles are male, don't think for one minute that
there are no female offenders of that nature. There most certainly are
-- and many, many more than most people think (I personally
know one woman who was sexually molested by her own
mother). In addition to the female teachers who seem to always be in
our newspapers after getting caught sexually
abusing students -- typically cases of ephebophilia involving
physically sexually mature male students
-- there are also women who
sexually abuse pre-pubescent children of both sexes, even babies.
In Eve Ensler's
notorious "The Vagina Monologues," one scene -- a scene called "The
Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" -- recounts one woman's story of her
encounter, at the age of thirteen, with a twenty-four year old lesbian
who plied her with vodka ("the alcohol has gone to my head; I am
loose") and molested her. The character talks about her enjoyment of it
all, how the female rapist was her "surprising, unexpected, and
politically incorrect salvation." She relates how she was told later
that what was done to her was rape; her reply: "If it was rape, it was
a good rape." After conservative groups and even some liberals
expressed outrage, the play
was altered so that the character became sixteen years old instead of
thirteen, and mention of rape was omitted. But the original play, a bit
of theater beloved by radical feminists, literally condoned the rape of
a thirteen-year old girl by a twenty-four year old lesbian who got her
drunk first, and the updated, now supposedly OK version, has a 24-year
old lesbian molesting a sixteen-year old.
11
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/07/29/bosom-buddies-a-photo-history-of-male-affection/
Retrieved: February 27, 2017
12
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2013/11/21/male_affection_and_touch_homophobia_ruins_platonic_
touch_for_straight_men.html
Retrieved: February 27, 2017
