“More Than a Monologue”–A Report
I was the moderator for the evening session of “Learning to Listen: Voices of Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church,” the first of the series of “More Than a Monologue” events discussed below. I had nothing to do with planning or organizing this conference at Fordham or the coming programs at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, and Fairfield. As far as I could tell, I was invited to be a moderator because I had a reputation, deserved or not, of being even-handed in religious controversies. I accepted the invitation with some serious reservations and only after considerable conversation with the Fordham planners.
Here are my reflections on the Fordham gathering and the series.
The agenda: Is it to challenge—or more realistically to modify—church teaching? With absolutely no inside knowledge of the planners’ intentions and deliberations, I have no problem accepting the statement of Paul Lakeland that challenging church teaching is not the agenda (my italics) of the series.
I’m pretty confident, however, that at least some, probably many, of the planners and organizers would like to see church teaching regarding homosexuality, to some degree or another, changed, and pastoral practice all the more so. What probably unites this diverse group of planners and organizers is a common conviction that the status quo is spiritually and institutionally costly. I share this view. Gay and lesbian people are alienated from the church, with the consequent loss to them of spiritual resources and to the church of their gifts. Friends and family members are pained, perplexed, or angered. Growing numbers of young people fail to see anything in the church’s teaching except bigotry, one more strike against the faith that they are apt, at that time of life, to be reassessing. A “don’t ask, don’t tell” atmosphere of dissimulation infects church life where gays and lesbians are active ministers. And the church’s engagement in hardball political battles over civil unions and same-sex marriage regularly strips its teaching of nuance and reduces it to the hardball necessities of negative advertising and questionable coalitions.
There are many ways of responding to this status quo. Altering church teaching is one. Using all the considerable leeway for pastoral sensitivity that the teaching provides is another. Church leaders at every level can change their language and gestures. Gays and lesbians can find strength to accept the teaching’s demand to be celibate, like all other unmarried Catholics; or they can make a clean break with the church; or they can find affirmative enclaves within it; or they can learn to live as constructively as possible with a marginal status, as other groups within the church have done. Church leaders could reconsider the when and the how of any engagement with political issues involving homosexuality. Etc.
As far as I can see, different pieces of the “More Than a Monologue” series seem to shine light on these and other possible responses, some more favorably than others, but all with the primary purpose of simply making the problematic aspects of the status quo visible. The Fordham program, in my opinion, did this admirably. Can this be done honestly without raising questions about changing church teaching itself among many other possible responses? I don’t think so. Yet the Fordham program refused any temptation to promote such change by stealth or misrepresentation. Both the daytime and evening sessions were introduced by a thoughtful, extended statement about authoritatively stated church teaching.
Misgivings: Even before being invited to participate in Fordham’s program, I had begun to think of the series in my head as “More Than a Monologue … but Less Than a Dialogue.” Early indications of the featured “voices of sexuality diversity” did not seem terribly diverse. Voices defending traditional teaching and practice were not apparent. And since “monologue” pretty well describes secular advocacy on behalf of gay and lesbian concerns no less than official Catholic positions on these concerns, I wasn’t sure whether the series promised really to crack the stranglehold of monologue or to replicate it.
But I had no illusions about the difficulty of the task facing the series. To find interlocutors, especially ones in positions of authority, capable of dialogue on this topic without a rehearsal of doctrinal debate that would eclipse rather than illuminate the experiential dimensions of the status quo—that is no easy assignment. Perhaps the organizers could have tried harder or done better. Yet I understood why they might not make finding and enlisting such voices a sine qua non of the series.
Later, as the series fleshed itself out, I felt a more serious misgiving. The four schools had agreed that their individual programs would be “thematically connected” but that each institution would remain independent in designating topics, choosing speakers, and designing the day. The organizational advantages of such a division of labor are obvious. But they also make the image and message of the series as a whole something of a hostage to the most dramatic or media-genic of the programs, much as the posture of the Catholic hierarchy on public issues seems to be established by the most outspoken and widely publicized bishops.
This became an issue for me when I saw the program at Union Theological Seminary. It was titled, “Pro-Queer Life: Youth Suicide Crisis, Catholic Education, and the Souls of LGBTQ Folks.” The keynote speaker will be Dan Savage, the “wildly popular syndicated gay sex columnist,” as Union’s publicity puts it, and most recently the mover of the “It Gets Better” campaign to counter gay teen suicide. The day will also include some kind of chapel resources and a “CatholiQ [sic] Mass.”
Now nothing could be less controversial, by Catholic teaching above all, than preventing gay teen suicides. Nothing could seem more appealing than to enrich the talking-heads format of a conference with prayer, counseling, or meditation of some kind (or Qind). And almost no one guarantees more attention to a conference of this sort than Dan Savage. I have certainly been amused and provoked by the wit and outrageousness, frequently seamed with common sense, of his books and articles, even if I do sometimes learn more about the sex lives of my relatives than I was ready for. (Dan’s mother Judy was my first cousin; Dan is my first cousin once removed, and my wife and I enjoyed his hospitality a few years ago in Seattle.)
But, alas, everything about the sexual culture wars is politicized, wheeled into battle to make a larger point, even gay teen suicide: Tell us Pope Benedict, when did you stop murdering teenagers? Incorporating rituals—a CatholiQ Mass?—into a program of this nature has enormous potential to be manipulative if not downright offensive. And Dan Savage has a paper trail of statements about Catholicism that are about as open to dialogue as Ann Coulter on liberalism or Rick Perry on Social Security. It doesn’t help that Dan is the current poster boy (cover stories in The New York Times Magazine and Christian Century) for the not-very-original idea of redefining marital fidelity to include the safety valve and “spice” of extramarital affairs.
Maybe all this will work out well. Maybe needed pastoral support for suicidal teens won’t be translated into attacks on Catholic education or drowned out by Savage sound bites. Maybe giving each institution, including Union, a free hand was essential to the project. But maybe the Union venture in “Pro-Queer Life”—already a small jab at Catholic identification with “pro-life”—will put the entire series at risk. We’ll know after October 1.
The Fordham program: Many of the presentations by gay, lesbian, and one transgender panelists, as well as a parent and a pastor (mine), were powerful and moving. There were sharp criticisms of the church but also grateful acknowledgments of its blessings. There was some familiar whining but a lot more humor and hopefulness. The program surely achieved the goal of putting on display, hardly for the first time but now within an explicitly Catholic framework and institution, the damaging aspects of the status quo.
I could mount a defense of the panel that I moderated, which one commenter on the thread below found “appalling.” It added some different perspectives, for example, Jerome Baggett’s sanguine findings that gay and lesbian parishioners he interviewed in San Francisco had successfully “negotiated” their way to a mature faith. Bryan Massingale spoke from the experience of an African-American priest and theologian.
Another panelist explained her discovery of a satisfactory “post-Catholic” and queer faith thanks to the insights of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, Catherine MacKinnon, Jacques Derrida . . . did I miss anyone?
That presentation may explain why the organizers thought it better to focus on experience than on doctrine. But of course the passage from one to the other will eventually have to be made. Meanwhile, even on the level of experience, here are two things I missed in the Fordham discussion:
First, the discussion was largely isolated from the larger cultural context, especially the astonishingly rapid revision of people’s attitudes toward homosexuality and gay and lesbian relationships. The church and its leadership do not exist in a vacuum but reflect both accommodation to and reaction against this major change. It would have been refreshing to hear someone admit that holding traditional Catholic views on homosexuality can be as risky in many social and workplace settings (starting with the academy) as being gay or lesbian is in many parishes.
Second, the discussion was curiously isolated from the larger context of sexual change—diversity, if you will—within the Catholic church. Only in the final panel discussion did Father Massingale remind everyone that a struggle over sexual morality has been going on for over four decades. At the leadership level, the last “more than a monologue” took place in the 1960s within the commission on birth control appointed by John XXIII and Paul VI—and was closed down by Humanae Vitae. Since then, contracepting Catholics, the vast majority of Catholics of reproductive age in many parts of the world, have sought ways to live their faith under a cloud of official opprobrium and condemnations closely related to those extended to same-sex intimacy. Likewise, for great numbers of divorced and remarried Catholics. Unlike gay and lesbian Catholics, these Catholics have not had to work out their modus vivendi with the church in the teeth of stigma from the larger society, but that is quickly changing for gays and lesbians, too.
Conclusion: “More Than a Monologue” is off to a good start. It has some tricky terrain to traverse and at least one minefield to cross before reaching its goal.
Thank you for the honest and fair review. You show why your reputation for evenhandedness is, indeed, well deserved.
Hearing Catholics discuss the ontological disorders of gays is very like hearing them trying to figure out what’s wrong with Jews. Even to pay lip service to this kind of talk, as the Fordham conference is obliged to, is to be tainted.
Yes, that is amazing. How rapidly people have gone from abhorring – or, at least, regretting – to enthusiastic advocacy. Well, I suppose the change was generational – parents abhorred and regretted, if sometimes sympathized, and children flipped the coin, as children are wont to do. Few people, if any, really changed. A generation or two later, one might look for another flip of the coin, as excesses of the sexual rebels are in their turn rejected, but that would be to discount the power of the bias in our societies in favor of underdogs. So long as anyone can convincingly portray himself as an underdog, a persecuted minority, he’s probably safe from any significant attack.
Thank you very much for an even-handed discussion of this thorny topic.
Voices defending traditional teaching and practice were not apparent.
_______________
See, this is what I see as a major problem, if not the problem. If there were a greater emphasis, or at least a greater desire, to learn exactly what it is that the Church teaches (including repudiation of the ocean of misinformation and disinformation about Church teachings on the entire range of human sexuality), and to come to a better understanding of those teachings, then there would be a lot less strife. (And just exactly what is it that the Church teaches with respect to human sexuality? In a word? Love. She teaches love.)
Sadly, one possibility response seems to be immediately and arbitrarily rejected — to consider the possiblity: What if it is true? What if what the Church teaches is true?
Bender,
It seems to me the problem is that heterosexual Catholics cohabit before marriage, married Catholics use artificial birth control, at least half of priests are not celibate, and yet one of the major focuses of the Catholic Church is to use whatever powers it has to limit the lives and freedoms of all gay people, not just Catholic ones.
And just exactly what is it that the Church teaches with respect to human sexuality? In a word? Love. She teaches love.
The Church may have many things to say about sexuality, but everything is limited by the following: “The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”
One might also, just as meaningfully, say the Church teaches “love” about warfare. The Church teaches “love” about everything. It really gets the discussion nowhere at all to say the Church teaches love with respect to human sexuality. It taught love when it forced Jews to convert or burned heretics at the stake.
Sadly, one possibility response seems to be immediately and arbitrarily rejected — to consider the possiblity: What if it is true? What if what the Church teaches is true?
Immediately and arbitrarily? Arbitrarily? And of course the one thing you will not consider is, What if it’s not true?
“Few people, if any, really changed.”
Now here is something I would love to see some data on. My experience is different — I know a number of people who changed. I did, but admittedly that was part of my change from adolescence (at a time when “homosexual” was a word you didn’t say in public) to young adult (when I had gay friends, and could witness the grace expressed in some of their relationships). Maybe I was just flipping the coin, though. In any case, anecdotes are not data — does anyone know of surveys where people were asked, “did you ever hold a position different from the one you now hold”?
As someone whose full-time ministry is to provide educational programs to the Catholic Church on lesbian/gay issues, I want to underscore Mr. Steinfels’ remark that “To find interlocutors, especially ones in positions of authority, capable of dialogue on this topic. . . is no easy assignment.”
My organization, New Ways Ministry, has often tried to engage bishops to speak on these matters at our programs. Five years ago, we invited over 30 bishops to speak at a national program; only two retired ones responded positively. Over the years, many who decline our invitation have said that they do not want to publicly defend the hierarchy’s teaching on lesbian/gay sexual relationships.
Conversely, I have also encountered many bishops and other church leaders who personally and privately support lesbian/gay committed sexual relationships, but who will not speak out because of fear of losing their positions or authority.
Recent polling data illustrates that Catholic lay people are overwhelmingly supportive of same-sex relationships. It is unfortunate that in the climate of fear on this issue which grips our church, we can not know how many bishops and other church leaders share the position of the majority of the Catholic faithful.
Francis DeBernardo
Executive Director
New Ways Ministry
“Voices defending traditional teaching and practice were not apparent.” Please note that this statement of mine referred to the early advance publicity about the series, not the Fordham program.
While, as I explained, the Fordham program’s emphasis was on experience rather than doctrinal debate, one panelist, Eve Tushnet, was direct in stating that her experience as a gay woman involved acceptance of traditional teaching and practice. A number of other speakers did not address the question of that teaching’s truth at all but focused on the much more open question of practice. As I also said, the program began with as clear and thoughtful an articulation of the state of the teaching as one could want in a relatively short time.
I agree with Francis DeBernardo about the difficulty of arranging genuine dialogue. Fear is a major factor, although fear works in many ways. All the Fordham panelists who spoke personally displayed considerable courage, but I suspect that it took even more on Eve Tushnet’s part.
David Nichol nails the key issue with his quote from HV:
The Church may have many things to say about sexuality, but everything is limited by the following: “The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”
This is the thing that must be unpacked if the church is to have a rational attitude towards things sexual. The problem is this: Humanae Vitae rides on the legitimacy of natural law, while never actually making a natural law argument. Practical reasoning has always been at the heart of natural law, since it flows from the reasoning creature’s grasp of God’s Law to deduce rules of moral behavior. So you wouldn’t think it would be that hard to figure it out. But it is, because no natural law argument actually exists, only a declaration.
The Humanae Vitae version of natural law declares that God established an inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative aspects of the marriage act and therefore each and every act must be open to procreation. The idea seems to be that “natural“ law looks at “nature” and deduces morality from it—a blatant misreading if ever there was one. There is no reason planning action based on the primary principle of doing good and avoiding evil. No derivation of secondary principles from the primary principles. No logical application of principles to specific situations. It declares that procreation is a basic good; I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. It then declares that every single marital act must therefore be open to procreation. Yet it does not provide an argument to connect the general principal that procreation is a basic good to the specific statement that every single marital act must therefore be open to it.
HV never makes a natural law argument. If it did, it could be argued and resolved, but it doesn’t, so it can’t, and that’s the muddle we find ourselves in today.
Jeanne –
As I read Thomas, he actually appeals to two different kinds of grounds for natural law theory. First, he appeals to the old metaphor that we know in our “hearts” (whatever that means) what God wants us to do and not do. As I read it, this is an appeal to some sort of personal revelation, whether to the community or to individual persons. Second, he appeals to the Aristotelian natural law theory which is purely philosophical and dependent on the collection of data from the common experiences of human beings everywhere.
Too often the Vatican appeals to the first theory, and not the second. They are not the same.
Sorry, mtthew, but at america’s “Im All Things”. Kerry Weber has a repoty/thread where I found the thoughts of Prof. Hinze quite germane.
Since it appears that over 360 people attended, I wonder whether the audience was promarily of academics and what does that ean baout how wide the audience for such conferneces tend to be as word spreads.
“parents abhorred and regretted, if sometimes sympathized, and children flipped the coin, as children are wont to do.”
Not so, very many older people (up to their 90s) now speak warmly of homosexuality, gay marriage etc., and I think the sea-change in opinion among baby-boomers has been a very radical change from where we began back in the 1950s. Still younger generations have a liberal outlook not because they are rebelling against us or our parents but because they are building on what we realized.
The effort to reduce this issue to trendiness does not work. Young people today just accept their gay friends without any problem. What was a fraught issue for people in the past is now increasingly normalized.
” Few people, if any, really changed.”
All Catholics who now question the correctness of church teaching have changed profoundly. Such questioning was not arrived at lightly.
” A generation or two later, one might look for another flip of the coin, as excesses of the sexual rebels are in their turn rejected, but that would be to discount the power of the bias in our societies in favor of underdogs.”
Gays are sexual rebels? Perhaps in the eyes of closeted Vatican control freaks, but surely not as a common perception.
” So long as anyone can convincingly portray himself as an underdog, a persecuted minority, he’s probably safe from any significant attack.”
I would say the converse: if a group, such as Jews, have to portray themselves as an underdog, the danger of prejudice and violence must still be lurking.
I don’t find underdog rhetoric typical of gays today; it’s usually their sassiness that the homophobes nag about.
the problem is that heterosexual Catholics cohabit before marriage
Yes, that is a major problem.
married Catholics use artificial birth control
That too is a major problem.
at least half of priests are not celibate
I really don’t know where you got that, except out of thin air, but supposing it were true, that too would be a major problem.
And because of the above, one of the major focuses of the Catholic Church is to use whatever powers it has to try to be a light of truth and love to the world on the entire range of human sexuality, not just same-sex attractions, but the entirety of human sexuality. After all, they are all the same teaching, just with different applications.
And another problem is that, not withstanding its good faith efforts in this area, either due to the failings of those teaching it or because the world simply refuses to listen, the Church apparently has been unable to make itself understood in those teachings on human sexuality, as demonstrated by your comments David, here and throughout our many discussions on this matter.
But in case anyone is confused in this area — the Church teaches love in truth. She can teach no other. That is the foundation of ALL of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality. The proper response to those with same-sex attractions, the Church teaches, is to love them. It is sad that people apparently simply will not believe that.
Elsewhere, I have gone into depth precisely what it is that the Church teaches on human sexuality. I will not do so here.
It would serve no purpose for me to spoon-feed those truths here. People need to want to know the truth of what the Church teaches about the truth of human sexuality, rather than clinging to the disinformation and errors that are spread about the Church. Until then, they are not ready, as was the case when the bishop refused to instruct young Augustine, despite the pleas of his mother Monica, because he too was not ready.
Humanae Vitae rides on the legitimacy of natural law, while never actually making a natural law argument.
_____________
Maybe the reason that you might find it hard to find a natural law argument in Humanae Vitae is because here too there is confusion as to exactly what is meant by “natural law” here. Another confusion about HV is the wide-spread erroneous belief that it is primarily about contraception. It isn’t.
Huh? What are you saying that HV isn’t primarily about contraception????
No, it isn’t. It is primarily about . . . yes, love in truth. Pope Paul VI merely applied the primary teaching of HV to human sexuality in general and contraception in particular, same with Blessed John Paul II and his Theology of the Body, which is primarily about the nature of the human person, who is called to love and be loved in truth, as applied to sexuality, but which is applicable to a wide-range of non-sexual areas.
Far from thinking that sex is bad and dirty, the Church teaches that human sexuality is a moral good; indeed, it is very good, it is one of the highest goods. Being created by God, it is necessarily a great good. But sex, like any other activity, is a good only insofar as it is consistent with Truth and with Love. Sex, to be worthy of the human person, and to be a moral good, should be an outward visible sign of the invisible reality of the fullness of love, not an act of use.
In fact, in our sexuality, as revealed by the spousal meaning of the human body, we are called to the fullness of love, a complete gift of self. As with all things, in the context of our sexuality, we must love as Christ loves — in His love for us and for His Bride, the Church, Jesus gave us the totality of His Body.
And it is this fullness of love which is unitive and fruitful. We are not merely called to sex acts which are unitive and fruitful, we are called to LOVE which is unitive and fruitful, a fullness of love that is unitive and fruitful even when expressed in virginity, as with Mary the Virgin Mother, or with Jesus and His Bride, the Church.
Being made in the image of God, that is, in the image of the Trinity, we are called to a love which is unitive and fruitful, a loving communion of persons that is procreative, just as the Trinity is a loving communion of persons (unitive) that is so procreative as to not only create the entire universe, but to transform death into life (fruitful).
The teaching of Pope Paul in Humanae Vitae is a teaching grounded in the nature of love –
“9. [Married love] is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything . . . Finally, this love is fruitful. . . .
12. if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called.”
And as Pope Paul explained in a General Audience following the publication of HV –
“We sought to interpret the Divine law that flows from the very nature of genuine human love, from the essential structure of married life, from the personal dignity of husband and wife, from their mission of service to life, as well as from the sanctity of Christian marriage.”
Pope Paul tried to explain this, as did Pope John Paul II. Many have listened to them, many more have not. It is a pity that more folks have not made the effort to try to understand because if they did, if they approached Paul and John Paul with a loving and open heart, there would be much less strife.
No, I strongly suspect that people whom you see as “changed” were very sympathetic to begin with. Remember, the sixties didn’t come out of nowhere – as with all movements, all dramatic social change, its roots were grown a generation or more before it bloomed above ground. Those people in their nineties were likely simply part of the roots. People settle into who they are quite early in life and change very little. And who they are will manifest itself – or hide itself – as circumstances make convenient or necessary.
It’s not “trendiness” – trendiness is ephemeral – so much as follow-the-leaders – which can last much longer. Humans are flocking creatures, who quickly start thinking and speaking like the people around them. It snowballs. Self-preservation. Least resistance.
Yes, gays are sexual rebels. Not homosexuals – gays. Flaunt it, make noise, do parades, protest a lot. Homosexual is a state; gay is politics.
No one “has to portray themselves as an underdog”. The theater is deliberate, a political, public-relations choice. It may be a manifestation of victimhood and persecution, but the volume of the protest doesn’t make the victimhood and the persecution any more compelling than if – as with most victims – and any society is chock full of victims – there’s no shouting at all. Almost all victims suffer in silence. Thank God.
Yes, gays are sexual rebels. Not homosexuals – gays. Flaunt it, make noise, do parades, protest a lot. Homosexual is a state; gay is politics.
David Smith,
One has to be blind or willfully looking the other way not to see how heterosexuality is “flaunted,” how it is sold and used to sell. How heterosexuality is into “pushing the envelope” in movies and television. How much almost any parade for almost any occasion is about putting sexuality (especially female sexuality) on display. If a gay magazine had a “swimsuit issue,” that would be “flaunting,” but when Sports Illustrated does it, that’s men being (heterosexual) men. I have to laugh (for several different reasons) when people claim homosexuality is being “shoved down their throats.” Have you ever seen a beauty pageant? Cheerleaders? What goes on at Mardi Gras? (Would you like some links to Mardi Gras websites?) Do you know how much heterosexual porn there is on the Internet?
I guess typical heterosexuals are like fish not noticing they are in water.
It would serve no purpose for me to spoon-feed those truths here.
Bender,
Please don’t condescend.
How sad that before such great leaps in the understanding of human sexuality (e.g., Humanae Vitae, Theology of the Body), the poor people who had sex didn’t understand what they were doing, and that even today people who don’t believe in the Trinity cannot really understand what being human is all about.
David — I don’t mean to condescend. I only mean for people to go out themselves and learn about the truth about the Faith, rather than simply rely upon some nobody named Bender in a combox.
Bender says: “Maybe the reason that you might find it hard to find a natural law argument in Humanae Vitae is because here too there is confusion as to exactly what is meant by “natural law” here.”
I agree there is. To clear it up, I suggest reading Aquinas on the topic, Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 94.
Bender says: “Another confusion about HV is the wide-spread erroneous belief that it is primarily about contraception. It isn’t.”
I don’t know how old you are, but I can tell you from living through it that the bottom line of that encyclical was that with it, Paul VI, after years of study and uncertainty, declared that artificial contraception was a *mortal* sin and natural contraception was not. For a practicing Catholic, that was quite a big deal.
Robert John Araujo, SJ, has a post on Mirror of Justice titled Peter Steinfels on “More than a Monologue” in which, in my opinion, he rather seriously distorts what Peter Steinfels says here. Fr. Araujo’s posts on Mirror of Justice are rarely open to comments, but an opening was left in a neighboring thread, and I posted the following (which I have edited slightly) there:
Fr. Araujo provided a link to Peter Steinfels’ piece, and I am sure he did not deliberately distort what appears here. But to extend Steinfels’ quote about Dan Savage to any other speakers beyond Savage himself seems to me to be quite far removed from what is said in the piece.
I regret to hear of Fr. Araujo’s distortion of my report. So it goes. I have also just deleted what was a lengthy piece of blatant self-promotion and advertising of the commenter’s book, an abuse of this blog that does not reflect well on that individual or recommend his work.
Let’s not bait and switch — Humanae Vitae is an excellent document in many respects, but the part where it formally forbids artificial contraception and insists that each and every sexual act be open to the transmission of life is a falling off from that excellence and a reversion to a biologistic conception of natural law.
The claim that anyone who is now gay-friendly must always have been so is totally contradicted by the careers of a vast number of Catholics of all ages and backgrounds. The idea that people cannot grow in human understanding and appreciation of people’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (notable the natural right to marriage) is dourly pessimistic. I suppose it would mean that all those who now speak of women with respect and forgo the derogatory language and jokes of the past would have to be seen as just involved in lip service.
Perhaps readers might consider the record of violent and threatening language invoked by Dan Savage before praising his wit. For some documentation, please see my post at–
http://sanityandsocialjustice.net/?p=4025
In Christ,
Albert Schorsch, III
Chicago, IL
” The ex-gay thing is over. It’s dead. It was b______ from the start, and it’s b________ now. And I will personally track down and b____-slap the next fundie douche who sends me an e-mail explaining how Jesus can cure me. And I will personally track down and _____ in the mouth of the next cable-news anchor who entertains—even for an instant—the notion of a miracle cure for homosexuality.”
The sentiments are perfectly understandable and the rage is expressed with good humor. Just substitute “Jew” for “gay”:
“The ex-Jew thing is over. It’s dead. It was b______ from the start, and it’s b________ now. And I will personally track down and b____-slap the next fundie douche who sends me an e-mail explaining how Jesus can cure me of my Jewish blindness. And I will personally track down and _____ in the mouth of the next cable-news anchor who entertains—even for an instant—the notion of a Judaism as an illness or perversion that needs to be cured.”
The rise of gay rights is one of the great human achievements of the late 20th century, comparable to the rise of womens’ rights, racial equality, overcoming antisemitism.
A correspondent here says of this: “It’s not “trendiness” – trendiness is ephemeral – so much as follow-the-leaders – which can last much longer. Humans are flocking creatures, who quickly start thinking and speaking like the people around them. It snowballs. Self-preservation. Least resistance.”
What a contemptuous attitude to the tremendous amount of thinking and conversion that so many people have undergone in passing from the time when gayness was “taboo” to the present situation of acceptance and appreciation of gay and lesbian individuals and couples.
“Yes, gays are sexual rebels. Not homosexuals – gays. Flaunt it, make noise, do parades, protest a lot. Homosexual is a state; gay is politics.”
Yes, and very good and successful politics. The politics of labeling people “homosexuals” and telling them keep quite about their “state” is equally marked, much nastier, and currently — thank God — quite unsuccessful.
“Almost all victims suffer in silence. Thank God.” Hmm. Tell that to the Jews.
Left out of the response above to Dan Savage’s statement “And I will personally track down and s_____ in the mouth of the next cable-news anchor” was his statement, “Consider yourself warned, Paula Zahn.—Dan.”
Understanding rage is one thing, but naming a specific individual in print after expressing the intent to track down and commit a very defiling form of battery upon another, is by any standard a violent threat. There are plenty of other examples of violent and threatening language directed at individuals in Mr. Savage’s statements, a few of which I documented in the blog previously referenced, including his recently broadcast statement that he wanted to “f___ the s___” out of a former US senator. This former senator BTW did not take it as a joke.
In Christ,
Albert Schorsch, III
Chicago, IL
All Rights Reserved
My cousin Dan is genuinely witty AND genuinely outrageous. I think I indicated as much above. Trying to justify all of Dan’s statements is a waste of good energy. Whether or not Union should have invited him, however, he is definitely an “outlier” in the “More Than a Monologue” series. His paper trail may prove handy for those who wish to discredit the undertaking without learning anything else about it or thoughtfully engaging both its strengths and weaknesses.
Agreed that LBGT voices must be heard in the Church. The academy, including the Catholic academy, is one place to listen and to share. No argument there. But there is no way to square the circle and urbanely bracket Dan Savage without confronting publicly and directly the violence of his language. This violence must be openly, clearly, and unequivocally repudiated if useful dialogue is to continue. This violent speech does not belong in the academy, nor in public discourse. This violent and outrageous speech may just be witty schtick now to Cousin Dan, but violent and threatening speech such as his is destructive also to the cause of LBGT. Mr. Savage might consider beginning his Retractations, and do a little 12 Step to get off the violent language thing. It would certainly help the credibility of his anti-bullying campaign. (I’ll reserve the rest of my comments to my own blog at another time.)
In Christ,
Albert Schorsch, III
Chicago, IL
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“The LBGT voices must be heard in the Church. The academy, including the Catholic academy, is one place to listern and to share the argument there.”
Those statements by Mr. Schorsch are straightforward and significant. I hope that he repeats and stands by them.
“This violent speech [by Dan Savage] does not belong in the academy, nor in public discourse. … violent and threatening speech such as his is destructive also to the cause of LBGT.”
You won’t get any argument from me there. I’m not in any way “urbanely” bracketing Dan Savage’s periodic descents into violent language, whether he does it as “schtick” or not . It’s true that satirists and protesting comics have always had a sharp, shocking edge, and that the envelope has now been pushed much further than I am usually comfortable with. That may cover a lot of Savage statements. But on any number of occasions he has moved beyond that. Those nasty outbursts or indulgences should be repudiated. They also detract from, not add to, the man’s genuine wit and sense of the absurd. When he kneels down to pray at night — and how can I doubt that he does? — I would like to think that he confesses, “Dear God, how could I have ever said such an awful thing?” And if he ever invites me to dinner again, I’ll be happy to tell him that (charitably) in person.
But Mr. Schorsch raises a further question. It’s one that has arisen in every social movement I’ve identified with: civil rights, anti-war, feminism, pro-life. Every movement, from the labor struggles of the Thirties to religious conservatives today, has had its dubious allies and rhetorical excesses. By and large it makes sense for movement representatives to repudiate these elements clearly. I wish, for example, that the bishops’ conference had unequivocally repudiated the antics of Randall Terry and Operation Rescue and some other expressions of anti-abortion rhetorical violence (they did, of course, condemn actual violence). But there also comes a point when demands for condemning such “outliers” becomes a tactical maneuver against the main cause and deserve to be ignored.
As I said in my original report, I had nothing to do with the organizing of “More Than a Monologue” and do not, in any way whatsoever, speak for it. As someone not privy to the practical difficulties of organizing, I wonder about the wisdom of giving each institution carte blanche in planning its program. Personally, I think Union Theological Seminary (not a Catholic school) did not help “More Than a Monologue” by designing a program with Dan in such a prominent place. If he takes the opportunity for indulging in violent and threatening language, I strongly hope — and frankly expect — that participants in the later programs will reject it, as indeed both unworthy and unrepresentative of the series’ efforts.
But I question any suggestion that “if useful dialogue is to continue,” the distinguished scholars and speakers at the Fordham, Fairfield, and Yale programs, who have no association with any violent or threatening rhetoric, should be constrained to preface their remarks with a preemptive Oath against Savage. If Mr. Schorsch thinks that — and I prefer to believe he does not — it would reduce his opening statements to mere verbiage.
Peter,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I want you to understand my intent, so I lay down my barbs, and regret the one directed to you above in the form of the words “Cousin Dan.”
I have contemplated long and hard and have also written about the Christian duty to “disarm the aggressor”: “The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm (CCC 2265).” While these words are written about the duty of the state, we each play a part in achieving this common good.
While Dan Savage your cousin has proclaimed his atheism from time to time, you know him personally, and I do not. I began to pray for him a few weeks ago, because his celebrity has catapulted him beyond the stage of a naughty niche sex advice columnist in newspapers handed out for free, and an occasional TV talking head, to a cultural figure known to tens of millions, whose every word–ever–would be scrutinized, and who very likely will be cauterized in the process because of his–at best–careless bandying of violent language. But this violent language must be opposed, and, if you will, actively “disarmed,” because of the threat that such language poses to the common good. Dan Savage, after all, speaks to millions of teens and young adults.
I have come to the position that each Christian has an immediate, positive duty to speak out and act against unjust aggression within our own frame of influence, sooner rather than later. I regret not taking a much firmer and public stand when I first read Dan Savage’s violent words several years ago. So I have recently been making others aware of Dan Savage’s violent and threatening language in the hope that this language would not enter the heart of our culture, but remain forever recognized as disrespectful to human dignity.
It is rather sad, that–like Reynold Hillenbrand, George Higgins, Ed Marciniak, John J. Egan, Commonweal’s James O’Gara, all the way to EWTN’s Mitch Pacwa, SJ–Dan Savage was for a time a “Quigley boy,” an attendee at Chicago’s now former minor seminary. What is sad is that if the wisdom of our Faith were embraced by Dan Savage, he would not say the violent things he continues to say.
You and I have most likely not had the pleasure of meeting, but I did meet your spouse Margaret a few decades ago in Chicago when she was promoting Commonweal. We share, I believe, Eugene Kennedy as a teacher. I have major differences on life and other issues with Commonweal, and I ceased for those reasons to support Commonweal as an institution long ago after years of regular readership. So we can thank the Internet, or perhaps more than the Internet, that I found your blog when I searched for “Dan Savage Catholic.”
“Dan Savage Catholic” is a rather good prayer, so I’ll leave it there.
(I’ll have more to say about this at my own blog when time permits.)
In Christ,
Albert Schorsch, III
Chicago, IL
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