Don’t Lose Ugly
I don’t really know how the legislative fight in New York over gay marriage will turn out this year. I am almost certain, however, of how it will turn out 10 years from now. By then, I would be extremely surprised if gay marriage has not been legalized in most of the Northeast and West Coast. Within 25 years, I expect that the number of states where gay marriage is legal will outnumber those where it is illegal
The bottom line is that opponents of gay marriage—among whom I would include the U.S. bishops—are going to lose this fight. They may win this year and perhaps even the next few years. But judging from the polling data I’ve seen, their ultimate defeat is as certain as the passage of time.
This isn’t surprising. From the sale of contraceptives to abortion to the introduction of no-fault divorce, the Catholic Church has tended to lose most of its high profile fights over social issues. To the extent that one sees these struggles as a form of witness the Gospel, victory or defeat may well be beside the point.
There’s losing, though, and then there’s losing ugly. The way in which the Catholic Church loses this particular campaign will have an impact on its ability to communicate the Gospel to younger Catholics, to say nothing of the broader culture.
Some sense of the difficulties the Church faces can be gleaned by reading UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, a 2007 book by Barna Group president David Kinnaman. The Barna Group conducted a number of surveys and focus groups with adults and young people, both Christians and those he calls “outsiders” to the faith. Kinnaman summarized his findings under a number of descriptive terms that the respondents tended to apply to Christians.
Chief among these terms was “antihomosexual.” Among Americans aged 16-29 who were not churchgoers, 91 percent felt this term described Christianity “a lot” or “some.” This far outpaced positive images like “has good values and principles” (26%), “consistently shows love to other people” (16%), “seems genuine and real” (11%), and “people you trust” (9%). Kinnaman concludes that “when you introduce yourself as a Christian to a friend, neighbor, or business associate who is an outsider, you might as well have it tattooed on your arm: antihomosexual, gay-hater, homophobic.”
Kinnamon, a conservative evangelical, makes clear that he is not arguing that Christians can or should change their traditional teachings on sexual morality. He does, however, argue strongly that young people who know gays and lesbians as family members, friends and co-workers simply will not respond to Christian rhetoric that paints them as uniquely disordered or that fails to acknowledge the complexity of their lives.
Comparing same-sex marriage to the actions of an authoritarian government like China and North Korea fails this test. While the bishops have not only the right but the responsibility to bring Catholic teaching into the public square, they need to do so in ways that do not seem uniquely obsessed with the sins of gays and lesbians.
It might have been helpful, for example, if the bishops’ willingness to take on same-sex marriage has been coupled with an equally enthusiastic effort to reform no-fault divorce laws. Given contemporary mores, such an effort would have had almost zero chance of success. But coupling the issues would at least make it clear that the bishops understood that the most serious threats to marriage arise from the behavior of heterosexuals.
More fundamentally, I suspect that many young people who grow up within the Church sense that the ways that heterosexuals fall short of Church teaching—fornication, cohabitation, contraception, remarriage after divorce—are, in pastoral practice at least, taken less seriously than the sexual sins of gays and lesbians. While I have no illusions that a more consistent application of the Church’s teaching would be “appealing,” it would at least immunize the Church against the charge of hypocrisy. The emerging generation of young people may not be inclined to adhere to the Church’s sexual ethics, but it would be a measure of progress if they could at least respect them.
Tags: Archbishop Dolan, David Kinnaman, gay marriage, New York, Unchristian, USCCB
Polling data? Public opinion?
I don’t know what the views of the American people have to do with it.
The courts that have imposed “same-sex marriage” certainly don’t think that the people have a say in the matter.
Whatever a person’s views on “same-sex marriage,” the virtual destruction of self-governance on a whole range of issues is what most people are concerned about.
Catholic leaders shouldn’t be expected to soft-pedal their unpopular teachings to please the crowds. As a matter of fact, that would, I’d think, likely lead just as quickly to charges of hypocrisy as would speaking out forcefully.
Prophets shouldn’t expect to be popular or even respected, nor should they be about the business of gathering followers on false pretexts.
Seems to be a popular book. It has 4/5 stars at amazon and 127 reviews so far:
http://www.amazon.com/unChristian-Generation-Really-Christianity-Matters/dp/0801013003
And it’s downloadable.
Have begun reading Kinnaman’s book. The argument does make sense, especially, I suppose, from an evangelizing point of view. No sense in turning away possible converts. Also, he points out that there are two sides to the Christian message – truth and grace. One without the other is incomplete. If what’s stressed most is truth – obligation, sin – the uplifting side can be buried.
His numbers are interesting, as is the characterization of Busters and Mosaics. He’s not overwhelmingly pessimistic, though – points out how these days perceptions shift rapidly – so although the image Christians have now among young “outsiders” is strongly negative, that’s susceptible to being changed. It was not negative only ten years ago.
“Prophets shouldn’t expect to be popular or even respected, nor should they be about the business of gathering followers on false pretexts”
No, but they should speak their truth in way that also follows Jesus’ commandment to love one another. This thread resonates with me. I find it quite disturbing when people assert Christian beliefs in very un-Christian ways.
@Bender (1:28 am) I think (at least some of) the public opinion polling data being referred to is the data showing a slow but steady increase (about 1-2% a year over the past 20 or so years, IIRC) in the percentage of Americans in favor of legalizing civil marriage for same-sex couples. If that trend continues, then within 15-25 years, even the states (e.g., Mississippi) whose citizens most oppose same sex marriage will have majorities supporting this change.
In 25 years, the people who are 20 years old today will be 45. It is just possible that by then they will have acquired somewhat different perspectives on sexual issues. It is even possible that by then they may have reconsidered the absolute necessity of having every social issue always referred to the superior wisdom of 20-year-olds.
I was twenty in 1984. Back then, if you really wanted to be hip and with-it, the thing to do was proclaim that only “ignorant” “bigots” thought there was anything wrong with anonymous sex in bathhouses. By the time I was twenty-five, the in thing was to excoriate the “ignorant” “bigots” who didn’t want to give up the Cold War for lost, so we could invest in an AIDS vaccine instead. (Which all the elite, cool people knew was “sure” to be found within ten years.) By the time I was twenty-nine, every educated person knew that AIDS had nothing to do with whom or how you had sex, but only with how many free condoms the government was distributing.
While we’re worrying about the possibility of losing ugly, maybe some thought should be given to the undesirability of winning ugly. Politics was a lot less ugly back before the idea caught on that the coolest way for elite people to impose their agenda on voters and taxpayers was to label them “ignorant bigots.”
Prophets are rarely found in bishop’s palaces. Ususally, there are yes men and those whose livelihood depends on bishops.
Felapton,
It is a wonder that you can pack so many non-sequitors into one post. But one can see where your thinking is if you relate the subject to bath houses.
I don’t think civil protections for gay individuals, including civil unions that clarify their rights to designate caregivers, property inheritance, etc., are a matter of black-and-white, win-lose.
That said, the Church could learn from abortion. Heirarchs come out and make a lot of affronted noise (which perhaps attracts as many converts of a certain stripe as it puts off), but it’s the grass roots Catholics who set up programs like Project Rachel and crisis pregnancy clinics.
As for Our Young People, I wouldn’t worry about more ramped up outrage from the bishops about gay marriage scaring them away. An aging priesthood, disaffected parents, CCD programs run by harridans scarier than English teachers, and inexplicable liturgical changes are doing a fine job slowly bleeding the enthusiasm out of them and generally conveying the idea that what they learn at Church is about things that happened in ancient times and hav no relevancy to life as they experience it whatsoever.
My kid is going through his “I hate Church” phase, but says if he ever DOES go back, he’s going to my late father-in-law’s happy clappy Wesleyan Church where they always remembered his name, gave him a cup of coffee and homemade cookies, and told him what a great kid he was for helping his grampa with his cane and oxygen tanks.
Lord, help me Jesus.
A few years ago one could have made an almost identical argument about the way opponents of abortion handled the issue and the likely long term trends – don’t demonize women, focus on root causes and the larger picture not the symptoms, don’t be a single issue myopic but rather embrace the pro-life spirit across all issues, be less hypocritical, don’t make it a religious issue, at least lose gracefully, etc.
The results are in: “More Americans ‘Pro-Life’ Than ‘Pro-Choice’ for First Time”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx
And as a bonus, generational differences are narrowing.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126581/generational-differences-abortion-narrow.aspx
I hope it’s obvious that one could easily list tactical, strategic, and moral concerns that religious leaders who are supporting gay marriage are failing to address in a suitable way.
I do agree that, when the bishops address the issue called gay marriage, their focus should be on “marriage”, not “gay”. Gay marriage is but one symptom of a huge shift in how marriage is viewed. In that sense, I completely agree that no-fault divorce and gay marriage are linked.
The ‘secular’ view of marriage is that it is a private arrangement; it is primarily a legal arrangement whose duration is variable; and its end is the sexual and emotional fulfillment of the partners.
This view explains, I think, many of the things over which Catholic leaders wring their hands, from rampant divorce to gay marriage to artificial birth control to weddings on the beach at Cabo.
The Catholic view is that marriage is public; it is sacramental; it is permanent; and its end is procreation.
The church does need to find ways to present this counter-cultural message to a generation for whom the secular view is reinforced a thousand ways, and who has little chance of hearing the church’s version.
Patrick Molloy,
The approach you describe — “don’t demonize women, focus on root causes and the larger picture not the symptoms, don’t be a single issue myopic but rather embrace the pro-life spirit across all issues” — is in fact the approach of most Catholics bishops and many Catholic prolifers.
As for the “results” you refer to, they’re not as clear, or as satisfactory, as that Gallup headline suggests. Yes, it is significant that the number of Americans who call themselves “prolife” is now larger than the number who call themselves “prochoice.” But until most Americans also favor the reversal of Roe v. Wade and much more restrictive abortion laws, we must hope that the results aren’t in.
Thanks for this post Mr. Nixon. Thanks also to the previous post-ers on this topic in recent days, and to all the commenters. Here are a few of my thoughts to throw into the proverbial stew:
*This is a humbling issue because 30-40 years ago we (or at least most of us) would not have stopped to have a serious discussion about same sex marriage. It is perhaps doubly humbling for those of us whose views on the issue have changed in that time period.
*Among other things, this issue is another example of the power of testimony, both individual and collective. When people decide that they are not being treated with the dignity and respect to which they are entitled as human beings, when they then tell their story and take action—both individual and collective—to claim what they perceive to be their (God-given) human and civil rights, there is a power in their decisions and actions that is a force to be reckoned with.
*The great civil rights organizer and educator Bob Moses has for decades taught about the importance of “organizing the demand side of the equation”, the importance of people organizing in support of their own interests and acting on the basis of their own values. Whether one agrees with the gay and lesbian couples who have demanded and struggled for the right to civil marriage, it is their simple demand—we would like to marry—that has driven this debate.
*Felapton alludes to it above (7:09 am), but I think it’s almost impossible to underestimate the importance of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s when trying to account for the changed (and changing) public perceptions and opinions about homosexuality. By the thousands, gay men from New York, San Francisco and other big cities went “home” to small towns all across America to die (“home” in quotation marks because they often had fled those towns because they were made to feel unwelcome). The rippling effects of those journeys and those deaths are, I believe, still with us today.
For example, the devout, socially conservative, working-class Franco-American Catholics in the New England mill town I grew up in did what they’ve always done when tragedy strikes one of their own: they baked casseroles for the afflicted families, visited and ran errands, offered novenas and Masses, and helped the families bury their dead. Homosexual acts may be sinful, as the Church teaches, but no young person deserves to die like that was the (sometimes unspoken, but sometimes not) conclusion that many came to.
Also, it’s one thing when watching a story on the evening news about the hundreds of anonymous men in the bath houses of the Castro or Greenwich Village. It’s another thing when someone you watched grow up, went to school with, went to church with, someone you knew and perhaps liked or even loved, is dead or dying. I suspect that this type of lived experience has had a powerful effect on the “sense of the faithful” (but I would defer to the more theologically astute).
* “From the sale of contraceptives to abortion to the introduction of no-fault divorce, the Catholic Church has tended to lose most of its high profile fights over social issues. ” It’s hard not to notice that what this constellation of issues has in common is sex. (By contrast, when the Church devoted significant resources in the 1980s to teaching about war and peace, and about economic justice, it had, according to many observers, at least some modest success in shaping public opinion and public policy.)
It’s also had not to notice that for the past millenium the Church’s teaching about sex and morality has been disproportionately shaped and informed by men (and men only) vowed to a minority “alternative” sexual lifestyle—namely, celibacy. There’s much beauty, goodness and truth in the Church’s teachings about sex and sexuality. There’s also, in the view of many lay people, a significant chunk of that teaching that is poorly formed, poorly taught, poorly applied—if not downright wrong, and even offensive in its presumptions. (I don’t have a solution to propose; I just think sometimes these things are better said than unsaid.)
Mr. Malloy, you’re using old data.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147734/americans-split-along-pro-choice-pro-life-lines.aspx
Pro-lifers gave press to the 2009 survey–but didn’t make much of this more recent one by Gallup, that shows things heading back the way the way they were. They also claimed that younger people were more pro-life than their parents. If anything, they are actually more-pro-choice than their parents (by one point). Both generations are significantly more pro-choice than their grandparents.
http://www.publicreligion.org/research/published/?id=615
I suspect it may be too late for the U.S. bishops to avoid losing ugly in this particular fight. One of their chief allies in this battle is the National Organization for Marriage, whose ties to the church are so numerous and obvious that it appears to many people to be an unofficial arm of the USCCB in the anti-gay battle. (Though NOM has persistently refused to disclose its funding sources, and has even filed suit in a number of cases to circumvent state laws requiring this . . . .)
Follow NOM’s website as the deliberations continue in Albany and a vote may (?) be nearing on the issue of civil marriage for same-sex couples, and you see the same pattern–an intensely morally disturbing one–that develops with this organization anytime one of these turning-point situations appears to be at hand re: this issue.
When the turning point appears near, NOM pulls out all the stops and begins throwing every ugly, long-outmoded “fact” and “argument” in its grab-bag of anti-gay arguments into the mix. Many of these “facts” are outright lies about LGBT human beings and their relationships. They’re lies designed to maim and hurt. They’re also lies that elicit prejudice and even outright violence against gay folks.
The lies belie NOM’s claims that its primary purpose is to defend marriage. They indicate that the primary purpose of NOM is, instead, to belittle gay and lesbian human beings to keep them confined in a demeaned social space.
To the extent that the U.S. bishops ally and collude with NOM, they radically undercut any of their arguments that they affirm the dignity of gay human beings while opposing same-sex marriage. They also undercut their arguments about human rights and social justice in general.
I fear the U.S. bishops have long since lost ugly, when it comes to this particular battle. When we have to stoop to lies in order to promote a cause we regard as moral, we’ve already lost the battle.
Great post, Peter. Thanks for setting out this perspective. It seems the desire to be prophetic and black and white has overwhelmed the equally important tradition of achieving the best possible law in an imperfect secular world.
We need to get the word out to religious communities that anti-gay people are twisting God’s words to condone their hate.
Homosexuality is not a sin. The Bible is constantly being taken out of context to support anti-gay views. Scholars who have studied the Bible in context of the times and in relation to other passages have shown those passages (Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans, etc) have nothing to do with homosexuality. These passages often cherry-picked while ignoring the rest of the Bible. The sins theses passages are referring to are idolatry, Greek temple sex worship, prostitution, pederasty with teen boys, and rape, not homosexuality or two loving consenting adults.
(Change *** to www)
***.soulfoodministry.org/docs/English/NotASin.htm
***.jesus21.com/content/sex/bible_homosexuality_print.html
***.christchapel.com/reclaiming.html
***.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/BiblicalReferences.php
***.gaychristian101.com/
***.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Resources&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2121
***.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence.html
***.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
***.goodhopemcc.org/spirituality/sexuality-and-bible/homosexuality-not-a-sin-not-a-sickness.html
“The courts that have imposed “same-sex marriage” certainly don’t think that the people have a say in the matter.”
If by “people” you mean the public at-large, I think that only works when heterosexuals are being forced to marry people of their own sex.
“The Catholic view is that marriage is public; it is sacramental; it is permanent; and its end is procreation.”
Young people see through this as patently false. I would say I ‘d have to join them. A sacramental marriage has, as its end by definition, holiness. Holiness can be achieved by the welcoming of children. But, as the Church has acknowledged in deed by marrying older couples, marriage can be generative in ways other than biological.
The Church is going to have to tighten up it’s public presentation on marriage to recover any credibility on this front. I don’t think the solution is to pull its legs and head into the holes and turtle up.
That Christians such as Mother Teresa or Mary McKillop have given witness to the Gospel life, and done so in a convincing way, is proof that it is possible to be heard above the din. More people like these, please. Fewer like the Jovial One. We know it can be done. Our bishops lack the will and the imagination to lead.
Homosexuality is not a choice. Just like you don’t choose the color of your skin, you cannot choose whom you are sexually attracted to. Virtually all major psychological and medical experts agree that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. Most gay people will tell you its not a choice. Common sense will tell you its not a choice. While science is relatively new to studying homosexuality, studies tend to indicate that its biological.
(Change *** to www)
***-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf
***.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html
Gay, Straight Men’s Brain Responses Differ
***.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155990,00.html
***.livescience.com/health/060224_gay_genes.html
***.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice. Sexual orientation is generally a biological trait that is determined pre-natally, although there is no one certain thing that explains all of the cases. “Nurture” may have some effect, but for the most part it is biological.
And it should also be noted that:
“It is worth noting that many medical and scientific organizations do believe it is impossible to change a person’s sexual orientation and this is displayed in a statement by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association.”
This is the perfect example of how anti-gay people change the bible’s words for their anti-gay agenda.
Corinthians 6:9-11
Let us examine that very closely.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [malakoi], nor homosexual offenders [arsenokoites], nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.
First of all, before we address this line, let us consider one thing. Supposedly taken from a 2000+ year old book, understand that the word “homosexual” was not coined until 1869 by Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny. So how it happens to be included in a true reading of the particular biblical passage should make you ponder how accurate the interpretation actually is. So man changing the words of the Bible to conveniently spread hate?
Absolutely.
As the mother of teenagers all I can say is, even Peter probably doesn’t realize how strongly the younger generations reject the demonization of gays. And it isn’t just “outsiders.” Maybe this is the population that Kinnaman was surveying but if he found the views of young outsiders to be discomfiting he might have found the views of young insiders to be downright shocking. My children attend my husband’s Baptist church and members of this church who are under 30 to a person reject efforts to ostracize or “other” or focus on the sins of gay men and women. I don’t necessarily think that means they automatically embrace the legality of marriage between gay people — but it means that arguments based on ugly stereotypes or the notion that gay people are a threat to the rest of us are completely alienating to this group. A couple of members have told me that their children were no longer willing to go to a previous church because youth ministers made disparaging comments about gays. Thus, gay bashing not only keeps the outsiders from coming in it might make the insiders start looking for the door.
As for these attitudes adjusting as people get older — don’t count on it. Lots of studies have been done to show that, common wisdom notwithstanding, the political views that are acquired during formative years (18-30) actually stay with people as they get older and change only around the margins. It’s more like, people will reject not only church but church visions of marriage in general. It’s hard for any Christian minister to finesse this, but conveying convictions with charity is a minimum necessary requirement, along with acknowledging what the scripture actually says and does not say about homosexuality.
Polls have shown solid support for the death penalty for as long as reliable polls have existed. Should Catholic bishops and other religious leaders become more accommodating to these beliefs or do they want to contniue to risk losing credibility among the American public?
Or is there some way to invoke the importance of polls, trends, public opinion and so on selectively? What is the principle, may I ask?
That NOM is not denounced by the Church for its lying and hateful–even incindiary–rhetoric is scandalous.
The ugly ship has sailed.
Patrick –
The Roman Catholic catechism of 1994 states clearly Church acceptance of the death penalty under conditions stated there. CCC 2266-2267 – “the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well founded …. ” No polls are quoted. The very recent flip-flop of bishops is explained by them.
Patrick, with props to Luke Hill’s post, it pays to remember that each issue arises within its own political and moral context. It is one thing to defend criminals whose conduct hurts others. It is another to demonize citizens whose conduct extends no further than between themselves. The element of consent as a basis for moral understanding is a very strong one in American political arrangements. It sometimes flies in the face of notions of abstract Catholic moral doctrine.
Moreover, in the 30 years in which the death penalty has been permissible and widely used, never do I recall Catholic biships going after pro-death penalty politicians or adherents with anything like the ferocity that we have seen in the last few weeks over the issue of gay marriage. Likewise with divorce or even contraception even though they must know that the majority of their married congregants use it. Gays by contrast are a tiny minority. The lack of similar outrage over issues that affect the majority of their congregants has long ago made some of us conclude that bishops are poll readers in their own way.
Luke’s post above is especially nice. It sets a standard we should all strive for, whatever the position we advance.
“It might have been helpful, for example, if the bishops’ willingness to take on same-sex marriage has been coupled with an equally enthusiastic effort to reform no-fault divorce laws. ”
I do not have knowledge of other states, but in New York the Catholic Church vigorously opposed so-called “divorce on demand” when that legislation was brought in 2010 (and subsequently signed into law in August of that year I believe). According to the New York Times editorial dated 16 January 2010 on the subject, they say the Catholic Church’s opposition to no-fault divorce was one of the central reasons for the failure of efforts to institute those laws in the state up to that point. I believe the paper said: “For years now, efforts to enact a fair no-fault system have cratered because of opposition from the Catholic Church and issues like lawyers’ fees and protecting victims of domestic violence.”
I agree that the”battle” has been lost already and maybe it’s the best thing that could happen.
It’s so easy to taker a traditional position as”prophetic” if you resist any kind of change.
I think today’s youth and others find the Church’s view on sexuality as out of touch(every sin against the sixth commandment is a mrtal sin).
The issue of divorce (“rampant’ according to Jim P.. wit hal the negative connotations thereof) is not solved by easy smplifications.
What I found most interesting in the post was that the young in VERY small numbers see Churches as loving and trustworthy. I think that speaks volumes about how policy makers are seen as proclaimers of the gospel.
I know how much people hate this word, but what J. Peter Nixon is actually saying is that, without changing its teachings on sexual morality, the Church should avoid homophobia and the appearance of homophobia.
People will not “respect” a teaching that contradicts their lived experience and their consciences. If a church told me racism was acceptable and ordained by God, I would not find its members loving or trustworthy. Homophobia is now where racism was 50 years ago. People are learning that gay people are real human beings who are more like them than they are different from them; they are not going to jettison the truths they know for a theoretical position based on premises they cannot accept and reasoning that does not impress them.
Losing ugly has already happened.
Some of us who, though we dissented on many points also counted ourselves among the faithful as we served in our parishes, supported the Church’s mission financially, and worshipped weekly in fellowship with others, worried deeply that certain kinds of political engagement contribute to a rot from within. Not easy, threading the needed between prophesy and prudence.
Correct me if I am wrong, but does not acceptance of homosexual identity as fundamentally good and the expression of that identity in acts of love (in spirit and through the body) effectively bring down the structure of Catholic sexual ethics? Isn’t Catholic teaching on same-sex relations a load bearing wall?
I too second Luke’s post. I watched and noted the enormous changes about the gay issue over my long life. At eighteen I sat in a Bronx bar for a last beer with friends before moving to San Francisco. I was warned that I could be ‘molested on the street by homos and if I fought back I would be charged as hitting a women’. That was 1950. I almost believed it then. we have come a long way..and tolerance makes for a better place/way to live. As Luke notes in the Massachusetts milltowns tolerance [grace] happens when secret lives are no longer secret.
Excellent post, Mr. Nixon.
I’m a 27 year old (so I fall within those commonly cited statistics), and I’ve been at 5 universities in the past decade, the past three years serving as campus minister at a large public research university. I can say without qualification or reservation that this is one of the single biggest issues driving away young Catholics. Far more so than abortion, and unquestionably more than any modifications to the Roman Missal.
(Unrelated)
Re: Polling Data on whether most Americans consider themselves “pro-life” or “pro-choice”
Here’s a poll from just this month that reveals the deep ambivalence felt by much of the population, in which 77% of American Catholics say the term “pro-life” describes them well, and 70% attest that “pro-choice” describes them well.
http://stlouisreview.com/article/2011-06-15/poll-finds-overlap
I am pleased that my daughter (age 7) will grow up (far more) free of the cognitive dissonance on same-sex issues than I did. She will be doing that in the Episcopal Church for some years to come, but one could hope that the Catholic Church eventually becomes a place where gay couples and their children become part of the fabric of parish life in many parishes.
What’s missing in the church’s discussion of this issue is the langugage of love. And not simply the language of love translated into rules and restrictions, but a deeper kind of love. And love includes the willingness and the desire to listen to the other’s experience.
With no other group does the church lead with prohibitions rather than love and welcome. Until we grasp this we will not be able to speak to gays and lesbians.
I know we’re talkinig about perception here as being as important as reality. Sorry, I’m confused – is it desirable or undesirable that the church be perceived as homophobic? Which is it?
If someone tells me that the church is homophobic, I defend the church, because I don’t believe the church is homophobic. The AIDS crisis would seem to be Exhibit A in that regard – how much less devastating the crisis would have been had the gay community worldwide followed church teaching in its sexual practices, and how pastorally the church has responded once the crisis exploded.
Stating in a public forum, repeatedly, that the church is homophobic can only intensify whatever public perception is out there already that the church is homophobic. Why would someone who loves the church and wishes its well-being slander the church in this way?
FWIW, my view is that what we – the church, meaning all of us, in our daily lives and through whatever media we have access to – is heard much more loudly and clearly in the larger society than what the bishops say. 80%+ of Catholics, and 90%+ of society as a whole, have zero interest in what the bishops say and do. But if we tell our friends and children that the church is homophobic, they will certainly believe us. Is that what we want?
I wrote: “The Catholic view is that marriage is public; it is sacramental; it is permanent; and its end is procreation.”
Todd replied: “Young people see through this as patently false. I would say I ‘d have to join them. A sacramental marriage has, as its end by definition, holiness. Holiness can be achieved by the welcoming of children. But, as the Church has acknowledged in deed by marrying older couples, marriage can be generative in ways other than biological.”
Todd, what I wrote was Catholic boilerplate. Its truth doesn’t depend on young people agreeing with it, but if they take a moment to look around them, they can see that in fact it is patently true – that millions upon millions of married couples bear witness to it every day of their lives.
I agree that there are a number of goods that can be realized in a marriage – as you say, “marriage can be generative in ways other than biological” – and not least by the benefits of sacramental grace. Nevertheless, the *end* of marriage is procreation.
JP – “Nevertheless, the *end* of marriage is procreation.”
And union. As of Vatican II, the procreative is not privileged above the unitive dimension of marriage; the two ends are co-equal.
Something doesn’t sit right in the notion that the “end” of marriage is procreation. It seems simplistic. It is not expansive enough to be a final statement, not accurate enough, not rounded enough, to meet our experience.
Fr. Martin – “What’s missing in the church’s discussion of this issue is the langugage of love.”
I agree wholeheartedly, and I would add “humility” to the “charity” component. All too often, public statements are imbued with an unsettling sense of imperturbable self-righteousness and invincible authority.
JimP, you ask, “Why would someone who loves the church and wishes its well-being slander the church in this way?”
If one sets aside the rather loaded term “slander,” then one might well reformulate your question as, “Why would someone who loves the church and wishes its well-being NOT call for honest and open discussion of what many Catholics and former Catholics report about the church? Namely, that it often damages those who are gay.”
Set your question side by side with Fr. Martin’s observation: “What’s missing in the church’s discussion of this issue is the langugage of love . . . With no other group does the church lead with prohibitions rather than love and welcome. Until we grasp this we will not be able to speak to gays and lesbians.”
If Fr. Martin is correct in these observations (and I maintain he is), then perhaps those who love the church and wish for its well-being need to promote some kind of open, honest, national dialogue within our church in which, for the first time, gay and lesbian Catholics and former Catholics can provide open and honest testimony about our experiences in connection with the church.
Imagining that those who might participate in such a nationwide dialogue would be motivated solely by a desire to slander the church and work against its well-being would, I propose, miss the mark by a long shot. But continuing to talk about love in the abstract, when one doesn’t permit the voices of those who repeatedly and as a body report, over and over again that the church problematizes their lives and their love to a perplexing extent, and in a way that sets this group apart from every other human group to an astonishing degree: that hardly serves the best interests of the church, either, it seems to me.
What has been missing for far too long as the church talks about love (and justice, human rights, communion, etc.) is the voices of gay and lesbian Catholics, for whom everyone is permitted to speak but we ourselves.
Jim P. –
Modern Church views are better used as found, for example, in Humanae Vitae (1968). For all the document’s difficulties, it is significant to young and old, wherever one stands on its dictates, in going beyond the single-purpose statement of the past. It speaks of such as (see #12):
“the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act”
“each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative,…”
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
The term “homophobic” is, first, incorrect: I doubt that supporters of the Church teaching against homosexual acts have an “irrational fear” of homosexuals. Second, it is simply extremist and shuts the door to any substantive debate. Unfortunately, many who wield the term “homophobic” appear to have that end in mind: to stifle debate. It’s like, from the other side, it is more charitable to use the term same-sex marriage instead of homosexual marriage because the adjective homosexual can be seen as pejorative in that context. Even less charitable is to place the word “marriage” in scare quotes, i.e. homosexual “marriage”. Using the term “homophobic” has the same sort of uncharitable association. It’s an attack word, morally presumptuous, and does not further debate.
“Comparing same-sex marriage to the actions of an authoritarian government like China and North Korea fails this test. ”
To be fair, I think he is comparing the actions of the NY Legislature to totalitarian governments, NOT same sex marriage itself. Not that the intended analogy is particularly stronger.
“It might have been helpful, for example, if the bishops’ willingness to take on same-sex marriage has been coupled with an equally enthusiastic effort to reform no-fault divorce laws.”
The Louisiana Conference of Bishops did this very thing a few years ago, to much success.
I wonder if the same message applies to the flip side: that the LGBT advocates must also “win pretty.” I think you’re right that advocates for traditional marriage are going to lose, but I think this is in large measure because LGBT advocates have succeeded in portraying anyone who advances an alternative argument as merely bigoted homophobes. I knew the rig was up after the King & Spalding debacle; when the LGBT community shamed a major American law firm into dropping its agreed representation of the US Speaker in defense of a law passed with sizeable bipartisan majorities. I would like same sex advocates to consider that not all who oppose them on that issue are bigots.
For reasons Mark cites above, I hate the word “homophobic”–more heat than light in that loaded term. I’m not sure what one should call those whose contempt for homosexuals as persons, as a class, or as a political interest group manifests in derogatory language (homo-haters?. However, not all (or even most) opposed to same-sex relations and SSM fall into that category.
There should be a term for those who as a matter of principle or prejudice routinely deny or dismiss the lived experience of others as beside the point.
The AIDS crisis would seem to be Exhibit A in that regard – how much less devastating the crisis would have been had the gay community worldwide followed church teaching in its sexual practices, and how pastorally the church has responded once the crisis exploded.
Jim,
I will not dwell on the fact that some might interpret this as, “It’s their own fault. We told them so.”
Yes, of course, if gay people in the early 1980s had all accepted the Catholic view that their sexuality was “intrinsically disordered,” that they suffered from a “more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” and that any sexual activity they engaged in, including with the person they loved and had been faithful to for thirty years, was “grave depravity,” and if further they had dedicated themselves to a life of abstinence, HIV/AIDS would probably be only a disease of heterosexuals in Africa and intravenous drug users. This does not absolve the Church of homophobia. (Let’s set aside for a moment what exactly “the Church” is. I think people know what I mean.)
I have written at length over the years on this topic, so I am not going to rehash it all, but on top of already existing homophobia in society (now much less than when I was in high school and college in the 1960s), the Church gives the impression that there is some extra added horror to homosexual sex acts, and there is some extra added danger from people who engage in them, or even have a homosexual orientation that they renounce.
Let me quote just one passage from a CDF document, the “Halloween Letter,” officially titled “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons:
Now, I will grant that for those who believe that homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered,” and homosexual acts are acts of “grave depravity,” and that if homosexual persons who don’t want to be discriminated would just remain celibate and stay in the closet, then that makes some sense. But to people nowadays, and I would say it is the majority, who believe gay people have a right to lead the lives they choose (that is, exercise freedom of conscience) and be protected from discrimination, that passage is saying that nondiscrimination against gay people will cause some kind of violent upheaval in a deteriorating society. That document is about 25 years old now, and there has been great progress in anti-discrimination legislation, and I have not noticed any violent upheavals.
I have never seen heterosexual cohabitation described as “behavior to which no one has any conceivable right” (although would assume it is just as morally objectionable as homosexual cohabitation, or arguably even more so) or called “grave depravity.” Same-sex marriage has been elevated in some Catholic quarters to the same level as life issues (the five non-negotiables being abortion, euthanasia, fetal stem-cell research, human cloning, and gay marriage). Celibate homosexuals have been barred from the priesthood. (Why there is not a purge of existing homosexual priests is a mystery to me.) All the evidence points to the conclusion that the Church considers the most chaste of homosexual persons some kind of threat and sexually active gay persons “depraved.” (The word abomination is very popular in discussions of homosexuality on more conservative blogs.) I have argued that the Church could reasonably treat celibate homosexual persons in much the same way it treats the sacramentally married and civilly divorced, and it could treat same-sex couples much the same as it treats the sacramentally married, civilly divorced, and civilly remarried. I know they are not exactly the same, but it strikes me they are very similar. Reaching that kind of equivalence would, it seems to me, be maintaining Catholic teaching without homophobia. I don’t see it happening any time in the near future.
Talking about homophobia in the church is part of an adult discussion, as here.
Since AIDS was brought up, America carried the PBS Vatican conference a short time ago at their website.
At the Vatican, everyone thanked the poe, but a different scene was at a village of AIDS infected people in Africa where the priest (bishop?) in charge stressed conscience to the people there.
I think there’s lots of dissonance in the Church on this, though some loyalists always feel they have to “defend’ the Church. If many youth are moving away, even if the gay comunity is “pushing” this, it’s because the traditionalists have not been persuasive – part of what this thread is about.
Rights have always had to be fought for by minorities first. And I think the crux of thr gay comunity argument is about rights and justice and no tabout scapgoating all who disagree.
Of all the hurtful language employed against “homosexual persons.” I would venture to say that “gravely disordered” scores the deepest blow. If that’s true, and we really wish to engage in deep listening across a divide, it’s worth exploring the emotions that attach to hearing as well as using that term.
I want to add that since divorce came up, matrimonial canon law has and continues to eveolve. It struck me that the Church is caught in the dilemma between wanting to underscore the permanence of marriage by making annulments difficult and making them easy for pastoral reasons, even when the practice looks highly suspect (see Callista and Newt, for example.)
And that problem is rooted in the traitional understanding of the goals of mattiage , including procreation.
FWIW, I think the church needs to rethink its whole approach to the matter, especially as its believability, even with advances in annulmen tpractice(?), doesn’t seem to resonate with lots of people.
The term “homophobic” is, first, incorrect: I doubt that supporters of the Church teaching against homosexual acts have an “irrational fear” of homosexuals.
I would point out that photophobic doesn’t mean irrational fear of light, and anglophobic does not mean irrational fear of the English. To try to discredit a word by breaking it into its roots or pointing out that it meant something else in another era is bogus.
From the Webster’s Third unabridged dictionary definition of homophobia:
And actually, I think there really is a lot of irrational fear of gay people. An inordinate number of men—a great many of them exceedingly unattractive if not downright repulsive—seem fearful that gay men will make a pass at them.
Criticizing the word homophobia and those who use it is is what I call “playing the hate-card card.” Those on the defensive when charges of homophobia are made claim their accusers of “playing the hate card,” when what they are doing is saying, “Oh, how can we continue to talk to you if you make accusations of homophobia?” Well, sometimes the charges of homophobia are true, in which case criticizing people for making them is not a valid argument.
The attribution of motives at the level of agents, and in particular their moral and intellectual deficiencies when one is in disagreement rarely, if ever, bridges a divide. The point of using homophobic as a descriptor is to isolate, not engage, those thus described. It’s a tactic.
Note: I have not accused anyone in this discussion of being homophobic. I am talking about homophobia in the Church. If we were discussing race relations, it would be perfectly legitimate to discuss racism. It would almost certainly be unwise to call someone involved in the discussion a racist, even if that person was. Racism exists, anti-Semitism exists, homophobia exists, misogyny exists, anti-Catholicism exists. To deny that any form of bigotry exists when bigotry is the topic of discussion makes no sense. One should be extremely reluctant to call another person a bigot. But to pretend that bigotry doesn’t exist is to deny there is anything to talk about.
What do you think the title of the thread—Don’t Lose Ugly—refers to if not homophobia or at least the impression or perception of homophobia?
If I have given the impression that I am calling anyone in this discussion homophobic, I apologize. I am not judging the people in this discussion. I am making an observation about Church documents, Church campaigns, and the impression the Church gives.
Maybe Rome is losing and the Spirit is winning?
Who says the “official teachers” have *the* monopoly on divine truth?
Is the majority necessarily wrong?
Is an open mind “closed to truth”?
At 63 and straight, I, for one, support gay marriage and civil union.
I hope our younger folks will remain open-minded for the rest of their lives.
And I hope our hierarchs will *get a life* instead of pontificating the same old crap on marriage, sexual orientation, etc.
They’re rapidly losing their moral and teaching credibility — assuming they haven’t lost such already!!!
No David, you did not accuse or even hint at the personal motivations of anyone in this discussion. And I agree that racists (and other -ists) get some mileage in crying foul when, in many cases, the hood fits. But the term shuts down dialogue–if dialogue is the goal–much as “intrinsically disordered” shuts down dialogue. As a rule, I avoid the term as one whose rhetorical utility is running low.
WF _ “The attribution of motives at the level of agents, and in particular their moral and intellectual deficiencies when one is in disagreement rarely, if ever, bridges a divide. ”
Precisely, and eloquently put! If, in addition, there were a way to kill all the metaphors, this discussion could move ahead. It’s has potential at times.
“One should be extremely reluctant to call another person a bigot. But to pretend that bigotry doesn’t exist is to deny there is anything to talk about.”
I could not agree more, and I was not suggesting that anyone here was calling another a bigot. Like you, I am making a larger point about the debate that troubles me – the increased frequency with which opposing arguments are quickly labelled as bigotry. I see this happening in the case of the Catholic Charities adoption policies in Illinois, and I saw it happen against King & Spalding, which I consider to have been a low blow. If you believe that one CANNOT have a legitimate, principled reason for opposing same sex marriage (and I believe many same sex marriage advocates believe that), then I suppose you are justified in seeing any contrary argument as based on bigotry.
But I believe that one can have a principled reason for opposing same sex marriage, and that it is wrong to simply dismiss such arguments as bigotry. And of course those arguments must be advanced with charity and sympathy; but there remains a vital distinction between holding those views and the kind of ugly homophobia that DOES exist, but the two are not the same thing. And I believe it is in the best American tradition that even thought same sex advocates may win the day soon, some accommodation for legitimate dissent must be maintained for those who cannot accept same sex marriage. Finally, yet again, Mirror of Justice has some wonderful posts on this topic that shows the clarity and compassion on this issue. I particularly like the discussion in some of the posts between “general discrimination” and refusing to participate in an act one thinks to be immoral. Perhaps that can enlighten the discussion here. http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/
But I believe that one can have a principled reason for opposing same sex marriage, and that it is wrong to simply dismiss such arguments as bigotry.
Jeff,
I believe my suggestion that the Church treat celibate homosexuals the same as the sacramentally married and civilly divorced, and that the Church treat same-sex relationships the same as sacramentally married, civilly divorced, and civilly remarried persons is a clear indication that I am not saying anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is a bigot. My whole point is that, while I do not agree with the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, I think there is a way for the Church to continue with its current teaching that homosexual sex is immoral without placing some kind of special stigma on gay people.
A sacramentally married and civilly divorced individual is in a situation in which he or she cannot engage in any kind of sexual relationship (other than with the original spouse). For the Church, a homosexual person is also in a situation where he or she cannot engage in any kind of sexual relationship. A sacramentally married, civilly divorced, civilly remarried person is in a sexual relationship prohibited by the Church. A same-sex couple is in a sexual relationship prohibited by the Church. However, the attitude of the Church toward the divorced and remarried is one of compassion and inclusion. The attitude toward a same-sex couple is one of disdain and exclusion. I see the difference as at least partially the result of “the H word.”
I don’t have time today to give the many thoughtful responders to my comments here the considered responses they deserve (and the same holds true in other topics on dotCom where folks are attempting to continue dialogues). I will do my best to respond as fully as I’m able over the next few days.
In the mean time, regarding my statement, “the end of marriage is procreation”, my view on this is shaped by this article that appeared in America Magazine a few years ago. The author is Robert Sokolowski. I believe it is accessible without a subscription. See in particular Section II for his explanation of the end of marriage, but the entire essay is worth a read.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3627
I agree with the Church that homosexual acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being.
Nevertheless, I am in favor of same-sex civil marriage. I don’t think it is desirable for the government’s to prohibit depraved acts unless they cause a serious, immediate, public danger. I consider it depraved to eat factory farm animals, to drink alcohol to the point of inebriation, and to fry your brain by watching television. All of these are ways of sacrificing some measure of humanity in pursuit of temporary pleasure. But they are not and should not be illegal.
Moreover, it does not seem to me that there is any way to justify laws against acts of depravity without reference to supernatural phenomena. Obviously, we all believe in supernatural phenomena, or we wouldn’t bother going to mass. But laws should be based only on objectively verifiable and publicly ascertainable phenomena. For one thing, history has shown that consideration of supernatural phenomena generally produces bad laws. For another, once we accommodate anybody’s supernatural phenomena, we have gone a long way toward accommodating everybody’s. I do not want the laws to be based on Mohammad’s, Buddha’s, David Koresh’s or Raël’s private revelations. Therefore, I prefer they not be founded on the Church’s either.
Agreed, Michael Bayer and catarinasdaughter:
“People are learning that gay people are real human beings who are more like them than they are different from them; they are not going to jettison the truths they know for a theoretical position based on premises they cannot accept and reasoning that does not impress them.”
Younger Catholics have grown up knowing and being friends with gay people. Previous generations did too, of course, but those friends were closeted then.
I see my male friend and his husband (that’s right), and I know they have deep love for one another. The church expects me to deny recognition of their love? To think of them as “intrinsically disordered”? And all of the Church’s reasoning is based off a naturalistic fallacy?
It’s an embarrassment.
Younger Catholics know love when we see it and we’re going to stick up for our friends when the Church attacks them. Ironically, I feel like my defense of gay marriage is very Catholic. That is, I feel the core values the Church taught me are what led me to think and feel the way I do.
I have often thought that, having never worked in a convenience story, I have been blessed by not having to be in a position to take money from someone and then hand them cigarettes. In this sense, I refuse to participate in an act I think of as immoral. We can all think of similar categories of indirect participation.
Jeff writes about “refusing to participate in an act one thinks to be immoral.” Short of being one of the parties involved in a sexual intimate physical act, I’m trying to think how one would be a participant in that immoral act such that one would refuse this participation.
Is renting an apartment to a gay couple or selling them flowers for their wedding in the same category as being a tobacco monger?
“I agree with the Church that homosexual acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being.”
Wow.
Barbara (6/23 9:51 am):
He looks at both, Barbara, and sees what you see:
http://www.amazon.com/unChristian-Generation-Really-Christianity-Matters/dp/0801013003
Luke writes (6/23 9:13 am):
Yep – although I doubt anyone’s tried not to see it. The Church, which thinks in centuries and millenia, was no doubt caught flat footed by a sea change in feelings and conclusions about interpersonal sex that seemed to happen almost overnight, in the middle of the twentieth century. Given a few centuries to catch up, the Church will be fine. Unfortunately, people these days think in seconds, rather than centuries. By the time the Vatican and its bishops catch up, the train will be long gone. That may not matter, and it may. Depends on your point of view. After all, time hasn’t changed – it’s just the way we in the West perceive it. The Pope knows that, but most of us are convinced he’s completely off base.
See above :O)
As long as participants in this discussion are being exonerated from any charge of homophobia (see above), I wonder if we can extend the same presumption to the author of Leviticus and to St. Paul and vigorously defend them from the accusation that is unfortunately too often put forth that they too were homophobes.
Another related topic – - It’s interesting to see the views of so many of the elder generation (I’m guessing about the age of participants here) graciously giving such great weight to the allegedly superior wisdom of today’s youth. It’s almost as though some want to add to the traditional sources of revelation, i.e., scripture, tradition, and reason, a new source – the testimony of anti-traditonal youth. In my cranky but still humble opinion, that way madness lies.
William (6/23 11:42 am):
I would think so. Still, although I suppose the fundamental principles of architectural engineering never change, attitudes and interpretations – the understanding of physics and the attitude toward aesthetics and shelter – can change.
But it takes time. Jumping in immediately to support the crowd just because you’re afraid that they’re going to leave you behind if you don’t, just isn’t the way the Church operates. I think that’s a Good Thing. People are by nature hot headed. Only marketing departments and politicians are obliged to follow their every enthusiasm.
.
As long as participants in this discussion are being exonerated from any charge of homophobia (see above), I wonder if we can extend the same presumption to the author of Leviticus and to St. Paul and vigorously defend them from the accusation that is unfortunately too often put forth that they too were homophobes.
Patrick,
I assume you were referring to what I said, and I didn’t exonerate anybody. I just said I was making no charges. :-]
However, I will let St. Paul and the author of Leviticus off the hook. It seems to me that homosexuality as we know it did not exist in biblical times. [I am not saying a homosexual orientation did not exist, however.] Who knows exactly what the author of Leviticus had in mind, especially since he didn’t say anything about a woman lying with a woman. And St. Paul wasn’t talking about “gay people” or even, I would say, “homosexual persons.” So far as I know, there were no “gay people” in first-century Rome. People ought to read Romans 1 in its entirety instead of just reading verses 26-27. Paul wasn’t condemning homosexual acts, although his disapproval is quite clear.
I quoted the following from Frank J. Matera’s Romans (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament) recently over at First Things in a thread where Elizabeth caused a furor by wondering of homosexuality wasn’t part of God’s plan. Her piece and the comments are interesting reading. Matera says:
What does an emotionally mature same-sex attraction embraced as an authentic gift from God (not a curse or sign of illness) but not acted upon in immoral ways feel like on the inside, especially when this ‘calling’ to the single life is distinct from any other religious vocation?
What does it feel like to know from, say, early 20s onward, that marriage and family are not for you, despite hopes from family and friends that you will find the right person? In this case, you are not waiting for the right person to come along, but perhaps hoping that such a person does not walk into your life and make your situation that much more troublesome and painful?
Can anyone here speak to that, what homosexuality, good Catholic style feels like?
How about you Felapton? Landry? Pauwels? Ken? What do you imagine it feels like in empathetic outreach?
Luke Hill ==
Everything you said at 9:13 a.m., especially what you said about the AIDS epidemic. That made things personal and opened many eyes. It also made many people realize that the official Church is not always right about everything.
@William F.: “Wow.”
Wow, indeed.
This particular astonishingly mean-spirited zinger, which is not discontinuous with many others those who are gay and lesbian encounter on any given day on any given Catholic (everybody welcome!) thread like this, sort of demonstrates in spades the validity of the following observations by Fr. Martin above, doesn’t it?:
“What’s missing in the church’s discussion of this issue is the langugage of love. And not simply the language of love translated into rules and restrictions, but a deeper kind of love. And love includes the willingness and the desire to listen to the other’s experience.
With no other group does the church lead with prohibitions rather than love and welcome. Until we grasp this we will not be able to speak to gays and lesbians.”
And it sort of demonstrates in spades how impossible it is to have any kind of meaningful conversation about these issues that will answer your final question–what does it feel like?–when this is the best that the Catholic discourse world has to offer gay and lesbian folks who still desperately seek for find welcoming spaces in which to have their voices heard, in a Catholic context.
The unwelcome message could not be clearer. Uglier. More blatant. More unashamed of itself. More defiantly proud of itself: “I agree with the Church that homosexual acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being.”
And as this unwelcome message is blared out continuously by good Catholics, many of their more moderate co-religionists quibble about whether the word “love” really ought to be claimed by those who are gay and lesbian. Or about whether the appeal of gay and lesbian people to be treated as fully human and as brothers and sisters in Christ as welcome as anyone else in the church is, in the final analysis, simply some overwrought and inadmissible special pleading.
Take the preceding statement– “I agree with the Church that—–acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a—-whom I considered a really admirable human being”–and imagine any Catholic anywhere feeling the unbridled freedom that posters on Catholic blogs continue to feel to make these statements, if almost any other group of human beings were inserted into those blanks.
One begins to see why many, many Catholics have walked away from a church that permits this kind of discourse, promotes it, protects it. One has little option to do otherwise, if one values his or her God-given human nature.
The Catholic church has a serious problem on its hands. And the problem is not getting any better, from where I stand.
I have known at least since kindergarten that I am destined for a solitary life. I and my family hold marriage and family in great esteem; in fact, it is believed in my family (with various degrees of certainty) that no adult is completely human who does not marry. However, I have always known that marriage and family are not for me. Instead I devote my time and energy to math, science, literature, music and water sports. It is difficult to compare one’s own life with other people’s; but I suspect mine is infinitely richer and significantly more enjoyable than most.
I have normal heterosexual desires, and in my youth I acted on them occasionally, but never without regretting it subsequently. I abstain from sex, alcohol and television for the sake of health and sanity as well as morality. I find all of these tend to promote sloppiness of intellect and deterioration in the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. (I do rather like to smoke weed, but don’t often get the opportunity.)
I would strongly recommend this approach to any homosexually inclined person. I really would. A single life is one of the greatest gifts God gives any human: the time and leisure to appreciate His magnificence more fully.
I think I should add, however, that this advice is conditioned to some extent on a fact that is not universally known here: I am female. Probably a man would experience a keener sense of deprivation from the necessity of abstaining from sex.
Felapton,
I don’t think I have ever known anyone who plays water sports whom I considered a really admirable human being.
Wow, Felapton. A surprise. Not sure why I thought you were a man, but I did.
“Nevertheless, the *end* of marriage is procreation”
Come on, Jim P.!!! First you say that there is more than one end (see what you said about old people and marriage), but almost immediately you talk about THE end. THE means ONE AND ONLY ONE; You cannot have it both ways. Either there is only one end or there is more than one end. That is simple arithmetic.
I think Felapton has said a lot of interesting things, and I am not offended (or not significantly, at least) by any of them. (I particularly liked the statement about not basing civil law on the supernatural.) I admire her atypicality. I would like to know what math, science, literature, and music. (I am afraid I am not interested in sports.)
Mr. Molloy, you wrote, “It’s interesting to see the views of so many of the elder generation (I’m guessing about the age of participants here) graciously giving such great weight to the allegedly superior wisdom of today’s youth.”
From the mouths of babes comes wisdom.
I’m reminded of how children of different racial/ethnic backgrounds can play together without paying any attention to their differences. It’s only as they grow older that they pick up ideas about the inherent inferiority of “the other”.
Perhaps today is an opportunity for parents to pick up a little bit of loving wisdom from their children?
(Agree, Joseph. When our son was born, my husband and I decided never to mention race in front of him, just to see what would happen. We never said a word about skin color, etc. When he came home from his first day of pre-school, I asked him how it went. “The brown boy hit me,” he said. Oh-oh. I didn’t lecture him or anything, but I was worried. The next day he came home. How did it go, I asked. “I played with the red boy,” he said. He was identifying them by their clothes.)
“The end of marriage is procreation,” and yet my husband and I, who were by that time known to be completely infertile, had our marriage blessed in the Catholic church–after one of us obtained an annulment that came through in record time precisely because a previous spouse had refused to try for children (pre-diagnosis).
Given the actual practice of the church, it appeared to us that there were multiple ends to marriage, that procreation was only one of them, and that its absence was clearly not a dealbreaker.
David N. @ 2:48 p
It seems to me that the word “homophobe”, like the word “racist”, can have different uses. Sometimes they mean simply to describe facts, sometimes the are used to criticize peole, and sometimes to attack people.
I wouldn’t ban the word “homphobe” anymore than the word “racist”. It should depend on their use. Attackng is rarely a good idea, but criticizing sometimes is.
Matthew Boudway wrote -
“I don’t think I have ever known anyone who plays water sports whom I considered a really admirable human being.”
Watch out for those double entendres, Matthew!
JimP. -
Re the Sokolowski article on marriage, the dozens of commenters on it are worth reading since nearly all point out in similar detail where Sokolowski fails in facts, logic, and understanding of his subject to make his intended point. Surprising publication.
One of his critical omissions was a point noted succinctly above by Michael Bayer and William F. (6/23 12:55, 1:01P)
- “As of Vatican II, the procreative is not privileged above the unitive dimension of marriage; the two ends are co-equal.”
- “Something doesn’t sit right in the notion that the “end” of marriage is procreation. It seems simplistic. It is not expansive enough to be a final statement, not accurate enough, not rounded enough, to meet our experience
The concept of dual ends is significant, coming as it does from Vatican II and Humanae Vitae. The Church confirms the legitimacy of sacramentally marrying heterosexual couples who are known to be incapable of normal procreation with each other due to age or disorder, an accepted Church practice consistent with the definition of marriage. The potential for procreation is not an absolute prerequisite for marriage, as documented and demonstrated.
The teachings describe the two ends as inseparable, co-existent and co-extensive. Nature disagrees. Procreation, dependent on conception, is absolutely impossible for a fertile healthy woman over 80% of the time in any month, year, and decade. Unitive aspects exist essentially all the time. The same-sex marriage question could be illuminated a lot with some analysis of heterosexual marriage beyond the robotic concept and Thomistic biology that seems to lurk in the background of much that is said.
Jim P said @ 9:30 am: “The Catholic view is that marriage is public; it is sacramental; it is permanent; and its end is procreation.”
That’s matrimony, not marriage per se. I think that most people in this country view marriage to be a social union or legal contract between people that creates a relationship of affinity as opposed to descent. It is an arrangement in which intimate and sexual interpersonal relationships are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found. Such a union is often formalized via some form of a formal and public ceremony.
The problem is, and remains, the fact that, as the laws currently exist, religious proscriptions masquerading as cultural or traditional norms impose restrictions on a portion of society that does not agree with nor observe these proscriptions.
When Jewish adolescents reach age 13, they head to a temple for a deeply meaningful rite of passage, their bar or bat mitzvah. When a Catholic reaches about the same age, she or he stands in front of the local bishop, who touches them forehead with holy oil as they are confirmed into a 2,000-year-old faith tradition. But missing in each of those cases — and in countless others of equal religious importance — is any role for government. There is no baptism certificate issued by the local courthouse and no federal tax benefit attached to the confessional booth, the into-the-water-and-out born-again ceremony or any of the other sacraments that believers hold sacred. Only marriage gets that treatment, and it’s a “tradition” that should be abandoned by the State.
Religions would lose nothing of their role in sanctioning the kinds of unions that they find in keeping with their beliefs. For nonbelievers and those who find the word matrimony less important, the civil marriage license issued by the State would be all they needed to unlock the benefits reserved in most states and in federal law for married couples.
That has been done in most of Europe for many years and life as we know it has not ended, and the Church has long learned to live with this situation.
Unlike David N., I am offended by unabashed contributions to a discussion whose stated purpose is to find a way to avoid losing ugly, in which a contributor feels free to play the gays-frequent-bathhouses card as an initial statement, and then ends with a casual observation about the depravity of homosexual acts and the fact that she hasn’t ever met an admirable gay man.
I am a gay man. I would have no clue what a bathhouse even looks like. Have never been inside one in my life, except in Hot Springs, Arkansas. And that to tour. And I’m given to understand that those bathhouses have nothing to do with depraved homosexual acts. (Have never taken any illegal drug in my life, either, for that matter, though I purportedly belong to a bathhouse-frequenting, orgy-loving, drug-taking group who ends up sick as a result of those depraved behaviors.)
I’m also given to understand that one might well frame discussions of depraved heterosexual behavior and depraved heterosexual persons with talk about all sorts of unconventional sexual activity akin to what I’m told happens in bathhouses. I’m given to understand that aberrant or depraved or non-procreative sexual activity characterizes the behavior of both heterosexuals and homosexuals. And that there are illnesses associated with the heterosexual flavors of such activity, as well.
But I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that all heterosexuals ought to be defined by the sexual behavior of some heterosexuals. I also wouldn’t dream of imagining that I had said something particularly meaningful when I began a discussion of how or whether to include heterosexuals in the community at large with disparaging observations about what I imagine their sexual behavior to be.
I can’t imagine starting a discussion about the need to avoid ugliness vis-a-vis a particular group of human beings with a discussion about bathhouses and diseases contracted in them, and then moving on to casual observations about how the behavior of that particular group is depraved and that one one has never met anyone in the group one considers admirable.
These may be interesting observations. They may be inoffensive to other members of the group. I may be thin-skinned and cracked.
But what is to be gained by interjecting these observations into a discussion about welcoming people and avoiding ugly gestures of unwelcome, I wonder?
And would it be permissible for someone in a similar thread to observe casually that he happens to think what, say, Jewish people, or Mexican people, or African-American people are imagined to do is depraved, and one has never met a Jew, Mexican, or African American one likes?
Since it appears I give offense by taking offense, I am very happy to absent myself from this discussion, with apologies for having given offense. From where I stand, the Catholic church still has a serious problem on its hands, when posters at a Catholic blog site feel so free to make such comments, and they’re regarded by the community at large as inoffensive, and those offended by them as thin-skinned or looking for a fight.
“I agree with the Church that homosexual acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being.”
Felapton: consider yourself fortunate to have made such a statement on this blogsite rather than the one where you lurked for such a long time. On THAT site you would have been called out for such a pitiful exhibition of your woeful ignorance.
“They may be inoffensive to other members of the group. I may be thin-skinned and cracked: WilliamL 8:22pm. THEY ARE AND YOU ARE NOT. WilliamL, for the entire thread you’ve eloquently articulated a wide variety of arguments–political, social, historical, theological–and done so without being disrespectful to other posters, no matter how little there might be to admire in some of their comments. It would be a shame to lose your voice on these issues, though it is a terrible and relentless battle you’re fighting. Felapton, your life is less rich and interesting for not having gay and lesbian friends. Of course, you probably DO have them, but because you don’t know their sexuality (perhaps they don’t conform to your stereotyped expectations or keep their sexuality private or have decided not to tell you because they know your attitudes), you’ve assumed they are hetero and given yourself a pass to admire and like them and to illogically conclude that therefore there are no gays in your life worth the high cost of your admiration. That’s a real shame.
Bill L and Jimmy Mac –
Don’t leave. I’m sorry you find so
me things said here to be offensive. I agree that some are. But the topic is one that folks on both sides find offensive. Feelings are not always rational, a d the only thing to do about them is to give evidence for why they are inappropriate This is always painful — for both sides
We need you here to present your evidence. Please stay.
William Lindsey, I hope you are still here: I don’t want to be alone in my agreement with you.
I hope to hear from William Lindsey for many more entries to come.
Felapton, on the other hand, reveals himself to be a piece of work. Note: I use the generic masculine pronoun because I’m not convinced that we aren’t being played with this gender confession. Who is?
And by the way, it is laughable for a so-called “scientist” to engage in such a ridiculous display of confirmation bias. I don’t respect gays because they’re gay and do icky things I think God doesn’t like, so–surprise! and voi-flippin’-la!–I’ve never met one I could admire! Gee, go figure the odds of THAT happening!
“Isn’t Catholic teaching on same-sex relations a load bearing wall?”
I’d have thought that, if there was a principal load-bearing wall, it was the prohibition against what is classically called fornication. As a lay liturgical minister in large parishes, I have assisted in the preparation for and celebration of more than 1,500 weddings in the Catholic Church. If there has ever been a single couple that I have dealt with who did not provide the clergy and me with a common phone number that implied (often accompanied by the frank statement) that they lived together, I have misunderstood or forgotten. (That they might be living “as brother and sister” it might be foolish to discount, but I leave the odds on that to you.) This, however, is passed over by the leaders of our household of faith, perhaps as something it would be too impolite to mention.
It is not my object to push for stricter behavior towards premarital cohabitation. I leave that to others who are so strict on other violations of “load-bearing Catholic teachings” on sexual behavior. But it seems the height of hypocrisy to pass over the one, which is undeniably connected to Christian marriage, and to obsess on the other, which at least can be entirely separate.
If there is danger that, by going soft on the love and alliance between even non-Catholic people of the same sex, the church might see its black-and-white sexual morality subverted, what can we say of the tolerant — often, I can testify, indulgent and amused — view of our pastors and masters toward fornication (a word that can’t have passed most of our lips many times lately!)?
So what have we learned today? That water sports are the key to a meaningful life if you’re gay? That some people fancy using gravely and depraved together in the same sentence, for the sly malice that doing so affords? That God must be in our hearts and in our speaking?
Oh, I have NO plans to leave! I have experience enough silliness and, may I say, idiocy in my 70 years to not let stuff said here to cause me to bow out.
Besides, if one can still maintain even a tenuous connection with what passes for this church these days, one can handle almost anything!
I suspect that very few people reading this site have a clue what “water sports” are. They are not missing out on anything.
Ya know? I had feared my outburst a few weeks ago (to wit: “it’s just a rectum”) was, well, you know, insufficiently high-brow. I am oddly reassured in the wake (heh) of water sports. That is, despite being shaken to the core to learn there exists a fan of hippie lettuce for whom I cannot generate respect.
Homosexuality is not a sin according to the Bible. Scholars who have studied the Bible in context of the times and in relation to other passages have shown those passages (Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans, etc) have nothing to do with homosexuality. These passages often cherry-picked while ignoring the rest of the Bible. The sins theses passages are referring to are idolatry, prostitution, and rape, not homosexuality.
(Change *** to www)
***.soulfoodministry.org/docs/English/NotASin.htm
***.jesus21.com/content/sex/bible_homosexuality_print.html
***.christchapel.com/reclaiming.html
***.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/BiblicalReferences.php
***.gaychristian101.com/
***.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Resources&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2121
***.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence.html
***.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
Homosexuality is not a choice. Just like you don’t choose the color of your skin, you cannot choose whom you are sexually attracted to. Virtually all major psychological and medical experts agree that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. Most gay people will tell you its not a choice. Common sense will tell you its not a choice. While science is relatively new to studying homosexuality, studies tend to indicate that its biological.
(Change *** to www)
***-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf
***.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html
Gay, Straight Men’s Brain Responses Differ
***.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155990,00.html
***.livescience.com/health/060224_gay_genes.html
***.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice.
And it should also be noted that:
“It is worth noting that many medical and scientific organizations do believe it is impossible to change a person’s sexual orientation and this is displayed in a statement by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association.”
The National Library of Medicine pubs confirm that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced in the first trimester of pregnancy, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned, bearing no relation to an individuals ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
From the American Psychological Association: homosexuality is normal; homosexual relationships are normal.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
America’s premier child/mental health associations endorse marriage equality.
This was taken from another poster that shows why we need to legalize gay marriage. If you don’t feel for this person after reading it, you simply aren’t human.
“I am not sure what our President thinks of this dicission but coming from a poor family and knowing what discrimination is all about I would assume he would not care if “Gays” have equal rights. The whole reason why they are asking for rights to be considered married is from the same reason why I would be for it. My own life partner commited suicide in our home with a gun to his heart. After a 28 year union I was deprived to even go his funeral. We had two plots next to each other. But because we did not have a marriage cirtificate “(Legal Document)” of our union his mother had him cremated and his ashes taken back to Missouri where we came from. That is only one example how painful it is. His suicide tramatized me so much and her disregard for my feelings only added to my heartach. That happened on March 21 of 2007 and I still cannot type this without crying for the trauma I have to endure each day. Oh did I mention I am in an electric wheelchair for life? Yes I am and it is very diffacult to find another mate when you are 58 and in a wheelchair. “
I wonder whether a lot of the anger and angst many people feel and express here on the subject of the institutional church’s refusal to seriously update its attitude on interpersonal sex may not be wholly unnecessary. That the Vatican and its representatives say one thing and many or most of the faithful believe in and do another certainly isn’t a twentieth-century innovation. And it’s certainly not an American invention. Individual conscience works together with Church teaching to fashion a decent, good way of moving through life. The one informs and modifies the other, in both directions. Change will always come late in the Church.
There really is no good reason to rail against Rome for not acting fast, faster, now. It can’t do that. Nor, I think, need intelligent, thoughtful, informed Catholics refrain from moving ahead quietly on their own. The Church will catch up. Not in our generation, certainly, but in time. And when it does, it will have had the benefit of thinking things through slowly and carefully over several generations and its conclusions and solutions will be far better for that.
Not finding all the pasted text helpful, shadow man.
@Mary, ” … your life is less rich and interesting for not having gay and lesbian friends”
I said nothing about lesbians. I was in the Army for six years and knew several competent, dedicated, patriotic lesbians.
Have you noticed that lesbians are almost completely absent from the political melodrama surrounding same-sex marriage? It’s almost as if they figure, who cares, it’s just a word, we have all the same rights already with the New York civil union law? Almost as if they think the most important thing is writing effective legislation, not putting on a show for the cameras?
Have you ever seen a lesbian turn the sacraments into political melodrama? Deliberately present herself for communion in a rainbow sash or furtively schedule a Gay Pride mass, just so she can perform the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor when she’s refused? You haven’t, because they don’t. They just sit calmly in the pew and recite the responses like anybody else.
I enjoy what youve got right here, adore what youre stating and the way you say it.
@Felapton “I said nothing about lesbians…” Nice. Way to completely and totally miss the point of my comment. Your bigotry–it’s now clear from your own words over a number of threads that your attitude regarding homosexuality is irrational and hateful–has blinded you and limited your ability to form relationships, because you’ve decided you know who is gay, assess character in terms of gayness, and in advance have determined gays aren’t worthy of your admiration, or–even–treating as individuals, rather than a “they.” That’s your loss, as I said.
Regarding this most recent addition to your pile of nonsense, you are completely wrong. Support for civil rights including same-sex marriage does not differ to any significant degree between male and female homosexuals and you obviously paid no attention to the Minnesota rainbow sash Mass protests, as Catholic lesbians were front and center. You may engage in all the othering rhetoric you want, but you have no idea who “they” are.
As for your two paragraph eruption that lesbians are “almost completely absent from the political melodrama…not putting on a show for the cameras…performing the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor…”? Except for your previous bath-house fantasy, I don’t think we could have scripted better evidence of obnoxious and vicious stereotyping of gay men. It’s clear that you are beyond the reach of rational discourse. You are, as they say down South, ate up.
I am thoroughly disgusted by the accumulating anti-gay rhetoric of Felapton over the past week. Something broken in that soul.
Felapton, is against heterosexual marriage also, if one reads her as she reveals herself unwittingly. She is lonely and isolated as she admits.
It has happened a few times on First Things and Mirror of Justice that I personally (rather than what I was saying) have been made the topic of conversation. I hope that can be avoided here with Felapton. In these kinds of forums, it is always unfair, no matter how much you may disagree with someone, or no matter how offensive a person’s comments. We don’t know Felapton. Until yesterday, I think we all believed she was a man, which illustrates the limitations of judging a person by his or her comments on blogs. She has said things that probably most of us find offensive and hurtful, but I don’t recall her ever personally attacking or attempting to psychoanalyze a fellow commenter, so I don’t think she should be attacked or psychoanalyzed, either.
Agree, David.
Still no time to respond individually. But to the several folks who have pointed out that Humanae Vitae seems to make the procreative and the unitive co-equal: that is in reference to marital sex, not marriage as a social institution.
Wow, this went in a weird direction.
Back to the topic at hand: some criticism has been made of Arch. Dolan’s analogy to totalitarian governments and the NY same sex marriage bill. While I don’t think its the best analogy, there is some kernel of truth there. This blog post from Mirror of Justice raises the issue in a nice confluence of events mentioned on this post: the same sex marriage bill and the recent decision by CUA to restore single sex dorms. The latter decision has been criticized by some liberals as a violation of DC’s Human Rights Charter or some such thing. The point asserted on Mirror of Justice is whether liberalism, which traditionally held that competing norms of the good should be “mediated” (at best) by neutral rights and means (think Rawl’s veil of ignorance), has morphed into being a “comprehensive” notion which now competes with and displaces other notions of the good. It’s very thought-provoking.
http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/06/authoritarianism-and-totalitarianism.html
Certainly, I can’t speak for Felapton’s circle of acquaintances, which I think was the scope of her controversial remark. I’ve known a lot of people, both homosexual and heterosexual, and possibly other permutations and combinations I’m not aware of, whom I admire greatly, and others whom I don’t admire.
I haven’t known many who play water sports since college, when I was friendly with some of the water polo team. I think they were admirable as players, as the team was pretty good those years; they wore Speedos, I think, which in my opinion is not admirable, but de gustibus; as humans, I expect they were about as average as most of us.
It’s very thought-provoking.
Jeff,
Not to poison the well or anything, but for those not familiar with Mirror of Justice, Fr. Araujo and Robert George are two of the most conservative contributors there. And of course Robert George is a major player for the right in the culture wars and one of the key figures fighting against same-sex marriage. He is very intelligent and well worth reading, but he represents a decidedly right-of-center point of view. I don’t think he likes “good liberalism” of the past any more than “bad liberalism” of today.
By the way, this liberal thinks the suit against CUA for single-sex dorms is preposterous. On that point I wholeheartedly agree with George and Arauja.
David is right about not personalizing or psychoanalyzing persons on this blog (and suggesting that someone’s soul is broken is the very definition of psycho-analyzing). I should have only commented on the ugliness of the rhetoric that is steeped in demeaning stereotypes.
“What’s missing in the church’s discussion of this issue is the langugage of love. And not simply the language of love translated into rules and restrictions, but a deeper kind of love. And love includes the willingness and the desire to listen to the other’s experience. With no other group does the church lead with prohibitions rather than love and welcome. Until we grasp this we will not be able to speak to gays and lesbians.”
Fr. Martin, did you think that the now-superseded US Bishops document “Always Our Children” (not directly addressed to gay Catholics but to their parents) exemplified a more loving approach?
http://www.usccb.org/laity/always.shtml
(I meant to add to my previous query to Fr. Martin that I DO think that “Always Our Children” showcases the respect and love that the institutional church, and all of us, should show to our homosexual sisters and brothers)
(And that it’s called “Always Our Children”. “Always My Children” was the soap-opera adaptation of what went on at US bishop conference meetings, I believe).
“Not to poison the well or anything, but for those not familiar with Mirror of Justice, Fr. Araujo and Robert George are two of the most conservative contributors there. And of course Robert George is a major player for the right in the culture wars and one of the key figures fighting against same-sex marriage. He is very intelligent and well worth reading, but he represents a decidedly right-of-center point of view. I don’t think he likes “good liberalism” of the past any more than “bad liberalism” of today.”
I’m pretty sure people are aware of their frame of reference, at least Robert George, so I’m not sure I understand your hand-wringing. Are we only to read people we agree with? Cathleen Kaveney and Eduardo Penalver also post there on occassion; I find it refreshing that a Catholic blog can span the likes of Robert George and Prof. Penalver. It’s refreshing to break out of the Fox-MSNBC ruts (and their Catholic equivalents) every know and again, don’t you think? Sort of that whole “catholic” thing.
And there are lots of people considered well to the left of George who are not fans of either “good” or “bad” liberalism – such as Michael Sandel.
Jim P,
Thanks for that reference. I valued that document “Always Our Children” when it came out. In retrospect, I see both pastoral care and a failure to speak directly to those whose lives and loves were the topic of the document. I am going to say that the “missed” opportunity of direct dialogue is at one level understandable at another telling.
“There really is no good reason to rail against Rome for not acting fast, faster, now. It can’t do that. Nor, I think, need intelligent, thoughtful, informed Catholics refrain from moving ahead quietly on their own. The Church will catch up.”
That is one of the most (albeit unintentional) damning indictments of this organization that I have read in a long time.
Felapton obviously doesn’t know many lesbians! Many are in the FOREFRONT of the movement to legalize same-sex marriage. The reason you don’t see many doing the “act up” think in church is, quite frankly, there aren’t many left in the Catholic church. They have doubly damned by being women and lesbians. I know quite a few in my parish and most are there because our parish is so very LGBT-friendly. We are truly an intentional community and that is what keeps most of us there who would otherwise have long been gone away from this “church.”
Fr. Martin, did you think that the now-superseded US Bishops document “Always Our Children” (not directly addressed to gay Catholics but to their parents) exemplified a more loving approach?
Jim,
It did exemplify a more loving approach. However, as you will note at the end of it:
That means it was not approved by all the members of the USCCB. John Allen reports:
Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith by John Allen is available on Google Books, and the account of the controversy following Always our children is on pages 208-210.
So Always our children was the end of something that might have been.
Felapton argues so logically, I had always assumed she was a man too.
I’m pretty sure people are aware of their frame of reference, at least Robert George, so I’m not sure I understand your hand-wringing. Are we only to read people we agree with?
Jeff,
What hand wringing? I read Mirror of Justice regularly, and occasionally comment there. I can’t think of anyone else from Commonweal I run into there. I was just pointing out to people who might not know that George and Araujo were two of the most conservative voices there. I read those two all the time, and I disagree with almost everything they say, so no, I am not advocating we read only those we agree with. I read First Things and comment there!
People on Commonweal are probably familiar with Robert George. Nevertheless, I don’t think it was in any way out of line for me to point out that he is not just an intellectual commenting on issues, he’s a “culture warrior.”
“he is not just an intellectual commenting on issues, he’s a “culture warrior.””
As opposed to those advocating a re-definition by marriage via any means necessary? So what do we call those folks?
Jimmy Mac,
Not to agree with Felapton, but lesbians, whatever their level of participation, aren’t as noticed or as feared by the general public in the gay-rights movement as gay men are. The more hostile the arguments get against same-sex marriage (in other forums, generally), the more they are really just attacks on gay men. I think if there had somehow been a movement for lesbian marriage instead of same-sex marriage, it would be a lot farther along. I think in some ways what Felapton comments on is not the difference between gay men and lesbians, it’s the difference between men (activists) and women (activists).
Jeff,
The culture war has two sides (at least) so there are culture warriors on the left and the right.
As opposed to those advocating a re-definition by marriage via any means necessary?
I see the struggle for same-sex marriage taking place in the courts and the political arena. I don’t know what you mean by “via any means necessary.” If anyone is advocating the overthrow of traditional marriage by violence, I am not aware of it.
Yes, weird direction on this thread.
Not only do we have Felapton’s Victor/Victoria revelation, but this admission:
“I abstain from sex, alcohol and television for the sake of health and sanity as well as morality. I find all of these tend to promote sloppiness of intellect and deterioration in the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. (I do rather like to smoke weed, but don’t often get the opportunity.)”
The CCC 2291 admonishes illicit drug users to consider their direct cooperation in the evils associated with dope peddling. Never mind that that really good super-dope they grow now will break down the health, sanity and morality faster than that harsh crap full of seeds and stems we bought in dime bags back in the 60s and 70s.
I strongly suspect he/she is having a laugh at us, and I thank him/her for the entertaining posts.
In the absence of Fr. Martin responding to Jim P., I have to say I have read “Always Our Children” many times, and I think some people did take it to heart at the parish level.
One of the things I like about it is that it the letter seems supportive without being prescriptive. It offers suggestions, and all of them call parents to be better parents in a well-rounded way (ex., watch what your kids watch and emulate, challenge where it seems appropriate, offer spiritual direction).
Nowhere does it urge you to “cure” your kid, kick them out, or treat them with less than human dignity.
There is a brief address directly to gay Catholics at the end of the missive.
When I feel the rhetoric among some elements in the Church is getting hateful, I find it salubrious to re-read.
David N, Jean and William F, thanks for those comments on Always Our Children. David, your John Allen excerpt depressed me. Still, perhaps the document offers a brief springtime glimpse of what may be possible?
David N wrote (snipping this from a longer and fine comment): “I have never seen heterosexual cohabitation described as “behavior to which no one has any conceivable right” (although would assume it is just as morally objectionable as homosexual cohabitation, or arguably even more so) or called “grave depravity.” … I have argued that the Church could reasonably treat celibate homosexual persons in much the same way it treats the sacramentally married and civilly divorced, and it could treat same-sex couples much the same as it treats the sacramentally married, civilly divorced, and civilly remarried. I know they are not exactly the same, but it strikes me they are very similar. Reaching that kind of equivalence would, it seems to me, be maintaining Catholic teaching without homophobia. I don’t see it happening any time in the near future.”
Yes, I agree completely. For reasons that I don’t completely understand, official church teaching seems to treat homosexual sex as a completely different *kind* of thing than illicit heterosexual sex. But be that as it may, I think we should end up where you suggest – a basic equivalence. I agree wholeheartedly that the church shouldn’t single out homosexuals or their sins for more condemnation, or less love, or less welcoming, than what is accorded to sinful heterosexuals (i.e. all heterosexuals).
William Lindsey – it you’re still reading these comments (and of course other folks can chip in to their hearts’ content) – you’ve written a number of times here about how unwelcoming the church makes you feel as a homosexual man. What would you have the church do differently? Should it stop saying what it says and let the silence ring for a while? Should it strive to find more loving ways of saying what it has been saying? What can the church do that it isn’t doing, and what should the church stop doing that it is doing?
If you’re willing to think about these questions and respond, may I ask you to do so with this constraint – that no fundamental, doctrinal views of the church – expressed as generously as possible – are likely to change? So, for example, a response that says, “Recognize homosexual marriage as valid and legitimate” isn’t realistic, for good or ill. But within the limits of what is possible, what can be done?
Maybe everyone already knw this, but it just came to my attention. There was a change from the first to the second edition of the Catechism in the information on homosexuality:
That is certainly a step backward from those of us who know that sexual orientation is not chosen. The change was required by the CDF in 1997, and while I have not seen it said explicitly, I can only assume it was required by then Cardinal Ratzinger.
People love to conflate matrimony with marriage. They are not the same; matrimony encompasses marriage not the opposite is not true.
So much of what is viewed as doctrinal Catholicism simply highlights one way that the faith has been lived in the past, determines this to be normative, and then dismisses what might depart from it as being somehow less Catholic. This tends to be quite dismissive of the constitutively changing nature of the traditions of such things as marriage.
Sacramental marriage, i.e., matrimony, was not part of the Christian religion until 1545 at the Council of Trent. There was no sacrament of matrimony before that. In 1200 there first came the concept of marriage for love. Prior to that, women were given to men as part of a business arrangement between families. Nothing holy about that! If we do not want to redefine marriage, then we should go back to having your father arrange who you should marry.
Let’s try to define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look at Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile?
Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists.
The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. St. Paul regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered.
Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?
Again, I refer back to my comments of 6/23 @ 8:17 pm above.
Jim P @ 4:15 pm asked William L and others this question: “What would you have the church do differently?”
I personally don’t care what the church preaches on this topic within the confines of its teachings. I am free to accept or reject anything outside of the Deposit of Faith that I choose to do. I exempt the Deposit of Faith as being essentials to Christianity in general.
I INSIST and DEMAND that the Catholic Church stop interfering in my ability to gain statutory civil benefits, rights and responsibilities equal to that of other citizens, and which are guaranteed to me under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. I am beginning to rue and regret my decision to return to the practice of Catholicism about 15 years ago after 20+ years of being “on sabbatical.” It appears to have been a major mistake in my spiritual life.
I will do anything that I can to penalize this church for interfering in politics through outright lobbying or sub rosa pressure on Catholic politicians. If need be I will join in on any and all class action suits that may be brought in the future as situations warrant.
“They are not the same; matrimony encompasses marriage not the opposite is not true.”
That should read: matrimony encompasses marriage but the opposite is not true.
I said in this blog, I believe, that the phrase “objectively disordered” is the most hurtful language that a gay Catholic experiences. I would guess it hurts even more than the obvious slurs and stereotypes, including the ugly language that festers in posts above.
This language of clinical rhetoric that one finds in the 2nd catechism places homosexuality itself–not particular acts that occur outside the context of marriage–into a category all its own. The category “objectively disordered” demeans because it is bloodless and imperious; it cuts into a person’s sense of self like a stiletto, for it has more to do with a person’s ethos (who they are in relation to others) than to acts. I believe these two words negate much, if not all, of the pastoral rhetoric that follows.
“I see the struggle for same-sex marriage taking place in the courts and the political arena. I don’t know what you mean by “via any means necessary.” If anyone is advocating the overthrow of traditional marriage by violence, I am not aware of it.”
Of course, there are many forms of violence, aren’t there? Just see Jimmy Mac’s post above.
Thank you for your invitation to keep contributing, Ann, Mary, Catarinasdaughter, Jim M., William F. And I apologize if I’ve overlooked anyone who responded to my last posting with encouragement.
Jim P., you specifically ask me to address questions to which you’d like to hear my response, about how the Catholic church makes me “feel” unwelcome as a gay member. I appreciate that invitation, but with respect, I’m going to choose to pass on the invitation.
To be honest, I don’t know what more I can say to convince you or anyone else that the church actively makes gay members unwelcome–and that this goes far beyond what any one of us feels about the situation. In fact, reducing what I and some others in these threads have tried to convey about what the church does to gay persons (both inside and outside the church, for that matter) to the level of feelings trivializes what we’ve tried to say, and is, frankly, insulting.
As if our testimony is somehow tainted with a self-interest that makes it dubious, or as if we ourselves lack the integrity to speak the truth or perhaps the intelligence to distinguish between what we “feel” vis-a-vis the church, and what the church actually does to us.
I think that talking about these matters at the level of abstraction and sweet, purportedly disinterested and objective reason is really futile, and contributes to the problem. The problem is that the Catholic church has turned itself into a club that allocates astonishing power and privilege to heterosexual men while it continues to demean and do harm and injustice to women and gay and lesbian persons–and this harm and injustice are not hard to ascertain and verify.
I’m sorry that point somehow doesn’t become clear to the people within Catholic institutions who might have the power to make some changes–if not substantially, then at least in the image the church projects to many of us. I think I’ve pretty much failed to make the point, and that I need to direct my own efforts to addressing these issues elsewhere, where people really want to engage these issues in a constructive way that takes seriously what some folks are reporting about the serious problem the church has. And where the conversation space does not encourage the kinds of broadside slams of a group of already marginalized human beings that occur still all too frequently on many faith-based blogs, while posters who claim to have a welcoming and healing intent don’t do anything to stand in solidarity with those being attacked.
I do appreciate the invitation, though, and wish you and others here well in thinking through, continuing to talk about, deciding to do something about (?) what many more people than I have reported and continue to report about the harm and injustice the church is doing to some folks today–and what that is doing to the church, in return.
For my part, I think the time for talking is long since over. It’s time for anyone in the church who really cares about welcome and healing to do something, for a change.
Of course, there are many forms of violence, aren’t there? Just see Jimmy Mac’s post above.
Jeff,
I saw no mention of violence in Jimmy Mac’s post. Violence is when you use physical force to injure people’s bodies. Lawsuits, lobbying, boycotts, or whatever are not violence.
Yes, Jeff, please point out the violence in my statement above. If what you read is violence in your mind, then I accuse this church of extreme violence in many cases.
Jim P said: ” — lesbians, whatever their level of participation, aren’t as noticed or as feared by the general public in the gay-rights movement as gay men are.”
Is that because of their being lesbians – or women? In general don’t most men (the most vocal, active and vituperative of the “general public”) view women to be less threatening than men, particularly when it comes to matters sexual?
I also think it is because, whenever a spokesperson for same-sex marriage appears on cable or national TV, it tends to be a male. The face of the movement is made to be male, not because it is but because that’s what the media chooses to represent.
A major exception, of course, is MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow who makes no bones of her lesbianism and her positions on the various issues affecting the LGBT communities.
However, if one looks at the leadership in the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, and here in California the No on Prop 8 Campaign, and, of course, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, you will see many visible and vocal lesbians in positions of power and authority.
Bill Lindsey, I am sincerely sorry my comments annoyed you, and I also hope you will continue to post here from time to time when you are not too busy with bilgrimage. You and I were formerly friends, and I should have remembered how obnoxious you find humor of this sort.
I really think you exaggerate the extent to which you are unwelcome in the Church. The Church’s current position is that you are welcome to all the same rights and status under civil law of any heterosexual couple, except for the word “marriage.” It is not equality. But it is not the same sort of wrong as slavery or genocide either.
Now I think we should all just chill out and listen to Joan Sutherland’s rendition of the Mad Scene.
Bad link. Bill’s site is here: bilgrimage
I’ve never found the Gnosticism inherent in proof-by-italics to be terribly convincing, nor even engaging.
“Jesus…preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family.”
I think Jesus’ teaching on divorce and lust would contradict this.
“I believe, that the phrase “objectively disordered” is the most hurtful language”
But keep in mind the Church teaches that, after the Fall, we all have inclinations that are objectively disordered. No one has a right to feel unfairly or uniquely “picked on” by the Church in that regard. The tragic irony is that the Church’s teaching makes a point to be inclusive, to say that we are not defined by our inclinations, that we are all equally part of the Church, yet the response of some seems to be, “No, we are different, fundamentally, and you must see us as such.” So who’s not being inclusive?
Homosexuality is not a sin according to the Bible. Scholars who have studied the Bible in context of the times and in relation to other passages have shown those passages (Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans, etc) have nothing to do with homosexuality. These passages often cherry-picked while ignoring the rest of the Bible. The sins theses passages are referring to are idolatry, prostitution, and rape, not homosexuality.
(Change *** to www)
***.soulfoodministry.org/docs/English/NotASin.htm
***.jesus21.com/content/sex/bible_homosexuality_print.html
***.christchapel.com/reclaiming.html
***.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/BiblicalReferences.php
***.gaychristian101.com/
***.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Resources&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2121
***.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence.html
***.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
Spread the word
Homosexuality is not a choice. Just like you don’t choose the color of your skin, you cannot choose whom you are sexually attracted to. Virtually all major psychological and medical experts agree that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. Most gay people will tell you its not a choice. Common sense will tell you its not a choice. While science is relatively new to studying homosexuality, studies tend to indicate that its biological.
(Change *** to www)
***-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf
***.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html
Gay, Straight Men’s Brain Responses Differ
***.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155990,00.html
***.livescience.com/health/060224_gay_genes.html
***.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice and is biological.
And it should also be noted that:
“It is worth noting that many medical and scientific organizations do believe it is impossible to change a person’s sexual orientation and this is displayed in a statement by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association.”
More proof
The National Library of Medicine pubs confirm that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced in the first trimester of pregnancy, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned, bearing no relation to an individuals ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
From the American Psychological Association: homosexuality is normal; homosexual relationships are normal and biological.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
America’s premier child/mental health associations endorse marriage equality.
I fold. My chips can go to the house. I’m joining Bill L. for a while.
This was taken from another poster that shows why we need to legalize gay marriage. If you don’t feel for this person after reading it, you simply aren’t human.
“I am not sure what our President thinks of this dicission but coming from a poor family and knowing what discrimination is all about I would assume he would not care if “Gays” have equal rights. The whole reason why they are asking for rights to be considered married is from the same reason why I would be for it. My own life partner commited suicide in our home with a gun to his heart. After a 28 year union I was deprived to even go his funeral. We had two plots next to each other. But because we did not have a marriage cirtificate “(Legal Document)” of our union his mother had him cremated and his ashes taken back to Missouri where we came from. That is only one example how painful it is. His suicide tramatized me so much and her disregard for my feelings only added to my heartach. That happened on March 21 of 2007 and I still cannot type this without crying for the trauma I have to endure each day. Oh did I mention I am in an electric wheelchair for life? Yes I am and it is very diffacult to find another mate when you are 58 and in a wheelchair. “
Discrimination is bad folks
10pm ET… NY Senate just passed SSM with religious exemption 36 yea 26 nay.. Let’s all go back to strengthening sacramental marriage..
Mark Grisanti, a Catholic and a Republican from Buffalo, voting for gay marriage: “I believe that you can be wiser today than yesterday, if you do the work.”
That’s the most truly Catholic utterance of the debate today. How I wish the bishops were listening.
BTW, Ed, the votes on marriage and on the religious exemption were separate. It was 33-29 marriage, 36-26 exemption.
The religious exemption issue wasn’t mentioned in the Times story this morning; not an issue for them. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/nyregion/the-road-to-gay-marriage-in-new-york.html?hp
Cuomo was impressive. 2016, anyone?
Cuomo was impressive. 2016, anyone?
It would be nice, from my point of view, to think that getting same-sex marriage approved in New York would be a plus for Cuomo as a presidential candidate in 2016, but how realistic is that?
David N. is right -I expect lots of vituperation from the traditional right aimed at Cuomo.
What interested me is that this was only possible because the public consensus had changed AND the power of the hierachy has clearly diminished. I think the latter have only themselves to blame for that, but I doubt that insight will sink in.
CUOMO for President!
I think it will help him. Those who hate him, already hate him, and nothing he could do would make them like him.
Cuomo? Between a rock and a hard place. He’s divorced and living with ??a famous cooking star, so he can’t get married (as a divorced Catholic), and he can’t go on living unmarried with the cooking star. America ultimately dealt with a divorced president (Reagan), but with a divorced and unmarried… Doubt it.
But then Nate Silver has these observations: “Cuomo’s Presidential Moment Forms Contrast With Obama” http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/cuomos-presidential-moment-forms-contrast-with-obama/
It was interesting that at least twice Cuomo mentioned social justice.
Bishops are a good influence at times :-)
Cuomo? Between a rock and a hard place. He’s divorced and living with ??a famous cooking star, so he can’t get married (as a divorced Catholic), and he can’t go on living unmarried with the cooking star. America ultimately dealt with a divorced president (Reagan), but with a divorced and unmarried… Doubt it.
—-
Her name is Sandra Lee. Here are 13 million leads to information about her.
http://tinyurl.com/6gcm69q
I’ve seen her show a few times. Very nice. She makes very cute cocktails to go with the simple meals. And she redecorates the set for each show. Very creative. Of course, for those who hate her, nothing will change.
Amusing how no one measures up to Reagan in the eyes of some. The thing that troubled me most about him was the fact that Patti didn’t know she had an older sister until she was about seven/nine years old. What a weird family.
But then Nate Silver has these observations: “Cuomo’s Presidential Moment Forms Contrast With Obama” http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/cuomos-presidential-moment-forms-contrast-with-obama/
—
Interesting. I think I agree. I’ve been pretty satisfied with Obama. Thrilling how cool he was during the week leading up to the killing of bin Laden. Making jokes at the correspondents’ dinner, acting like everything was smooth when he knew what was on the line, how horrible it would be for him if things went wrong, not to mention how horrible for the brave SEALs who risked their lives, etc.
But I love the Cuomos, Mario and Andrew. I would like to see a president who was more pro-Israel, more passionate, Italian, and Catholic!
The religious exemption issue wasn’t mentioned in the Times story this morning; not an issue for them
Margaret,
See Exemptions Were Key to Vote on Gay Marriage in the Times.
“Bishops are a good influence at times :-)”
Like this guy (H/T to Whispers in the Loggia) ? —-
the following eruptive reaction came from the head of the state’s second-largest diocese, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn:
“Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature have deconstructed the single most important institution in human history. Republicans and Democrats alike succumbed to powerful political elites and have passed legislation that will undermine our families and as a consequence, our society.
With this vote, Governor Cuomo has opened a new front in the culture wars that are tearing at the fabric of our nation. At a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling to stay in their homes and find jobs, we should be working together to solve these problems. However, the politicians have curried favor with wealthy donors who are proponents of a divisive agenda in order to advance their own careers and futures.
What is needed in our state is leadership and not political gamesmanship.
In light of these disturbing developments and in protest for this decision, I have asked all Catholic schools to refuse any distinction or honors bestowed upon them this year by the governor or any member of the legislature who voted to support this legislation. Furthermore, I have asked all pastors and principals to not invite any state legislator to speak or be present at any parish or school celebration.
The above request is intended as a protest of the corrupt political process in New York State. More than half of all New Yorkers oppose this legislation. Yet, the governor and the state legislature have demonized people of faith, whether they be Muslims, Jews, or Christians, and identified them as bigots and prejudiced, and voted in favor of same-sex “marriage.” It is mystifying that this bill would be passed on the last day of an extended session under the cover of darkness.
This issue has been framed as upholding marriage equality. This is not the case since one of the principal purposes of marriage is to bring new life into the world. This cannot happen in same-sex marriage. It is not a civil rights issue, but rather a human rights issue upholding the age-old understanding of marriage. Our political leaders do not believe their own rhetoric. If they did, how in good conscience could they carve out any exemption for institutions that would be proponents of bigotry and prejudice?
Republicans and Democrats equally share responsibility for this ruinous legislation and we as Catholics should hold all accountable for their actions.”
(Well, at least he didn’t put out a contract on their lives!)
The above request is intended as a protest of the corrupt political process in New York State.
Well, Bishop DiMarzio didn’t take J. Peter Nixon’s advice, did he?
Re: the religious exemptions test. It will be interesting to see if there is an affiliated organization with a hall that is rented out to all comers and refuses to rent to be used for a reception after a same-sex marriage. What is a religious organization owns a hotel with public meeting rooms? What if the KCs rent out their halls for use for non-religious purposes?
I’m sure something like that will at least be challenged in a court of law. Everyone assumes that the issue will be with using churches, temples, mosques, etc., but there are a lot of ancillary buildings and grounds with absolutely no religious purpose that may be treated as subject to further litigation, if, for no other reason, than to tighten up the definitive language of the exemption provision.
Re Jimmy Macs post from Whispers; Re:Brooklyn bishop DiMarzio…..Losing Ugly is a Brooklyn tradition. He probably knows losing ugly does not have the downside we would expect in other venues. What else would explain it?
I’m sure something like that will at least be challenged in a court of law.
Jimmy,
Let’s hope not. From the Times:
Jimmy Mac –
My point was that the bishops contributed (unwittingly) to the win.
Rocco also notes that the Church had its influence on the positive vote, and he notes another irony:
“Despite the loss, however, it was a notable sign of the church’s clout in the debate leading up to the final vote that two of the three senators who rose to explain their support for the bill cited their own Catholic roots as a key point of tension in their respective paths toward approving the move.
The lone pre-vote speech backing the bishops’ stance on the legislation came from the plan’s leading opponent in the chamber, Democratic Sen. Reuben Diaz of the Bronx, a Pentecostal minister.”
DN: Margaret, See Exemptions Were Key to Vote on Gay Marriage in the Times.
Right, appeared later in the day…Thanks. The first story by another reporter focused on the lobbying organized by Cuomo. I found it curious that there was no mention of the negotiations that went on about exemptions, and which Cuomo said he favored.
Also of interest was the Times dismissal of serious opposition to the bill while half (more or less) of the comments on the CWL’s various posts reacted like Dolan was a major lobbyist on the topic. Maybe he was just a kibbitzer–so NY!
Dolan lost, but he did a good job. I sometimes find his bufoonery unseemly, but it seems he was a good choice for the job after all. The Church can’t help but look good when it’s being bashed by the rich, arrogant, decadent and powerful of the world, whether the Roman Prefect or the New York Times. Being the object of Maureen Dowd’s venom is not quite the same as being roasted on a grill, like St. Laurence, but close enough.
Felatpon,
I don’t know anyone who takes Maureen Dowd seriously or even reads her column regularly. Why in the world the Times gives her space is beyond me.
.
Margaret (6/25 11:05 am):
Yep. When the Times put up its paywall, I considered paying, then decided against it, in large part because of the way they let their editorial side leak into their news side.
For several years I subscribed to the electronic edition and enjoyed the almost tactile pleasure of skimming the paper paper on screen from cover to cover. But technology has moved on, and I’m glad.
.
Homosexuality is not a sin according to the Bible. Scholars who have studied the Bible in context of the times and in relation to other passages have shown those passages (Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans, etc) have nothing to do with homosexuality. These passages often cherry-picked while ignoring the rest of the Bible. The sins theses passages are referring to are idolatry, prostitution, and rape, not homosexuality.
(Change *** to www)
***.soulfoodministry.org/docs/English/NotASin.htm
***.jesus21.com/content/sex/bible_homosexuality_print.html
***.christchapel.com/reclaiming.html
***.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/BiblicalReferences.php
***.gaychristian101.com/
***.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Resources&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2121
***.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence.html
***.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
Perfect evidence
Homosexuality is not a choice. Just like you don’t choose the color of your skin, you cannot choose whom you are sexually attracted to. Virtually all major psychological and medical experts agree that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. Most gay people will tell you its not a choice. Common sense will tell you its not a choice. While science is relatively new to studying homosexuality, studies tend to indicate that its biological.
(Change *** to www)
***-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf
***.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html
Gay, Straight Men’s Brain Responses Differ
***.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155990,00.html
***.livescience.com/health/060224_gay_genes.html
***.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice.
And it should also be noted that:
“It is worth noting that many medical and scientific organizations do believe it is impossible to change a person’s sexual orientation and this is displayed in a statement by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association.”
scientific/psychological/medical organizations
The National Library of Medicine pubs confirm that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced in the first trimester of pregnancy, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned, bearing no relation to an individuals ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
From the American Psychological Association: homosexuality is normal; homosexual relationships are normal and biological.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
America’s premier child/mental health associations endorse marriage equality!
This was taken from another poster that shows why we need to legalize gay marriage. If you don’t feel for this person after reading it, you simply aren’t human.
“I am not sure what our President thinks of this dicission but coming from a poor family and knowing what discrimination is all about I would assume he would not care if “Gays” have equal rights. The whole reason why they are asking for rights to be considered married is from the same reason why I would be for it. My own life partner commited suicide in our home with a gun to his heart. After a 28 year union I was deprived to even go his funeral. We had two plots next to each other. But because we did not have a marriage cirtificate “(Legal Document)” of our union his mother had him cremated and his ashes taken back to Missouri where we came from. That is only one example how painful it is. His suicide tramatized me so much and her disregard for my feelings only added to my heartach. That happened on March 21 of 2007 and I still cannot type this without crying for the trauma I have to endure each day. Oh did I mention I am in an electric wheelchair for life? Yes I am and it is very diffacult to find another mate when you are 58 and in a wheelchair. “
Bigotry is bad folks.
Jimmy (6/25 6:16 pm), quoting DiMarzio:
Sounds good to me, Jimmy. But, of course, it will just be seen as more negativity from a typical sour old churchman. Which, of course, from that point of view, it is.
.
Cuomo for President? Surely. My good friend David Norris, Ireland’s foremost gay campaigner, is the people’s favorite for President of Ireland.
Reading the First Things combox on Elizabeth Scalia’s piece and the combox here, I can only feel that the real sickness, perversion, pathology is the creepy homophobia of so many American Christians. How can the Church shake it off? Can it do so without incurring schism?
The only hope is that rapid change can happen on this front — as we see in the shift in Europe from criminalization of gays up to 20 years ago to widespread civil acceptance and celebration of gay couples today.
“I agree with the Church that homosexual acts are gravely depraved. And I don’t think I have ever known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being.”
Felapton has “come out” in her own way here, and we do appreciate her quirky character. And yes, she has the Magisterium on her side.
One is tempted to list all the people she does not consider really admirable human beings, from Socrates down to Wittgenstein, from Leonardo and Michelangelo down to Tchaikovsky and Britten, Proust and James, Forster and Auden, from Melville and Whitman to Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, not to mention Newman, Hopkins, etc., but of course it would be self-defeating, for by definition she considers that their sexuality taints them.
Bishop DiMarzio puts his money where his mouth is, or rather puts the money of the parents who are paying the fees in his Catholic schools where his mouth is. Their children are to be deprived of prizes because he does not agree with Cuomo. Would the bishop ask the parents’ own views? No, because that is no the way the RCC does business. Especially on pelvic issues, the RCC proscribes discussion, burying itself in a bunker.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.”
And if our benighted and arrogant bishops had opened themselves to human, rational, civilized discussion they would have endorsed civil marriage for the same reasons. They are losing ugly, and they will go on losing.
As Jesus put it (and I do believe he has some theological authority, unpopular as he may be with our bishops): “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?” (Lk 14:5). “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?” (Lk 13:15).
I am now seriously wondering, what is the theological argument against the extension of sacramental marriage to same-sex couples? I cannot find any.
“The term “homophobic” is, first, incorrect: I doubt that supporters of the Church teaching against homosexual acts have an “irrational fear” of homosexuals. Second, it is simply extremist and shuts the door to any substantive debate.”
Reading a lot of what Catholic bloggers write about gayness, I cannot help feeling that homophobia, in its deepest sense, is very entrenched. I think it is an instinct as deep as gynophobia (or horror feminae, something much deeper than ordinary social misogyny). The latter is based on irrational fear of the female organs, the former on something equally visceral (struggling to express itself in the fantasy of being sodomized by rampant homosexuals). I would not exclude “homophobia” as a diagnostic category in trying to understand the fulminations.
“It’s an attack word, morally presumptuous, and does not further debate.”
It can be; often is; but the world is full of gay-haters as it is full of women-haters — we need to take that on board.
Maybe my edition of the Symposium is bowdlerized, but as I remember it, Alcibiades, the handsomest boy in Athens, jumps into bed with Socrates and begs him to bugger him. And Socrates yawns and falls asleep.
Doesn’t sound particularly gay to me.
And we know he had no aversion to sex with Xanthippe, because she shows up in the Phaedo with his two sons, so he can say good-bye to them.
I am a huge admirer of Melville’s writing. But nobody, not even he himself, would ever have called him an admirable human being. But the evidence for his gayness is not overwhelming: besides his (probably wildly exaggerated) adventures among the cannibals, there is the fact that he eventually married and had four children. (His grave, next to his wife’s, are in the Bronx, but I have been to his house in Pittsfield.)
I hope everyone will spend some quality time with the NYT today. The article on how Cuomo managed to get the SSM law through is GREAT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/nyregion/the-road-to-gay-marriage-in-new-york.html?ref=nyregion
(Won’t he make a great president? Should he really be disqualified because he lives with Sandra Lee, whose brother is gay?)
And Bruni’s column in the Sunday Review will bring a tear to your eye. And Dowd’s column on Obama’s amBIvalence is great, too, imho.
“I hope everyone will spend some quality time with the NYT today. The article on how Cuomo managed to get the SSM law through is GREAT.”
Big fat cat Wall St. donors writing “six figure checks” in private meetings with the Governor? Pressure from un-named family members of live-in girlfriends? Doesn’t strike me as the kind of open, honest, progressive government that many to the left of me champion so often. I could imagine the article that would have been written if this were a Republican governor passing a bill for a pet project of the right.
But, yes, the Grey Lady is certainly in full hagiography mode this morning.
Melville may have been bi, but he certainly knew how to write seductive gay toned scenes in his novels. Anyway, it’s nice to know he was not an admirable person. Socrates was an ascetic, indeed, but he speaks very frankly about the erotic charms of the young men around him — see the Charmides, for instance, where he is less on a pedestal than in the Symposium. Certainly enough material there to make you withdraw your admiration. And what a RIDICULOUS discussion this is!
American politics is all about money — if you want gay rights, or anything else, you must PAY. In Ireland, we had no need of such bribery; I think generally democracy is functioning much better in Europe, and gays have benefited from this immensely.
I see you can be a huge admirer of a writer and still not regard him as an admirable human being — I guess we have to guess what Felapton considers admirable and what not. Surely Melville was an admirable human being, not only for his imagination and intelligence, but for his greatness of heart. I know nothing much about his life, but I doubt if his failings could outweigh his heroic achievement. Perhaps it would be more interesting to know which lucky mortals have the privilege of being considered admirable by Felapton.
Admirable can be judged by strict transcendent standards, such as only the saints can meet — and they never thing they are admirable — “a saint is a man who knows he is a sinner” — gee, maybe Melville could count after all!
To my mind all great writers and artists are admirable human beings and benefactors of humanity. Too bad that so many of them were gay!
No one is admirable to his valet, and we are all valets to the great writers, since they revealed their human weaknesses with unique frankness.
In the end we get sick of hearing so much about the privacies of the great — be they Goethe or Virginia Woolf or Flaubert or Tolstoy — and we turn our unreserved admiration to the works, not to the flawed individual who was the vehicle of their creation. “And in that little, little span/The dead are brought to mind,/Seek not to question other than/The works I left behind.”
Among the things I found interesting in the various NYT articles and opinion pieces this morning was how personal it is for everyone. Bruni’s father, the nephew of the woman Kruger lives with, etc.
Impressive how adroitly Cuomo dealt with people from both parties. And how his father’s good example influenced him. People are finding the courage to come out with their true feelings.
Good comments below Bruni and Dowd’s columns. And interesting comments from Dolan quoted by Dowd.
Poor Abp Dolan is out of his depth. He thinks eveyone’s gone crazy. What next?, he asks, bigamy? incest?
I do hope he goes on a learning curve.
“There goes my red hat!”
Rome is so annoyed that he failed to produce the goods that they expected from him that they have taken to misspelling his name!
It is not only I who distinguish between Melville the extaordinarily admirable writer and Melville the distinctly flawed human being. Nabokov, in his essay on Moby Dick remarks that its principle weakness is that “the writer is so much greater than the man.”
See David Nickol, 6/21/2011, 8:36 p.m. at this thread for a discussion of the criteria on which a man may be called “gay” as opposed to merely “homosexual.” Definitions differ, but they should be used consistently. If you insist on laying claim to Socrates and Melville, I think you will end up with Sulla and Shanley as well.
Of course it is a ridiculous conversation. It is always a great pleasure to discuss things with you, O’Leary, but the conversations do tend to trend rapidly towards fatuity.
Nabokov as a judge of Melville — but does anyone claim that Nabokov is a judge of moral uprightness?
Now my language is being policed — I must not say Socrates was gay, but rather homosexual, or is it the other way round? And which category is never admirable, or are neither?
Now you name two non-admirable gays (or are they homosexuals?) but you know logic better than that, and you know you do. “No gays are admirable” is the thesis you presented; I say “x,y,z, were gay (or homosexual), and are admirable; therefore your thesis is false”; you now reply, “yes, but m and n were gay and were not admirable, so there!”
For the record, I believe the words “gay” and “homosexual” should be consigned to the dustbin of history. “Men who love men,” and “women who love women,” says it all.
Timothy Dolan, just now, is probably not really worried about the rising tide of incest and bigamy that the NY Senate has unleashed. He is thinking of his letter to his boss: “I tried my best and the people were all behind me, as they told me at barbecues, but it was the media, your holiness, and the big money that won. I was like David pitted against the fierce, evil Goliath. Please give me another chance!”
I did think the immediate thesis under discussion was “Melville was ‘gay’” so I tried to show “If Melville, then Sulla as well.” Plato’s Socrates is essentially a fictional character, whose fictional sexuality it is beyond ridiculous to discuss.
I love my kayak. I wonder how many more years before I’ll be allowed to marry it.
Felapton, I am really surprised that you talk of gays as “they”, almost as an alien species.
Just a parallel will help:
Feminist: “Let us celebrate the great achievements of women, from Madame de la Fayette to Clara Schumann, from George Eliot to Mother Teresa”.
Misogynist: “Hah, if you insist on laying claim to those people, I think you will end up with Messalina and Jezabel and Lady Macbeth (actually it is rather hard to think of names of bad women ) as well!”
Misogynist here comes across as treating women as an alien species — blinded no doubt by some weird prejudice.
Just want to add that the Dowd vs. Dolan continuing foofararw adds little on both sides and doesn’t help the Church.
I think Fr. O’Leary is right about him.
Well, of course there is a whole industry of speculating that famous people were gay, and it is not at all confined to admirable people. “Hitler was gay” must be a googlable meme. I am satisfied from reading Melville that he was gay in an ordinary sense, though perhaps not exclusively so. It is hard to think of any other 19th century novelist who composed such erotic male-male encounters as he did. I am also sure that Newman, Henry James were gay, though I cannot prove it. The reason I think this sort of gaydar is important is that it gives a revealing heuristic on the author’s oeuvre. Many of James’s tales leap into life when you find the gay subtext.
Of course there is also a whole industry denying that people were gay — I have seen it applied to Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Newman, James, Proust — often because admirers of these figures cannot bring themselves to accept that they could be gay, and thus not admirable!
Dowd is a very tired columnist, apparently in decline. She is right about Obama, but really Obama wrote that piece for her; his binarism is obvious. She never tires of giving her naive and simplistic accounts of the sex abuse scandal, knowing how well they sell (with a wink to the “blame the gays” lobby thrown in for good measure), and using it as a whataboutery tactic in criticizing the church on other fronts. I think Down was ruined by the Bushes — she had such a juicy target, which did not require any deep analysis, that she perfected a rhetorical style that has now become a blunt weapon.
I honestly can’t see the parallel. I wasn’t aware that the femaleness of historical women was under question.
Actually, by modern standards the Macbeths have one of the best marriages in Shakespeare and Ahab and Jezebel are one of the most compatible couples in the Bible.
About forty years ago, the “social sciences” discredited themselves when they voluntarily decided to become public advocacy in academic regalia. This idiotic insistence on reading literature to justify one’s own dubious predilections is the surest path imaginable by which the humanities can be brought to the same disrepute.
Isn’t this what the bishops found so objectionable about Elizabeth Johnson’s book? Once scholars begin proclaiming that their analyses are uniquely informed by their personal predispositions, the suspicion inevitably arises that scholarship is no more than ideological rhetoric delivered in a classroom.
It is characteristic of great writers to be able to invoke feelings of recognition and identification (“aha moments”) in a wide range of readers, but only an ideologue or a professor truly desperate for matter for a novel journal article takes these feelings seriously.
Unless it can be firmly established that a historical figure personally admitted his homosexuality, he flunks the David Nickol “out and proud” criterion and I will assume him to have been at least nominally straight.
I would say in Maueen Dowd’s defense, that she is doing very well with limited resources. If she had Thomas Friedman’s reportedly unlimited travel budget, she could undoubtedly be more profound. As it is, she’s forced into the mold of high-brow gossip columnist, a role she admittedly plays with enthusiasm. She has a good ear for linguistic trickery and a talent for satire and farce. If I were she, I would try to write a libretto for a comic opera.
@ Father O’Leary:
“Hitler was gay” = 42,600 hits
“Hitler was not gay” = 15,900
“Cardinal Newman was gay” = 3,220
“Cardinal Newman was not gay” = 1
“Melville was gay” = 339
“Melville was not gay” = 2
“Henry James was gay” = 156
“Henry James was not gay” = 0
Observations on the absurd:
It’s news if you’re gay and famous, and less newsworthy if you’re NOT gay and famous, though if you’re famous and a lot of people have SAID you were gay, there’s some news value in refuting this.
I got 109,000 hits for “Obama is gay,” which may mean thshows that some people still think this is the easiest way to smear someone. And maybe it was 50 years ago when Gore Vidal wrote “The Best Man.”
Some people are using “gay” as a synonym for “lame” to describe Obama, such as the “Obama Is Gay” Facebook page. Only 209 people like this page, with its photoshopped image of the president in a silver top hat, frilly jacket and little else.
“Obama is not gay” got 173,000 hits, though why so many people would stoop to contradict this stymies me.
Just for fun, I got 209 hits for “Oscar Wilde was not gay,” and some of these folks said that you couldn’t call Oscar gay b/c he didn’t have a gay cultural and political identify. I guess they didn’t really look closely enough at all that litigation with the Marquis of Queensbury.
OK, it’s been a slow afternoon, so I’m going to find something better to do.
Unless it can be firmly established that a historical figure personally admitted his homosexuality, he flunks the David Nickol “out and proud” criterion and I will assume him to have been at least nominally straight.
I think both gay and straight are modern terms that describe only modern lives, and although it is less problematic to call historical figures straight than to call them gay, I would be cautious.
In a culture where an older man may marry and have children, but may also have a sexual relationship with a young man, I would not call a man who did both either gay or straight (or homosexual or heterosexual, for that matter). I would not call men in contemporary society who marry and have children, but who have furtive sex with men, either gay or straight, assuming (as I do) that the marriages are not just a subterfuge. I don’t know about Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in Brokeback Mountain, but I wouldn’t have described Heath Ledger’s character as gay.
People like to say Alexander the Great was gay, but he did have three wives and also fathered two sons by mistresses. In my book, it makes no sense to call him either gay or straight.
It is my own personal definition of gay that it is a self-description that implies self-acceptance, but I think it is an excellent one. I would use gay to describe men who join the Catholic group Courage in an effort to live chastely with a homosexual orientation, and they don’t use the term themselves. My understanding of the term and theirs in some respects similar.
Dr. John Money, a sex researcher, once said that there are as many sexual orientations as there are persons. I think there is a great deal of wisdom in that. Gay and straight are very convenient labels, and I have no hesitation in using them most of the time, but they have very significant limitations in describing people even today, and they are of little use in describing historical figures. If there are any historical figures who had sex partners exclusively of their own gender and were “out and proud” about it, I still would consider it an anachronism to refer to them as gay, although it would not be as odd as referring to someone like Alexander the Great as gay.
Correction to the above”
I would not use gay to describe men who join the Catholic group Courage in an effort to live chastely with a homosexual orientation, and they don’t use the term themselves.
Agreed. These terms are anachronisms when applied to historical figures. They do not even always make sense when applied to non-Western contemporary figures. The whole discussion was ridiculous from the top.
Felapton (06/26 1:59 pm)
I suppose that goes a long way toward discrediting the humanities. Pretty soon, the teaching of composition and rhetoric may be all that’s left.
I think, however, that homosexual orientation is a fairly solid reality, as is heterosexual orientation, for many or most people. Indeed David Nickol himself casually refers to the Courage guys as having a homosexual orientation. Even in bisexuals, one orientation will be dominant, I understand. So I don’t find this logic-chopping all that illuminating.
In any case, such epistemological scruples do not prevent people from saying that gays or homosexuals cannot be admirable human beings. Either the orientation or its acceptance is seen by such homophobic people as a taint that undermines a person’s value. Many people feel the same about other such taints, such as being Jewish, black or female, or at least about people who are proud of these identities. It is sad that Commonweal readers are still at such a low level of awareness.
“I have never known a gay man whom I considered a really admirable human being” — this is the statement I took issue with. I cited a list of admirable homosexual figures, and Felapton answered, basically, that you could not call them “gay” because the word did not exist in their time. Never mind that the glowingly homoerotic language of the Phaedrus has been a bible for many movements of gay affirmation throughout history (even Benedict XVI recommends it). Never mind that Melville chronicled the erotic fascination of men in his novels. Even Oscar Wilde will not count as gay, despite his famous plaidoyer during his trial, since he was after all married.
If we must limit the search for admirable gay men to those who call themselves such, I suppose I must cite Gore Vidal, Edmund White, possibly Tennessee Williams. Or better still, that outstanding man Senator David Norris, possibly Ireland’s next President. Felapton might enjoy meeting him — he will dispel her prejudice that gays cannot be admirable human beings.
I suppose Felapton would consider it improper to seek gay subtexts in Tennessee Williams? At what point does the effort to impose sexual color-blindness become mere philistinism?
Btw, my approach to gayness in literature is not at all informed by recent queer theory or gender-bending studies a la Judith Butler. I acquired it long before these trends and it is far more stuffy and conservative.
Homosexuality is not a sin according to the Bible. Scholars who have studied the Bible in context of the times and in relation to other passages have shown those passages (Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans, etc) have nothing to do with homosexuality. These passages often cherry-picked while ignoring the rest of the Bible. The sins theses passages are referring to are idolatry, prostitution, and rape, not homosexuality.
(Change *** to www)
***.soulfoodministry.org/docs/English/NotASin.htm
***.jesus21.com/content/sex/bible_homosexuality_print.html
***.christchapel.com/reclaiming.html
***.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/BiblicalReferences.php
***.gaychristian101.com/
***.mccchurch.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Resources&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2121
***.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence.html
***.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
shi-zaam!
Homosexuality is not a choice. Just like you don’t choose the color of your skin, you cannot choose whom you are sexually attracted to. Virtually all major psychological and medical experts agree that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. Most gay people will tell you its not a choice. Common sense will tell you its not a choice. While science is relatively new to studying homosexuality, studies tend to indicate that its biological.
(Change *** to www)
***-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/differential-brain-activation.pdf
***.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn14146-gay-brains-structured-like-those-of-the-opposite-sex.html
Gay, Straight Men’s Brain Responses Differ
***.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155990,00.html
***.livescience.com/health/060224_gay_genes.html
***.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice.
shi-zaam!
And it should also be noted that:
“It is worth noting that many medical and scientific organizations do believe it is impossible to change a person’s sexual orientation and this is displayed in a statement by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association.”
scientific/psychological/medical organizations
shi-zaam!
The National Library of Medicine pubs confirm that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced in the first trimester of pregnancy, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned, bearing no relation to an individuals ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
From the American Psychological Association: homosexuality is normal; homosexual relationships are normal and biological.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
America’s premier child/mental health associations endorse marriage equality!
shi-zaam
This was taken from another poster that shows why we need to legalize gay marriage. If you don’t feel for this person after reading it, you simply aren’t human.
“I am not sure what our President thinks of this dicission but coming from a poor family and knowing what discrimination is all about I would assume he would not care if “Gays” have equal rights. The whole reason why they are asking for rights to be considered married is from the same reason why I would be for it. My own life partner commited suicide in our home with a gun to his heart. After a 28 year union I was deprived to even go his funeral. We had two plots next to each other. But because we did not have a marriage cirtificate “(Legal Document)” of our union his mother had him cremated and his ashes taken back to Missouri where we came from. That is only one example how painful it is. His suicide tramatized me so much and her disregard for my feelings only added to my heartach. That happened on March 21 of 2007 and I still cannot type this without crying for the trauma I have to endure each day. Oh did I mention I am in an electric wheelchair for life? Yes I am and it is very diffacult to find another mate when you are 58 and in a wheelchair. “
shi-zaam!
David Smith says: “I suppose that goes a long way toward discrediting the humanities. Pretty soon, the teaching of composition and rhetoric may be all that’s left.”
There is a way to do scholarship in the humanities that makes the text and the author, not the scholar, the focal point of the analysis, with the goal of enhancing other readers’ understanding. It was practiced for centuries and that is the traditional understanding of scholarship. More recently, a it has become common to make the text a mere starting-point for the “scholar’s” meditations, which invariably pertain principally to himself and his (often political) agenda. The original, genuine, form of scholarship is not yet completely eclipsed by the newer one. There is still time for the humanities to save themselves.
The social sciences, with the exception of economics, are already lost. Major universities now produce two completely different products: research and public advocacy. The public advocacy still dresses itself up as “research,” is published in “journals,” and is presented at “conferences.” But the farcical nature of the system is clearly understood and tacitly acknowledged by both the producers and the political system which constitutes their consumer base.
There is no such natural market for the pseudo-humanities. If the humanities go the way the social sciences have gone, they will simply cease to exist within a generation. “The homoerotic subtext of the Phaedrus is a glowing endorsement of the ‘gay affirmation’ movement’s goals.” is an example of why most people now believe a liberal arts degree is a waste of time.
Felapton,
What you “quoted”
is different from what Fr. O Leary said:
That’s true. I wasn’t quoting, I was paraphrasing. Really, I was caricaturing to make the point.
Felapton, that the language of the Phaedrus is glowingly homoerotic is something no sensitive reader of the text could deny. I have read it in the original Greek several times and have lectured on its key passages with the most scrupulous philological precision of which I am capable (and though I know you are an accomplished Latinist, please do not scoff at me here — I have published reams of material on the Greek Fathers).
That the Phaedrus has often been invoked by those aiming to affirm the goodness of gay sexuality is clear enough, surely. It is at least a thesis that could be discussed, rather than caricatured as wacky. You might begin by looking up what Pater, Symonds, Wilde, Mann had to say about it. Then look back to older sources.
As to Benedict’s use of it in a speech to Communio e Liberazione and also in Deus Caritas Est, I suggest it is an encouraging message to his gay hearers (a call to noble and chaste love, no doubt).
So really, I do not see what you are scoffing so snootily about. Do you really not appreciate the glory of Plato’s homoerotic vision? There you show a lack of imagination that is not a precondition for the study of the humanities.
Fatuity, thy name is Felapton!
Of course I do not deny the homoerotic tone of the Phaedrus. And I certainly did not mean to question your scholarly credentials. And, can we please leave Pope Benedict out of this discussion?
Basically I think your original list (Socrates, Wittgenstein, etc.) is composed of two completely different sorts of people: the resolutely second-rate (Forster, Vidal) and historically dubious cases, the latter thrown in to add weight to a rather embarrassingly fluffy list.
It is not uncommon for young people of both sexes in late adolescence and early adulthood to engage in homosexual acts, often because of not having respectable means of access to the opposite sex. Many, even most of these people eventually leave such behavior behind and get married or adopt a chaste single lifestyle. In later life, they deny or minimize their youthful experiences. Such people can not convincingly be called homosexual; certainly not “gay.” It seems obvious that Melville was one of these.
Too much time has elapsed to say anything about Plato. It is possible he was merely a heterosexual who had no choice but to adapt his manners and discourse to a society in which homosexuality was openly practiced, not unlike a twenty-first century Christian, who lives, works and socializes amid a secular culture of omnipresent pornography. (In those circumstances, even bishops can be heard saying things like “F–k it.”)
Jimmy Mac: “Jim P said: ” — lesbians, whatever their level of participation, aren’t as noticed or as feared by the general public in the gay-rights movement as gay men are.””
No, I didn’t. Someone else said that.
William L – of course I respect your decision to not engage me in the dialogue to which I’ve invited you. If you ever feel inclined, go ahead and send me a private note – I believe that, by clicking on my name, you can get my email address. God bless you.
“Cuomo was impressive. 2016, anyone?”
Why wait? No time like the present.
“It is not uncommon for young people of both sexes in late adolescence and early adulthood to engage in homosexual acts, often because of not having respectable means of access to the opposite sex. Many, even most of these people eventually leave such behavior behind and get married or adopt a chaste single lifestyle. In later life, they deny or minimize their youthful experiences. Such people can not convincingly be called homosexual; certainly not “gay.” It seems obvious that Melville was one of these.”
But Melville wrote his novels at an adult age, didn’t he? You still talk as if gays were an exotic species, some sort of fluffy folk. But it did not take moderns to discern that homosexual attraction is rife in the human species (the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare are drenched in it, and there are gay characters in both — Edward II, Mercutio, Antonio in the Merchant of Venice). Your mystificatory efforts to keep gays “hidden from history” is contradicted by the chronicles they left behind, and these are but the tip of an iceberg.
Note that we owe our text of Plato’s dialogues to Christian scribes who copied and recopied down the centuries. I think many of them delighted in the grace and charm of Plato’s world, and they often lived in same-sex communities where similar dynamics applied; consider Aelred’s De Spiritali Amicitia, a popular text among monks.
I did not mean that Melville wrote all of his novels in his youth, but only that the historical record suggests the experiences that inform the (actually quite sparse and ambiguous) “homoerotic subtext” occurred, if at all, in his youth.
Convincing homosexual characters are hardly evidence that a playwright was a homosexual. Hamlet’s father is a very convincing ghost, Caliban is a convincing monster, Oberon a convincing fairy and Cleopatra a convincing queen, but we can be fairly certain Shakespeare was not a monster or (yet) a ghost, and the positions of Queen of Egypt and King of the Fairies are never held by the same individual.
“Gays are exotic, fluffy folk” is a paraphrase, obviously, of what I really implied, which is that your assertion that (6/26, 12:17 p.m.) “So many [great writers and artists] were gay!” can only be sustained by conscripting a legion of dubious instances. This meme is often peddled, that somehow gay men are naturally superior in artistic and literary pursuits, but the evidence offered is always unconvincing.
“the evidence offered is always unconvincing”
Except to those convinced by it. This whole thing turns not on rationality but on belief, so ultimately it’s a power play. Believers don’t have to convince anyone, they just have to push harder. And they do, in the academy and in the legislatures, where the opposition is likely to be uncertain and malleable. If you cry “Civil Rights!” loud and long enough, your opposition will melt. People are sheep.
Jim P: mea culpa. There are too darned many postings in this stream to go back and figure out who said that.
Felapton: if you want to write about me I can be a VERY convincing fairy!
Felapton –
Re: “It is not uncommon for young people of both sexes in late adolescence and early adulthood to engage in homosexual acts, often because of not having respectable means of access to the opposite sex.”
What is the evidence available on which you are depending to support that general assertion of not uncommon behavior?
It matters here and also elsewhere today where a proposal is made that Catholics should marry at a younger age. If you are correct, that would obviously need to be rethought.
I think the gays are uniquely creative meme was boosted by Carl Gustav Jung.
I do not particularly subscribe to that meme, but rather cited famous gay artists, philosophers, and writers to counter Felapton’s claim that gay men cannot be fully admirable human beings.
If someone said, “I have never met a Jew whom I considered a fully admirable human being” I would in the same way have spouted a list of admirable Jews, such as philosophers Buber, Levinas, Rosenzweig, Arendt, writers Heine, Proust, Celan, composers Mendelssohn, Mahler, Schoenberg, etc.
If the author of the statement then replied — hey, some of those guys were not Jews at all, or they denied their Judaism, and anyway none of them was all that admirable — you list is fluffy – you subscirbe to a myth of Jewish exceptional creativity, etc., I would know what to think.
I also cited admirable gay politicians, like Senator David Norris, and a few gay saints.
I vaguely remember that in Melville’s novel Redburn there is a visit to a male brothel (written in somewhat coded terms of course). There are of course men who identify as gay up to a certain age and shift to identifying as straight; but the opposite is far more common; if this is cited as a reason against gay marriage it should be far more cited as a reason against heterosexual marriage; and in fact many heterosexual marriages fail in that one of the partners was gay and did not exercise due discretion in entering on the marriage.
I think people should not be allowed to marry until they are in their twenties — let them learn who they are sexually first.
Joseph O’Leary, you’re falling back into bad habits. Please limit yourself to one comment at a time. (“Shadow Man,” this goes for you too.)
Since the discussion begun in the post got lost some time ago, I’m closing comments now.
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