Gay Marriage, Through the Eyes of a Child
March 11, 2010, 12:39 pm
Posted by Eduardo Peñalver
Doesn’t seem like much to be scared of here. Very cute. (HT Salon)
Contributors
- Thomas Baker
- Paul Baumann
- Matthew Boudway
- Eric Bugyis
- Anthony Domestico
- The Editors
- Rita Ferrone
- Lisa Fullam
- Grant Gallicho
- David Gibson
- Luke Hill
- KeriLee Horan
- Robert P. Imbelli
- Cathleen Kaveny
- Joseph A. Komonchak
- Paul Lauritzen
- John McGreevy
- Scott D. Moringiello
- Paul Moses
- J. Peter Nixon
- Mollie Wilson O'Reilly
- Eduardo Peñalver
- Michael Peppard
- Dominic Preziosi
- John Schwenkler
- Peter Steinfels
- Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
- unagidon
- Andy Whinery
- Gregory Wolfe
- Celia Wren
- Don Wycliff
-
Recent posts
-
Past months
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
-
Syndication
Copyright © 2013 Commonweal Foundation
That’s a pretty clear testimony to Romans chapter 1!
Sigh…Now back to the program in progress.
I would understand your concern better Kathy, if you had cited Romans in your defense of the bishops who are still covering up abuses of children and ridiculing victims who are seeking justice from them. Same goes for your interest in other issues of our day save one. It is amazing how Romans 1 can be quite relevant to the abuse of children by the hierarchy. More revelations coming now by way of Germany…
Having said that I am not convinced that the video is necessarily the right way to handle a child of a gay couple. The young boy did not seem that comfortable with the subject. I say let him play ping pong and beware of burdening him with explanations that he may not be ready to encounter. Premature or labored explanations are certainly the problem of hetero couples also. This video is stunted to say the least, as I see it.
And there were lots of snowstorms on the East Coast this year, so that must mean we don’t have to worry about global warming, either!
The child wasn’t comfortable?! The child spontaneously said, “Ewwwwww…”
It is a major departure from Romans in two places, I would say. First, when the boys says, “That means you love each other.” Second, when, after the boy says, “I’m going to play Ping Pong now,” he adds, “You can play if you want to.”
Well, ping pong is usually morally neutral, David.
Also, the quote is, “That means you love each other? Ewwwwww…”
Hey Kathy, when was the last time you talked to a six year old about what they think of when they see a husband and wife kiss . . . .Ewwwwww! Romantic love, generally, is held to be very icky by nearly all children under the age of 12, and a few over the age of 12 as well.
In any event, I don’t approve of videotaping young children in these kinds of vulnerable moments, much less posting it all over the Internet. I don’t think it’s fair to them, even when I think it’s adorable or moving (like the girl who was overwhelmed to see her father walking into her classroom when she thought he was in Iraq).
Actually, Barbara, the quote is, “That means you love each other? Ewwwwww… You’re much alike. You’re much alike.”
Practically a quote from Theology of the Body.
(But I’m with you on child videos. Don’t even get me started on child actors.)
Kathy, I looked at it again but I don’t think I see quite the same level of instinctive “ewwww”ness that you did. More like oohhh?. He’s a small child. It’s too much to overanalyze, from any direction at all.
He doesn’t say Ewww. You’re just projecting. He says “yeah.” Theology of the Body??? That’s hilarious. The kid is curious and, ultimately, totally unphased.
He doesn’t say Ewww. You’re just projecting. He says “yeah.”
I think I listened to it five times trying to figure out where Kathy heard Ewww, and I never heard it myself.
It’s a kind of Rorschach test. But remember Rorschach tests can be evaluated and scored.
Cute. His astonishment reminds me of a story about one of my brothers. He missed his favorite TV show because the clocks hadn’t been reset for Daylight Saving Time. So some poor adult had to try to explain DST to a five-year-old. He listened carefully, according to the legend, and then said seriously, “I can’t believe I’ve lived my whole life without knowing about this.”
Mollie, imagine the astonishment that young children express when adults try to explain to them why tv shows cannot be stopped and rewound and played again like “regular” videos. I was watching the Olympics with my young son and he kept asking me to “turn on the ski jumping” like there was a channel devoted to ski jumping.
Actually he says”geyeh.” That’s quite a diphthong to be “yeah,” tho I admit it’s possible.
My mom had a conversation with a child in my family who has been very thoroughly indoctrinated in the modern cultural meme “No rational sexual contact is possible, but that’s not important.” Much as the kid is being indoctrinated in the video. But “my” kid seems to have put up some intellectual resistance, telling my mom that a couple we know isn’t really married. Boys can’t marry boys.
Ah, the beauty of the natural law! The harmonious mutual assent of reality and perception!
If you really listen I’m pretty sure he says “Hear our prayer, Obama” at the end.
What? He said ‘punished with a baby?’
A nice video degenerates int osily comments from people who hear what they want to hear .
Oy!
I wouldn’t say “natural law.” I’d say (or sing, maybe):
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
I remember a discussion in our college dorm about race relations. This was in the late 1960s. One of the black kids said, “You know what I did the first time I saw a black person in a television commercial? I laughed.”
Well, that’s why I thought the video was interesting. At first the kid reasoned from experience. He had only met husbands and wives. But then he started putting this whole husband and husband thing together and talking about, as I take it, complementarity. Or not. It’s odd, like the edge of the world where the sun never sets. It’s a day and a day instead of a night and a day. It’s like two outies and no innies.
Backing up the video is the opinion of experts that children raised by gays and lesbians do fine …. Children thrive equally with same-sex, heterosexual parents, psychologist testifies at Prop. 8 trial
Adoption and Co-parenting of Children by Same-sex Couples – American Psychological Association
Technical Report: Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents – American Academy of Pediatrics
Piaget, the great child psychologist, said he threw away all his books when he had his children. Usually the things this child is saying are drummed into him and he really does not understand what he is saying. I still feel he is annoyed that he is being prevented from his ping pong game. Too many times parents think the child understands when the child is just trying to get to his games and stuff and will say anything to get the parents off her back.
This is truly a case when you have to have experience watching your children grow. Presuming you were able to be around during these formative years.
The video according to Salon has now been made private. Apparently the husbands have been overwhelmed at its fame. Here is the transcript. http://gay.americablog.com/2010/03/little-boy-works-through-husbands-and.html
Eduardo
What does this prove? Cute kid, so what? I used to be a prosecutor and I saw lots of videos of cute kids acting like cute kids with parents and step parents that proved to be monsterous abusers.
It is not like we have mounds of data, so the idea that the long term effects on chidren are settled is nonsense. I am not one to say that a child being brough up in a homosexual household is ipso facto going to have problems, but I have a hard time believing that there is no consequences at all. Something that profound has to have some effect.
Yes, it is cute, until the time when the discussion turns to God’s intention for Sexual Love. If this Child recognizes that there are sexual acts that do not Respect the Dignity of the Human Person and he refuses to condone them, it will no longer be cute when he is called “phobic” or a “bigot”, or a “basher”, will it, Eduardo?
Nearly 40 percent of children born in the United States in 2007 — the most current data I can find quickly — were born out of wedlock. According to the account on the CNN website, “28 percent of white women gave birth out of wedlock in 2007, nearly 72 percent of black women and more than 51 percent of Latinas did. . . . According to a 2008 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 9.8 million single mothers versus 1.8 million single fathers.” This is a national catastrophe. But God forbid that two men or two women who love each other enough to raise a child together should be permitted to do so.
Something that profound has to have some effect.
How profound is it really? Gay men and lesbians are actually people, you know. There are a lot of studies out there that say it is not the gender of the parents that matter, but rather the quality of the parenting. Of course, all the studies in the world will not settle this issue. Why, because no matter what studies say, something that profound has to have some effect.
“I am not one to say that a child being brough up in a homosexual household is ipso facto going to have problems, but I have a hard time believing that there is no consequences at all. Something that profound has to have some effect.”
My father used the “there are bound to be consequences” argument against interracial marriage because he believed differences between black and white people were so “profound.” Ironically, he voted for a child of just such a union for president two years ago.
In my view, homosexuality is “profound” only in the heads of people who insist on seeing it as something outside the norm of human behavior. Whether having homosexual parents will affect a child adversely has less to do with the parents and more to do with how the children are treated by others.
As a P.S., I would marvel if there isn’t something “profound” about any heterosexual couple who has children, biological or adopted, that doesn’t mess up their kids in some way.
There isn’t really a sound analogy between gay marriage and interracial marriage. (Catholic priests have been witnessing interracial marriages in this country since 1681, btw.) Xenophobia is not at the heart of the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman. On the contrary, it’s the xenos–the difference–between the man and the woman that makes a marriage possible. They are unlike, not mirror images of one another.
“Xenophobia” = “fear” of “foreign” or “strange.” I suppose it usually has ethnic connotations, particularly when it refers to immigrants. But I think it pretty well describes the feelings many feel about homosexuals as dangerous outsiders. Certainly Hitler included them as undesirables along with “mongrel” races, Gypsies, Jews and the like.
My guess is that decades of ugly or “funny” stereotypes about homosexuals has made many people extra-enthusiastic about the Church’s teaching against homosexuality. Plus, homosexuals are a minority of the population, and it’s always so much more satisfying to be able to harp on sins that one doesn’t struggle with oneself.
However, I do realize many dislike the gay/racial analogy because interracial relationships are procreative, and the Church views the nonprocreative nature of homosexual sex as evidence of its sinfulness.
There isn’t really a sound analogy between gay marriage and interracial marriage.
Kathy,
Maybe. But there is an analogy between prejudice against blacks and prejudice against gays. I am not saying that all who oppose gay marriage are prejudiced. But there is prejudice against gay people, and no doubt people who are prejudiced against gay people would seem to be likely to oppose gay marriage.
There are many studies which purport to show that there is no difference between children raised by same sex and different sex couples. What is missing however is any authoritative study that says so. By authoritative i mean one that has a sample that is randomly selected, that is large enough to project across the population, and that is longitudinal. All the studies that anyone will site in this thread suffer from major defects. As Maggie Gallagher proposes, we are embarking on yet another huge experiment on children for the gratification of adults.
What is missing however is any authoritative study that says so.
The opponents of same-sex marriage appear to have lots of money. So why don’t they pay for such a study instead of spending money on scare commercials? Because they know that no valid scientific study will support their position. So they have to use pseudo-science or just old-fashioned fearmongering.
OK, I should be clearer: those groups that are set up specifically to create ballot measures and such have lots of money. Don’t mean to lump all opponents of same-sex marriage together!
As Maggie Gallagher proposes, we are embarking on yet another huge experiment on children for the gratification of adults.
Eggloff,
Let us be realistic and acknowledge that no study, no matter how conceived and carried out, will ever convince Maggie Gallagher that same-sex marriage is good for children. She is the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which is dedicated to opposing same-sex marriage. It would be like expecting the head of the NRA to be convinced by a study that concludes civilians carrying guns is bad public policy and only law enforcement should be armed.
David,
Maggie’s argument is that the onus for homosexual marriage rests with those who propose it and a part of that should include its impact upon children. There is voluminous social science data going back almost 100 years about how an intact family with a mother and a father is best for children. Even social scientists on the left agree there are no studies to support the thesis that there is no difference between different sex and same sex children.
Gallagher goes on to say there was another great experiment on children for the gratification of adults and that is divorce and it has been absolutely disastrous for children.
I do not think anyone intentionally teaches “hate and fear” – at least they shouldn’t.
Not approving of gay marriage does not mean I hate or fear anyone; I don’t.
No matter how cute the child or his reaction, to intentionally play with a young boy’s mind like this, to twist it like this and tell him that what is in fact not normal is normal, that up is down and down is up so to speak, cannot be good for anyone involved.
I do not think anyone intentionally teaches “hate and fear” – at least they shouldn’t.
Ken,
Where do you think anti-Semitism, or anti-Catholicism, or racism comes from? Is it inborn? Or do kids learn it from their parents? Have you ever seen pictures of little kids dressed up in sheets at Ku Klux Klan meetings? What do you call that if not teaching children hate?
to twist it like this and tell him that what is in fact not normal is normal
What if you’re wrong, and he has been taught that what is normal is not normal? (What, by the way, does “normal” mean?) Remember the old story about the father and son in the car crash?
A father and son are in a car crash. The father is killed, and the son is seriously injured. An ambulance comes and takes the son to the hospital. As the boy is wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon says, “Oh, my God! It’s my son!” Explain.
The surgeon, of course, is the boy’s mother. But when that story first was circulated, most people were entirely stumped. It did not enter their minds that the surgeon could be a woman. It wasn’t normal.
David,
Normal means rational.
I eat Doritos, with very little rational basis. It’s not intrinsically wrong to eat Doritos. In the event Doritos were my only source of calories they could help keep me alive, although my thirst would certainly be increased. As things are, I thankfully have excellent sources of nutrition. Doritos are NOT what nutritionists have in mind when they say we should all eat more orange foods, for example. Therefore Dorito-eating is irrational for me.
Homosexual acts are like eating Doritos, only more so.
***
I would agree with an earlier comment of yours, however. Name-calling of homosexuals is like any other kind of name-calling and arises out of similar motivations. It’s hateful and vile, just as racial epithets are.
Normal means rational.
Normal means, well, normal. At one time, it was normal to believe that heavy objects fell faster than light objects. It was also normal to believe that the Sun went around the earth or that the earth was created in seven days.
There is voluminous social science data going back almost 100 years about how an intact family with a mother and a father is best for children. Even social scientists on the left agree there are no studies to support the thesis that there is no difference between different sex and same sex children.
What studies were made 100 years ago or even ten years ago regarding children raised by same-sex partners? Which social scientists ‘on the left’ have made such claims?
Numerous studies over the last three decades consistently demonstrate that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents. This research indicates that optimal development for children is based not on the sexual orientation of the parents, but on stable attachments to committed and nurturing adults. The research also shows that children who have two parents, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientations, do better than children with only one parent.
– Adoption and Co-parenting of Children by Same-sex Couples POSITION STATEMENT, American Psychological Association
More than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and any measure of a child’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment. These data have demonstrated no risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with 1 or more gay parents. Conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits, and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families…..
– The American Academy of Pediatrics
A study …. Adolescents with Same-Sex Parents: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health
Yes – the same APA that is seriously debating whether gender identity disorder and pedophilia are mental disorders.
http://www.narth.com/docs/symposium.html
No need to look for a political agenda here. We’re Scientists!
Rational means rational. Rational sex means you take the hammer and hit the nail, rather than hitting the hammer with a hammer. It means you put your hand in a glove, rather than putting two gloves together. You don’t try to see with your ears or think with your feet. Rational.
Reason sounds so sweet and so compelling, doesn’t it, Kathy?
The reason of a particular era often sounds sweetly rational to itself–hit the nail with the hammer, not a hammer; no two gloves together–until along come cultural shifts that make us realize what we’ve long taken for sweet, compelling reason is nothing but noxious prejudice dressed up in fancy clothes.
As Dr. Johnson said to Boswell, vis-a-vis women preaching,”Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
All so reasonable at the time: dogs don’t walk on their hind legs. And women don’t preach.
Thankfully powerfully persuasive currents of moral awareness finally began to push back against millennia of such “rational” definitions of women, what they can and can’t or should and shouldn’t do–gloves don’t belong with gloves. And eventually the reason even of the churches had to take a look at what it was really all about, vis-a-vis women’s “rational” roles.
Well, at least in some sectors of some churches it has taken such a look at its absurdities.
William,
Women have mouths, and minds. They can preach–though not at Mass, because they can’t be validly ordained. Dr. Johnson was mistaken.
Women have mouths and minds. And that’s not all…
Why bother with minds at all if crude biological determinism is to settle every dispute?
May I spare us all the glove, hammer, Dorito and nutritional analogies?
The Church is pretty clear that the only acceptable sex is that which occurs between a man and woman in a Church-recognized marriage and results in sperm deposited in a vagina where it may swim without obstruction to any egg that may be ready for fertilization. No pharmaceutical, surgical or barrier may be used to thwart Mr. Sperm getting together with Mrs. Egg.
Whether this is a “rational” or “normal” approach to human sexuality is a matter of faith. Whether having sex within the prescriptions of Church teaching is an essential for salvation–who can say but God?
Whether parents, gay or heterosexual, who have sexual relations outside the parameters sanctioned by the Church can make good parents depends on how you define “good parents” and how much you think the private bedroom practices of parents impinges on a child’s development.
Whether dioceses should make policies that bar parents who are having sexual relations not sanctioned by the Church from schools is their prerogative.
Whether it is a good idea for the diocese to make such rules and whether those rules will ultimately bring more people to the Body of Christ, which is the Church’s mission, is clearly a point on which Catholics disagree.
“Women have mouths and minds. And that’s not all,” you say, Kathy.
Does it not strike you that when an argument that professes to be both rational and ethical has to become so–well, crude–something might be awry with the argument? At a fundamental level?
And with the presuppositions it’s promoting?
When the best we can do in order to continue promoting what we regard as an unchanging ethic of marriage is to talk about hammers and nails and gloves and plumbing, then perhaps our position needs some careful rethinking. And the ability to listen carefully to those whom we bludgeon through our hammer and nail arguments, as we talk about love and mercy.
I see you don’t engage my point at all, by the way. Many cultures and many religious groups have used precisely the kind of “reason” you want to apply here to keep women subordinate. Hammer hits nail, not another hammer; women are made weaker and with wombs because God and nature ordain that they remain at home caring for children.
Not preaching or meddling in men’s affairs.
There’s a predictable crudeness to these “rational” arguments from nature that ultimately suggests how weak they are. And how unthinking (and often cruel) we are, when we buy into them without looking at their shaky foundations.
Kathy, you watched a video of a little boy expressing amazement and interpreted it as disgust. You heard him say “Yeah” and decided he’d said “ewwww.” I submit that this thread may not be the best place for you to lecture about rationality.
William, I don’t think women are weak. Anyone built to go through labor is not weak. I do think that the human body is essential to human sexuality. I don’t think it’s a “crude” consideration, because I don’t think that bodies are incidental to identity.
However, Jean’s point is well taken. The topic at hand is not the immorality of homosexual acts (although the posting of this video seems to suggest that not everyone is entirely convinced of this) but the ecclesial response to situations involving children and homosexual, err, couples.
Kathy, I don’t think that most thinking people–most rational people–automatically buy into the argument that women are weak anymore.
And so our assumptions about the ethics of gender have changed dramatically, as what we regard as rational vis-a-vis women’s nature and women’s roles have shifted.
And the same seems to be happening re: assumptions about sexual orientation.
Which means that the ecclesial response has to begin taking into account the indefensibility (and the cruelty, a term I want to keep emphasizing here) of much that has passed for “reason,” in this discussion up to now.
It does strike me as fascinating that you still seem to be missing the point: your arguments about the body and its connection to same-sex relationships are PRECISELY the same kind of arguments from nature and reason you’re discounting in the case of women.
I wonder why that is, and on what basis you make the distinction to maintain such arguments in the case of those who are gay and lesbian, while dispensing with them in the case of women.
homosexual, err, couples
Kathy,
Are you now denying that two people choosing to be together make up a couple? Are gay people so beyond the pale in your mind that “one and one makes two” doesn’t apply to them?
Correction, second paragraph of my last posting: “have shifted” should be “has shifted.”
William’s point resonates with me, I suppose b/c I have fundamentalist relatives.
The lessons my in-laws take away from “nature” are quite different from the teachings of the RCC. Fundie marriage manuals warn against the “feminization” of the family, instruct couples in the proper role of wife to husband as head of the house, and teach that men have needs that should be fulfilled frequently using techniques the Church would view as grave sins.
Should these people’s children be allowed in Catholic schools? Should they even be adopting children? What if the kids find their various marital aids?
Why aren’t more, err, Catholics hammering gloves into the Doritos and other orange foods of these people?
OK, enough from me.
Despite the fact that Tab A fits in Slot B, homosexual behavior is quite common in the animal kingdom. Of course, that doesn’t count, because somehow “the fall” affected all of nature, and so nature in not a reliable guide for what is natural. Although we have no way of directly observing the sexual habits of creatures before “the fall,” almost certainly they would resemble what we observe today, since these things evolve over millions and millions of years. I believe some put forward a theory that nature was retroactively damaged by “the fall” or was in some way corrupted in anticipation. We can know with certainty, it seems to me, that there was no “peaceable kingdom” on earth even prior to the existence of the human species. So apparently nature has never been “natural.”
Jean, I think that Catholic sexual ethics actually allows for a variety of appetizers, as long as they don’t spoil anyone’s dinner.
Jean, thanks. I find your comment astute: “The lessons my in-laws take away from ‘nature’ are quite different from the teachings of the RCC.”
That’s my point, of course, when I ask Kathy on what basis she decides that natural-law norms long thought to be reasonable when applied to women are no longer reasonable at all, while she wants to maintain that same line of reasoning when it comes to gay and lesbian folks.
All depends, I suppose, on whose ox is being gored.
Or perhaps more aptly, on whose dog wants to prance on its hind legs.
What is strength? in the old days, to some men, strength meant muscle power. Mongo like candy. Did women actually buy into this? Didn’t most people realize that endurance and flexibility are strengths?
In other words, there was a breadth of meaning in the word “strong” that was missing in the early, ignorant understanding.
It seems to me that “out” and “in” do not have a similar breadth of meaning.
Oliver Wendel Holmes, on Natural Law and the legal system:
“The jurists who believe in natural law seem to me to be in that naive state of mind that accepts what has been familiar and accepted by them and their neighbors as something that must be accepted by all men everywhere.”
Kathy, you ask, “Did women actually buy into this?”
Some perhaps did. As Frantz Fanon noted a long time ago, oppress people long and hard enough, and they will sometimes internalize the image you try to give them.
I would hope a lot of women didn’t buy into that image of weakness, though. I know for certain that the women in my family didn’t. They grew up in a world that did everything possible to impose the kind of evangelical Christian views about which Jean writes on them. And they stoutly resisted.
Everything depends, I’d submit, on finding out what women themselves have thought and continue to think about these “reasonable” and “natural” understandings of what it means to be a woman. And then everything depends on letting the voice of those being defined count in the conversation.
One might well take your question about women buying into a certain logic and then ask, “Did gay and lesbian people buy into your rhetoric about what’s natural and reasonable?” And do we do so today?
I’m sure in the past a lot of us did buy into the rhetoric and internalized it. Many of us struggle to deal with that internalization today.
But many of us now reject the kind of descriptions of the “natural” and “reasonable” that you’re promoting. And it might be worthwhile for the church to begin listening to the experience and self-understanding of people whom it has historically defined in ways that dehumanize, marginalize, or demean that group of people–don’t you think?
That is, if the church expects its ethical teaching to be persuasive. Or if the church expects to be listened to carefully when it talks about justice. Or catholicity, for that matter.
As I said previously, a lot depends on whose dog wants to prance on its hind legs. As a gay person, I’ve learned to try to stretch myself to understand why women and people of color have felt historically excluded and oppressed. And I’ve tried to do something about those forms of exclusion and oppression, since I can place myself in the place of those groups imaginatively and to that extent understand what happens to them as they are oppressed.
And when I do begin to stretch my imagination to understand the oppression (which in both cases has deep roots in religious traditions), it strikes me that the most ethical way I can respond is then to stand in solidarity with those folks and work against oppression. And to work for inclusion and understanding.
Antonio, wonderful quote!
“Maggie’s argument is that the onus for homosexual marriage rests with those who propose it and a part of that should include its impact upon children.”
My partner of near 38 years and I might want to get married. We have absolutely no intention of having children in any of the ways possible — certainly not at our ages. Therefore, because our marriage would not have any impact on children, why can’t WE be married?
Don’t worry; we’d rather stay “single” than ever ask Holy Mother the Church to witness our marriage. We might be naive, but we are far from stupid.
Sean said: “No need to look for a political agenda here.”
Thank goodness that NARTH doesn’t have any agendae behind its positions!
However, NARTH and its Catholic clone – Courage – continue to propound the discredited idea of “Reparative Therapy.” See: “Psychologists Repudiate Gay-To-Straight Therapy”
(http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/05/us/AP-US-Psychologists-Gays.h…)
“Insufficient Evidence that Sexual Orientation Change Efforts Work, Says APA”
(http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2009/08/therapeutic.aspx)
NARTH has gone so far as to MISQUOTE respected geneticist Francis Collins, (http://www.narth.com/docs/nothardwired.html) giving the impression that he supports
NARTH’s unprovable contention that homosexuality is curable. Dr. Collins responded to this contention (http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2007/05/major-geneticist-francis-collins-re…) and said this:
“The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.”
Courage, rather than encouraging the difficult task of integration of sexuality and spirituality, promotes the destructive activity of repression. For the members of Courage, the various doctrines of the Magisterium that attempt to address the issue of homosexuality comprise the final word on the matter. Science, however, tells us that gender and sexuality are vastly complex realities. When will the Church’s official teaching begin to reflect such complexity?
These are the types of questions that many Catholics are asking. Yet sadly, Courage and the Church’s responses to such questions are woefully inadequate. It’s simply not good enough to say, “Well, this is how it’s always been, so it must be right,” especially since it’s clear that the basis of “what it’s always been” has been informed by limited (and might I add, biased?) sources. When we limit our sources, we’re limiting and obstructing God’s outreach to us.
Australian Catholic theologian Paul Collins reminds us that, “Consulting the laity in the formulation of doctrine is part of Catholicism’s theological tradition. Also, the whole Church’s acceptance of papal and episcopal teaching is an integral part of testing the veracity of that teaching. The hierarchy does not have a monopoly on truth.”
Collins finds support for such claims in the writings of the English theologian, soon-to-be-beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), “who said unequivocally that the laity have to be consulted in matters of doctrine, especially when teachings concern their lives so intimately”. (Collins, P., Between the Rock and a Hard Place: Being Catholic Today, ABC Books, Sydney, 2004, p. 12.)
Newman also said that “The body of the faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed doctrine, and . . . their consensus through Christendom is the voice of the Infallible Church”. (Newman, J.H., On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, (1859), ed. John Coulson, Collins, London, 1961, p. 63.)
Lastly, let me direct you to this “Statement on Sexual Orientation and Conversion Therapies” by Mark Pope, Ed.D. (http://www.dignityusa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/markpope.pdf). This article gives a succinct explanation on why the positions of “ex-gay” movements, Courage and NARTH are not healthy, productive nor life-giving and life affirming.
For those who choose not to read this article, I will provide this telling information:
“Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder in a 2003 article published in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice surveyed 202 individuals who had participated in sexual orientation conversion interventions. They found that only 4% of those individuals were able to successfully “manage their homosexual behavior,” with over 74% of the group experiencing “significant long-term (psychological) damage from the conversion therapy” (p. 254). They blamed themselves for not being able to change and reported feeling worse than when they originally sought conversion therapy.”
Jimmy Mac,
Does Courage really “actively promote repression?” Do they discourage honesty about attractions? That would be repression.
They promote chastity, but I don’t think they encourage dishonesty. (I could be wrong about this, but this is what I’ve heard.)
Of course NARTH has an agenda, but at least they put their’s in the open. They are fighting to allow people who want treatment to get it. The APA wants to call it malpractice per se.
Crystal,
If you dig down into the studies your quotes site, none of them are authoritative in answering the question whether there is no difference in being raised by same-sex of different sex couples. Each of the studies they site lack either or all of the important criteria of longitudinality, random selection, or large enough sample size. Each of the studies are mostly snapshots in time of small or very small group and none are randomly sampled. The evidence, no matter what the “experts” say, is just not there. The homosexual question is one in which phony science and phony social science runs rampant.
Crystal, thanks for bringing to our attention (and citing) well-conducted scientific studies by such well-regarded professional associations as the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Citing such well-grounded research does a real service to a discussion of an ethical issue in the Catholic tradition, because we value the balance and interplay of faith and reason as we form our ethical minds.
I hardly ever agree with William Bennett but at least he understands the truth on this one: it isn’t homosexual marriage but heterosexual divorce that is undermining social norms and childhood stability.
There is a small but apparently durable percentage of people who are not heterosexual. The arguments against their freedom to marry or procreate are proxy arguments, because people are unable, unwilling or just not imaginative to address the larger issue. And in reality, where would it take you? To make divorce illegal? So that fewer people would bother getting married?
We are in this place where we can’t go back, but to go forward and forge social safety nets that do not assume traditional marriage simply cannot be fathomed by too many with too much to lose.
Crystal and William,
What you cite are not “studies” but reviews of studies. When one looks at the studies themselves that are referenced by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics you will find that they are 1) too small for projection across the population, 2) not randomly selected subjects, and/or 3) mere snap shots and not logitudinal studies.
If one really cares about children and not simply the pleasure of adults, one must look deeply at the effect of same sex parenting has on children. The reason the Church says homosexual adoption does “violence” to the child is precisely because 100 years of social science research shows that children need mothers and fathers, things that homosexual couples can never provide. Perhaps there is no difference, but there is no evidence to show there is no difference.
Barbara,
Of course, the main problem with marriage today is heterosexual marriages and rampant divorce. Also, widespread contraception. Should divorce be highly regulated and very difficult to get? You bet. Even so, the Church holds and social science uphold the proposition that marriage is for one man and one woman in a lifelong bond of marriage.
What you cite are not “studies” but reviews of studies.
Eggloff,
It’s called meta-analysis, and it’s not a controversial technique. Quite often when the results of studies are reported in the news, they studies were actually done by meta-analysis of collections of previous studies.
Perhaps there is no difference, but there is no evidence to show there is no difference.
Even incomplete or insufficient evidence is still evidence, and in a rational society, the mounting evidence that parenting by same-sex couples make good parents should more than counterbalance the religious notion that “it just can’t be, because God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Take note of this;
The Catholic notion is that the man is the head of the household and the woman stays home to raise the children. Did those who were in favor of “traditional marriage” demand that definitive studies be done before women (mothers) joined the workforce en masse to make sure that wouldn’t have a negative impact on the family?
The Catholic Church (and presumably you) object to same-sex relationships even when the couples do not raise children. How is the Catholic Church ever going to be persuaded to accept same-sex parenting when they condemn same-sex couples?
Even so, the Church holds and social science uphold the proposition that marriage is for one man and one woman in a lifelong bond of marriage.
On the matter of what social science upholds, please check out this excerpt from The Effects of Marriage, Civil Union, and Domestic Partnership Laws on the Health and Well-being of Children, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. I have added boldface to highlight the names of the organizations whose positions are cited.
NARTH’s “treatment” is generally a false promise, which is a deception. Deception is a form of repression because it leads one who is in turmoil away from dealing with reality with the idea of conversion — repressing the truth of who you are:
“Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder in a 2003 article published in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice surveyed 202 individuals who had participated in sexual orientation conversion interventions. They found that only 4% of those individuals were able to successfully “manage their homosexual behavior,” with over 74% of the group experiencing “significant long-term (psychological) damage from the conversion therapy” (p. 254). They blamed themselves for not being able to change and reported feeling worse than when they originally sought conversion therapy.”
David,
Thanks for the lesson on meta-analysis. Much appreciated. However, can you cite a single study that shows there is no difference between same sex and heterosex couples in the raising of children and that has been done on a sample size sufficient to project across the population, or that has been done on a population that was randomly selected, or that was done longitudinally? i would be eager and happy to see them.
The problem with the studies cited in this thread, oh wait, there have been no studies cited in this thread. Anyway, the problem with the assertions and/or policy assertions made in this thread is that none of them are backed up by credible social science data. Perhaps you know of more than assertions, David, perhaps you can cite credible studies to back up the assertions.
The onus is on those asking for societal change. There is plenty, a century or more of data backing up assertions that waht is best for children is a mother and a father.
Where is your evidence, David, William, Crystal et al?
Eggloff, the point is, regulating divorce would exacerbate children born outside of any marital relationship. It’s too late. It’s what we do next that counts. I simply do not see going backwards as an option, and I see harping on gay marriage as one big distraction that unfairly stigmatizes gay people for problems they had virtually no role in creating. The notion that it’s up to them to “prove” their parental fitness is obnoxious and completely upside down with how other (straight) people are treated.
David et al,
The problem with the studies alluded to by the APA and others is that they are along the lines of a psychiatrist interviewing 30 children over the course of a single month, and based on such “studies” they claim there is no difference between children raised by homosexual and heterosexual couples. Do you really think such “studies” are sufficient to make such conclusions? Are you really willing to subject children to a new social experiment based on such “studies”? I sincerely hope not.
Barbara,
The point is that society and government should encourage in any way they can that children are born in same-sex-for-life marriages. This is the very best chance for children to be “successful”. Unlike same sex marriage, this, which no surprise is Church teaching, is backed up by voluminous scientific data.
Excuse me…”heterosex-for-life marriages”
Actually, i guess that should be “heterosex for-life-marriages”…sorry….
Kathy said: “They (Courage) promote chastity, but I don’t think they encourage dishonesty. (I could be wrong about this, but this is what I’ve heard.)”
Courage supports the contention that homosexual activity is never acceptable and chastity is the *only* option. Those who rely on Courage are told that to be a good Catholic they must bear the burden (or as we Catholics have been taught for years, to “carry the cross”) of their same-sex attractions and do everything possible to avoid romantic or sexual contact with members of the same sex.
Courage insists that it does not provide professional therapy while, at the same time, maintaining the discredited belief that some people, especially young people, are able to further their psychosexual development (i.e., “move beyond homosexual attractions”) with spiritual and psychological aid.
Courage and the “celibate” Church hierarchy insist that all gay and lesbian people are called to lifelong chastity as a result of what I believe is our God-given sexual orientation. This reflects an extremely limited and unhealthy understanding of human sexuality and the lives of LGBT people.
What happens when LGBT persons don’t experience their sexuality as “intrinsically disordered”? Would not following the advice of Courage (and their view of Catholicism) to remain chaste be, in effect, a disordered way of life? Courage’s message is to lead a dishonest way of life, particularly in light of the fact that the Church recognizes no possibility for LGBT people to enter into any kind of a relationship (outside of a dishonest heterosexual marriage) that she would deem acceptable.
That is where the belief is disordered, dishonest and false.
Eggloff, you ask, “Where is your evidence, David, William, Crystal et al?”
Actually, as far as I’m concerned, Crystal has provided the evidence, and David adds to it. That was the point I had hoped to make when I responded to your posting addressing Crystal.
Even given the methodological provisos David sketches re: studies done by APA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other highly regarded scientific organizations, there’s strong, compelling evidence in the studies I’ve read to conclude that children are often raised very well in households headed by same-sex parents.
And so I’m astonished at your statement, “The homosexual question is one in which phony science and phony social science runs rampant.” I don’t find that APA and the American Academy of Pediatrics (or the other groups David mentions) are in the habit of relying on phony science or supporting phony scientific studies.
When we take that anti-intellectual, counter-cultural stance regarding the best findings of secular disciplines, we place ourselves in a cultural bubble as a religious group, which makes it very hard to engage culture creatively or to be credible as we do so.
I’m talking about taking certain stances a priori, as I make that observation. And I’d submit to you that you might think about the methodological limits (and a priori assumptions) of your own approach here.
You’re assuming that there’s some weight of evidence and tradition that automatically demonstrates that children raised in parents headed by a father and a mother are more likely to be well reared, than in other types of households. And therefore the burden of proof is on anyone who proposes any other familial arrangement for the rearing of children, lest children be harmed by an ill-considered social experiment.
But I would question your a priori assumptions, if I were you, for two reasons. In the first place, surely there’s as much evidence that children frequently suffer cruelly in households headed by a father and a mother, as in other types of households.
And yet you don’t begin by assuming that perhaps a household headed by a father and a mother presents hazards for children, and we should therefore study that model to see if it’s the cause of the suffering many children endure in such households. (As an example, abundant evidence shows that the vast majority of cases of child sexual molestation occurs in the family circle itself, with a male adult as the typical perpetrator.)
I’d question your a priori assumptions, if I were you, for another reason. Throughout history and in contemporary society, children have been raised in all kinds of households, often with conspicuous success. Familial arrangements include grandparents rearing children, aunts and uncles doing so, older siblings (single or married) raising younger children, and so forth.
I’d suggest that the quality of the character of persons doing the child-raising, and the quality of their relationships, are what matter in the end–not the gender of those doing the child-rearing and whether a household is headed by a male and a female.
William,
Cite a study.
Do you really think such “studies” are sufficient to make such conclusions? Are you really willing to subject children to a new social experiment based on such “studies”? I sincerely hope not.
Eggloff,
I am not sure how your position or your protestations relate to “real life.” Societal changed don’t come about by someone making a proposal, social scientists doing definitive studies, and some authority saying, “The social sciences have spoken. We may move forward (or we must prevent) the proposed development).”
I disagree that the liberalization of divorce laws or the acceptance of same-sex marriage and adoption are “social experiments.” Also, while I accept that children are better off in stable, intact homes, that is not necessarily an argument against divorce. The question regarding whether divorce should be prohibited for the sake of children would be whether children whose parents have reached the point where they want a divorce would be better off if their parents were pressured to stay together. That is a much more difficult question to answer than whether children in intact families are better off than children from broken families. Have there been any large, longitudinal studies with randomly selected subjects of whether it is better for parents who want to get divorced to stay together for the sake of the children. I really don’t know, but I am betting you can’t produce any. It would be easy enough to find the families who divorce, but how would social scientists go about finding the parents who would divorce but agree to stay together for the sake of the children? And how would you know that the parents who were actually willing to stay together for the sake of the children were not significantly different from the parents who divorced?
William F. Buckley said the mission of the National Review was to stand astride history and yell, “Stop!” That seems to me to be your position. I am not sure what the point is. History doesn’t stop because it is yelled at.
Cite a study.
Eggloff,
Perhaps you could cite a study on the effects of divorce on children that meets your criteria for being a credible study, and then we would look for a comparable study on children raised in same-sex marriages. It seems clear that you are prepared to dismiss just about any study on same-sex marriage as flawed. So since you cite social science as proving your point about divorce, give us a model study of the effects of divorce on children so that we can look for a comparable study of the effects of same-sex parenting on children.
As I believe I said before, however, since the Catholic Church (and presumably you) are morally opposed to the existence of same-sex couples, and believe that same-sex couples would raise their children to believe in falsehoods (witness the case going on in the schools of the Archdiocese of Denver), it is not clear to me what the point would be in presenting the Catholic Church with a definitive study that same-sex parenting is of equal quality to opposite-sex parenting.
Will you support same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples if it can be demonstrated by social science studies that the outcomes for children are the same for same-sex and opposite-sex parents? Yes or no?
Jimmy Mac,
I can understand that the Church’s teaching on this question would itself seem disordered, not to mention very hurtful, to someone who truly felt his/her homosexual orientation to be a positive thing.
I don’t have this particular disjunct with Church teaching. I have other questions for which, for a time, I have had to take the authoritative teaching “on faith,” as it were, until the conflict was resolved within myself. These have sometimes been painful; however, none would probably be as painful as these questions of sexual identity, which are so intimately bound up with issues of personal identity, i.e. one’s very being as created by our loving God.
All I can say is that I think the Courage approach is appropriate–unless they have been taken in by some of the extremes of the therapeutic re-orientation industry. I do believe that in some cases, kids who have experimented sexually with their own gender might be confused, rather than same-sex-attracted. For them, it might be good to question their questionings, rather than jumping to the conclusion that their primary orientation is homosexual.
I think Courage does affirm the person.
Thanks for inviting me to cite a study, Eggloff.
I have no need to do so, since Crystal and David have both done that superbly well.
And the sources they’re citing hardly emanate from groups promoting “phony science and phony social science.”
In my view, Catholics who characterize groups like the APA and American Academy of Pediatrics as “phony,” while promoting the toxic hooey of groups like NARTH, are doing incalculable harm to the church by 1) spreading lies deliberately designed to harm others, 2) undercutting the longstanding connection between faith and reason in Catholic ethical thinking, 3) turning the church into a defensive, cult-like countercultural shell of an authentically catholic church, and 4) bringing Catholic teaching about all kinds of ethical issues in the public square into disrepute.
David,
When i get the chance, hopefully tomorrow, I will direct you to volumes of large, random, longitudinal studies that show children fare better in every measure of life when they come from intact families of opposite sex parents (by the way, teh federal government has been funding such a massive studies for decades). Research shows that children do better even when come from families where there is tension in the house than children who come from broken homes. That you are not aware of social science data that backs up these assertions is rather shocking given that you are so willing to try yet anohter experiment on children. The divorce culture has profoundly harmed a few generations of young people. I am truly surprised you are not aware of this. Anyway, we will work to help you understand this tomorrow.
I suspect that you and william and others take same sex marriage rather as an article of faith rather than science.
Would I accept homosexual marriage if social science data said there was no difference? I would be surprised that science would bear that out, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.
In the meantime, i am eager to see a study that shows what you purport.
William,
Actually, crystal cited not a single study. Perhaps you will? its not that hard, william, there are many studies that assert what you say. The problem is that none of them fit the criteria necessary (random, large, longitudinal) for credibility. As i said to DAvid, it seems that this is an article of faith to you. You seem to believe at face value whatever is asserted by — not the ordained priesthood but — the modern priesthood of medicine (pediatricians? really?) or psychology. Recall it was the psychiatrists who told the bishops that pedophiles could be treated. I think they still hold that position. Funny, that you think any criticism of your priesthood is heretical!
“You seem to believe at face value whatever is asserted by — not the ordained priesthood but — the modern priesthood of medicine (pediatricians? really?) or psychology.”
I’m sorry, but you don’t know me well at all, Eggloff. I don’t believe I ever wrote that I follow the “modern priesthood of medicine.”
I’ve spoken of trying to keep faith and reason together, in tension.
I can’t quite grasp the mental universe you seem to be promoting in this and other of your postings here, in which an ordained priesthood beyond question is over against a completely fallacious scientific “priesthood.”
I don’t see this debate (or the world in general) in such black and white terms. The ordained priesthood–which I suspect might have a fallible potential to it, don’t you imagine, these days?–has taught me to seek and value truth, because where truth is, God is.
And so I open myself to the possibility that truth might reside in a deeply flawed and ambiguous world of science, and try somehow to find in both worldviews the truth that points me to the ultimate Truth.
Your way would be easier. It would collapse the tension. But it wouldn’t be satisfactory, in world in which things don’t shake down into black and white dualities.
Eggloff, I don’t think actual children should be sacrificial lambs to your ideal of marriage. Children whose parents hand them less than ideal circumstances still deserve stability. The incessant harping about the glories of marriage and the rightness of abstinence until marriage, belied in virtually every other social institution available for observation, makes most of us hypocrites.
All those studies you talk about compare married parents with heterosexual alternatives — divorced and single female headed households. They have no light to shed on households headed by a committed homosexual couple.
William,
Earlier you said you “believe” that God created homosexuals the way they are. “Believe” is the right word as there is no scientific evidence for that either. There is phony science, certainly, but no more than that. But that’s is what i am getting at. You believe. You believe in the mere assertions of pediatricians that there is no difference between same sex and opposite sex parenting. Indeed, your faith is charming.
Love is not possessive, which is why God does not refer to Mankind as heterosexual, homosexual, and other demeaning terms that refer to sexual preference, but rather as Male and Female, Man and Woman, Husband and Wife, Father and Mother, Son and Daughter, Brother and Sister.
“Believe” is the right word as there is no scientific evidence for that either. ”
And the scientific proof for otherwise is ….?
And the scientific proof for God is …..?
No, Nancy: NOT sexual preference — sexual orientation. Preference implies choice. There is no choice as to who and what one is. Did you choose to be heterosexual? I didn’t not choose to be a person with a same-sex orientation (not preference).
. . . . which is why God does not refer to Mankind as heterosexual, homosexual, and other demeaning terms that refer to sexual preference . . . .
Where does God “refer to” mankind at all? If you are talking about the Bible, I don’t think any Catholic scholar would claim a concordance would yield God’s vocabulary!
On the other hand, the Catechism, documents from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and pastoral letters from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops use the term “homosexual persons.” Do you think they are demeaning people?
That you are not aware of social science data that backs up these assertions is rather shocking given that you are so willing to try yet anohter experiment on children.
Eggloff,
I will be interested to see the studies you cite, but I am already quite convinced of any number of things without being particularly familiar with the scientific literature. I have no doubt that on average, children from stable and intact families fare better than children from broken homes. I believe smoking is bad for one’s health, alcohol abuse is very destructive, and obesity is epidemic in the United States. I can’t cite any studies, although I am sure that if I spent a few minutes googling I could come up with any number of studies.
And as I have said, I don’t believe social change is “experimentation.” And divorce is as old as marriage.
David N., yes, as I have already stated, it is demeaning to refer to someone as a “heterosexual” or “homosexual” Person. Such is the nature of trying to define someone according to sexual preference or orientation.
Eggloff, you address me and say, “Earlier you said you ‘believe’ that God created homosexuals the way they are. ‘Believe’ is the right word as there is no scientific evidence for that either.”
But no. I did not write that statement. You’re making it up as you go along, I’m afraid.
Do a search of this page for the word “believe,” and you won’t find a single statement of mine that comes anywhere close to what you’re saying here.
Good science sees what’s there–and cares to find what’s there, regardless of one’s starting presuppositions. Bad science makes it up–and when it can’t find what it wants, imposes what it prefers to believe on the evidence.
Once again: we do serious damage to our tradition when we augment our teaching about ethical issues with fictions. The truth can stand on its own merits. If what we believe is right, just, and true, it will speak for itself. It does not need lies to make it palatable.
And we bring our church and its ethical teachings into disrepute in the public square when we imagine that we need lies to promote our ethical teachings.
I echo Jimmy Mac in finding the use of the word “belief” as a sword to be highly ironic where it is so often used as a shield against rational inquiry: where is the science supporting the existence of God?
Surely, “belief” based rules on social arrangements like marriage must be informed by a certain humility about the potential for all humans, even God fearing ones, to get important things wrong, and charity, to give others the benefit of the doubt that more often than not they are motivated by their own sincerely held beliefs and good intentions.
Nancy, the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the expression “homosexual persons.” The Latin is “Personae homosexuales”.
(The sentence is “Personae homosexuales ad castitatem vocantur.”) CCC 2359
William,
Please forgive me. I must have been hallucinating. Seriously. Please disregard the snaky email about belief, that is unless you also want to own up to it (:0).
On the larger question of science and my charges of phony science. There is a fair amount of ideologically driven “science” out there, especially with regard to the question of homosexuality. Remember the so-called “gay gene?’
Barbara, the assertion is that there are no credible studies about same sex parenting either way, for or against. Hopefully one day there will be, but there isn’t now.
Eggloff, thank you? The question mark is there because I am not totally certain I understand the final sentence of your first paragraph.
If you’re telling me to disregard your statement about what I said (what I didn’t say, that is), then of course, it’s disregarded. But if you mean that I sent you a snarky email, then please note I haven’t emailed you–if you got an email purporting to be from me, someone else sent it. I don’t email folks out of the blue.
Don’t you think there’s a difference between “ideologically-driven” science and science that begins with certain ideological presuppositions? I see a large difference between the two.
Science that sets out to prove an ideological position and then manipulates the data is ideologically driven. And it’s bad science.
On the other hand, it would be unrealistic (I propose) to assume that, like all other scholars, scientists don’t undertake their research with ideological commitments and interests in hand. It’s those commitments and interests that nudge us to undertake research in any area.
But we’d be bad researchers, no matter the field, if we then did everything in our power to turn our findings into proof of our preconceived notions. As someone whose training is in the field of church history, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve begun research convinced I’ll find A, only to discover that the path led to B. And if I have scholarly integrity, then I have to admit I was wrong about A and head towards B.
I would suggest to you that those who deny solid research showing that children raised in households headed by parents of the same sex are not negatively affected by the experience are ideologues, trying to assure that data they don’t like fit into their preconceived model.
And I’d say the same about those who continue to say repeatedly that there’s no scientific evidence that sexual orientation is, in part, determined by innate factors over which we have no control, and which we can’t change. To say that no gay gene has been found–yet–is not the same thing as to say that there’s no scientific evidence that sexual orientation is, in part, established at birth.
There’s a large and growing body of scientific evidence that suggests the latter. And perhaps if we care about the truth in our ethical teachings (not to mention, if we care about rectifying injustice, combating oppression, and treating others with dignity and justice), we might need to begin reassessing what we’re so certain of, as believers.
For those worried about pushy dykes —
http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/children-denied-catholic-schooling-lesbian-couple-speaks-out
William,
sorry, “blog post” not “email.” I sometimes have to move pretty fast during the day.
Just as there is no credible evidence that same sex parenting is the same as mother and father parenting, i would also deny there is a growing body of CREDIBLE scientific evidence that homosexuality is established at birth. (Why not in the womb? Why not at conception?) Anyway, this “science” is also ideologically driven because it is science put into the service of politics, just like the gay gene that made such news years ago. Where is that pesky gay gene anyway? Hey there it is! No. Missed again.
And even if it is established at birth, or in the womb or at conception, what does that prove exactly? That homosexual acts are perfectly normal? Uncontrollable? God given? All of us are born with inclinations to sinful behavior and we spend our lives trying to work that out.
Bottom line is there is a growing body not of scientifically verifiable facts, but rather of homosexual ideology. the good news for modern man is that this is almost wholly a phenomenon of the rich western and northern countries and will eventually and happily fade away.
Eggloff, even something as “straightforward” as eye color is determined by many genes, on multiple chromosomes. The notion that there is a “gay” gene is itself a symptom of our reductivist attitude towards complex behavior we would rather not have to deal with. Most likely, there are a variety of complex and interactive forces at work — from genetic predisposition to, perhaps, exposure to varying levels of estrogen in a formative stage of development (this is suggested by a couple of different studies). The notion that it is a choice is belied by the small but very durable percentage of people who accept the norms of a social setting that vilifies homosexuality but who nonetheless very clearly are themselves homosexual. Name another trait with that kind of hold on people, against their own will and beliefs?
I sometimes wonder if those who insist that a homosexual orientation is a choice are not basically asexual and are just acting as heterosexuals because that is how society wants them to act. Maybe they don’t experience sexual attraction the way authentically heterosexual and homosexual people do.
What makes this plausible, to me anyway, is the number of men who date women, marry, and even have children, and later realize they are gay. I am sure there are some men who are aware on some level of their homosexual orientation and somehow deny it to themselves and marry as part of an effort to prove they are heterosexual. But I am amazed at the number of divorced or still married men who really didn’t realize their sexual orientation until years after they were married.
I have been googling and found a lot of studies on children of divorce, so I know they are out there. I am wondering, though, why Eggloff hasn’t cited any.
Barbara,
I do not accept your premise that society vilifies homosexuals. In fact, society celebrates them. This is regretted by some. A great homosexual of the far right, Justin Raimondo (antiwar.com), actually said he preferred it when homosexuality was not so accepted, when it was outlaw behavior. He felt that was part of the fun.
What other kinds of behaviors with that kind of hold? Adultery. Alcoholism. Pick almost any intractable sin that is frowned upon by society.
David,
Sorry…really crazy day. It will not get better until Friday. But, what’s the use? You already accepted that children from stable families fare better than those from broken homes.