Gay bullying and Catholic responsibilities
A striking aspect of the focus by many bishops on the battle against gay marriage, such as the DVD campaign by Minnesota’s Archbishop John Nienstedt, discussed below, is how out of synch it is with the tragic realities of bullying against gay youths, brought home so forcefully by the deaths of Tyler Clementi and many other teens.
Bishops who have been concerned about gay marriage have also been fighting against anti-bullying laws that include sexual orientation (along with religion and race, e.g.) as a targeted category, which studies show it often is. They argue that including sexual orientation to protect youths from harassment is the slippery slope to gay marriage and other gay rights.
I have a story at PoliticsDaily.com today about some serious soul-searching by Christians, especially those of the conservative stripe, about their language and approach on gays in light of the rash of suicides and bullying that has come to light.
Some of the striking examples include:
– “Are we complicit,” a post at Mirror of Justice by Russell Powell;
– A post at CNN’s Belief Blog by Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and a “traditional evangelical” known for counseling homosexuals to overcome their same-sex impulses, who wrote that the recent suicides should help convince Christian conservatives to drop their opposition to anti-bullying laws that list sexual orientation as a category;
– Another powerful column by R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who I have cited before. A taste:
“When gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are wrong. Our concern about the sinfulness of homosexuality is not rooted in fear, but in faithfulness to the Bible — and faithfulness means telling the truth.”
“Yet, when gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are also right. Much of our response to homosexuality is rooted in ignorance and fear. We speak of homosexuals as a particular class of especially depraved sinners and we lie about how homosexuals experience their own struggle. Far too many evangelical pastors talk about sexual orientation with a crude dismissal or with glib assurances that gay persons simply choose to be gay. While most evangelicals know that the Bible condemns homosexuality, far too many find comfort in their own moralism, consigning homosexuals to a theological or moral category all their own.”
Folks like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (scroll down the post) are pushing back, saying the teen victims either weren’t bullied or that gay teens have so many problems it’s not clear peer assaults led to their suicides. The deaths, and Christian lobbying against gay rights are being conflated and Christianity is being blamed unfairly, they say.
At America’s blog, Father Jim Martin has a powerful essay that contrasted with those views:
“[I]f pro-life means trying to avoid anything that will threaten any life, from natural conception to natural death, then we should be finding ways to protect all life, which also means preventing suicides, and preventing gay suicides,” Martin wrote. “In any event, there is much for us, the church, still to do.”
I’d agree with that last statement. Other thoughts? Also, I have not yet run across anything of a similarly outspoken tone or content by a bishop or senior church leader as regards the gay bullying deaths. If anyone knows of something, give us a heads up. Thanks.
PS: Just saw Rob Vischer’s post at MOJ on this same topic.
With apologies for the brief profanity, I think comedian Sarah Silverman hits the nail on the head in this 30-second clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM6xbW1DZyM
Now compare Benedict’s “Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” letter: “When civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground and irrational and violent reactions increase.”
Depressing, to say the least.
David, thank you for pulling this together. Very powerful, and food for conscience examination. Fr. Martin is spot on.
Sonja, thanks for the Sarah Silverman video. She’s hardly as vulgar as usual, or as the situation might warrant, I’d say. And she expresses what many feel.
We need to listen to counselling people who have to deal with bullying across the educational spectrum instead of politically motivated “leaders” of whatever stripe – including bishops.
“Folks like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (scroll down the post) are pushing back, saying the teen victims either weren’t bullied or that gay teens have so many problems it’s not clear peer assaults led to their suicides.”
Really, there’s no limit to the stuff some people will make up when circumstances don’t fit the nice black and white categories they have established.
Despite my many rants about fundie-gelicals here, I have to say that I’m not wholly surprised by Mohler’s comments; I have heard many of my fundie-gelical family and friends say they don’t think homosexuality is any worse than fornication or adultery.
The trouble, however, is that homosexuals ARE separated from other sinners by Catholic teaching. It is the only sexual sin I’m aware of that results from what the Church calls “intrinsically disordered.” When you apply special language to a sin, you make it–and the people involved–seem beyond the pale.
A supply priest preached an interesting sermon some time ago that sticks in my head. He talked about counseling a family whose son was gay. The family said they had tried remonstrating with their son, tried shunning him, but nothing worked, and, frankly, they missed him. They’d done everything, they were out of ideas. Father told them they could try one more thing: Trying to find Jesus in their son.
Jean, I believe Catholic teaching applies the “objectively disordered” or “intrinsically disordered” label to a number of activities, such as masturbation and the like. But those are sins that all people are prey to (well, not me of course) whereas the objectively disordered label is (again, I believe) unusual in that it is applied to a class of people and of course gays are a focus of intense lobbying and condemnation by the hierarchy, unlike, say, wanking.
Wasn’t the visitation of American nuns prompted in part by their failure in the eyes of Levada and others in the hierarchy to “promote” the Church’s teachings on homosexuality?
(Have any congregations revealed what questions they were asked on this issue by the visitators or what, if any, recommendations were made about how they should promote the teachings?)
I just posted the following on Mirror of Justice in response to Rob Vischer’s new thread mentioned by David Gibson:
Actually, my last paragraph above was not posted on MOJ. It was “bonus content” for dotCommonweal, only I made a coding error.
David G., thanks for your correction, though I’m going to have to go lie down now that I’ve seen the word “wanking” used here on Commonweal.
The leaders of the church have gotten sexuality wrong from the beginning. Augustine points out that sexual activity ideally, that is before the fall, would have been done without perspiration or heavy breathing entirely for procreative purposes. Perhaps the bishops should sound the clarion and have pastors advocate pre-fall sexuality. After all what else is the cause for all the troubles in the world.
The idea that an anti-bullying campaign will promote homosexuality is almost the last straw from a group who has very little knowledge of the sexual sphere.
The third point is the outrageous decibel level of the bishops on matters pertaining to sexuality while the voice is so weak in important areas of the gospel.
Jean, just think of England and all will be well.
Here’s another powerful story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-seth-walsh-20101008,0,6569769,full.story
“They argue that including sexual orientation to protect youths from harassment is the slippery slope to gay marriage and other gay rights.”
In raising that argument, they are objectively correct (of course, if you support gay marriage, then you should see these kinds of laws as an important step in the right direction). These kinds of laws have been used in judicial rulings in Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, and Iowa as grounds for extending the right to gay marriage. See http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_08_14-2005_08_20.shtml#1124298617 http://volokh.com/posts/1161812027.shtml http://volokh.com/posts/1210877596.shtml http://volokh.com/posts/1238948132.shtml
I don’t see any way to prevent bullying. Kids, including very little kids, use the word “gay” to deride whatever they think deserves derision.
High school must be hell for homosexual kids. A shame there are not safe havens for them, boarding schools, e.g., conducted by religious orders where they may be given a place to thrive, not merely survive.
If the percentage of homosexuals in the priesthood is as high as sociologists of religion say it is, it’s beyond “bullying” to require men who are homosexual themselves to denounce it in sermons, in counseling, in the confessional, etc. No solution to the problem, imho. Hopeless.
This article avoids the obvious connection between homophobia in public (church leaders) and in private (catholics at home) and bashing and suicides. Our (Council on Homosexuality and Religion) research and literature surveys show that bashers and bullies most commonly have authoritarian personalities; they consider that they are doing what everyone, or at least the authorities, want. Roman denunciation of homosexuality authorises and encourages assault, murder, and harassment-unto-death. Presumably, this is seen as not as bad as what the church did historically, which was to do the killing itself, or through the agency of civil authorities. Of course rules against bullying are a start on a slippery slope, since it views homosexuals (youth, in this case) as being worthy of being treated as human beings, rather than loathsome monsters (the tradtional and doctrinal view). (Ironic, since it has been Roman leaders who have been, in fact, the loathsome monsters.) This doesn’t add to the number of individuals (young or otherwise) who are homosexual, but it does add to practical and public homosexuality. The Roman church is going to have to give up on forcing everyone else to do what it wants–won’t be easy since that is all it has ever done–and come to accept that, eventually about twenty percent of relationships at any one time, including homosexuals and a proportion of the much larger number who are bisexual will be same-sex. There is an advantage, neverthless in–as noted above–in “it is not for the bishops to stop teaching the truth” because it continues to reveal that much church doctrine is ridiculous and malicious fantasy, the cheap self indulgence of the willfully ignorant.
Doesn’t that “slippery slope” argument fall within the realm of double effect? Speaking up (or passing a law) against the existing bullying of gays is good, in itself; the intended consequence, preventing bullying, is a good effect; and the secondary bad effect, the possibility of influencing future SSM laws, is tenuous at best, particularly given the grave circumstances of teen suicides. Therefore bishops ought to speak up (or support laws) against bullying gays.
I have to confess I’ve never understood the moral force of legislative efforts that specifically exclude from protection those of a certain race, nationality, preference, etc.
gerelyn, there are actually many anti-bullying programs that foster safe environments for everyone, and I am idealistic enough to think that churches and church schools, e.g., could be such environments as well. There is plenty of research and experience, from racism to anti-Semitism, showing that dehumanizing language by society leads to dehumanizing behavior toward minority groups.
I did add a line to my story on the basis of some very good advice from a friend to note that there is no apparent religious motivation at all in the Clementi case or others (as far as anyone can tell), but that the concern is that the rhetoric of churches about homosexuals contributes to a societal view that it’s okay to pick on gays and lesbians. The other argument of course is simply that gay-bashing is a scourge, and even if the churches did not add to it they should battle it like any other societal sin.
Apropos Stuart’s comment: following the link provided by David G., we learn that it is the NC Catholic bishops who oppose a bill in the NC legislature, for the reason Stuart has given us. We also learn there is a similar bill in NC’s other legislative house that is anti-bullying without singling out gay students as a protected class, and the bishops support that bill.
So istm a charitable reading of the situation in NC is that the bishops oppose bullying, including the bullying of gay students, but not via legislation that would set up homosexuality as a privileged class, which could then be used to extend other privileges (such as gay marriage) that the bishops oppose.
“[I]f pro-life means trying to avoid anything that will threaten any life, from natural conception to natural death, then we should be finding ways to protect all life, which also means preventing suicides, and preventing gay suicides,” Martin wrote. “In any event, there is much for us, the church, still to do.”
I guess I can imagine a response to this that would go something like, “So, now we can’t talk about sin because it makes the sinners feel bad and kill themselves? Maybe feeling bad is a message that God wants them to change instead of committing another sin by killing themselves! And how would anybody know someone was gay unless they’d talked about it or tried to solicit someone? Maybe some of that ‘bullying’ is self-defense against unwanted sexual propositions!”
Actually, I don’t just imagine it.
I often wonder whether anybody in the mainstream media feels a little bit hypocritical, churning out these transports of pity for Tyler Clementi, considering the monumental quantities of poisonous venom they unloaded on Bristol Palin.
I suppose not. It would require some modicum of decency, after all.
Yes, almost as much decency as coming out from behind a pseudonym to makes noxious allegations.
We don’t really need that here, Felapton.
This question always strikes me as being similar (though obviously not identical) to questions of Catholic complicity in anti-Semitism. The Church has laudably dealt with this in the past fifty years, partly by completely renouncing many formerly common beliefs and tropes (i.e., the charge of “deicide”). Those ideas too were once espoused as “truth” and defended on that basis, irrespective of violent consequence (Dan, commenting on the Powell entry at MOJ, largely makes this case in regards to homosexuals today). Jews too were classed as a specific other who were not entitled to all the same rights as “normal/Christian” people. Gay persons, even in letters about their “Pastoral Care”, always somehow seem to be other than Catholics in magisterial discourse–like we somehow sneaked in when no one was watching. Though I do not intend any false equivalence, something of the parallel to the sorry history of Catholics and Jews still strikes me as apt.
My 1:54 comment was not in any way meant to refer to David Gibson specifically, and I apologize if I conveyed that impression.
Jean,
You are so right.
It was reported with distress on Mirror of Justice that the Spanish government was interfering with freedom of expression and engaging in censorship for fining a religious group for one of it’s “pro-family” ads. Here is a link to a statement by the European Center for Law and Justice objecting to the alleged censorship.
As it turned out, the “pro-family” ad consisted entirely the most outrageous moments culled from film footage of a gay pride parade, with text superimposed saying,
“Is this the type of society you want?”
“Are these the examples you want for your children?”"
“Proud . . . of what?”
I was able to find the ad on Youtube, but you have to log in as an adult to see it, because, as the notice says, “This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.” The excesses of gay pride parades are well known, but as I said on MOJ, I question the legitimacy of showing any parade and asking, “Is this the type of society you want?” If someone were to make an ad of the most outrageous moments of Mardi Gras, with women exposing their breasts an men exposing their penises to collect beaded necklaces, a good case could be made against heterosexuality. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade here in New York for many years was an occasion for high school students to get drunk and vomit all over the city. I suppose questions of free expression still remain regarding the Spanish ad, but I think anyone who sees it would consider it anti-homosexual and not “pro-family.”
Felapton, I don’t care what you say about me, but your attack is broad-brushed and your anonymity craven; we really don’t need such contributions on this site.
“I question the legitimacy of showing any parade and asking, ‘Is this the type of society you want?’”
There’s a good point. I’ve been to some St. Patrick’s Day parades that temporarily made me happy to be able to hide behind my German married name …
“I often wonder whether anybody in the mainstream media feels a little bit hypocritical, churning out these transports of pity for Tyler Clementi, considering the monumental quantities of poisonous venom they unloaded on Bristol Palin.”
Perhaps one might want to consider that, despite the poisonous venom churned out by the mainstream media, Bristol Palin was making a nice little pile of cha-ching dancing the cha-cha-cha on “Dancing With the Stars” (a “mainstream media” show last time I looked) while Tyler Clementi was jumping off a bridge in despair.
Honestly, about the most callous, unChristian thing I’ve ever read on here.
Who is the Saint who led riots in Alexandria? and beat-up (killed a few?) of those who opposed him and whom we always make excuses for? Seems to be a sort of parallel here. The “righteous” behavior of this past hero of the Faith is the logical extreme of, and seems justified by, the opposition to anti-bullying laws.
“As it turned out, the “pro-family” ad consisted entirely the most outrageous moments culled from film footage of a gay pride parade…”
And that was factual reporting. It’s important to provide that context, because the same-sex marriage activists are putting forth a false front as to what the “gay lifestyle” actually is, and it most assuredly includes not merely toleration, but societal acceptance, even celebration, of the “most outrageous moments from a gay pride parade.”
Similarly, the same-sex lobbying and propaganda elide the fact that even in so-called “committed” homosexual relationships (not so much in lesbian relationships), studies show that monogamy is only practiced in about 1/4 of them. The rest consider multiple sex partners, even in the context of a committed relationship, as a central component of the “gay lifestyle”. But you certainly won’t see them admitting that truth in the pro same-sex marriage ads and op-eds. They want everyone to believe that it’s just about two people in “love” wanting to be “married”.
Please spare any tu quoque responses about adultery in heterosexual marriages, it has no bearing on this point.
As for suicides and bullying, the suicide rate among homosexuals is no different today than it has always been: about four times higher than for the population at large. The acceptance of homosexuality today would have been inconceivable only 25 years ago (1985: “two men getting married? huh?”) yet the suicide rate is no lower even in light of that increased acceptance by society. Median life span for gays is less than 45 years! And you want to confirm people in such a self-destructive lifestyle? Condemning them to an early death? Almost guaranteeing to cut 30 years or more off their lives?
“Pro-life”, indeed.
Hi, Jim. St. Cyril of Alexandria. The victim was Hypatia, philosopher and mathematician. (And a woman.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
———–
Hi, David. Agree about dehumanizing language leading to dehumanizing behavior. Obvious example: all the derogatory terms for women.
P–
My boyfriend is coming over tonight to sit on the couch and watch a movie, like we usually do. Apparently I’m being gay wrong. I never got my “gay lifestyle” handbook that lists all the central components, like how we all think multiple partners is necessary. You seem much more knowledgeable than I. How did I fall off the mailing list?
“The victim was Hypatia, philosopher and mathematician. (And a woman.)”
And BTW, the current film is about as historically ignorant as The Da Vinci Code:
The Perniciously Persistent Myths of Hypatia and the Great Library
PS I’m also saddened to find that, at 29, I’m well past the gay median lifespan. I missed a perfectly good midlife crisis.
“how we all think multiple partners is necessary”
Perhaps you are in the 25% I mentioned. But, for example, Andrew Sullivan differs with you, here and elsewhere: The Evolutionary Case Against Monogamy
Median life span for gays is less than 45 years!
P Flanagan,
This is just preposterous. Cite your sources, if you have any.
Homosexual activists even oppose monogamy in strident manifestos. This is what the Gay Liberation Front had to say about monogamy.
“COMPULSIVE MONOGAMY. We do not deny that it is as possible for gay couples as for some straight couples to live happily and constructively together. We question however as an ideal, the finding and settling down eternally with one ‘right’ partner. This is the blueprint of the straight world which gay people have taken over. It is inevitably a parody, since they haven’t even the justification of straight couples-the need to provide a stable environment for their children (though in any case we believe that the suffocating small family unit is by no means the best atmosphere for bringing up children.”
And, since Mr. Buechel personalized the issue himself, here is an interesting perspective from a “committed couple” of 34 years regarding their lack of monogamy:
“Blake Spears and Lanz Lowen have been together for over 34 years. They told me that they still have great sex, contradicting the common belief that sexual interest inevitably wanes in a long-term relationship. How do they do it? “One reason,” Lanz said, “is that we’ve been in an open relationship from the very beginning. If we hadn’t been open, we wouldn’t have been able to grow individually or as a couple.” But, they write, this was a journey they took “without a roadmap…Information about how couples navigate this terrain is surprisingly lacking. We were curious about the experience of others and assumed many long-term couples might offer valuable perspectives and hard-earned lessons.” So, a few years back, they decided to use their combined training and experience in research and psychology to do an independent, in-depth study of other long-term open gay male relationships.”
P–
The Sullivan piece, though he highlights a passage about homosexuals, is about the evolutionary case against monogamy period, straight or gay. Likewise, taking the excesses of Pride or anything else and claiming that this is REALLY what being gay is (and that all those who say otherwise secretly know better) is akin to saying that the hookup culture among teens is REALLY what heterosexuality is about, or as David Nickol pointed out above, Mardi Gras. There is no more a “gay lifestyle” than there is a straight one, and certainly not some insidious plot to sneak it in via gay marriage laws.
Andy,
I found it on the Internet. I hope it helps.
The Homosexual Lifestyle / Gay Lifestyle is:
• Get up in the morning, moaning at the alarm clock.
• Shower, dress, eat breakfast.
• Go to work.
• Complain about traffic.
• Work. Worry about the job getting outsourced to India.
• Go home. Worry about gas prices.
• Stop for groceries on the way once or twice a week.
• Cook dinner. Realize there’s no butter.
• Eat dinner. Worry about blood pressure and cholesterol.
• Do laundry. Try to figure out how to get that tomato stain out of that t-shirt.
• Clean the house. Realize that a sock didn’t make it into the laundry.
• Pay bills. Worry about saving for retirement.
• Watch a little TV, spend time with any family members in the house, talk with friends on the Internet.
• Go to sleep.
• Repeat.
“This is just preposterous.”
Good, then since the NIH funds AIDS research at a level three times higher (per death) than other fatal diseases COMBINED, can we reallocate?
“Cite your sources, if you have any.”
Actually, the shorter lifespan for homosexuals is only one of a depressing litany of related health concerns, exhaustively documented from medical journals here>.
This is what the Gay Liberation Front had to say about monogamy.
P Flanagan,
The Gay Liberation Front was a radical organization that existed from 1969 to 1972.
“P Flanagan,” since this post is about the problem of children being bullied because of their homosexuality, I think you’ve shared enough of your secret-gay-agenda bookmarks for now. Your views on the matter are clear.
P. Flanagan, just some clarification:
Who are the “gay marriage activists” of whom you speak?
Are you referring to a particular group or organization? If so which one(s)?
Why do you think these groups are trying to force society to “celebrate gay marriage” rather than tolerate and recognize a civil union?
Do the aims and goals of those you refer to reflect those of most gay people?
Whence come your statistics about gay monogamy, lifespan and suicide?
What do you think is the significance of the fact that the gay suicide rate has not changed over several decades? What does that have to do with bullying?
Thanks.
Sorry, Jean, even though I was merely responding to demands to cite my sources, I have been directed to silence by the moderators.
Sorry, Mollie, our posts crossed.
I’d still like to know where PF is getting his info, if only to know mine enemy.
PF, clearly you can still get through and respond if you want to give yourself some credibility.
Actually, the shorter lifespan for homosexuals is only one of a depressing litany of related health concerns, exhaustively documented from medical journals here.
P Flanagan,
I saw a lot of stuff from crackpot sources mixed in with some admittedly distressing stuff from scientific journals. But I did not see any source concerning the lifespan of gay men.
Good, then since the NIH funds AIDS research at a level three times higher (per death) than other fatal diseases COMBINED, can we reallocate?
Your conclusion from the graph you linked to was incorrect, since the graph left out cancer (total), breast cancer, and West Nile Virus, all of which have a higher spending rate per patient than HIV.
It is ironic that you are using a thread about gay bullying to bully gay people.
P Flanigan, I wasn’t aware that there’s a current film about Hypatia. Instead of that movie, I would recommend Maria Dzielska’s book about Hypatia of Alexandria, Harvard University Press, 1996. Amazing the similarities between the bullies/murderers of then and now.
RE: Jim’s reference to the North Carolina bishops, I’ve heard that one of them had a gay brother who committed suicide. Anyone familiar with this story?
P Flanagan, please do cite your sources. Let them do the talking. Your language certainly proves the problem cited in my original story.
Jim P., I had skimmed through that article and missed the two versions of the proposed law. They’re supporting an anti-bullying law, but only on condition that it doesn’t mention gays as likely targets. This shows a certain sense of priorities. First priority: do everything possible to prevent SSM. Then and only then do other considerations come in. They’d rather have no law against bullying than have a law against bullying that mentions homosexuals, right?
Is there any example in which they supported something that explicitly was part of the pro-gay agenda, or does their opposition to SSM override everything else? Or is SSM the ultimate evil that must be avoided at all costs?
I for one can’t help wondering if those who bully gays may not be deeply insecure. Be that as it may, their conduct cannot be defended and neither can the behavior of those who abet that conduct, or refuse to condemn it.
Joseph Jaglowicz (I’m using your full name because there’s another Joseph in the thread): you ask if anyone is familiar with the story of the North Carolina bishop who had a brother who committed suicide.
I’m familiar with it. I lived in the Charlotte diocese at the time. The young man who died was the brother of now Bishop of Charlotte Peter Jugis. Jugis was not yet bishop, as well as I recall.
And the death was publicized in the local media, to my recollection, so it’s public knowledge through media reports–though, of course, the media reports didn’t provide details about reasons for this suicide, as they don’t in almost all cases, to respect the privacy of a family.
I do happen to know some details that perhaps few members of the public would have known, and they were shared with me by a source that I consider highly credible. I am not absolutely certain whether there has ever been any public discussion of sexual orientation as a factor in this suicide.
I would like to think that because he lost a brother to suicide, Bishop Jugis would search his soul as he opposes legislation to prevent bullying of young people in schools. Those who take their lives after bullying are always someone’s son or daughter, and often someone’s brother and sister.
And I’d hope we’d be intently concerned about those sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, regardless of whether they’re gay, straight, etc.
Kittens are good at awakening people’s hidden bully. I am one of those people who, when they play with kittens, may occasionally be taken by a sudden, almost irresistible urge to torment them in one way or another. For example, tying a ribbon with a bell around their neck, then watch them trying to get rid of it. When I am in a certain mood this kind of game seems really funny. It’s a most bizarre reaction sometimes triggered by their defenselessness. Then someone might say: “But that’s cruel!” and I will snap out of it, and it will seem not funny but shameful.
But it seems that there are people who can’t see both sides — some good-natured people who can’t, for the life of them, begin to understand the attraction of bullying; and some natural bullies who seem incapable of sympathizing with their victims.
I don’t know about bullies being insecure. Is that really relevant?
Let’s be clear about Catholic bullying. Augustine, Athanasius and Pope Damascus heralded in the Age of Christian bullying. Augustine had ‘heretics’ executed or imprisoned while Ignatius was known for using violence and courting Emperors in getting his See back. Damascus was behind the murder of over hundred people found dead in the church over who would get the lucrative position of Bishop of Rome.
The truth of the matter is that at least half of married Catholics ignore Rome as far as the “rules of marriage” are concerned. Perhaps that is an are where they can direct their efforts rather than using the state to do what they cannot do themselves.
Correction Athanasius not Ignatius.
The only thing that is relevant regarding bullying is that no person should ever be the victim of bullying under any circumstance.
“They’re supporting an anti-bullying law, but only on condition that it doesn’t mention gays as likely targets. This shows a certain sense of priorities. First priority: do everything possible to prevent SSM. Then and only then do other considerations come in. They’d rather have no law against bullying than have a law against bullying that mentions homosexuals, right? Is there any example in which they supported something that explicitly was part of the pro-gay agenda, or does their opposition to SSM override everything else? Or is SSM the ultimate evil that must be avoided at all costs?”
Hi, Claire, I’d think your questions are better directed to the NC bishops than me.
Having said that: I don’t think you’re quite accurate in supposing that “they’re supporting an anti-bullying law, but only on condition that it doesn’t mention gays as likely targets.” It’s not a matter of “mention”, but rather “mention”ing in a very specific way. Did you read Studebaker’s comment above?
I’d also say that bishops aren’t required to support any group’s political agenda except their own. Inasmuch as the bishops have always opposed gay marriage, oppose it now, and will always oppose it, it’s difficult to imagine that gay-marriage activists will ever agree with the bishops on that particular question.
On the other hand, both groups oppose the bullying of gays, and the bishops support a legislative measure that opposes the bullying of gays, and so their interests seem to run together on that one.
Perhaps we could engage in a hypothetical situation that may illustrate something. Suppose we learn (which doesn’t seem far-fetched) that pro-gay activists oppose the measure that the bishops support, precisely because it doesn’t lay the legislative groundwork for same-sex marriage that the bishops find objectionable in the alternative bill. Should we then conclude that pro-gay activists are so obsessed with SSM that they are willing to sacrifice their own constituency to the brutalities of bullies?
If that strikes anyone as an unfair and uncharitable way to characterize pro-gay activists, then I would respond that this is exactly the treatment the bishops are receiving in this discussion.
“Those who take their lives after bullying are always someone’s son or daughter, and often someone’s brother and sister. And I’d hope we’d be intently concerned about those sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, regardless of whether they’re gay, straight, etc.”
William: exactly right.
Should we then conclude that pro-gay activists are so obsessed with SSM that they are willing to sacrifice their own constituency to the brutalities of bullies?
Yes, actually, I would be tempted to conclude that.
Andy, you say, “P–
The Sullivan piece, though he highlights a passage about homosexuals, is about the evolutionary case against monogamy period, straight or gay.”
And, in line with that point, right now Andrew Sullivan has a posting up about Washington State Supreme Court justice Richard B. Sanders, who signed an opinion denying marriage equality to gay folks on the ground that they have “more sexual partners” than everyone else, and monogamy is “the bedrock upon which our culture is built.”
And, of course, Justice Sanders is twice divorced, and it now comes out (Sullivan provides the link) that the esteemed gentleman has also had simultaneous multiple girlfriends.
While defending that “bedrock” of monogamy upon which our culture is built. And while denying the right of civil marriage to same-sex couples since the gays, as we all know, manage to add a constant succession of partners to the other fabulous elements of that list of the gay lifestyle, between alarm clock and alarm clock, dishes and bill paying.
Is it any wonder we die young? Sheer exhaustion, with all those chores AND multiple partners. But I must be doing something wrong, since I’m 60 now.
Gary Stern notes an interesting juxtaposition:
http://religion.lohudblogs.com/2010/10/08/statements-on-gay-bullying-episcopal-and-political-involvement-catholic/
Here is another interesting juxtaposition: http://www.matthewshepard.org/new/judy-shepard-prop-8-verdict-%e2%80%98moves-america-closer-to-its-ideals%e2%80%99
Matthew Shepard’s mother is on the advisory board of the foundation that challenged Proposition 8, and she speaks on its behalf.
I think it is possible to fight bullying without condoning other immoral behaviors. The CCC threads that needle, and I think Catholics should try to do the same. But it’s pretty tough. It seems to me that all disapproval is accounted, at least by some, as unjust discrimination.
While I’m stymied about why some Church leaders protest including mention of homosexuals specifically, I wouldn’t wave away a general no-bullying policy in the hands of an effective principal.
Anecdotal evidence, I realize, but I learned about a situation at my kid’s school last year that was started by one boy who had ostracized a gay teen and held the rest of the boys in terror of being branded a “fag” if they stood up for him. The boys wouldn’t report the situation, but one of the girls noticed the gay kid was cutting himself and tipped off the school counselor.
Within five minutes (literally) of the tip, the principal (an active member of the K of C and the football coach) had the main people involved in his office, and the bully was put in detention then and there. I heard through the grapevine that the teachers were also read the riot act for patrolling the lunchroom and not being more vigilant about what was going on.
When a kid harms himself or commits suicide, it’s probably safe to say that a lot of people along the line have not been paying attention. Perhaps when it’s a gay kid, they pay less attention because they feel that, as the sinner and a disordered individual their church says he is, he’s less worthy of attention.
I hope not.
Andy, You are certainly correct that this echoes the Church’s history of anti-semitism. In particular, the quote from B16 in the very first comment
“When civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground and irrational and violent reactions increase.”
reminded me a very strange thing he said as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, in defense of the Oberammergau Passion play, which at the time (1980) still featured Jewish high priests with horns on their heads:
“Munich’s Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger declared from an Oberammergau pulpit, ‘Anti-Semitism has no part in this play.’ Saying that anti-Semitism can be brought on ‘by talking about it,’ he added: ‘I beg of everybody, particularly our Jewish friends, to stop reproaching us with an anti-Semitism totally alien to the historic roots and content of this play.’”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952665-2,00.html#ixzz11oUOZT00
In other words, it’s always your fault. Never ours. So stop complaining about it, because you will get more abuse, and that will be your fault too. …What a twisted way of thinking.
Kathy, thanks for highlighting Judy Shepard. I agree she is a remarkable woman. Whether the CCC threads the needle or not can be almost irrelevant (unfortunately) to the actual behaviors of Catholics themselves. The teaching needs to be embodied in a real and pastoral way, not just cited like a traffic cop issuing a ticket.
Jean, you have a great principal there.
MEP: The Oberammergau play story is one I hadn’t heard. Rather chilling.
William L. –
One reason I’ve seen given for the multiple partners of gay men is that men are generally not inclined to monogamy to the extent that women are. Heterosexual husbands become faithful to please (or keep?) their wives. No, I haven’t got a source, but I’ve read it more than once. It makes sense to me.
David, here is what I mean by threading the needle. The compassion is there, and the call to holiness is also there. Homosexual persons are called to holiness and chastity just like the rest of us–it’s not unattainable, as though they were beyond redemption or something. All human beings are called to holiness.
Chastity and homosexuality (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
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.
Bp. Tobin weighs in, with a slightly unusual column focused on love: http://www.thericatholic.com/opinion/detail.html?sub_id=3467
– not to the point of making any concrete promises as to how homosexuals can be accepted, and without giving an inch of ground on the position of the church of course, but nevertheless a column that recognizes people’s hurt. That’s a step forward.
The question is this: How does the Church preach the truth of the Gospel without harming or alienating people whose lives are touched by those issues?
For example, how does the Church preach about the immoral nature of homosexual acts without alienating persons with a homosexual orientation?
How does the Church speak about the sin of abortion without wounding women who have had the abortions, sometimes under mitigating circumstances?
How does the Church explain the destructive nature of embryonic stem cell research without seeming callous to folks who are looking to that flawed technology for a cure to disabling accidents or debilitating illness?
How does the Church promote Christ’s teaching regarding the sanctity and permanence of holy matrimony without hurting those who have been through painful separations and divorces?
It’s quite a challenge for the contemporary Church.
The catechism of the RCC is not infallible. The hierarchy does not always preach the truth of the gospel. And it is fair to take the greatest example of our times where the hierarchy chose to preserve the reputation of the empire(read hierarchy) over the welfare of children. So let’s be careful at subscribing to what is not there.
Which brings us to the real problem which is systemic to an empire formed Vatican. This is why VOTF is right that we must change the structure of the church. The RCC now spends the majority of its time talking about abortion and homosexuality, areas which are clearly not infallible. We are spinning our wheels. VOTF offers the most solid vehicle of reform of the church. Most other areas are directionless and going nowhere no matter how sophisticated the arguments.
Ignoscite mihi quod tam sere respondeo notae Davidis Gibsonensis, quam in paginam
scripsit iam ante decimum quartum horas. Nunc autem primum desinivi ridere. Illo loco
David Gibson me damnat ignavia, quod hoc in situ interetiali scribo sub nomine ficto.
Cui contumeliae utique nil respondendum est nec responderi potest, dum paene nullum
adest in quo possimus disputare. Quaenam significatio sit nominibus in spatiis
interetialibus vacuissimis ubi quisque habet non nomen proprium at tantum litteras
proprias cursi publici electronici? Quid autem illi deest si in hoc loco notae relinquantur
sub nomine ficto nisi facultas quemdam ad hominem oppugnandi? In re Bristol Palin,
scilicet, nomen hominis nominare superfluissimum esset, nec locum demonstrandum
erat ubi id scripsit in illa cloaca, quae nomen habet illius gigantis orbem terrarum in umeris
sustinentis.
At ecce iste me damnat hoc ipso in filo notarum in quo ipse tam ignobile lenocinatur
gustibus peissimis et periculosissimis legentium. Etiam in hoc filo instituendo, cuius res
tragica iam duas hebdomadas in humo jacet, Gibson se expressit verbis electis non
quidem ad rem commiserandam, sed potius ad maxime iras incendendas et
provocationes amplius provocandas. Prima iam nota huius fili legentem abducit in situm,
in quo audi possit locutio tam obscena quam nullo modo possint tolerare aures honestae.
Inter minus quam quadraginta lineas huius fili notarum iste ipse verbum scripsit tam
flagitiosum ut detector etiam carnis conditae id non poterit detegere.
Quae omnia iste tegit fragmento tenuissimo rationis, simulans se Ecclesiam ream putare
non quia illa effecit rem lamentabilem fili (Ipse autem concedit religionem non in re
interfuisse.) at hanc solam ob causam, quod non potuit id prohibere quod nullus poterit
prognosticare. Quis inveni potest, qui tam insipiat, tam insaniat, tam utique deliret ut hoc
filum notarum credat aliquid aliud esse quam conationem ignavissimam flagitiosas
perturbationes excitandi? Quid est itaque ignavius, aut notas relinquere in situ publico
sub nomine ficto, aut hoc eodem publico situ subverti ad malos excitandos? Quis nocet
magis, aut fidelis simplex qui relinquat licet minime benignam notam aut historicus histricus*
qui simulatur se lugere dum re maestissa utitur ad dissensiones serendas? Immo gaudens
discedam ab hac pagina foetida, nec umquam postea frequentabo fila Gibsonensia.
* historicus histricus = journalist
Anne, I’ve seen that proposal, too–that men are, in general, more inclined to multiple relationships than women are. And I’ve seen the corollary that heterosexual marriage is a curb on male promiscuity, since it binds a promiscuously inclined male to a woman who reins in the extramarital relationships through the marriage bond.
It may well be that men are more inclined to multiple relationships than women are. If that’s the case, I’d be tempted to view this as a matter of social conditioning rather than nature, though I know that there are many folks who’d place the accent on nature here.
If social conditioning is primarily responsible for male promiscuity, then I would also tend to think the “solution” to this promiscuity is not necessarily heterosexual marriage, as I understand Ross Douthat to argue. It’s shifting a societal consensus that men are entitled — are entitled in a way that surpasses the entitlement of women.
And so the primary problem here is not marriage, but challenging longstanding societal (and religious) consensus that men are entitled qua men to gather to themselves the best of the world’s goods, sometimes without due regard to the rights of others or the demands of relationships.
I’d also note that I know many gay men in longstanding relationships who don’t in any way fit the stereotype of gay men as promiscuous and as having multiple partners. I’m amused at the fantasies projected onto my own very vanilla life in a longterm committed monogamous relationship by these stereotypes. If those fantasizing only knew the reality . . . .
I also find some Catholic approaches to these discussions ludicrously mechanistic, unconvincingly crude. The focus on “immoral behaviors,” with their concomitant lack of focus of the relationships in which “behaviors” are embedded: in my view, this kind of talk is totally beside the moral point.
And when this Catholic rhetoric, which also claims to be about love, is also embedded in a worldview that grants power and privilege to heterosexuals, and never focuses with the same laser intensity on the “immoral behaviors” of heterosexual people, it’s entirely unconvincing — either as moral discourse or as discourse about love.
It strikes me as the opposite of love, in fact.
Sorry, there’s a typo in my last comment above:
In the penultimate paragraph, the phrase that now reads “with their concomitant lack of focus of the relationships” should read “with their concomitant lack of focus ON the relationships.”
Can we just stop with the generalizing on human sexual activity? As a society of individuals it hardly matters what the “average” man or woman wants. Further, the evidence that women don’t want multiple sexual partners simply cannot be divorced from eons of sociological conditioning.
I don’t accept all the premises of books like “Sex at Dawn” but the idea that women don’t want sex with more than one partner seems pretty dubious.
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010_08_016440.php
And when this Catholic rhetoric, which also claims to be about love, is also embedded in a worldview that grants power and privilege to heterosexuals, and never focuses with the same laser intensity on the “immoral behaviors” of heterosexual people, it’s entirely unconvincing — either as moral discourse or as discourse about love.
William, could you please explain what you mean by “a worldview that grants power and privilege to heterosexuals”? I’m not aware of having power and privileges vis-a-vis homosexuals.
Kathy, you ask, “William, could you please explain what you mean by ‘a worldview that grants power and privilege to heterosexuals.’”
For starters, Kathy, there’s the very basic and now central contention of magisterial teaching that every human born gay or lesbian is born “intrinsically disordered.”
As some folks have noted in this thread as well as elsewhere, though the magisterium may occasionally have applied that rhetoric to this or that action of groups other than gays, it is applied exclusively and unilaterally only to gay and lesbian persons in magisterial teaching.
Denoting one class of folks as disordered in their very natures automatically implies that the other class of folks not so denoted — whose actions may point to disorder every bit as much as the gay folks being tagged as disorders — have power and privilege not shared by the “disordered” group.
Then when this rhetoric gets all bound up with discourse about which body part is supposed to fit where, and about the superiority of acts in which tab A fits into slot B, you’ve got a noxious brew (to my mind) of rhetoric that grants astonishing power and privilege to one group, while denying that power and privilege to the other group — simply because of how the latter group is made by God.
I confess I don’t hear the love in all of this.
Sorry, another typo (this is what happens then I type before the caffeine has kicked in):
(Again, in the penultimate paragraph of this posting), the phrase “being tagged as disorders” should read “being tagged as disordered.”
William, could you please explain what you mean by “a worldview that grants power and privilege to heterosexuals”? I’m not aware of having power and privileges vis-a-vis homosexuals.
Kathy,
Let me answer that from my viewpoint. First, I’d like to make a distinction that not everyone makes, but I think, actually, the Church makes it, and I would agree with them. There are homosexual persons and then there are gay men and lesbians. Homosexual persons are men and women “who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.” The Church always refers to “homosexual persons.” I don’t believe the words gay and lesbian appear in any of the documents from the CDF addressing questions of “gay rights.” Now, in the USCCB document Always Our Children, which uses the word gay only three times, it says, “Some homosexual persons want to be known publicly as gay or lesbian. These terms often express a person’s level of self-awareness and self-acceptance within society.” I agree with that. Homosexual person tells you only about the person’s orientation and nothing more. Gay and lesbian, as self-identifications, tell you that the person with a homosexual orientation embraces it, identifies with others who call themselves gay and lesbian, and does not consider homosexual attraction to be “intrinsically disordered” or homosexual acts to be “acts of grave depravity.”
As I said over on Mirror of Justice, in a very real sense, the Catholic Church does not even grant gay people the right to exist. Take this infamous statement from the CDC: “[W]hen civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase” [emphasis added]. Gay people (as opposed to mere homosexual persons) by my definition assert a right to homosexual behavior that the Church most emphatically denies.
Now, as you pointed out, the Church says the following about homosexual persons in the Catechism: “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” However, homosexual persons, no matter how deeply they are committed to a celibate life and to upholding the teachings of the Church on sexuality, are still “damaged goods.”
Note that the Church says here that some forms of discrimination — based on sexual orientation alone, not on behavior — are not unjust. Another example, of course, is that men with a homosexual orientation are no longer admitted to the priesthood, no matter how deep their commitment to celibacy.
The Church goes on to say the following:
Now, what is “objectively disordered external conduct”? One example we have is two lesbian mothers living quietly as a couple and sending their children to Catholic school. Had these women been living in an apartment building where the owner considered their behavior “objectively disordered,” it would have been just discrimination for the landlord to evict them. Clearly, marrying a same-sex partner would be objectively disordered external conduct. Letting it be known at your place of employment that you are gay and have a partner would give your employer moral grounds for firing you. In many places, it would be illegal for an employer to fire a worker for being gay, but the Church is opposed to that kind of legal protection for the rights of gay men and lesbians.
The Church is less than fully accepting of “homosexual persons,” — they can be discriminated against, although only “justly” — but it is the enemy of gay men and lesbians. The Church does not recognize “gay rights.” No doubt it will welcome gay men and lesbians with open arms if they renounce their self-identification as gay men and lesbians, acknowledge that they are intrinsically disordered, confess that their past behavior amounted to grave depravity, and dedicate themselves to a life of celibacy. But of course the Church would feel much the same about repentant terrorists, abortionists, murderers, and rapists. As I said, in a very real sense, the Church does not recognize the right of gay men and lesbians to exist. They must convert to being “homosexual persons” to have any but the most basic rights. To quote William Lindsey, “I confess I don’t hear the love in all of this.”
Church teaching on homosexuality, as I understand it, is predicated on its not leading to reproduction–in the same way that masturbation or using artificial birth control is–i.e., it is not open to life.
I would expect that the Church believes that masturbation and using artificial birth control is “disordered” (David G. said so above, I believe).
In fact, this was one of the questions my son raised in Confirmation: How can guys at school brag about looking and porn and masturbating and that’s OK, but everybody harasses the gay kids who aren’t even having sex? (Yeesh, bragging about masturbating? Kids say the darndest things …)
Neither priest nor deacon couldn’t be bothered to attend attend any Confirmation sessions, so we answered this the best we could: The gay kid is not committing any sin whatever in the eyes of the Church; the bragging masturbating porn lookers are. A good Catholic would advise his friends that he viewed masturbation and porn as wrong, and would stick up for the homosexual kid who is not trying to hustle up sex partners.
This clearly ran counter to “normal” behavior at school, and struck my kid as a really good way to make yourself into the butt of a lot of hazing. (The reaction to the other boys in Confirmation was pretty much the same.) Needless to say, my son is not going to that school this year.
Understanding Church teaching is all fine and dandy, but the fact is that there are layers of social norms, prejudices, fears, etc., about homosexuality in our culture that probably have a very complicated genesis, and these are perpetuated undoubtedly by Church teaching.
While I see nothing in Church teaching that encourages those with deep-seated and overly fearful notions about gay people toward harassment and assault, I’m glad to see Catholics examining the way some might USE Church teaching wrongly as a handy cudgel and excuse for what amounts to criminal behavior.
OK, I think I’m probably repeating myself, so done here.
David N., thanks for parsing this in more detail and providing appropriate cites.
William,
I see what you mean.
I don’t remember hearing the expression “intrinsically disordered” used about inclinations, but about acts of a homosexual nature. The catechism uses the same expression about masturbation. The terms “ordered” and “obect” are terms in moral theology. Actions have to be ordered towards a good end (the “object”), and meet other criteria as well, to be good. The end or object of non-heterosexual, non-married sexual expression is not a good end in the mind of the Church. I’m sure people will argue with that, especially in the case of stable, loving, homosexual relationships. But I think that what the Church has in mind is the physical character of the act, which is “intrinsic” to it. No matter what the circumstances, this physical act can never be rightly ordered.
The expression regarding orientation is somewhat different” “objectively disordered.” I think this phrase is often misunderstood. The CDF in this letter http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html , paragraph 3, was making the point that the homosexual inclination does not constitute a personal sin. That is a really important point, I think. On the other hand, it is a desire that is oriented towards an inappropriate object: it is an orientation that is disordered as to its object.
I think the translation is infelicitous in this regard and has given rise to needless misunderstandings and hurt.
I think that the CDF felt the need to address this issue, not because of a special hatred for persons with homosexual desires, but because there are persons in ministry who have affirmed the homosexual orientation as a positive good. The CDF had to step in and say, no, it’s not as though homosexual orientation is a positive good, like the heterosexual orientation. It is ordered wrongly.
I wonder if it would help to know that the Church thinks every human being (except Mary) has objective disorders. It was a teaching of the Council of Trent that as a result of original sin we all want what we should not. Again, these are not personal sins. They are disorders as to the object of desire.
…”For in those who are born again God hates nothing, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism unto death, who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man and putting on the new one who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven.
But this holy council perceives and confesses that in the one baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to sin, which, since it is left for us to wrestle with, cannot injure those who do not acquiesce but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; indeed, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned.
This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin,the holy council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin.”
And ditto Kathy. I’m amazed at how fast some of you can lay hands on relevant cites.
I’m just doing the best I can to represent Church teaching accurately to my kid (difficult when my own beliefs sometimes run in a different direction), and this has been a very useful discussion for me as a parent.
Glad to help, Jean.
I find the teaching of Trent on this point to be incredibly consoling.
A Google search of the entire Vatican website for the words grave depravity
“grave depravity” site:vatican.va
reveals that they are used only in the Catechism, and only to describe homosexual acts.
The word depravity, unmodified by grave, appears about thirty-five times, and seems to have been a particular favorite of Leo XIII, appearing in Fin dal principio, Humanum Genus, In Plurimis, Magnae Dei Matris, Officio Sanctissimo, Quamquam Pluries, Spesse volte, and Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus.
Hello All,
I am very late into this discussion (because of work commitments). First I’d like to thank all here for the earlier posts, most of which I found informative.
I have a factual question relevant David G.’s original post. Aside from Fr. Martin, did any Roman Catholic who is a public figure say or write anything in response to these five suicides other than to complain about anti-Catholic or more generally anti-Christian bias in the way these tragedies have been covered in the news? (Other than Fr. Martin, I don’t think any of the others David G. cited in his original post fall into the category I’m asking about.) For instance, I was wondering if any of the bishops of the dioceses where these suicides occurred may have issued messages of condolence or specific reminders that the Church condemns the sort of bullying connected with these suicides.
I think these suicides have particularly saddened me because I’m a professor. Tyler Clementi, for example, could have been one of my students had I been working at his university. I’m grateful to Fr. Martin for his compassion and reflections. (And thanks David G., for providing the relevant link.)
Barbara –
I’m well aware that women are usually attracted to more than one man. That is not the issue. The issue is whether they are generally less inclined to act on those attractions. Yes, culture undoubtedly has something to do with it. But the notion that women are equally inclined to roam as men is a new one, and I don’t think the score is in yet. True, I’ll be quite surprised if we are.
Kathy, what the 1986 CDF document says, specifically, is the following:
“In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration [i.e., the 1975 'Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics,'] however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.
The CDF document states quite explicitly that the “homosexual condition itself” is disordered, and manifests an “inclination” to “objective disorder.” To say that this language applies to acts and not to persons is to quibble semantically, it seems to me.
And lest we miss the point that gay and lesbian people are disordered in their very persons and inclinations, the 1986 document goes on to say,
“This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent.”
I am not aware that the magisterium has concluded that when heterosexual people engage in “disordered” sexual activity (i.e., by masturbating, by using artificial contraception, etc.), they confirm within their own persons and natures a disordered sexual inclination that is essentially self-indulgent. And so all heterosexual human beings therefore share a disordered “condition” with “inclinations” in their very natures that lead to disordered behavior.
Are you aware of such magisterial statements? Note that these magisterial statements are not talking about acts as disordered. They’re talking about persons as disordered — in their natures, inclinations, in themselves. They argue from “disordered” acts to a conclusion that the magisterium never reaches about the very persons, natures, and inclinations of heterosexual people, even when heterosexual people also engage in “disordered” sexual activity.
And again, lest we miss this significant point, when it deals with acts of violence against those who are gay and lesbian, the 1986 document goes on to state,
“But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered.”
Have you see magisterial statements indicating that the “heterosexual condition” is disordered, because some heterosexuals engage in “disordered” sexual activity? If so, I’d like to know about those.
And as I’m sure you know, this language has now been incorporated into the catechism, which states (¶ 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.”
We began this conversation talking about what it means to love. Somehow, I’m not hearing the love with these statements.
I have the impression that if I want to reach out to an entire segment of the human community, my first gambit might not be to inform those human beings that their personhood, natures, inclinations, and loves are disordered.
With the implication that mine are “ordered” and correct and superior.
William, thanks for continuing the discussion. I agree generally that there is nothing particularly loving or consoling in the Church’s official pronouncements and teachings on homosexuality.
On the other hand, I’ve never bought that Protestant claptrap that “sinning in your heart” is the same as doing the deed, and it’s never been my understanding that the Church taught it, either.
It seems to me that there is a fairly big difference in distinguishing between people and acts. If the Church teaches that homosexuals are in a constant state of sin based on their proclivities alone, then doesn’t that pretty much say they might as well not bother hoping for salvation however celibate they might remain?
I think Church teaching as it now stands, has pretty much shown the door to practicing homosexuals. But it does not teach that celibate homosexuals must abandon hope of God’s saving grace.
The ban on homosexuals in the priesthood is, in my view, extremely unfortunate because it implies that homosexuals are, by their very nature, regardless of their actions, unfit to serve.
William,
Would you mind rereading my last comment? I tried to express everything very carefully. I’m not sure why you did not understand what I was saying.
William Lindsey, thank you for the background on Bishop Jugis of Charlotte, NC. Thanks also for pointing out the obvious inconsistency and double standard in official church teaching relating to heterosexuality vs. homosexuality.
It’s obvious that Rome wants folks in the pews ready to parrot the official line. Critical and informed thinking on “hot button” issues among the laity is not welcomed.
Again, thanks!
You’re welcome, Jean.
I agree, too, with your observation, “I think Church teaching as it now stands, has pretty much shown the door to practicing homosexuals.”
I think I might reformulate that statement to say “has shown the door to gay and lesbian people who claim their natures as God-given and to be celebrated.”
And, again, that’s what makes me conclude that it’s impossible — it’s not really honest — to present the church’s current teaching about gay and lesbian human beings and gay and lesbian human lives as loving. Showing folks who claim their God-given natures the door is the antithesis of welcome and love.
The US bishops wrote in a “pastoral” letter in Nov., 2009:
Is it credible to read such a statement and believe that the USCCB intends that LGBT people in fact be treated equally, or even decently, in society? This kind of hysterical statement is fuel to the flames of savage homophobia, saying that if society were to grant equal legal protection to same-sex couples and their families, that the entirety of society would collapse. Nonsense.
Joseph J., I’m only now seeing your comment to me, since it came through at the very same time I was posting my reply to Jean. I’m glad to hear that what I’ve shared in my comments here has been worth hearing, in your view. I agree: we very much need open, intelligent, informed discussion about these and other issues re: which there’s been an attempt to squash lively interchange in the past several decades.
(Sorry for peppering the thread with too many comments): Kathy, I’m also seeing your last comment to me only now. It, too, seems to have appeared in the thread as I was writing and posting my reply to Jean.
I’ll re-read your previous comment to me. I do think I understood you fairly well, however.
Note the following comment from your posting, and note my response to it, and you’ll see what I consider one of the cruxes of this discussion:
“I think that the CDF felt the need to address this issue, not because of a special hatred for persons with homosexual desires, but because there are persons in ministry who have affirmed the homosexual orientation as a positive good. The CDF had to step in and say, no, it’s not as though homosexual orientation is a positive good, like the heterosexual orientation. It is ordered wrongly.”
To repeat what I’ve already said several times, if I wanted to approach a whole segment of the human community with the claim that I was offering the members of that group love, I don’t believe I’d do so with a discourse about how MY nature is ordered aright and towards a “positive good,” while theirs is “ordered wrongly.”
In my experience, one doesn’t get very far in fruitful conversation with another human being once one has informed that human being that he/she is disordered in his nature — and isn’t it a pity that his/her nature can’t be ordered like my own.
That approach might be called many things. Love is not one of the things that leaps to my mind as a tag for it, however.
William,
But that’s just it. No one (except Mary) can say “My nature is ordered aright and towards a positive good.” It’s a sad fact of fallen human nature.
Kathy,
If that is the sense in which the USCCB means disordered, though, as a universal condition for all of us except Jesus and his mom, then logically, how can the Church single out homosexual people for special labeling? Wouldn’t it have to follow, for example, that all sexual relationships would be banned as “disordered,” not only homosexual relationships?
To yield to “disordered” sexual desire in any way would be wrong, barring some proportionate good to be achieved–and we’re back with that old proportionalist Augustine, according to whom sex was justified by the proportionate good of progeny, or to keep one’s partner from even worse sins like adultery. To enjoy sex was to sin, at least venially. Celibacy, it would follow, would be a godlier state than marriage. There certainly remains that strand of thinking in the Church–indeed, some celibates seem to take great pride in being “above” the partnered among us.
To go down the Augustinian path, though, is to reclaim reproduction and nurture of children as the first end of marriage, and spouses’ partnership in life as instrumental to it. Arguably, (or so I would argue,) this is exactly what JPII’s Theology of the Body does. But it’s a reversal of Gaudium et Spes, among other documents.
But, logically, then we need to REALLY MEAN that marriage is for reproduction–and we know more about the details than Augustine did. Knowing what we know now, then, there could be no more marriage for women of a certain age. Nor for, e.g., cancer survivors left sterile by chemo. Nor for, e.g., men who got vasectomies then converted (or repented)–they’d have to be surgically reversed first. In sum, we’d need to let infertility as well as impotence be grounds for annulment, and presume that women past, say, 50 are no longer allowed to marry. That way no fertile person would be denied true, reproductive marriage by being permanently yoked to somebody incapable of participating in it biologically. At present, KNOWLEDGE of infertility should be disclosed before marriage, but infertility itself doesn’t invalidate the bond. Also, at present, our tradition (including JPII in Familiaris Consortio) affirms the true worth of marriages without children, which makes no sense at all if children are essential to its purpose.
Kathy’s right, of course, but she’s overlooking the reality that many people view homosexuality with special contempt born more from personal repugnance than righteousness, reacting to it in a way that is not proportionate with other sexual behavior considered sinful.
If one were cynical, one might see the passage Lisa offered not as “hysterical,” but rather coldly calculated to short up the notion that homosexuality is a terrible danger to marriage, children, the fabric of society–and, of course the priesthood, which is how we “solved” the sex abuse crisis.
Sorry, “calculated to SHORE up the notion.”
Hello Lisa (and All),
Looks like we’ve all moved into a discussion of the rationale behind Church teaching regarding intrinsically evil acts in the sexual area, particularly sex between people of the same gender. And these days that seems to inevitably lead to Theology of the Body (TOB).
I think the reasoning of TOB is somewhat obscure and lends itself to several quite different (but maybe not opposing?) interpretations. You notice a line of Augustinian reasoning in TOB. The best I can make from what I’ve learned about TOB from studying some of the original lectures and secondary literature is that John Paul II was proposing a Kantian-style argument, although I don’t know if he or any of his later commentators specifically acknowledge Kant. In (very) short, as I understand it, the core argument of TOB is that to engage in any sexual act that is not a sexual act between a woman and man married to each other, or to engage in any sexual act with one’s spouse using contraception, is necessarily to use oneself and one’s partner merely as a means towards fulfilling one’s own selfish ends and cannot quality as an act of love.
Obviously some might dispute the claim I just stated. Some of my colleagues in philosophy have sparred with the so-called “new natural lawyers” who advance this line of argumentation in their attacks on the use of contraception and on homosexual acts. (Though for some reason the “new natural lawyers” don’t reference TOB so far as I know.) But at least I thought it might be worthwhile stating here another of reasoning that is being presented in defense of these Church teachings. After all, we have to live with these teachings as best we can (and I say this knowing of course that not all of us obey these teachings to the letter).
I think that these discussions and theories will one day be studied by historians curious to see how we tie ourselves into knots. I find it simply bizarre that regarding sex, we are looking for the guidance of people who, for the most part, have little to no experience of it. Isn’t it obvious that a theology of sexuality should be developed primarily by people who know something about sex (and about theology)?
On homosexuality, to lend some credit to the Church teaching, where’s the role model that will show its reality? Is that theory incarnated in anyone, or is it an abstraction with no bearings on the real world? We need a leading Catholic figure to say: “I am homosexual, I know and fully subscribe to the teaching of the Church in that regard, and I feel welcome in the Church.” After reading the quotes in the posts above, I would be surprised if such a person existed.
“Is it credible to read such a statement and believe that the USCCB intends that LGBT people in fact be treated equally, or even decently, in society? This kind of hysterical statement is fuel to the flames of savage homophobia, saying that if society were to grant equal legal protection to same-sex couples and their families, that the entirety of society would collapse. Nonsense.”
Lisa —
This was exactly my reaction to the NCCB statement. They sound like the very thought of homosexual unions throws them into a panic, and they start throwing unfounded accusations at the gays.
I don’t use the term “marriage” when talking of gay unions because I do think there is an essential difference between gay and heterosexual unions — gay unions cannot produce children, while the orientation of heterosexual unions is towards producing children and they usually do. Producing kids is such an important function that society has a fundamental interest in preserving it because children are fundamental to preserving society. Gay unions don’t have this function or, face it, advantage. I know this is not a politically correct view, but it is how I see it: Gay unions as such simply do not share one of the basic functions of marriage.
Yes, gays can adopt children, but I’m not sure that it has been established that this is in the children’s best interest. Too many studies have shown that children who lack a parent of the opposite sex do not generally flourish as well as those who do. Are two parents of the same sex equivalent? I think we just don’t know yet.
I suppose my basic view is that we just don’t know enough yet to make sound judgments about some of these matters.
One thing I’m sure of is that I fail to see any difference, whether theoretical or empirical, between gay and heterosexual unions that is actually destructive of heterosexual marriage, except the very tenuous objection that some gay unions tolerate or even welcome multiple partners, and this might possibly — just possibly — give kids the idea that promiscuity is OK for everyone. In other words, if you called such unions “marriage” kids would probably draw the conclusion that if infidelity is alright for gays then it’s alright for straights.
But none of that is any reason to deny the great value of the gay unions that do not allow infidelity.
Kathy, you say, “No one (except Mary) can say ‘My nature is ordered aright and towards a positive good.’ It’s a sad fact of fallen human nature.”
But with respect, this is not what the documents you’ve cited, which now form the basis of magisterial teaching that some Catholics are apparently content to live with — it’s there, and we have to deal with it — say. They quite specifically transfer the weight of original sin to those who are gay and lesbian in a way that they do not do for those who are heterosexual.
With their language of disorder, which is applied to all gay people in the world qua gay people (and never to all heterosexual people), they quite specifically make being gay, having a homosexual orientation, a unique sign of the brokenness of creation after the fall.
And you yourself write,
“The CDF had to step in and say, no, it’s not as though homosexual orientation is a positive good, like the heterosexual orientation. It is ordered wrongly.”
I’m sorry, but when I hear someone say that homosexual orientation is not a positive good like heterosexual orientation, but is ordered wrongly, I don’t hear, “No one (except Mary) can say ‘My nature is ordered aright and towards a positive good.’ It’s a sad fact of fallen human nature.”
Built into the current magisterial teaching about sexual orientation are astonishing, and exceptionally malicious (in their effects), assumptions about who represents the norm and who fails to do so — in his or her very nature. How those who are not targeted by these assumptions manage not only to rest easy with them, but to defend and transmit them, is puzzling to me.
Perhaps because I came of age in the American South during the Civil Rights movement, and at an early age had to see at first hand and then make my own decisions about the evil one group of people can do to another, when the ruling group imagines it is the pinnacle of development, and that God has placed it on top of the social pyramid . . . .
Interesting essay in this morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Isaac Katz’s father, a “proud homophobe”, is a physics professor at Washington U. A few months ago, he was kicked off a panel assembled to help with the BP oil spill because of his hatred of homosexuals. Now, his son has come out as a homosexual. His essay with a little background explanation:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_d629ecf2-2f92-56ad-868e-5510eff8ef20.html
William,
I have noticed that several times you have expressed the idea that the same sex attraction is part of “the nature” of a homosexual person. I don’t believe that it is necessary to identify one’s person or one’s nature with one’s sexual orientation. As the quotation I took from Trent’s teaching on original sin indicates, EVERYONE’s desires are corrupted. There is no “them” and “us,” and therefore no possibility of a hegemony. It’s just us poor sinners.
Heterosexual desires may be ordered more or less well, although that is far from a given. But for each of us there are areas of life in which serious discipline will be necessary in order to curb the many, many kinds of disorder to which we are all subject.
The CDF instruction was in response to a specific pastoral problem, a specific problematic desire that some seek to present as a positive good. It could have been about any disordered desire but it wasn’t. It was about this particular kind of desire.
It seems to me that the basic ethical or theoretical problem with Rome’s teaching is that it says that homosexual sexual activity lacks the capacity to produce children, and incorporating a lack, the activity is therefore a sinful.
But in the first place you can’t incorporate a lack — a lack is a negative, a nothing. Even if you think of lacks as things, as positive realities, they are not all sins. For instance, I lack hearing but that is not a sin, or, more apposite, Catholic priests lack wives, but that is not sinful either. But Rome goes from the fact that homosexuals cannot produce children together to calling the positive aspects of homosexual depraved. It’s a gigantic and unjustified ethical leap.
And all that argument about “the” purpose of body parts is patently nonsense. Many body parts have more than one function/purpose, e.g., hands and feet, not to mention brains, the most specific of human body parts.
Maybe it’s time to start asking *why* the Vatican puts out such patently unsound arguments.
OOps — “But Rome goes from the fact that homosexuals cannot produce children together to calling the positive aspects of homosexual depraved. ”
should have been “. . . to calling the positive aspects of homosexual love depraved”.
More than 100 posts on bullying and over a hundred on Fr. Tegeder and his bishop and the DVD.
Clearly hot button.
But I think everyone agrees that bullying is out.
After watching the CNN one hour on this Friday night, I think including gays in the specifics of bullying problems seems in order.
I also think the bishops can well proclaim their thoughts that gay marriage undermines the fabric of society, but their beleivability is really the issue underlying most comments here.
Just as in recent times the equality of women and how it affects Church policies has arisen, so too the issue of the rights of gay people as well.
Traditionalists citing proof texts and documents will think they have the final word, others will say we have much yet to learn and that debate will roll on and on for a while.
Again I thought of peter’s concepts at Fordham recently and “open mindedness.”
An interesting subtext in all this is the downplaying of the social sciences in some quarters by those stressing traditional values.
I think “matters of principle” often get to be an expansion of principle to applications.
At any rate, I see the lack o balance between traditional understandings and new advancements as being contributory toward bringing some reasonable resolution to all this.
F.Y.I.-
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100707.html
I have noticed that several times you have expressed the idea that the same sex attraction is part of “the nature” of a homosexual person. I don’t believe that it is necessary to identify one’s person or one’s nature with one’s sexual orientation.
Kathy,
It seems to me rather difficult to use the first creation account [God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. . . . . Be fertile and multiply] and the second creation account [It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him. . . . That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.] as telling us something basic about the nature of human beings and then deny that sexual orientation is part of the nature of a person. I think it would be rather strange to think that God created males and females to “be fertile and multiply” without giving them a sexual orientation, or to imply that it would have made no difference if Adam and Eve had had no sexual orientation or if they had been a gay man and a lesbian! Clearly, Catholic though takes sexual orientation to be part of the nature of a man and woman, and even if one believes that a homosexual orientation is “objectively disordered,” I don’t see any reason to take it as any less basic than a heterosexual orientation.
Kathy, thanks for your response.
My insistence that being gay or lesbian is a facet of the human nature of some people is a response to what I heard you initially saying about the teaching on the “homosexual condition” as objectively disordered. I heard you saying that the current magisterial teaching defines gay acts and not gay persons as disordered.
But as I replied, since the teaching refers to the inclination and condition itself as disordered, it seems to me semantic quibbling (not to mention a falsification of what the 1986 document and catechism say) to push that act-person distinction. As it is to say that calling someone’s inclination and “condition” disordered is not calling one’s person and nature disordered.
I haven’t met conditions and inclinations romping around outside persons in the world in which I live.
If — as seems true — the logic of this magisterial teaching is that all homosexual acts are disordered ipso facto, and therefore all gay and lesbian persons are disordered if they “incline” to those acts and this condition, then the other point I’ve been making is that I never see that logic applied by the magisterium to all heterosexual people, when heterosexual people can also “incline” to disordered acts. Acts like masturbation or use of artificial contraception, for instance . . . .
The logic of the magisterium inclines in only one direction when it addresses sexual orientation: to a definition of the very nature of those who are gay and lesbian as disordered. But never to that same conclusion about those who are heterosexual, when they manifest inclinations to disorder because of the sexual acts they perform.
As I’ve also said, I personally find this acts-centered analysis of the ethics of human sexuality far from enlightening. We have within our tradition the wisdom to move in other, more fruitful, relationship-centered directions. We have significant thinkers who have sought to assist with that move, including Charles Curran, James Alison, John McNeil, and Mary Hunt, to name a few.
I would agree that it’s not helpful to define anyone’s nature entirely according to sexual orientation. That’s a reductionistic move, it seems to me.
At the same time, I also think it’s absurd not to grant that some people are born with a homosexual and others with a heterosexual orientation. And if that orientation is embedded in people’s nature, then it seems to me the primary emphasis of any Judaeo-Christian religious tradition should be to see what God makes as good.
Bob–
But does including some groups as special protected classes and not including others violate our sense of fairness? Is it divisive? Bullying is not “more wrong” when a certain class is bullied–it’s equally wrong in and of itself, regardless of the victim. I
BTW, your watching CNN for an hour on a Friday night will probably cause a spike in their ratings; I’m sure CNN thanks you.
There are only ten commandments. Not one says, “Thou shalt not be a big, hairy faggot.”
Just sayin’. No one is bullied for being a liar, greedy, or taking long, too-interested looks at married members of the opposite sex. When it was all expressed in one line, the line was, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
William,
Oh, I see how this came up. No, I did not mean to say that there is no use of the word “disordered” for the homosexual inclination. I was just clarifying that the expression “intrinsically disordered” is used in the documents for the act itself, not the orientation. The expression “obectively disordered” (disordered as to its object) is used for the inclination.
Mark, the issue is how to prevent bullying today , not about a privleged class, or fairness -a subject, as I guess you know, has been debated in justice circles for some time.
I have often criticized CNN an times including its many talking heads and now Elliot Spitzer.
But they have had a number of worthwhile hour efforts, many put together on race issues by Soledad O’Brien about blacks (another “privileged” class in your opinion?)
I do think it useful to think about historical circumstances.
No one (except Mary) can say “My nature is ordered aright and towards a positive good.” It’s a sad fact of fallen human nature.
However, the Church says, “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” The Church says, “‘Sexual orientation’ does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern.”
The Church says that people with this objective disorder cannot be priests, cannot adopt children, and can be discriminated against as teachers, coaches, and soldiers, among others.
I’ve posted the following moving video by Ellen DeGeneres on my *Facebook* page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B-hVWQnjjM
Catholics should not be skittish about endorsing the efforts of public figures such as Ellen DeGeneres and Rosalind Wiseman to prevent the cruelty and humiliation that lead to distress and even the unspeakable tragedy of suicide among younger people–provided that we are forthright and unambiguous in our defense of the truth of the Church’s teachings on chastity, one of those teachings being the sinfulness of same-gender acts. There is no conflict between the virtue of chastity and the virtues of charity and justice, as the new catechism makes clear (section 2358).
In advocating all three of the foregoing virtues as responses to bullying and suicides, Catholics have every right as responsible, thoughtful citizens to prefer some wordings to others in legislative proposals, which is what the North Carolina bishops have done.
In approaching this topic, and in cooperating with our fellow citizens to the extent to which we can conscientiously do so, we should keep in mind the guidance offered by Blessed Pope John XXIII, who, in Mater et Magistra, makes the following key points:
“In their economic and social activities, Catholics often come into contact with others who do not share their view of life. In such circumstances, they must, of course, bear themselves as Catholics and do nothing to compromise religion and morality. Yet at the same time they should show themselves animated by a spirit of understanding and unselfishness, ready to cooperate loyally in achieving objects which are good in themselves, or can be turned to good. Needless to say, when the Hierarchy has made a decision on any point Catholics are bound to obey their directives. The Church has the right and obligation not merely to guard ethical and religious principles, but also to declare its authoritative judgment in the matter of putting these principles into practice” (section 239).
David,
The Church also says “”It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”
Bob–
Thanks for the tip on CNN. Perhaps they’ve got some worthwhile programs. I guess they can’t be all bad, they were astute enough to have hired Glenn Beck, though too clueless to realize they were letting a gold mine slip through their hands.
As for “privileged” classes, let me put it this way. I find it hard to imagine anything more unfair, more discriminatory, than the state telling certain people they are less worthy of protection simply because of certain physical characteristics they have (or do not have). That goes against everything our country stands for.
Isn’t the issue that certain pdople may need more protection in the historical context?
I think denying that protection is grossly unfair. And I’m not sure what the psudopatriotic
statement at the end adds.
As for “privileged” classes, let me put it this way. I find it hard to imagine anything more unfair, more discriminatory, than the state telling certain people they are less worthy of protection simply because of certain physical characteristics they have (or do not have). That goes against everything our country stands for.
Mark,
Among the small number of offenses in canon law that incur latae sententiae excommunication are abortion and physical assault on the pope. Do you believe this is a statement by the Church that the unborn have a stronger right to life than the “post-born”? Or that it is more acceptable to physically assault a cardinal, bishop, priest, or layman than to attack the pope?
If one wants to have civil rights laws, it seems to me fairly difficult to do that without having protected classes (or “privileged classes,” as you call them). It is certainly more practical for the law to protect people from discrimination based on race, color, creed, and national origin than it is to pass a law saying, “There shall be no discrimination. Period.” Imagine trying to enforce that! Perhaps you don’t believe the law should be used to protect people from discrimination.
“Isn’t the issue that certain people may need more protection in the historical context?”
I think that’s a frighteningly dangerous idea. If certain people need more protection, it follows that certain people deserve less.
Not quite sure why you would characterize as false patriotism the idea that one our country’s founding ideals is that all men are created equal. My point was that we would do well to realize the insidious ways that evil tempts us to set aside that ideal, even with the best of intentions.
I think that’s a frighteningly dangerous idea. If certain people need more protection, it follows that certain people deserve less.
Are you opposed to restraining orders?
If there are a rash of burglaries in a particular neighborhood, is it unfair to other neighborhoods to increase the police presence in the neighborhood where there have been burglaries? Don’t all neighborhoods deserve equal protection?
Should we do away with Secret Service protection for the president and his family? The Federal Witness Protection Program? Doesn’t everybody have an equal right not to be targeted for assassination?
When the Church teaches that the homosexual inclination is objectively disordered (CCC 2358), she is not saying that those who experience that inclination possess a nature that is disordered.
No inclination is coextensive with one’s nature. Human nature is identical in every human person, and, considered simply as a human nature, it is good in all those who possess it (despite the facts of original sin and concupiscence). This nature is the nature of a rational animal created by God to achieve unending supernatural happiness. Even a child lacking sexual desire possesses a full human nature. By the same token, someone whose sexual desire focuses on the wrong object still possesses a full human nature, and that nature is good despite the untoward inclination.
The Magisterium must deny that the propensity to engage in same-sex acts is morally good or indifferent, for the Church teaches, as she has always taught on the basis of the natural moral law, that such acts are evil because they contravene God’s will for sexuality. If an action is disordered, then the propensity to engage in that action is also disordered. Common sense reinforces that conclusion. Consequently, what the Church is doing in CCC 2358 is simply avoiding self-contradiction and incoherence.
David–
You’ve asked me 2 questions. My answer is the same to each: No.
As for civil rights laws, I think you may have inadvertently made my point. As far as I know, these laws protect ALL people from discrimination as to race, color, creed, etc. The civil rights laws do not only protect certain classes, leaving others to fend for themselves. Also, for the record, I do not believe I used the term “privileged”, except to quote someone else’s use of it.
The Church also says “”It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”
Kathy,
And regarding which group would the Church not be willing to make the same statement?
Also, the paragraph directly following the one you quote is the infamous . . .
Also, note the following:
In other words, it is only “homosexually oriented persons who seek to lead chaste” who have the “right to work, to housing, etc.” It is not unjust discrimination to evict or fire a person who is openly gay.
. As far as I know, these laws protect ALL people from discrimination as to race, color, creed, etc. The civil rights laws do not only protect certain classes, leaving others to fend for themselves.
Mark,
And I assume that if there are anti-bullying laws, they will not prohibit bullying gay people. They will prohibit bullying on the basis of sexual orientation. So basically everyone would be covered. Would you be opposed to that?
The civil rights laws do not only protect certain classes, leaving others to fend for themselves.
Mark,
Of course, race, color, creed, and so on are classes. I remember reading some time ago about a landlord in New York who declined to rent an apartment to a lawyer, because he thought a tenant who was a lawyer might be a potential troublemaker. The lawyer sued and lost, because lawyers are not a protected class nor are they in a protected class. A landlord may not discriminate based on race, creed, color, or national origin, but he or she may discriminate based on occupation. So a Black Muslim lawyer from Kenya could not be discriminated against by a landlord for being, Black, Muslim, or Kenyan, but he could be discriminated against for being a lawyer.
Since it is true that no person should ever be bullied under any circumstance, then there is no need to discriminate between protected and unprotected classes of human beings to begin with.
Back in the bad old days churchmen used to be fond of saying “Error has no rights.” And oddly enough that smug irrelevance seemed a stopper. Then, of course, we woke up and realized it’s people who have rights. A good thing to remember.
“No inclination is coextensive with one’s nature. Human nature is identical in every human person, and, considered simply as a human nature, it is good in all those who possess it (despite the facts of original sin and concupiscence). ”
Stephen –
I applaud your use of the vocabulary of scholastic philosophy. (Being a scholastic myself, I use it all the time.) However, it is one thing to use lovely, clear scholastic terminology and another to use the whole scholastic method. Scholastic method requires not only that you present your own arguments but also that you rebut the specific criticisms of your views that are offered by others.
So, I ask you explicitly: what are Rome’s *specific* grounds for saying that homosexual inclinations are disordered and homosexual acts are intrinsically evil? (Simply saying that they are won’t do.) Second, how does Rome answer the objections to its own conclusions?
What a pity that Rome has abandoned the scholastic method which lead to the great medieval development of natural law.
To a great extent, the Church derives her sexual ethic from the all the evident facts surrounding the transmission of human life, including facts of anatomy and physiology–facts that are based on God’s creation of two sexes, not one, and on the complementarity of the sexes. The reality and consequences of this complementarity are emphasized by Jesus in his discussion of marriage: “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ [. . .]?” (1986 NAB). To engage in actions that conflict with God’s will as reflected in Jesus’s teaching is to do what must not be done, i.e., it is to do evil.
Stephen –
What you are offering is JP II’s theology of marriage. Like him you do not offer justification for the generalizations you and he make. Perhaps if you could be more specific your position would be more convincing. To say it is based on “all the evident facts surrounding the transmission of human life,” and then offer only a slightly less general description of the evidence is not a justification. I think I know the arguments about physiology (male-female genital parts complement each other) but there are arguments *against* that argument that have been raised here that you have not answered. The same with your other generalizations.
No one has argued here that actions should or may conflict with Jesus’ teachings. What has been questioned here is: just what are Jesus’ teachings?
P Flanagan and the witty Latinist Felapton have once again gotten a raw deal on this thread. Of course it is true that male homosexuality is not as oriented to monogamy as heterosexuality is — even if the reasons for this are in large part social rather than psychological and even if male heterosexual monogamy is in large part due to the role played by female demands and control. That three out of four stable male gay unions could be “open” arrangements, at least in some cultures, is perfectly credible. Fear of disease and a concern for security have turned the tide against promiscuity in current mainstream gay ideology, but there are countless gay writers who protest that the straitjacket of monogamy does not suit all gays and should not be used to categorize the unmarried or promiscuous as second-rate gay citizens.
One clarification to David Gibson’s post: Russell Powell like many good Jesuits is not a conservative though his moderate tone on this issue (and most other issues) and his presence on MOJ (a site dominated by but not exclusively inhabited by conservatives) could give the opposite impression.
There are many points in this thread that I wanted to step in to say thanks to the likes of William Lindsey and David Nickol and Kathy and others for what was a very engaging and substantive discussion. So thanks.
Re Steve Shiffrin’s note above re Russell Powell, I didn’t mean in my story to say that Prof Powell (I didn’t realize he is a Jesuit) is representative of a politically conservative wing of the Church, more that he speaks out of a Church tradition (Catholicism) that opposes most gay rights and that his post sounded like a stab at introspection on this score, and that the recent news had led him to consider his opposition to anti-bullying laws, which is a fairly conservative position.
In any case, I have enjoyed his posts and others at MoJ, of course.
A couple of follow ups there I’d draw your attention to:
Fr. Robert Araujo (who would qualify as a conservative Jesuit, I think!) writing to Rob Vischer re his post on Archbp Nienstedt and gay marriage, a related issue:
http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/10/the-churchs-public-role-and-responsibility.html
Rob Vischer’s response:
http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/10/response-to-fr-araujo.html
And from Fr. Araujo:
http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/10/thank-you-rob.html
One element of my original post, and a question Peter V asked and has not had answered, is whether there are indeed any Catholic leaders who have spoken out on gay bullying? Claire cited Bp Tobin; thanks. Others? It seems an odd silence.
I’d like to thank Claire for having posted the link to Providence, Rhode Island, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin’s column entitled “Because We Love, We Preach the Truth.” That essay is a model statement for other bishops and all Catholics:
http://thericatholic.com/opinion/detail.html?sub_id=3467
Bishop Tobin’s column is an excellent commentary on this summation statement in the 2003 CDF document:
“The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions” (section 11).
“Whether the CCC threads the needle or not can be almost irrelevant (unfortunately) to the actual behaviors of Catholics themselves. The teaching needs to be embodied in a real and pastoral way, not just cited like a traffic cop issuing a ticket. ”
David G: this discussion has prompted a lot of reflecting on my part these past few days, and has really driven home the point you’re making here. If we say something good in a document but the way we live our lives says something different, then it’s our turn to transform our lives.
A lot of comments have been posted here since I was last able to check in, and am still reading them, so apologies if this is redundant.
jp
“Bp. Tobin weighs in, with a slightly unusual column focused on love: http://www.thericatholic.com/opinion/detail.html?sub_id=3467
– not to the point of making any concrete promises as to how homosexuals can be accepted, and without giving an inch of ground on the position of the church of course, but nevertheless a column that recognizes people’s hurt. That’s a step forward.”
Claire, thank you for calling this to our attention. I agree that this is quite a good column.
It falls to those of us who are closer to the grassroots – laity, religious, clergy – to try to craft answers to the questions he poses in his column.
David–
I am afraid I may have been less than clear; my position is succinctly summarized in
Nancy’s post of 10:42 pm.
David G, thanks also for calling attention to Rob Vischer’s posts on Mirror of Justice. They are deserving of more consideraiton.
I second Ann’s request:
“So, I ask you explicitly: what are Rome’s *specific* grounds for saying that homosexual inclinations are disordered and homosexual acts are intrinsically evil? (Simply saying that they are won’t do.) Second, how does Rome answer the objections to its own conclusions?”
If the papacy wants to apply natural law to the issues of the modern world it needs to be done in an authentic fashion, which means practical reasoning needs to be at the heart of it; that is the essence of natural law. It is intellectually dishonest to pluck out a concept or two from a systematic framework with little intent or effort to understand or honor the demands of the framework as a whole, all the while expecting to gain the mantle of respect the framework generates.
I am afraid I may have been less than clear; my position is succinctly summarized in
Nancy’s post of 10:42 pm.
Mark,
Nancy says: “Since it is true that no person should ever be bullied under any circumstance, then there is no need to discriminate between protected and unprotected classes of human beings to begin with.”
Since prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, and national origin does indeed set up protected classes under civil rights laws — and excludes such things as occupation, personal appearance, hobbies, and so on — then I take it you and Nancy oppose civil rights laws and would favor a law that simply says, “There should be no discrimination based on anything,” or “There shall be no bullying.” I am wondering how that would work.
Rome’s opposition to same-sex unions rests on the notion that sex and marriage are essentially justified by their procreative potential. This is argued directly (Ratzinger once made the curious statement that “The inevitable consequence of legal recognition of homosexual unions would be the redefinition of marriage, which would become…devoid of essential reference to factors linked to heterosexuality, for example, procreation and raising children.” Hmmm….homosexual marriage is wrong because it isn’t heterosexual. But I thought that was the QUESTION…) or indirectly through the Theology of the Body. Language of objective disorder and intrinsic evil are about procreation, too.
As sex columnist Dan Savage has noted, though, questions about sexual orientation don’t boil down to who you want to have sex with. They are about who you fall in love with, a more holistic category that cannot be reduced to genitals and gametes. It’s about whole people. If you know Savage’s work, you know he’s pretty sanguine about all sorts of sexual behavior, drives and desires, and all the rest. But this very salty, strongly pro-sex writer goes to bat for love as indicating orientation, not just sex. In so doing, he represents a better Catholic anthropology, IMHO, than anyone who attacks same-sex marriage on grounds of mere procreative potential. Go Dan!
IMHO Rome has promulgated itself into a corner not otherwise reachable by natural law’s practical reasoning:
Casti Cannubii >> Pius XII’s approval of the rhythm method of birth control >> Humanae Vitae, which recapitulated Casti Cannubii and Pius XII >> John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor, which did the same >> Benedict’s dittoing of all of the above.
This obsession with keeping sex absolutely bound to procreation (except when it’s not, e.g., rhythm) has been endlessly repeated and (colors the papacy’s stand on IVF and on homosexuality) yet the argument has never actually been made.
And then there’s the obvious question, even assuming the natural good of keeping the human race going, of why Christians of all people think there is a need to “justify” a loving relationship in the first place. Sheesh.
“And a voice from Heaven said, “This is My Beloved Son in Whom I Am well pleased.”
God Has Revealed The Truth Of Love, not Dan Savage.
“I am wondering how that would work.”
David–
The legislation against bullying would work the same way as it would with the wording for protected classes–just without the wording for protected classes. Just the way any legislation that outlaws unacceptable behavior works. If you’re saying the enforcement of anti-bullying legislation might be problematic, I don’t disagree, as it may be difficult to define bullying in writing effectively enough for prosecution. But if defining what is and what is not bullying is dicey, the introduction of protected classes only compounds the problem (who are and who are not among the fortunate few protected by the legislation?).
Bishop Tobin writes:
““When our grandson was sixteen, he announced that he liked boys, not girls.” That’s the rather startling statement contained in a letter I received recently”
Why is it “startling”? Thousands of parents have heard that statement. Does Bp Tobin think that gays, or as he may call them “these people” or as an Irish hierarch called them “those dreadful gay people” are intrinsically startling, bizarre…
“Whether homosexuality is the result of biology or culture, nature or nurture – or a combination of both – is still a hotly debated question. It will be resolved someday (perhaps) by medical experts and social scientists.”
Here again gays are spoken of as “them” not “us” and are cast in a dehumanizing and pathologizing medical perspective.
“the origin of homosexuality is ultimately irrelevant to determining the objective morality of homosexual acts – which the Christian Church has long condemned as seriously sinful.”
On the contrary, the Church has pronounced that homosexuality is “objectively disordered” so that a judgment on the orientation itself, seen as originating in Original Sin, has now become part of Catholic teaching (since 1986).
“How does the Church preach the truth of the Gospel without harming or alienating people whose lives are touched by those issues?”
It is a kind of blasphemy to identify the mistaken teaching on homosexuality, which the church has refused to expose to any process of dialogue or consultation, with “the truth of the Gospel”? But that is the way our bishops use the word “Gospel”. We never hear of the heart of the Gospel from them, “justice and mercy and faith”.
“it has been equally clear that persecution of people with a homosexual orientation is totally repugnant.”
No, it has not. Many pious Catholic mothers are agents of that persecution, sending their children to psychotherapists to cure their “objectively disordered” condition. This intimate persecution is motivated by the Church’s teaching.
” I pointed to the Catechism of the Catholic Church that says: “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.””
This man lives in a world of magic authoritative texts not of dialogue and consultation. And that weasel word “unjust” has been a cover for many forms of what most people today see as odious discrimination.
“a highly-organized political movement seeks to hijack the institution of holy matrimony and change its definition as a union of man and woman” — not so, a huge number of ordinary Catholics rejoice in stable gay unions and even support gay civil marriage. The bishops are thinking politically and ideologically not pastorally. They do not know their own flock.
“You see, we speak about the immorality of homosexual acts and culture, not because we disdain persons of that orientation, but rather because we love and respect them” — again the distancing language about “these people” and the blanket condemnation of homosexual “culture” shows a bunker mentality.
“we want them to embrace a better and more life-giving path… to do what is good and holy in the sight of God. And what parent or grandparent would ever do less?”
What parent or grandparent would dictate of a gay child that he or she must never enjoy loving intimacy with another person?
“If the papacy wants to apply natural law to the issues of the modern world it needs to be done in an authentic fashion, which means practical reasoning needs to be at the heart of it; that is the essence of natural law. It is intellectually dishonest to pluck out a concept or two from a systematic framework with little intent or effort to understand or honor the demands of the framework as a whole, all the while expecting to gain the mantle of respect the framework generates.”
Yay, Jeanne!! This is just about the biggest beef I have with Rome. It has totally, yes, totally, abandoned and even has contempt for the scholastic method that produced the specifically Christian understanding of natural law. At the same time it tries to use what it calls “natural law” as a cudgel to smash people into agreement. It won’t work. Good teachers answer their students’ questions, and that includes answering objections to what is being taught. But Rome doesn’t do this — it just parrots the past in a non-rational way. It doesn’t listen. And it discourages others from thinking.
While considerations of what is “human nature” are becoming more and more important in contemporary psychology and philosophy, Rome serves only to give “natural law theory” a bad name.
Father O’Leary, thanks for your analysis of Bp. Tobin’s text. It’s useful to hear the read from the other side (from the people don’t feel homosexuality is sick and repellent.) I think many negative things about Bp. Tobin, which I won’t expand on here, lest my comment be deleted, but this column I believe is a genuine effort on his part to reach out beyond his prejudices. He may be starting from a position that I abhor, but his focus here is on love and compassion, and it gives me just a bit more respect for him. We are worlds apart but I still see his move as a step forward.
Thanks, Ann ;-)
The papacy went off the rails with Castii Cannubii, the 1930 encyclical against contraception, and dug the hole further with Humanae Vitae. Neither were based on natural law. I look on these as a huge wound in the life of the Church exactly because they are non-rational. I don’t think it’s old business because the underlying irrationality keeps being parroted and colors papal stands on all sexual matters, everything from IVF to homosexuality. It is a wound that needs to be lanced, cleaned and healed.
This is a must-see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/joel-burns-texas-councilman_n_761260.html