Surely there is better stuff than this out there. Dr. Phil, perhaps you could map the logical fallacies contained within for us.
Beckwith, be my guest.
I started reading but, as happened a couple of times, decided it was taking too long. Suggestion: Post a link and a synopsis rather than the entire article? Somehow, my brain tells me to expect something short on a blog, but long on a link.
PP, I'll leave ya to it. It seems that you must have more time on your hands
Nonetheless, propaganda is propaganda regardless of whether the source can share intimate knowledge of sales trends in gay porn. Dogma is cute and all, but don't pretend that it isn't dogma.
When active homosexuals leave the fold and dare to "out themselves" for their heresy they can be more heavily attacked than any religious apostate.
http://www.drthrockmorton.com/id...om/
idoexist.asp
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
new...RTICLE_ID=44346
http://www.cnsnews.com/
ViewCultu...L20041015b.html
http://www.leaderu.com/focus/exg...s/
exgays01.html
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday...E9?
OpenDocument
http://www.drthrockmorton.com/id...om/
idoexist.asp
Sorry, one of the links was repeated...I meant to paste this one in:
http://www.traditionalvalues.org...es.php?
sid=2344
Thanks for sharing that, Dr. Blosser. The truth shall make us free.
This is one of the few accounts of the real truth that lies behind the facade of homosexuality. My experience with many "gay" friends ( such an inappropriate word) is the same.
Funny story: we walked by one of those stores in Austin (it may have been that one) when I was touring the campus to decide where I wanted to attend college. Mom minced no words: "You are not going to school here." Fortunately, I had already toured the respectable school in the state, and I knew I was getting the better deal. Thank God for Texas A&M!
Showing a voraciously curious relative around Tokyo last night, I visited a gay bar with him -- surprise, surprise, everyhing completely normal! Friendly barman from Okinawa, group of Germans including one lady, the whole place just as gentlemanly and respectable as any other Japanese bar, and far more respectable than the vast redlight district of Kabuki-cho -- which an able propagandist could use for a damning report on the evils of heterosexuality!
The phenomena reported above have little argumentative force, and of course the jaundiced outlook on gay history and gay literary criticism is laughable -- we academics should know how much enlightenment has flown from such heroic pioneering efforts (becore they became acceptable in academe).
I did not read the entire posting, but I did not notice what positive alternatives the author offers to gay men? He seems to believe that gay men are naturally promiscuous and that nothing can be done about this.
I wonder if Augustine has read the literature he links to? The thesis his linkings appear to support is that "gays can go straight". But this is the ex-gay thesis whose destructive effects are widely feared. It is not at all wrong that parents should seek to keep their teenage kids away from the fanatical ex-gay propagandists. See the blogsite Ex-gay Watch, and see also, not quite on the topic but close, Fr Jake at http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/
Here is the link for exgay watch
http://www.exgaywatch.com/blog/i...blog/
index.html
more on fraudulant ex-gay propaganda here: http://www.truluck.com/html/
sexu...nd_the__ex.html
Certainly there are fraudulent ex-Gay ministry claims and practices. As there are with any 'movement' or ministry or group, but especially one so blighted with minefields.
A very good Evangelical friend who 'came out' reminds me of Fr. O'Leary's tone. Anyone suggesting gays can change their spots is met with derision, and story after story is marshalled to show how bogus such attempts are. So once again they are guilty of the very same sin--this one reductionsism--of which they accuse their opponents.
Yes, many if not most men with same-sex attraction never fully shake it. But some do, and many nobly fight it.
All in all, which seems more true: gays are just variantly oriented folks whom tradition has unjustly maligned, or gays are disordered folk who one the whole are more routinely promiscuous and unhappy? Anyone familiar with the gay world intuitively knows the answer to that one, no matter how much they deny it. Which is the point of the helpful article. All the wonderful gay bars in Tokyo nothwithstanding. btw, what's a priest doing taking guests to a gay bar anyway? I actually don't even want to know...
After his wonderful experience at the Tokyo Sodomite Film Festival, Fr. O'Leary heads to a "Gay" Bar...
Just like the Irish priests of old!
Beckwith, now that I'm no longer indulging your habit of eating your lunch salads in the back of my classroom, you think you can get away with indulging in ad hominems against your former professor? What is this? Does making it as a lawyer buy you the privilege of sounding off daft? Get outta here!
"Logical fallacies"? Okay, show me a logical fallacy, and we'll talk. "Propaganda"? "Dogma"? Define 'propaganda' and 'dogma' for me, and we'll talk. What, you think the Amarican Psychiatric Association's declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in its 1973 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disoders is a piece of 'scientific' reasoning??? When it was based on no new empirical data but rather on the political and legal (NB -- your jurisprudential threats at work!) pressures of the National Gay Task Force??? Read Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Then let's talk about what's 'rational', 'scientific', 'dogmatic' or mere 'propaganda'. You want 'propaganda'? Watch CNN. Read the New York Times.
"Spirit" makes Ronald Lee's (the author's) point nicely: "Look! See? Watch! Hey, gays can act civilized and normal and gentlemanly too!" But that's not really at issue, is it, my friend. Nobody questions that.
I have quite a few homosexual friends and acquaintances -- some of them (not all) caught up in a sexually active 'gay' lifestyle. Several of them are readers of this blog. Gays, in my experience, are generally notoriously fastidious about cleanliness, tidiness, and neatness. They often have exquisitely good aesthetic taste, which gives their establishments often a comely atmosphere of uncommon decency. The question is whether any of this is substantially more than a desparate and overcompensating attempt at getting past the self-contempt and self-disgust induced by sexual addiction to sodomy.
If you've read or seen Sophie's Choice, you will remember the fastidious attention given by officers at the Nazi death camps to preserving a distinct life of normalcy with their wives and children in their homes outside the camp walls, amidst well-cultivated flower beds, books, classical music and civility -- all gestures, I'm sure, whose authenticity they never quite succeeded in believing for themselves.
Now my gay acquaintances won't like it that I'm making an analogy to Nazi's here, but those who are close enough to know me as friends will understand that I'm NOT saying that they are Nazis, but making a simple and pointed analogy about the psychology of duplicity and self-deception (which is never quite successful). It's refreshing to see a liberated man come clean. It's not humanly possible, but as many of us have witnessed, with God our Father, all things are possible. Under His Mercy -- PP
Dr. Blosser:
"You want 'propaganda'? Watch CNN. Read the New York Times."
Huh? You got to be kidding - Free western press is no 'Propaganda'.
"Gays, in my experience, are generally notoriously fastidious about cleanliness, tidiness, and neatness. "
"you will remember the fastidious attention given by officers at the Nazi death camps to preserving a distinct life of normalcy with their wives and children in their homes outside the camp walls, amidst well-cultivated flower beds, books, classical music and civility"
You run a pretty tidy blog yourself - very suspicious. Just kidding
Honestly you must recognize that this line of argument will not make you friends among the many in our church and society that are on the fence on this issue.
As an academic you must furthermore recognize that your comparison between neat gays and Nazi’s stinks. Furthermore in my view such loose language goes straight very much against what CCC advises us regarding dignified treatment of our homosexual brothers and sisters.
It is on the other hand always 'refreshing' to see the ugly underbelly of folks that can write eloquently about the finer points regarding receiving communion for example but do not hesitate to 'respectfully' equate fine fellow brothers and sisters with murderers.
Just because you use the same word 'fastidious' to describe your friends and heterosexual married Nazi’s with Kids is a bit weak to make such monstrous claims - don't you think?
Along the same line of logic, perhaps you want to muse about the fact the both the Nazi Party as well as most Religions request obedience from their followers/believers.
As a person who has lived in Germany for decades I can furthermore assure you that perhaps at least half of the country is very fond of "well-cultivated flower beds, books, classical music and civility"
By the way ever been to a tidy American suburb recently - there seem to be a lot of neat folks around here.
Yes, the Catholic Church does not allow unmarried heterosexuals or homosexuals to indulge in sexual activity.
In reality of course the majority of neither heterosexuals nor homosexuals can for whatever reason obey that advice.
The church is for example very clear about divorce - yet even the most devout seem to find ways to get to a second wife or husband. What gives?
The church is rather clear regarding artifical birthcontrol - yet the majority of us married catholics these days seem to manage to have only a couple of kids.
No reason to get all excited and call fine folks names.
Grega, with all due respect, please re-visit Prof. Blossers statement, read it, and retract what you just wrote. As i understood it, his point was about how one compensates with the guilt of sin. To skew his words into some kind of accusation of equivilence between 'gays' and Nazis does you no justice, and is more suited to some of the more heretical 'spirits'who post on this site.
You write:
"Yes, the Catholic Church does not allow unmarried heterosexuals or homosexuals to indulge in sexual activity.
In reality of course the majority of neither heterosexuals nor homosexuals can for whatever reason obey that advice.
The church is for example very clear about divorce - yet even the most devout seem to find ways to get to a second wife or husband. What gives?
The church is rather clear regarding artifical birthcontrol - yet the majority of us married catholics these days seem to manage to have only a couple of kids."
But you are wrong. God does not allow fornication/divorce/contraception, and the church merely communicates the will of God to his people. If someone goes against the will of the church in such matters, they go against the will of God, which is called Sin. I dont see exactly what point you are trying to acheive, but the fact that people commit sin (and we all commit sin) does not make the sin right, or the Church wrong in instructing Gods people away from sin.
More on resisting SSA and the gay lifestyle:
http://www.drthrockmorton.com/ar...icle.asp?
id=181
rcfc:
You will find that Grega is quite willing to personally impugn the Catholic Church in relation to Nazis, but even the mere mention of Nazis and homosexuals in the same vacinity is verboten.
From a previous string, Grega writes:
"Would you mind by the way commenting why in the world the papal nuntius (a man some would like to have declared a saint these days)struck a deal with these same Nazi Spinmeisters?
The Reichskonkordat in effect silenced the catholic church in germany during the Nazi years?
Hitler a person who truly deserved to be excommunicated -if there ever was one catholic- perhaps arguably even got the royal treatment from the papal nuntius instead - what gives?"
PB, you know that while I detest many of your opinions, I hold you personally in the highest regard. I don't believe I directed any ad hominem attacks your way, if you interpreted my estimation of the "article" you posted as a personal shot, I believe you have confused my point. You also know me well enough to realize that I would have been critical of this long before I was a lawyer, and not once have I relied upon that unfairly in debate. Perhaps this would go better if you wrote your own opinion piece citing McIntyre or DSM classifications, for your recycling of the NOR has given me the privilege of sounding off, but it is your tone that has made all of this daft.
Spirit, you really want to appeal to an Episcopal priest for authentic interpretations of Scripture (one of the links you provided)?
As to the other links, one did not work when I tried it and regarding the other your complaint is not clear. It is disconcerting, though, that you seem to continue to immediately believe charges by the pro-homosexual groups, just as you did regarding our abortion discussion in which "Alphonsus" brought that to your attention.
It is no sign of love to confirm people in that which is morally and physically damaging, whether it is homosexual sex or not. The active pursuit of homosexuality has a whole host of physical and psychological illnesses associated with it, from a notably reduced life-span to seriously increased rates of depression, suicide, other addictive behaviors, etc (and no these cannot be blamed on "intolerant societies" as these same statistics bear out in even very "gay friendly" societies).
Real love and compassion do not demand the denial of truth.
Pastoral application of the truth is a legitimate issue, but trying to undermine, obfuscate or deny the truth itself is not.
Rcfc:
I re-read Dr. Blossers post and yes I have to admit that I interpreted the fact that he freely chooses to use the Nazies in his comparison not as charitable as I possibly could.
Augustine did the same recently - which I found also unfortunate.
Look, many in our church and in our society really strongly dislike and are irritated by the influence that our samesex brothers and sisters seem to have in our societies. That is however no reason to overstate ones case. Sexual active homosexuals, just like all sexually active unmarried folks engage in the same sinful behaviour - no reason to compare either in the faintest way to murderers.
You write:"I dont see exactly what point you are trying to achieve, but the fact that people commit sin (and we all commit sin)..."
Tell me if I am wrong, but the church does not classify the sin of sexual active homosexuality any different than lets say adultery , divorce or use of contraception.
When giving the examples of other rather common sinful behaviours, like divorce,ABC etc. I just wanted to point out how absurd and inappropriate any comparisson to the actions of the Nazies would be - just as inappropriate IMHO as the context Dr. Blosser and Augustine try to create when they make the comparisson between gays and Nazis.
Furthermore I think they do their/your cause a disservice in the eyes of the more neutral general public.
Not much good can come out of Dr. Blossers perhaps not ill-intended line of argument in my view.
Let me state clearly, I have no problem appologizing to Dr. Blosser if I indeed read to much into the previous post.
However, in my opinion to bring up the Nazi's in this context is not justified and can only cause confusion and pain.
I think it is important to recognize that our church is a church full of merci. JPII gave us the example of forgiving a person who wanted to murder him - IMHO it can never be good when lesser lay person like me, you and the good Dr. Blosser feel they can judge harshly whole groups of fellow brothers and sisters.
For me Mr. Lee describes his personal journey - some can relate to it, most however will not be able to abstain from sexual behaviour.
I personally find the burden that we put on our homosexual brothers and sisters a very heavy one. I doubt that the majority will ever be able to life the chaste life we request.
"You will find that Grega is quite willing to personally impugn the Catholic Church in relation to Nazis, but even the mere mention of Nazis and homosexuals in the same vacinity is verboten."
Nothing is verboten -Augustine, to be honest I do not mind in the least if you or anybody states his opinions - just be not surprised if I do the same. Yes I happen to believe that the Reichskonkordat was a big misstake and yes I do not think that Pius XII has a particular strong case for Sainthood.
So what just one opinion - we differ - no big deal.
Am I the only one that read the entire article all the way through to the very end? The last half was better than the first half, and completely true to the experience of the many gay friends and acquaintances I have known throughout my life - in college, in an Ivy grad school, in New York City, everywhere.
If anything, the dozens of gay men are know had even deeper problems. I can still see the barely disguised horror, revulsion, and disgust in their eyes when they were forced to deal with my children as infants. They were truly revolted by "the flesh" - the wet kisses, the tears, even by the children as toddlers TOUCHING their belongings (and I mean unbreakable things, like sneakers). Before anyone says, "Yeah, but there are millions in our pro-death culture that are disgusted by the children and their snotty noses etc," these guys were disgusted even when the children's tiny baby faces lit up with joy at(for example) seeing a candle.
Following an hour of this, two of the gay men I was with picked up an art book and proceeded to wax rhapsodic about the madonna and child paintings. Yes, as long as it was a tempura or oil madonna and child, not a flesh and blood one!
This was a wonderful, truthful article of one man's journey toward holiness. It is so far from being propaganda as to have the name be ridiculous. I loved it - it brought tears to my eyes. I simply do not understand how many of the comments above followed from reading this article.
Dear Vatican Spirit,
Should there be a law? Should it be unlawful for a citizen to walk away from homosexuality, or assist one in doing so? I mean really, really, really - in your perfect world should it be so?
Even when one falls, knowing that God's lifting up hand still walks you away keeps the braying hounds away.
And how does it bray: the homosexual life never at rest, constantly on the hunt, sweating it out over hill and dell for what can not never be caught. For the prey, meat for the cauldron pot, is, in the end, one's self.
That's it: homosexuality is a species of cannibalism.
OK, ignore the double negative!
**Tell me if I am wrong, but the church does not classify the sin of sexual active homosexuality any different than lets say adultery , divorce or use of contraception.**
Actually, sodomy is classed with a handful of sins that "cry out to Heaven for vengeance". So yes, I would say this particular sin is viewed as especially wicked. The reasons are not too far to seek. Heterosexual sin such as fornication or adultery is done outside of the boundaries of God's plan, but it is still ordered to nature. Sodomy entails a rejection of the created order.
The point, Grega, is that you blew a gasket when Dr. Blosser made a perfectly valid comparison (and very explicitly explained the severe limitations of that comparison), yet you felt free to impugn and infer the very worst about the Church in relation to Nazis. Your standards communicate something important.
Dr. Blosser explained very clearly and carefully that his intent was merely to show that neatness, tidiness, civility etc. do not necessarily mean what some would have it mean and used a very common technique to illustrate: an extreme example.
But that is not what you did in relation to the Church and the Nazis. You implied a direct guilt-connection by your statements.
And the rest of your statement is filled with meaningless ipse dixit. What evidence do you have for your opinions other than your own anecdotes?
You can continue to try to defend homosexual actions all you want, but you are in denial, a denial that helps no one.
All men are sinners. But not all men try to rationalize and even CELEBRATE their sin and ask everyone else to approve it as well.
TWB: thank you for the information. Beat me to it....
PP:
The link at the end of the article you posted to this article was excellent:
http://www.cityofgod.net/courage.../belgau-
nor.htm
The reactions here are predictable and underscore the ongoing "battle" for how to understand Church teaching. Homosexuality is not simply a sexual sin like any other sexual sin, but is "instrinsically disordered." Years ago Christianity Today had a piece by Wolfgang Pannenberg entitled "Can Sin Come Out of Love?" The answer is yes, and homosexual relationships are a pointed example. Whatever else is good about them, their sexual side is sinful. Scriputure, Tradition, and the current Magisterium are all in stereophonic unison on the point. There is no way around it. All the discussions that refuse to call a spade a spade in this regard are doomed to be wrong-headed. At bottom it's a choice: will you believe with the Church and the communion of saints, or with "The Spirit of..." the Age and the world. A fairly stark and simple choice, despite all the static we currently here.
As for the Nazi comparison, it holds. They were humans just like us, and not cartoonishly 100 percent evil -- just tragically and blindly evil in specific ways. It is easy now to imagine them all as maliciously motivated, but of course that could not have been the case.
In truth there isn't one descriptive item in Dr. Blosser's foray that does not ring true for anyone with extended experience wioth gay friends. Which probably explains the out-ouf-place indignation. In the meantime, our friends continue to be entrapped in a mortally sinful lifestyle choice. Playing their defender does not help them. It hurts them. A lot.
Of all those very human things homosexuality disorders, male friendship is up there, most mangled.
Sex turned inside out and upon itself (cannibalized) gets in the way - even when a homosexual attempts to make one up without it. To the extent homosexuality is the infecting core of one's 'identity' male friendship is diseased (the capacity for it).
But frienship is what's needed to counter the great heresy of this modern age (the ideology of sexual cannibalism). Friendship is the greater antidote - first, the one God gives.
And how does He do it - God? Sometimes by thrusting his lifting up, grabing hold of the disordered life by the heart. But mostly, the grace of friendship is offered open-handed by the likes of you and me. Over time, the constancy of such manly love steadys the walking out, and away.
Now, there's the true spirit of Vatican II!
The Pink Swastika is a notorious piece of hate literature, which respectable American libraries do not hold for the same reasons they do not hold pornography. Philip Blosser has not only refused to distance himself from this literature but writes in the very same vein himself. I am sincerely appalled.
I am not a fatalist about the capacity of gay men to change their behavior, as I thought my postings made clear. I do not believe that constitutional homosexuality can or ought to be changed into heterosexuality; that is plainest common sense, agreed on by the vast majority of experts and not contested by the Church. But I cannot pontificate on the vast range of bisexual sexualities and on what changes of taste or orientation are possible within an individual lifespan.
What the truly dreary fatalism of homophobes misses about what used to be called the "gay scene" (which has emerged as the central powerhouse of what used to be called the "sexual revolution") is this: GAY LIFESTYLES ARE CONSTANTLY EVOLVING. And one of the signal evolutions is the huge valorization of solid long-term relationships and the monogamous ideal (the article posted is not abreast of this development).
John McNeill, lauded by Daniel Berrigan as having the true heroic Jesuit spirit, has lived for years with a single partner, I understand. That as the first Roman Catholic to write a book proposing a rational ethic on homosexuality he had to be diplomatic to the point of hypocrisy is not at all surprising. As gay campaigner Senator David Norris often says: "The hypocrisy of the clergy never ceases to surprise me!"
Augustine posts more ex-gay preaching, but it seems to me that the posting contains its own refutation:
“…if anyone believes that gay men can actually become ex-gay men, I have just one question for you: Would you want your daughter to marry one?”
Here is the nearest the article can come to a "success" story:
"Prior to marrying, Rob had disclosed his same-sex attractions to his fiance’ Lois, but they went ahead with marriage. About 10 years ago [15 years into their marriage], Rob confessed to Lois that his struggle had not ceased. Their world was turned upset down. Although Lois was supportive and loving, the road they traveled together to save their marriage was painful... After 2 children and 15 years of marriage, Rob set off on a business trip he hoped would turn into a weekend of sex with a male co-worker. What he found instead was an encounter with a man who described what he called “sexual healing.” Not the Marvin Gaye kind, but rather the co-worker described how he had experienced healing from compulsive sexuality and a renewed commitment to his marriage. Rob was intrigued. “When I learned that there was another way, I wanted to know more. I always felt a need for men in my life and had settled for a sexual closeness. My friend offered me a different option.”
"His pursuit of that option came through various counselors, religious commitment and eventually involved an Exodus International ministry. He told me recently in an interview that he has not had a homosexual experience in 10 years and says, “I am no longer attracted to men at all.” "
SO WHAT? The guy is bisexual, whether predominantly hetero or homo is unclear; he put his gay leanings on the back burner to devote himself to his wife -- as many men have done. If he was ever exclusively, constitutionally homosexual and was not exclusively heterosexual in his sexual desires and actions (presuming he has not repressed the sexual altogether) then that would be a true case of an ex-gay. I don't know if such cases occur, but they are surely very untypical.
But then the article admits that change of sexuality is not involved at all: "the Winslows see Rob’s experience as demonstrating that love is more than eroticism. Their choice to preserve family for each other and their children was a loving thing to do, even when faced with a season of “erotic self-repression.”"
Much homophobia may stem from married men who have had to repress their homosexual side in order to function as husbands and fathers. Their choice is of course to be respected as ethical and sometimes heroic. But they should admit that the formula that works for them may be unworkable and even devastatingly destructive for others (and their unfortunate mystified wives). LIVE AND LET LIVE.
misprint above
NOT exclusively heterosexual SHD BE
NOW exclusively heterosexual
I connect with this article. For many years, I self-identified as gay, but this emotional disorder is now largely gone from my life. I am very happily married with children, and love my wife very much, something I didn't think was possible before. Like any sinner on the rare occasion I sometimes have to reject temptation, but I find if I resist it, it eventually goes away. Jesus can do that.
What I really needed wasn't sex, but good and warm relationships with other men, and a love for myself.
Father Leary or whoever Spirit of Vatican II is, you started opening your mouth and putting down Ronald Lee's article before even bothering to read it. That speaks volumes. You also hang out at gay bars--that speaks volumes too.
Maybe I should mention, I didn't get married until I had been celibate some good years, knew I loved and was attracted to my wife, and told her about my struggles.
I don't say everyone can change, but it worked for me.
For Ronald Lee, he seems to say in the article he still self-identifies as gay, but is happily celibate.
Mr. Beckwith, an ad hominem, as you know, is an attack on a person, as opposed to an argument against a thesis. I don't mean to suggest you were attacking me. I mean to suggest you're simply venting your spleen against the posted essay without engaging any of its ideas. You accuse the author of "logical fallacies," purveying "propaganda" and "dogma." But in nothing you say is there a shred of evidence you've even read the article, because you neglect to engage anything he's written. That's all I meant, my friend.
Augustine, always appreciate your remarks. Glad you liked Belgau's aritcle, which I thought was another excellent testimony by a SSA Catholic seeking light and salvation from the Sodom of the gay lifestyle.
Anon, appreciate your having read the article through in its entirety and your thoughtful reflections relating your own experience. Helpful. You add: "I simply do not understand how many of the comments above followed from reading this article."
That, of course, is the major problem with the most heated responses in this comment box so far. Without having waded through the article, those indisposed to the perspective it offers simply respond with apoplectic knee-jerk spasms.
Spirit, for example, admitting that he's not read into the article beyond the first part, presumptively responds with his tired old ad hominem refrains against 'homo-PHOBIA,' suggesting that 'homo-PHOBES' perhaps suffer from repressed SSA themselves. (Now THERE's a cogent argument!) What posh.
Grega at least has the circumspection to retract his initial knee-jerk reaction and offer a slightly more sober response to the issues, though I'm not sure he's read the article through either.
The business about the Nazi's and "Spirit's" reference to the Pink Swastika is a knee-jerk and a red herring. Anyone who READ what I wrote sees this. What provokes ire, rather, is our refusal to confer respectability upon sin. That's the heart of it. It's not enough that we love the sinner: those who accuse us of "homophobia" and warn us that we're not going to be "making any friends" with posts like these want us also to profess the respectability of sin. This is something that at least two of our homosexual readers are willing to admit.
Grega says that the Church stands for mercy and love. Well, of course: but mercy and love in the sense he (and "Spirit") desire presuppose contrition and repentance.
(Continued ...)
(Continued ...)
Grega also mentions Catholic heterosexuals who seem sexually indulgent, and here he raises a very good point: a huge part of the problem is one that should not be laid at the feet of gays and lesbians as such. A huge part of the problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, even though it involved a preponderance of (some 81%) homosexual liaisons between priests and teenage boys, should not be laid at the feet of homosexuals alone. What I mean is this: a HUGE part of the problem -- of which the gay/lesbian subculture is a mere symptom today -- is the "Sexual Revolution" of the sixties. Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965) lifted the ban on contraception, which effectively separated the American experience of sexual intercourse from the natural consequence of procreation, making widespread recreational sex a possibility for the first time in world history. If you follow the statistics from the 1960s to the present, they are startlingly clear: there is an exponential skyrocketing of divorce, unwed mothers, single-parent mothers, divorce litigation, and general promiscuity -- especially among divorced and single men. The vast majority of Americans are contracepting. In 1968 Paul VI issues Humanae Vitae reiterating the Catholic Church's traditional ban on contraception and is met with howls of scurrilous disdain. In 1973 two things happen: (1) abortion is legalized in the decision of Roe v. Wade and (2) the APA, under pressure from the National Gay/Lesbian Taskforce, declassifies homosexuality as a mental disorder in its DSMMD.
(Continued ...)
(Continued ...)
What becomes clear in all this is that ONE THING is the proximate cause animating all the social evils of social breakdown -- broken families, broken marriages, abortions (may I remind you again, currently at the rate of 4000 per day in the US alone), the scourge of unwed mothers, single-parent moms struggling to raise kids without a dad, skyrocketing violence against women, rampant pornography, a bourgeoning gay and lesbian subculture. What's that ONE THING? Sex. Our appetite for sexual self-indulgence has made us probably the horniest, most incontinet people on earth. Pornography feeds predation and the predatory appetite. Men even begin viewing their own wives as objects by which to selfishly satisfy themselves sexually. I remind you that although the Church celebrates marriage and the joys of procreative sexual intercourse as a divine gift, its traditions have always condemned sexual intercourse simply as a means of selfishly satisfying one's lust. That, among other reasons, is why St. Thomas Aquinas condemns wife rape as a worse sin than adultery (SS II-II, Q 154, a. 12).
The Birth Control Pill is the 'Sacrament' of the New Age. People would rather give up their automobiles or computers or i-pods than their Pill. And the reason its simple: it enables them to continue living in the fantasy world in which sexual pleasure can be enjoyed apart from its otherwise natural effect of procreation. The natural end and essence of sexual intercourse (procreation) can now be interpreted as an 'accident' (Ooops! We got pregnant!). What Aristotle would call the 'accidental' by-product of sexual intercourse (the pleasure that animates it), can now be interpreted as its essence.
Once that separation is lodged in the collective consciousness, there's absolutely nothing seemingly 'unnatural' about homosexual sex, partnerships, or same-sex 'marriage.' Nor is there anything seemingly more 'natural' than scratching an itch, whether it involves sodomy or masturbation.
To return to the beginning, then: Why the outrage against anyone who questions the normalcy of gay sex? Because it threatens the whole new paradigm which is built on the fantasy that nature can be turned on its head. From THAT point of view, nothing is more ridiculous than the Church's condemnation of things like contraception or masturbation. St. Thomas Aquinas calls these things, along with homosexual sex, 'sins against nature,' ranking them (counter-intuitively for our culture) as worse than other sins like adultery or even rape. Why should something as seemingly innocuous to us as masturbation (scratching an itch) be classified as such an evil? Why should he go so far as to say that the only thing worse is beastiality - sex with animals?! "In every genus [of sin]," he says, "worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend" (Ibid..) It is a sin against nature.
(Continued ...)
(Continued ...)
... It treats a thing contrary to its intended use. It pours gasoline on the tomato plant and water into the gas tank.
But the itch! Ah, there's the rub (no pun intended). The problem is that those like "Spirit" simply assume that the itch must be scratched -- that this is good and natural and healthy. They assume it's unreasonable to counsel anyone otherwise. This is the assumption underlying the hue and cry of opposition against any abstinence programs in public schools. "They're going to have sex anyway, so let's just make sure they have 'safe sex'!"
But this is simply not true. Horny people don't think clearly; and a culture that has launched itself into a lifestyle that feeds its horny appetite on a constant diet of self-indulgence and pornography cannot hope to see things clearly. Constant self-indulgence, whether through masturbation or promiscuous sex, cultivates a predatory disposition and outlook in its participants. One sees other individuals as potential objects of sexual conquest, whether in the world of one's masterbatory fantasy life or in reality. One no longer sees these 'sexual objects' within their natural nexus of social relations as sons or daughters of loving parents, as wives or husbands of loving spouses, and so on. A veil of illusion is cast over reality.
To conclude with Grega's point, however, I would say that part of the responsibility for the sex scandal in the Catholic Church lies in the self-indulgent life-styles of so many lay Catholics themselves. We expect our priests to be celibate, but then act as if the rest of us have complete license to scratch our itch whenever we want. This is crass distortion. This is what led a Byzantine Catholic monk, Maximos Davies, to suggest that lay Catholics ought to cultivate a 'celibate' (as opposed to a sexually self-indulgent) life-style too. Be careful to note what he means: he's not saying that one shouldn't enjoy the pleasures of sex where they belong, but that a proper Catholic habit of sexual comportment will include natural periods of abstenance. Young people were regularly expected to be celibate before marriage up until a couple generations ago, and by-and-large they were. There is no reason why single adults cannot be continent as well. There is even no reason why married couples cannot be continent when nature and good reason calls for it. It certainly helps clarify the mind and stabilize one's disposition. One won't go around perpetually in a heightened state of horniness like a predatory rapist looking for some way to relieve himself, either through a partner or masturbatory material, because he will keep "custody of his eyes" and thoughts and comport himself so as to keep his head and heart pure.
Catholicism: It's not that this whole derisive horny generation has tried it and found it wanting. Rather, it found Catholicism demanding and abandoned it for the short term pleasures of self-indulgence. There is such sanity in Catholicism. What seems like such effort from the outside is really such little effort once embraced ("My yoke is easy, and my burden is light"). Christ's grace is boundless for those who submit their wills. And for those who try and fail, His mercy remains boundless for those who continue to repent. The only difference between a sinner and a saint, one confessor said, is that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying. And what a bargain for sanity, peace and clarity! Try it and see for yourself.
Spirit writes: 'LIVE AND LET LIVE.'
Is that the pastoral approach that Christ expects of those whom he has called to shepherd his flock?
I much prefer the way presented in Diary of a Country Priest. Bernanos' story depicts the moral agony of a parish priest who intervenes in a delicate and sexually charged family situation, without adopting a Lennon-esque cop-out.
PP says, "Constant self-indulgence, whether through masturbation or promiscuous sex, cultivates a predatory disposition and outlook in its participants. One sees other individuals as potential objects of sexual conquest, whether in the world one's masterbatory fantasy life or in reality."
This is the crux of the matter. This is the whole point around which the article is written. This is what the homosexual subculture seeks to deny. Praised be to Jesus that the author, Mr. Lee, sees this so clearly, even though it is after many years of sin. "There is more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner..." We can only pray that his testimony and that of others like him will change lives.
Spirit says, "I did not read the entire posting, but I did not notice what positive alternatives the author offers to gay men? He seems to believe that gay men are naturally promiscuous and that nothing can be done about this."
Actually, he did offer an alternative. And it's shocking. CHASTITY, and Christ-like CHARITY. Imagine that. Can one truely be happy following the Truth of Christ and the Church? News flash: That is the ONLY way to be happy.
Spirit says, "Showing a voraciously curious relative around Tokyo last night, I visited a gay bar with him -- surprise, surprise, everyhing completely normal! Friendly barman from Okinawa, group of Germans including one lady, the whole place just as gentlemanly and respectable as any other Japanese bar, and far more respectable than the vast redlight district of Kabuki-cho -- which an able propagandist could use for a damning report on the evils of heterosexuality!"
Am I just being overly pessimistic, or did it occur to anyone else that these words capture the, uh, "spirit" of Mr. Lee's experience with other pro-homosexual academics in (I use that word loosely) the Church?
Hi Folks,
Two months ago I sent this article to a homosexual friend who suffers with same-sex attraction. The article completely devastated him, for it perfectly resonated with his own experience in the "gay" community. He forwarded the article to a lawyer friend (a "gay" activist) who then called me and chewed me out for hurting my friend so deeply by sending him such a "hateful" article.
Before I had a chance to even make a defense, I was told that I was nothing but a homophobe, a closeted Broke-back mountain type whose marriage putatively failed due to my own repressed homosexuality.
http://studiositas.blogspot.com/...ot-to-
have.html
It is Father O' Leary who is guilty of propaganda, as anyone who has lived among homosexuals well knows. I spent over a decade in the performing arts, have dozens of homosexual friends, lived two years in San Francisco, etc. Robert Lee's article is spot on!
James
What provokes ire, rather, is our refusal to confer respectability upon sin. That's the heart of it. It's not enough that we love the sinner: those who accuse us of "homophobia" and warn us that we're not going to be "making any friends" with posts like these want us also to profess the respectability of sin.
This is true of ALL dissent from the faith. I was Cassandra in the 70s' - abortion was sold to us as the solution to poor, suffering, indigent girls raped by strangers, or starving to death single mothers, but I knew it was only a matter of time before we'd have abortion on demand, at any time, for any reason whatsoever.
But now we are moving in the precise direction that PP outlines: as with all sin (especially lust and violence), what satisfies at first fails to satisfy later, and so we demand more. The "more" in this case is the increasingly strident demand that we not simply give homosexuals civil rights, but we erase ANY even SLIGHT bias toward male-female families by changing our schoolbooks, having kindergarteners learn that this "lifestyle" is normal, etc. And with abortion, pro-abortionists are demanding that people who may oppose abortion (some pharmacists, for example) participate anyway, against their conscience (in the state of Connecticut, a legislative committee is pondering forcing Catholic hospitals to administer the morning after pill, while some in the European Union want to demand that all doctors perform abortions, or lose their jobs).
Finally, I read a column by a pro-abortion woman that comes from the Thought Police: she DEMANDS that women who have had abortions stop feeling sad or guilty, because it takes away from HER comfort zone!
We won;t confer respectability on sin, but even if we allow it, it's not enough for these sinners. They will not rest until everyone who disagrees is dragged down into the same sin with them..."UND YOU VILL ENCHOY IT!"
And please - enough with the "homophobia." I have absolutely no fear of homosexuals.
PP, would vaccines for STD's similarly disorder nature by removing a disincentive to intercourse?
I would like to thank "spirit of Vatican II" who, in sharing his thoughts, has demonstrated the truth of Ronald Lee's article.
PP - excellent article, thanks for posting it!
David says, "I would like to thank "spirit of Vatican II" who, in sharing his thoughts, has demonstrated the truth of Ronald Lee's article."
YES, that's just what I was thinking, though I couldn't find the right words to say it.
To Spirit's ruminations:
So much ipse dixit, so little time. It is illogical to blame the psychological and physiological sickness of homosexuals on the REPRESSION of their sexuality. That is certainly not born out by the statistics. The problems we see in US homosexual populations are also seen in even more "gay-friendly" countries.
And we need to stop playing word games with "monogamy". Homosexual "monogamy" is NOT the same as the traditional heterosexual concept of monogamy. Even Andrew Sullivan admits this and has suggested a "new definition".
1) Even in “monogamous” relationships, homosexuals regularly engage in serial infidelity and this is accepted as normal. (The Male Couple by David P. McWhirter and Andrew M Mattison)
2)According to the Journal of Sex Research, the average male homosexual has hundreds of partners in his lifetime
To the "gay is great, if we'll just let them be!" argument:
1) Homosexuals are 107% more likely to engage in criminal behavior (figures from the CDC and the peer-reviewed journal, Psychological Reports)
2) A study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology found that 75% of homosexuals have pursued psychological counseling of some kind, many for treatment of long-term depression. And most of these agreed that societal acceptance had little to do with their depression.
3)Homosexuality is not immutable. About 30% of those who enter treatment because they want to leave the lifestyle are successful in doing so. The rate of change is even higher for those who employ spiritual and psychological treatment. (I. Bieber, Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuality , 310. Nicolosi, Joseph, A. Dean byrd, Richard W. Potts, “Retrospective Self Reports of Changes in Homosexual Orientation 86, Psychological Reports 1071, 1083 (June 2000) )
Homosexual activists are not merely interested in “marriage”, there is a much more radical agenda. Homosexual writer and activist Michelangelo Signorile, the goal of homosexuals is: “To fight for same sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather, to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution The most subversive action lesbian and gay men can undertake is to transform the notion of “family” entirely.”
More on homosexual monogamy:
* A study of young Dutch homosexual men, published in the journal AIDS (May 2, 2003 p1029-103
by Dr. Maria Xiridou, gives yet another indication that homosexual men tend to not be monogamous, even when they are involved in long-term relationships. The Dutch study -- which focused on transmission of HIV -- found that men in homosexual relationships on average have eight partners a year outside those relationships (cited in a July 11, 2003 The Washington Times article; at http://www.washtimes.com/nationa...1254-3711r.htm)
.
* Two Harvard-trained gay men wrote a book giving a blueprint for using the mass media to normalize homosexual lifestyle (After the Ball; Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen; Doubleday, 1989). The book also acknowledges that "the cheating ratio of 'married' gay males, given enough time, approaches 100%...Many gay lovers, bowing to the inevitable, agree to an 'open relationship,' for which there are as many sets of ground rules as there are couples" (p330).
*In the 1994 Advocate study, the huge majority of gay couples say that sex outside the relationship is the most difficult problem they face -- 85% of the respondents in the study reported that this topic had caused their biggest fights. So even though 52% of the gay male couples were "monogamous," somehow 85% of gay male couples found sex outside of the relationship as a source of conflict. If this is right [I haven't yet been able to read the entire copy of this Advocate study, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding something as I am piecing together what I read], then again the gay community is using the term "monogamy" much differently than larger society does.
It seems that Spirit's answer to the moral, psychological and epidemiological danger posed by homosexuality is to affirm those with SSA in it.
If I am wrong, by all means, Spirit, correct me and tell us what your philosophy is on those with SSA. Perhaps you have previously expressed it, but I have not seen it.
He seems to think the REAL danger and harm is in treating Same Sex Attraction (SSA) as something less than desirable. If we'll just let them be who they are!
Lucifer couldn't have said it better himself!
And, really, that's a very significant part of the problem, isn't it? Homosexual activists and their supporters want much more than to just "let them be". They want to foist their peculiar values upon us and change society and they have gotten my attention precisely because they have been so successful, bogusly painting this as a "civil rights" issue. Preaching on about "Matthew Shepard" while ignoring the epidemic of "gay on gay" crime and remaining studiously mute on heinous crimes by homosexuals against heterosexuals....and the terrible human toll taken by the "gay" lifestyle.
I see nothing "gay" about it. These poor, misled people are suffering and in denial...and it is wrong for a Roman Catholic priest to sell them snake oil when a real oil of healing available to him.
For those who resist their disordered urges I have all of the sympathy and prayers in world. For those who wish to "call evil 'good'", I must resist firmly, for your good and the good of others who may fall into such diabolical disorientation.
Helping pertinacious understand his own rhetoric:
"Jews, in my experience, are generally notoriously fastidious about cleanliness, tidiness, and neatness. They often have exquisitely good aesthetic taste, which gives their establishments often a comely atmosphere of uncommon decency. The question is whether any of this is substantially more than a desparate and overcompensating attempt at getting past the self-contempt and self-disgust induced by their blindness to God.
"If you've read or seen Sophie's Choice, you will remember the fastidious attention given by officers at the Nazi death camps to preserving a distinct life of normalcy with their wives and children in their homes outside the camp walls, amidst well-cultivated flower beds, books, classical music and civility -- all gestures, I'm sure, whose authenticity they never quite succeeded in believing for themselves.
"Now my Jewish acquaintances won't like it that I'm making an analogy to Nazis here, but those who are close enough to know me as friends will understand that I'm NOT saying that they are Nazis, but making a simple and pointed analogy about the psychology of duplicity and self-deception (which is never quite successful). It's refreshing to see a liberated man come clean. It's not humanly possible, but as many of us have witnessed, with God our Father, all things are possible. Under His Mercy"
Augustine:
You wrote: "For those who resist their disordered urges I have all of the sympathy and prayers in world. For those who wish to "call evil 'good'", I must resist firmly, for your good and the good of others who may fall into such diabolical disorientation.
Augustine | 03.10.06 - 5:13 pm | # "
While you might wish a church that would call our SSA brothers and sisters diabolic - the Catholic Church would not be the one that would fulfill your desires.
There is a profound difference between intrinsically disordered and diabolically disoriented.
As far as I am concerned neither you nor anybody else in this little discussion box is in position to call fellow sinners either 'evil' or 'diabolic'.
There are certainly folks on this planet who have less calms about such distinctions - our friends in Saudi Arabia for example.
Secondly, what do you think you accomplish with your one-sided statistics? You must know that the internet is full of material from either side. And by the way full of heterosexual smud.
Do you want to proof that gays are no good as human beings - since they are 107% more likely (than whom?) to engage in criminal behavior - or as you cited in another thread lesbians tend to die in traffic accidents or by suicide at significant higher rate?
I am curious, where do you think you are going with this line of argument?
Gays are here to stay - they where here 2000 years ago they will be here in 2000 years - better get used to it.
Our church gives us clear advice to respect our brothers and sisters with SSA.
Do you really think that the increased tolerance that our free western societies certainly display in the last decades towards our gay brothers and sisters is all the result of "lobbying" from the gay community?
In my view this all has many very rationale reasons - for one it is in my opinion certainly related to the fact that our society continues to shift away from a strong emphasis on procreation(for all kinds of reasons). Society seems to think in recent decades that one/two to three kids (if any) are plenty. Plenty of married and unmarried heterosexuals even choose to have no kids.
In some ways one could unfortunatelly argue our society tends to reward the double income no kids folks.
Well most certainly all of a sudden many are not exactly in position to mess with all those that can not have children naturally because of SSA relationships for example.
Now we see more and more SSA couples with kids - either adopted or conceived naturally - what are we suppose to do?
As a church - as a society in your eyes?
I told you plenty of times what my conscience tells me. I consider myself generally pretty average and thus assume that we will see plenty of regular Catholics that certainly will welcome for starters all those that engage in loving committed relationships.
Yes, you will find a good number of homosexuals who perhaps after a initial sinfull period find that chastid
"Gays are here to stay - they where here 2000 years ago they will be here in 2000 years - better get used to it."
All kinds of sin (and I refer to gay ACTS) has been with us since the beginning, and will be til Christ returns. I am used to sin, but that doesn't mean I have to embrace it, rationalize it, celebrate it or anything else. When I commit sins, I go to confession. See Dreadnought's blog; see what a homosexual male is capable of. It is inspiring. http://johnheard.blogspot.com/
Anon:
Thanks for the interesting link.
I checked out that webside before, since it seems to keep popping up as a important link in the gay catholic context.
Personally, I am not holding my breath regarding Mr. Heard to stay chaste till the end of his time on this beautiful planet-
particular considering the way he seems to be toying with temptations.
But, certainly who could argue with his sincere intentions.
I honestly wish and hope he finds as good of a chaste friend and companion as Mr. Lee seem to have found.
From Vatican Spirit:
"Much homophobia may stem from married men who have had to repress their homosexual side in order to function as husbands and fathers. . "
Was waiting for that! I'm not talking about the pastoral and practical counsel that may inhere in such an observation - that some men should forego marriage (guess, in this age of ours, hetersexual). It's the window such an observation permits us to look through.
Homosexualism's tightly wound ideology requires the backdrop of heresy (from its point of view) and apostasy. Clinging to the Ancient One, and the constancy of His creation and revelation is the foulest of heresies. That God would refuse to process Himself alongside homosexualism's historicism is untenable.
As for apostates, there is nothing more dangerous than those, once picking up the faith, fall from its graces: once penetrating and tasting the brittle light of its spirituality pull the shade and spit the very taste of it back out. In Vatican Spirit's perfected coming kingdom, what should happen to those who apostate away from homosexuality?
The threat of married men, mounted and off to battle in the culture wars - my, my, my!
Steve G.
Grega wrote:
"I told you plenty of times what my conscience tells me. I consider myself generally pretty average and thus assume that we will see plenty of regular Catholics that certainly will welcome for starters all those that engage in loving committed relationships."
(Acknowledging that actual sexual acts may not be implied - nevertheless.)
Please go to Stanley Kurtz's series of articles over at National Review Online (go to author list). He also has an excellent article at Weekly Standard titled "Here Comes the Brides" (go to back issues).
Read something that truly tackles the issue of gay relationships - and then return and support your observation, if you can.
You won't be able to. The agenda out there is the complete dissolution of marriage - more concretely, the very notion of relationship stability.
To battle that agenda is the duty of every Catholic Christian. Not since the great trinitarian battles of the early church have we faced such a challenge. If we are not battling the Antichrist himself, we are certainly ranged against his scouts.
The practical side of Trinity requires, from mankind, the firm definition and stability of persons (in our case, always, sexed beings). Relationship is an empty notion without the 'poles' of defined, stable personhood staked in the ground of Creation.
The soil of Creation (restored in Chirst) is the Garden Path where we walk with God, participate in His trinitarian life.
We walk with God as sexed beings, we participate in His life as male and female. As He was the One who formed mankind from dust and rib, He also hewed the Path we must walk. To change the conditions of His just fellowship is to fall by the wayside, to take a detour. On such a broad way as that we only have ourselves to meet up with: we might as well sit in a brewing cannibal pot and eat ourselves for lunch.
"Homosexuality is a species of cannibalism."
Steve G.
Steve:
I have two small children and I rather prefer to engage and observe the many fine same sex families I come into contact with at my church, in my sons school and day care instead of reading some ideological stuff. Thank you very much.
Would you mind sharing how you are able to respect homosexuals as requested by the catholic church with your kind of dark opinion?
"Much homophobia may stem from married men who have had to repress their homosexual side in order to function as husbands and fathers. . "
"Was waiting for that! I'm not talking about the pastoral and practical counsel that may inhere in such an observation - that some men should forego marriage (guess, in this age of ours, hetersexual)."
OF COURSE some men, many men should forgo marriage. Indeed, in many church marriage annulment cases the husband is told that he cannot validly marry, often because he is exclusively homosexual. Bisexual men, however, often put aside their gay side, just as they might put aside attractions to other women. That is a loving decision to be respected.
"In Vatican Spirit's perfected coming kingdom, what should happen to those who apostate away from homosexuality?"
Pure fantasy, Steve. No one can apostasize from their sexuality -- the idea makes no sense. It is true that there are many basically or exclusively homosexual men who carry on make-believe heterosexual liaisons or even enter on marriage with a woman. Somerset Maugham claims that in these cases the woman always suffers. Homophobic societies produce such situations regularly, and that is one of the reasons why homophobia is actively fought by the Catholic Church (note the US Bishops' document Always our Children, and the relevant statements in the Catechism).
Please cite just one magisterial document that uses the nonword "homophobia."
"the many fine same sex families"
How Orwellian. "Same sex families"? What are those, exactly? Are they anything like "male females"? Two people of the same sex who live together and violate the sixth commandment with each other and expose children in their house to dysfunctional imitations of family and married life are nothing at all like what God calls a family.
"I have two small children and I rather prefer to engage and observe the many fine same sex families I come into contact with at my church, in my sons school and day care instead of reading some ideological stuff. Thank you very much."
In that case, why did you bother posting a comment here? Is somebody holding a gun to your head making your read Dr. Blosser's weblog?
Homosexuality is an act (condition) of apostasy against Creation its ordering of the ground where man meets God and each other. It certainly is not the only act - but there IS something fundamnetally apostate about homosexuality (and other sexual disorders) since we stand on that ground of meeting as sexual beings. (I have yet to meet a human being, though I have bumped into quite a few men and women!) The lawfulness of that origianl creation is something we dare not put aside without stepping outside true fellowship.
However we resolve the pastoral and social issues about homosexuality Creation's law can not be walked away from. In that regard, the true ordering of maleness must always stay within our sights as we bump along the road of pastoral care.
Homosexual ideologues refuse to come to terms with Genesis. There is a literalness about that book's THEOLOGY that is put aside at great risk of our thinking straight about God and man. Apostasy begins here - walking away from that story.
Grega,
1) Reread what I wrote. I didn't call those with SSA diabolical. I wrote that those who call evil "good" are suffering from a diabolical disorientation. ANYONE who cannot distinguish basic good from evil (or who refuses to) is suffering a diabolical disorientation, whether the issue is sodomy or not.
And what am I trying to prove by my statistics? I already explained that to you. As you reject the Church's authority, I am appealing to the natural law and evidence of it.
I notice you continually object to the statistics but you do not refute them. That is because they are from reputable sources, even some of them from very "gay-friendly" sources.
Sin, when embraced, inevitably leads to more sin and blindness. This is true for all men. The Scriptures speak plainly of this principle. And that is what these statistics help to prove. Homosexual activity is a sin. Period. And embracing it leads to more disorder and sin.
If you want to, you can find statistics on pornography and violence, infidelity, etc, or many other such sins (not just homosexual activity) that illustrate this reality.
2) NEXT: you write of "couples with SSA" who conceive children "naturally".
WHAT? THIS I would like to see explained.
3)In your comments expressing doubt about chaste homosexuals or those who have changed their orientation, you do not seem to recognize that our primary duty is to FIGHT honestly against sin. When we fail, there is mercy and forgiveness in Confession. The only things that are unforgivable are those things for which we fail to sincerely seek forgiveness.
And your approach is most unmerciful for it deceives men and keeps them from seeking God's forgiveness....telling them they are fine as they are and that they are free to embrace sin.
This is a monstrous thing to do, Grega, even if your intentions may be good.
Spirit:
I don't see the relevance of your point to PP (switching "Jew" for "homosexual"). His point was simply that fastidiousness, civility, etc. do not prove what you seemed to be suggesting. And then he used a time-honored, legitimate device to prove it: the extreme example.
If you had intended to prove that Jews were great, moral people by appealing to their fastidiousness and general civility, that would also be an unconvincing proof.
Now, in such a case it could be argued that references to Nazis and Jews in any proximity would be improper because of the deep and painful connection there. But I think it is a stretch to say the same applies to homosexuals. Certainly far more Catholics and Poles were killed than homosexuals and I would not object to such a rhetorical device in either of those cases....saying he was equating Catholics and Nazis or Poles and Nazis.
Spirit:
You write: "No one can apostasize from their sexuality -- the idea makes no sense. It is true that there are many basically or exclusively homosexual men who carry on make-believe heterosexual liaisons or even enter on marriage with a woman.END
Cite evidence, please.
Evidence to the contrary: About 30% of those who enter treatment because they want to leave the lifestyle are successful in doing so. The rate of change is even higher for those who employ spiritual and psychological treatment. (I. Bieber, Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuality , 310. Nicolosi, Joseph, A. Dean byrd, Richard W. Potts, “Retrospective Self Reports of Changes in Homosexual Orientation 86, Psychological Reports 1071, 1083 (June 2000) )
>>Somerset Maugham claims that in these cases the woman always suffers. END
Why do you believe Somerset Maugham is the definitive word on this? Is this the man you are referring to? If so, hardly the stuff of "Somerset has spoken, it is settled."
http://www.beezone.com/Ramana/
so...et_maugham.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Tal...omerset_Maugham
You continue: "Homophobic societies produce such situations regularly,END
Cite evidence please. Contrary evidence already provided showing these issues arrive even in "gay friendly" countries.
You continue: "and that is one of the reasons why homophobia is actively fought by the Catholic Church (note the US Bishops' document Always our Children, and the relevant statements in the Catechism). END
I think a little investigation of what you consider "homophobia" might be in order there, comparing it with the objective words in the CCC. (Although, I DO LOVE IT that you find yourself appealing to the Catholic Catechism! Only if you did likewise on everything! )
And references to "Always Our Children"...which version? The first one or the revision under Vatican pressure?
http://world.std.com/~courage/AOC2.htm
Perhaps a little reflection by someone like Father Harvey from Courage (genuinely helping those with SSA) would be helpful.
Even the errant "Dignity" wasn't happy with the revised version (as problematic as it was):
http://www.dignityusa.org/dateli...98/
aug98dl.html
ALWAYS OUR CHILDREN was NOT put out by the USCCB as a whole, it was written by a small group at the USCCB. It is not correct to treat it as the "teaching" of the American bishops.
Spirit,
I can only get somewhat of an idea of your views through your criticisms of certain things. It would really be helpful if you could please tell us your view of how things SHOULD be handled, in a positive, more thorough way in regard to:
1) Same Sex Marriage
2) Civil Unions
3) Pre-teens who THINK they may have SSA
4) Teens who THINK they may be have SSA
5) Anyone who engages in homosexual sodomy and thinks it's just fine and that others should as well.
6) Adoption of children by gay couples
If you've written anything explaining all of this previously, could you point me to it?
Thank you.
Augustine,
Great breakdown!
Maugham, himself homosexual, and a master psychologist as his abundant fiction shows, has quite a lot of authority for his remark, which in any case makes perfect sense on its own. Would you like to be a woman married to a gay man? I think not.
1) Same Sex Marriage
2) Civil Unions
I prefer to talk of "civil unions" rather than marriage. Note that the movement for this right (an analogous participation in what Pius XI called "the natural right to marry") is a movement toward heavy responsibility in the gay world. Many gay men are now rather like women in expecting their partners to "tie the knot" with all the social, legal, moral and financial burdens entailed. I see this as more contructive than frustrated loneliness or aimless promiscuity and I respect, like most educated Europeans, the moral and legal dignity and freedom of those who undertake it. Did you know that Muslims seeking to enter Europe may now be asked, "What would your reaction be if your son told you he was homosexual?" -- a question that might root out many American homophobes as well.
3) Pre-teens who THINK they may have SSA
4) Teens who THINK they may have SSA
The phrase "have SSA" is demeaning in that it equates the homosexual orientation with a disease. We do not call heterosexuality "having OSA", do we? This is a form of discrimination against gays, something the Church preaches against.
Of course the parents should reassure their kids that whatever their sexuality is the parents will understand and accept their children's personality, liberty and needs. A prepubescent kid should be told that it is too early to know and not to worry. Recently I spoke to a Japanese working class man who told his father, in tears, at age 19, that he was gay. His father was very understanding and told him not to worry. Contrary to stereotypes he has a close relation with his father, and they make trips together. The US Bishops noted with horror that American parents regularly disown their gay teenage children.
5) Anyone who engages in homosexual sodomy and thinks it's just fine and that others should as well.
The phrase "homosexual sodomy" is demeaning. I personally think that within a loving relationship between two people of the same sex there may be a morally respectable place for sexual expression. As to the wider range of unlicensed sexual practices, gay or straight, I cannot work up enthusiasm to be a moral crusader or policeman.
6) Adoption of children by gay couples.
In the absence of heterosexual couples, why not? I have not given any thought to this issue.
The only issues on which I have expressed a view (in very obscure places) are (1) that it is wrong to say the homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered; now it seems that many theologians are saying that the Church does not say this in any case; (2) that a development of doctrine is possible wherein gay relationships could be seen as analogically participating in the go
analogically participating in the goods of marriage -- fidelity, creativity, sacramentality. I wrote an article "The Spirit and the Flesh" in a Dublin mag on this more than twenty years ago.
I am not a moral theologian, and most of my thought about sex is connected rather with the study of literature, where the full variety of the sexual universe is on permanent display.
Coming back to the abortion issue, you said there is never a clash between mother's life and embryo's life. Yet you mentioned that an embryo could be transplanted to another womb, if need be. But this is surely very expensive (and how many prolifers are lining up to volunteer their wombs for the purpose?). So a poor mother whose life is threatened by a pregnancy has no alternative but to die?
Few things are more cruel (or foolish) to imply or bark in the face of a 13 year old that he is stuck with his homosexuality - that there isn't a way out.
13 year olds running around glorifying in their gayness, shoveling up to high heaven a bucket full of thanks - is a byproduct of godly men and women giving ground to homosexual agendists.
How in the hell does a 13 year old know he is so gifted with gayness unless he acts it out? He doesn't. It's a vicious cycle: applauding a kid's gayness as he jumps into bed with whomever - because it is the behavior of homosexuality that deep roots the disorder.
Deluded parents, school officials,and priests (glorying such behavior) are pushing the kids over the abyss. Talk about millstones about the neck.
Vatican Spirit wrote:
". . . it is wrong to say the homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered; now it seems that many theologians are saying that the Church does not say this in any case; (2) that a development of doctrine is possible wherein gay relationships could be seen as analogically participating in the go."
Come one, Fr. Joe, this is getting tiresome.
1) List those theologians? 2) 'development of doctrine' - Something's not going your way, so pull in poor Cardinal Newman and kidnap a useful concept (that is. by the way, grounded root and stalk in the councils of the Church) and pretzel twist it to suit the purposes of the homosexual agenda.
3) 'Stable homosexual relationship'- the same old slippery hope. I can tell you have yet to read Stanley Kurtz over at NRO, and his "Here Comes the Brides" piece at the Weekly Standard. Read Kurtz and then come back and defend your developed doctrine. Fear you will not be able to steady yourself on the slippery slope.
Vatician Spirit,
"Gay men are now rather like women in expecting their partners to "tie the knot" with all the social, legal, moral and financial burdens entailed. I see this as more contructive than frustrated loneliness or aimless promiscuity and I respect, like most educated Europeans, the moral and legal dignity and freedom of those who undertake it."
Missed this one. Europeans! Europeans! There is NOTHING about the 'develpoment' of gay marriage in Europe that supports your statement. Absolutely, nothing. And with much of Europe becomming Islamic within the next decade, your great European hope will be dead. Amsterdam withut a gay bar - picture it - one would have to jet to Tokyo for a nightcap.
Again (everyone) read Stanley Kurtz.
The good father wrote:
"I am not a moral theologian, and most of my thought about sex is connected rather with the study of literature, where the full variety of the sexual universe is on permanent display."
One can't advocate hand-holding hetersexual and homosexual marriages prancing down the road to the Inn of Happy Stable Bliss - and, then, step off the path and take a long dip in the slough of 'sexual variety' and 'a lifetime of sexualities', with an open handed acceptance of any tumble of bodies, mangled and stirred into whatever stew passion boils up.
Vatican Spirit wrote:
"The phrase "homosexual sodomy" is demeaning. I personally think that within a loving relationship between two people of the same sex there may be a morally respectable place for sexual expression. As to the wider range of unlicensed sexual practices, gay or straight, I cannot work up enthusiasm to be a moral crusader or policeman."
Unlike hetrosexual sex homosexual sex is driven to express itself - constantly. Without the constant act of it, doubt settles in. "Homosexual sodomy" is the right tag.
Mr. Golay, what kind of proof would you find admissible for Spirit's Europe claim?
I'm going to be a pest: read Stanley Kurtz's articles of Europe and gay marriage. National Review Online (look under authors); Weekly Standard, "Here comes the Brides" (search under recent issues).
Kurtz documents (by the loads) on the damage gay marriage has done to the very surviviabilty of the institution. What VS must do is to read his pieces and put up an argument against Kurtz's devastating critique. My bet is that Fr. Joe can't. I am willing to take a good punch if he can lay Stanley flat on the ground.
Between Islam's dominance, the dissolution of marriage, and its demographic crisis, Europe is a goner. Fr. Joe's presumed European model is flaming out to ash.
To the extent that homosexuality has become a cause, an ideology, a die for belief system, a dug up gnostic spirituality, it has joined the conspiracy against Christendom's European past and hope for its revivial.
I just read that and several of Kurtz's other articles on the topic, and I haven't really seen much that I find particularly compelling. Admittedly, I'm only really interested in this legal terms, rather than terms of morality. He seems to rely pretty heavily on the slippery slope argument, and the polyamory stuff seems a bit far fetched--I could see a couple entertaining cases coming out of it, but I have a difficult time envisioning it becoming a serious issue.
It seems to me that the gay marriage fight as it exists in moral terms is a red herring there to distract from the financial and legal problems associated with gay marriage, or the lack thereof.
Though it is unlikely to happen, some have suggested taking away the ability of clergy to form marriages of legal consequence, vesting that power only in governmental figures. Clergy, of course, could still function within their role in the Church, performing marriage ceremonies and whatnot, but the binding legal union would be done through the court. Perhaps such a plan would be "killing marriage," perhaps it would be setting marriage free. Under such a plan, two people (amorous or not) would be able to form a legally binding civil contract enabling the contracting parties to have standing in intestacy proceedings, probate, and public/private benefit plans.
Kurtz article did give me a good laugh though as it reminded me of a paper I wrote for Dr. Blosser in his survey course. Iirc, I appealed to natural law in an argument for polygyny just to annoy a feminist girl that sat next to me. Good times.
"How in the hell does a 13 year old know he is so gifted with gayness unless he acts it out?"
Actually, it is a common experience for a 13 year old to hear of homosexuality and to realize that he is himself homosexual. This is usually without any acting out but simply on the basis of two empirical facts: (a) a physical dislike of girls, which distinguishes him from his heterosexual classmates: (b) a sexual and affective attraction to boys (coming to the fore especially in sexual fantasies).
"applauding a kid's gayness as he jumps into bed with whomever - because it is the behavior of homosexuality that deep roots the disorder." Sure, who would disagree?
"Deluded parents, school officials,and priests (glorying such behavior) are pushing the kids over the abyss." Must be American parents; I have never met them.
Vatican Spirit wrote:
". . . it is wrong to say the homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered; now it seems that many theologians are saying that the Church does not say this in any case; (2) that a development of doctrine is possible wherein gay relationships could be seen as analogically participating in the go."
Come one, Fr. Joe, this is getting tiresome.
1) List those theologians? BRUCE WILLIAMS OP, TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE OP, Frs PATRICK HANNON and RAPHAEL GALLAGHER (The Furrow, Feb. 2006), Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor etc. 2) 'development of doctrine' - Something's not going your way, so pull in poor Cardinal Newman and kidnap a useful concept (that is. by the way, grounded root and stalk in the councils of the Church) and pretzel twist it to suit the purposes of the homosexual agenda.
BUT THERE HAS BEEN CLEAR DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL DOCTRINE ON MANY POINTS THROUGHOUT THE CHURCH'S HISTORY. THERE IS NOTHING CONTROVERSIAL ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DEVELOPMENT.
3) 'Stable homosexual relationship'- the same old slippery hope. MORAL THEOLOGY IS FULL OF SLIPPERY SLOPES. IF YOU TRY TO BANISH THEM YOU FALL INTO RIGORISM, A SLIPPERY SLOPE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.
I can tell you have yet to read Stanley Kurtz over at NRO, and his "Here Comes the Brides" piece at the Weekly Standard. Read Kurtz and then come back and defend your developed doctrine. Fear you will not be able to steady yourself on the slippery slope.IS KURTZ A RESPECTED MORAL THEOLOGIAN?
Some of the musings of Spirit's Somerset Maugham:
"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering...makes men petty and vindictive."
"There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."
"It is not a very pleasant thing to recognise that for the young you are no longer an equal. You belong to a different generation. For them your race is run. They can look up to you; they can admire you; but you're apart from them, and in the long run they will always find the companionship of persons of their own age more grateful than yours."
"I have not been afraid of excess: excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit."
“You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct”
"There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom of action”
"Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist."
"Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved."
"The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned."
"The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency."
"What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories."
William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Are these the musings of a man that ought to evoke admiration and ready acceptance from a Catholic?
I will admit that they certainly do seem in line with a man who decided to embrace homosexuality.
Spirit,
You write: Would you like to be a woman married to a gay man?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! I am a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
Seriously, though, I can't imagine a woman wanting to be married to a gay man. But you are assuming the very thing you cannot prove by your studious choice of words. I contend that such a woman is NOT marrying a "gay man", but a man who formerly acted upon same sex attractions.
I could ask, "would you like to be a woman married to a liar?" "to a sex addict" or "to an alcoholic...compulsive gambler...etc, etc."....The point is, all human beings suffer from disordered affections/inclinations. Some suffer more acutely than others. But the attachment is NOT hopeless. If you believe it is, then you have effectively lost faith in Christ's power to heal and transform.
Anecdotes to the contrary (including a man on this board) and statistics to the contrary have been given. Yet you seem to choose to ignore them because they do not fit your preconceptions or agenda.
Mr. Beckwith,
Religion (clergy) swept out from a culture's understanding of marriage?
The state given absolute control over the definition of marriage (in your use 'union) unhinged, decamped, and "set free" from common or natural law, tradtion, let alone revelation?
And, why (under what understanding) would the state restrict marriage (union) to two persons? Why two? Why still cling to that digit - as if doing so the hole in the dike is being plugged up by your poking finger: hoping against hope, and hell's high water, that the dike holds.
What's on the otherside of that dike? The content of Kurtz's argument - that's what.
Listen to yourself, Beckwith. Reread what and how you expressed yourself. You just fell into Stanley Kurtz's lap!
correction:
And, why (under what understanding) should the state restrict any such union to two persons? Why two? What's the point of clinging to that digit - as if doing so one's poking finger can plug up the hole in the dike:
Steve:
you do not have to go all the way to Holland to find the very people who would love polygamy.
Is that the best your side can do, to construct why gay civial union would lead to all kinds of freak arrangements?
I found the article actually rather very unconvincing along those lines - certainly the dutch heterosexual/bisexuals combo seem not exactly a gay civil union problem at all.
Sure you can be certain that amoung the heterosexual swingers here inthe US and worldwide the craziest morally absolutly despicable stuff is happening right now. You can furthermore be sure that the bulk of these people have not the faintest interest to enter any form of marriage whatsoever. As a matter of fact a good many of them probably hate the homosexuals just as passionatly as you seem to do.
If you want a hint who is however really very much intersted in poligamy
Go no further than to look into parctices of conservatives Mormons and Muslims.
As a matter of fact I am pretty certain the first ones (besides the usual societal freaks - likes these dutch folks described at length in your favorite article)that would jump at the opportunity of marriage amoung more than two persons would be religious conservatives. Can you imagine how great it would be for some to call xx proper devout religious conservative kids to be their own?
And yes the US will be catching on rather rapidly I fear.
http://www.denverpost.com/entert...ment/
ci_3535903
Spirit,
You write: "Many gay men are now rather like women in expecting their partners to "tie the knot" with all the social, legal, moral and financial burdens entailed. I see this as more contructive than frustrated loneliness or aimless promiscuity and I respect, like most educated Europeans, the moral and legal dignity and freedom of those who undertake it."END
Tell me if I understand you correctly: you see acceptance of "civil unions" as a constructive step toward helping those with same sex attractions to avoid worse behaviors/situations that come from loneliness and promiscuity? Is that accurate/a fair representation?
If that is genuinely your intent, I can appreciate it and the thought behind it. But I disagree with both your perception and your proposed solution.
First, your contention that "many" gay men want to tie the knot is based upon what evidence exactly? I see no evidence of this. I see mountains of evidence to the contrary. I also see continued evidence that what homosexual males (and even females albeit to a very lesser extent) call "monogamy" is NOT monogamy at all. The statistics show that the infidelity rate approaches 100% over time. "Staying together" despite serial infidelity is not true monogamy.
Second, I believe the evidence is clear that there is certainly an "environmental" aspect to same sex attraction and I believe making the environment very accepting and conducive to the pursuit of homosexual relations will enable or entice others into trying homosexual actions.
I already see this in American teens I speak and write to. It is now "cool" to try homosexual sex in certain circles. After seeing recent studies on the affects upon the brain of even LOOKING at pornography (let alone acting it out), it is very unwise to lower protective societal proscriptions. Young (and even old) brains are physiologically transformed by what they actually do and think. Teaching tolerance and understanding? Yes, absolutely. But acceptance of homosexual activity as "good". No. That goes too far and it directly contradicts clear Catholic teaching.
Spirit,
1) You write: The phrase "have SSA" is demeaning in that it equates the homosexual orientation with a disease. END
To say that one has SSA simply means that one has same sex attraction. There is nothing objectively demeaning in it. I am merely using shorthand. If you prefer, I will write it out from now on.
You continue: "We do not call heterosexuality "having OSA", do we?" END
You could and it wouldn't bother me a bit (truly). It's perfectly accurate. I have opposite sex attraction. No offense taken.
I prefer the use of SSA instead of "homosexual" or "gay" because I believe it is more neutral. One may have SSA and not act on it. One may have SSA and act on it. To me, "gay" and "homosexual" are more loaded terms (the former moreso than the latter). That's all.
You continue: "This is a form of discrimination against gays, something the Church preaches against.END
Not true. Remember, the Catholic Church clearly teaches that same sex acts (and hence attraction) are disordered. Traditional Catholic terminology would term it "sinful action" and "sinful inclination". "Disordered" is almost euphemistic in its attempt to be gentle. Would you prefer a return to more traditional language?
I believe what you really object to is the underlying Church teaching that homosexual actions and thoughts are wrong. And any language that even hints at that is unacceptable to you. True or not?
2) I agree it is wrong for parents to "disown" a child who has same sex attraction (although I have to wonder how you are so certain you know this Japanese man so well and have the ability to psychoanalyze his relationship with his father...regardless, there are other environmental considerations apart from the father, of course, in the development of same sex attraction)
3)You write: "The phrase "homosexual sodomy" is demeaning."
I use this more detailed language because you pummelled me when I did not differentiate sexually active homosexuals from those who are not. I meant EXACTLY what I wrote, Spirit. What would you say to a homosexual coming to you for advice, who says, "yes, I have anal sex and I think its great. And I plan to have lots more of it for the rest of my life. Is that okay?"
You continue: "I personally think that within a loving relationship between two people of the same sex there may be a morally respectable place for sexual expression."
a) Are you saying you agree that anal sex/oral sex between men is morally wrong? (Seriously...it looks like you are implying that in the part you wrote immediately preceding this quote, but I do not want to put words in your mouth). b) can you put some flesh on this for me? That's a pretty serious statement to just leave out there like that. I can conceive of no genuinely sexual expression between people of the same sex that would be morally good/licit. Please help me understand what this might entail.
4)On adoption by h
continued:
4)On adoption by homosexual couples, it seems you at least agree heterosexual couples should be given preference. While I believe there are difficult aspects to this question (i.e. orhpans in terrible circumstances), ultimately, I do agree with the Church's position on this issue (although it is not a dogmatic one, but rather a disciplinary one).
5) You write about the possible "sacramentality" of a union between people of the same sex. How exactly is one to consummate this sacrament? A husband and wife confirm, validate and renew their Sacramental Union every time they engage in the marital embrace. Two people of the same sex can never licitly fully give of themselves in this "language of the body". Such a union can only be a mockery of the true thing.....like a Protestant "communion service" vs. the Catholic Mass.
Regarding the abortion issue, I responded to you already on the article about South Dakotans. Probably better to keep that one down there and keep these issues up here, okay?
I merely gave one possible scenario with the hope of getting you to conceive of the possibility that there just might be creative ways to help someone without directly and intentionally killing another. It was certainly not intended as an exhaustive list.
I really wish you would put your creative, energetic mind in pursuit of ways to uphold Church teaching rather than ways to undermine/contradict it. I don't get it.
Were you one of those boys who flew right to the fence and out into the street when your mother said, "Now Joseph, please stay in the yard because it's dangerous outside the fence, you could get hit by a car."?
Of course I agree that the occasions on which a mother must give her life in order to bear a child are extremely rare, and of course I am happy that this is so. I was not discussing practicalities, merely pointing out that the rigorous position on abortion espoused by the papacy in the nineteenth century entailed a very harsh law -- attributed to God himself -- that when there is a choice between a mother's life and that of an embryo -- the mother's life must be sacrificed. You yourself clearly have trouble stomaching this draconian view, which means that your anti-abortionism is not as absolutist as at first appeared, and which puts you in the same camp as me -- so let's cool the rhetoric.
Augustine, your entire argument is premised on the ex-gay myth.
If your daughter married an alleged ex-gay, would you be happy about it?
On sacramentality, all I meant is that the love between two men can be an expression or reflection of the love of Christ for his Church. That is all Augustine means when he talks of the "sacramentum" aspect of marriage, which was not recognized as a sacrament in the ordinary sense until many centuries later. Also I said an ANALOGICAL PARTICIPATION in the goods of marriage -- heterosexual marriage is a fuller expression or reflection of the love of Christ for his Church.
I am not fixated on the mechanics of same-sex physical expression. I think we are in an age when people can use the language of sex to build loving relationships.
So I take it you want to continue the abortion discussion here, too?
1) I will repeat what I wrote in the South Dakotans article: you have changed your argumentation. I originally objected to a very practical, real argument you made when you said that it was possible that a woman could licitly have an abortion if the child was very young (14 days gestation). If you agree that is not permissible now, in this day and age, then great.
2) You have yet to provide evidence of "Church teaching" that a woman must "sacrifice" her life for the life of her pre-born child. I have requested this several times and you just repeat the claim without evidence.
3) I'm not sure what you mean by "cooling the rhetoric". I'm not heated. I think you have to admit that at least on this board you often look for exceptions and loopholes to clear Catholic teaching. That's all I was saying. I think its odd and disconcerting that a Roman Catholic priest spends so much time trying to find ways around clear Roman Catholic teaching.
4)We are not the same on this issue. What I reacted to was your characterization that the mother's life must be "sacrificed". Sacrifice entails the intentional, direct killing of one for the sake of another. The moral principle that prevents the killing of the innocent unborn child is the same principle that would prevent intentionally and directly killing the mother. If you can provide this evidence that the Church has officially taught that the mother must be "sacrificed", then we will have something to consider. But I am still waiting for that evidence.
1) Your assertion that "ex-gay" is a myth is gratuitous. There is such an individual on this very board. Do you intend to disrespect him? Statistical evidence has already been given that such people do exist...and it is not insignificant.
2) If my daughter married a man who once pursued same sex attractions, of course I would be concerned. But I would also be concerned if she married a recovering alcoholic, a recovering addictive gambler, a former sexual addict, a former thief, etc. etc. And yes, I would strongly advise her to be very careful, to make sure he was a man of firm faith in Christ, committed to rejecting his sinful inclinations/past.
3) Can you please give me anything at all on this supposed "sexual expression" between same sex couples that would be licit and analagous to the heterosexual marital embrace?
4) You write: "I think we are in an age when people can use the language of sex to build loving relationships."
What does that mean? Are you saying that homosexuals are just appropriating sexual language without meaning anything expressively sexual? I'm sorry, but that sounds like pop-psychobabblegobbledygook to me.
Is there some reason you keep refusing to speak plainly, rather than in obscure, vague terms?
Just spell it out, please. May they kiss sexually? May they touch one another with the intention to arouse sexually?
It seems you are playing a game with words here, Spirit. You are not concerned with sexual mechanics? There are NO sexual mechanics that are permissible in a homosexual context. And I challenge you to provide a concrete, real case to the contrary.
You write that heterosexual marriage is a "fuller expression" of Christ's love for His Church....as if homosexual marriage would still be an authentic, if less full, expression. Is that what you mean?
Augustine,
Thanks.
We tend to be too nice, giving ground to homosexual agendists they have no claim of staking.
One is no homophobe when he manly, knightly, chases off such squatters. We are duy bound.
Saying such is no violation of the admonition to offer care (and the prayer of delierance) to those who suffer this sin that so easily besets. The homosexual agendists are aggresive, militant, and destructive. The ideology (especially its spiritual covering) must be fought.
Decades ago when I was manning the corner of Hollywood and Vine (getting into one car, stepping out of another) I had the sense about me to send up one prayer - that one would stop, roll down the window and speak the offer my heart wanted, "You don't have to do this son".
Even more, you don't need to be this!
Never happened on the Blvd. But after many sins and deliverances later I vowed always to roll my window down.
In response to Mr. Golay, yes, I see and understand your (and Kurtz') point. As I mentioned earlier, I'm really more interested in this as a legal concept. Also, I'm not Catholic, and I'm a firm believer in the secular state, so take my opinions here with an appropriately large lump of salt. In my view, the plan I set forth would allow Catholics (and all other religious folk) to enjoy marriage according to their own tradition and doctrine. In this way, the separation of church and state affords more freedom to both the secular and the religious. The civil union/contract, as made by presumptively two people, would not affect that--it would be a purely legal/financial binding of parties. If, by statute, states decided to allow more than two people to enter such a contract those states, for a myriad of legal reasons, would need to provide very specific means of division of property and benefit eligibility. Really, this is a more traditionally conservative view on how gov't should be limited.
Without even bringing homosexuality into the discussion, there good cause why the Church always condemned anal intercourse, even within marriage: for both natural law reasons and how the consummation of marriage reflects mankind's image of God. Certain expressions of an act corrupts the expressive means that act needs to embody its truth in our relationships (both manward and Godward).
Regarding the intregal truth of sex (its Adam and Eve createdness), how does sex's truthfulness get exppressed in male to male anal intercourse,let alone male to male oral gential, oral to anal, male to male fondling and masturbation.
One gets the picture.
Part of sex's truthfulness is its care to image something other than itself. What image do all the above acts reflect? If it does not reflect that image faithfully, those acts are truely disordered.
Exactly Mr. Golay, there are good reasons why the Church has condemned these acts, but I fail to see the good reasons the State has.
Steve:
"We tend to be too nice, giving ground to homosexual agendists they have no claim of staking."
I do not think you are in danger of that. You certainly made yourself perfectly clear so far - which I do appreciate in so many ways (" How did the NOR add say it so concisely: We don't pussyfoot Around!")
While you might be burning some ground you are not giving any as far as I can tell.
Expect however that the future will be tough going for yourself if you indeed think you can call human beings 'cannibals '
Beckwith,
I believe there are good reasons for the State as well. At the very least, good reasons NOT to elevate it with official societal recognition and special benefits (if not to actively target those who pursue their same sex attractions).
It might be useful to recall the reasons why governments have an interest in marriage in the first place, whey they have favored it and protected it. The continued existecnce and health of any society is completely dependent upon the begetting and raising of children. And the nuclear family, based upon heterosexual union is the time-tested and honored way to do this.
Governments have a vested interest in keeping families together. While we ought not need studies to prove this, nonetheless they do prove that children raised without fathers or mothers suffer disproportionally from a myriad of problems....that also adversely affects society at large.
While I can see a potential positive about trying to regulate or improve the state of homosexual relationships for the state, I believe that is outweighed by the message it sends that homosexuality is something society approves of and considers positively...and the impact upon the rest of the population, not just the relatively small pool of those who wish to embrace their same sex attractions. Among other things, this elevation will inevitably lure others into the unhealthy behavior/lifestyle.
As I mentioned to Spirit, I have worked with many teens who now consider "gay sex" hip and cool. They try it, and some continue in it. The nature of sin is that when one engages in it, one becomes habituated, numb to it and we fall into its grasp.
The recent study on pornography and its physiological and bio-chemical effects upon the brain prove that even LOOKING at that which is perverse CHANGES human beings, quite literally. If this is true in regard to even looking, then it certainly even more true in regard to actually acting out.
Of course, there are also the epidemiological issues to consider as well. Homosexual sex carries with it a whole host of physical and psychological diseases which are detrimental to society at large. And the physical illness are spreading to non-homosexual populations through bi-sexuality and IV drug use, etc. This is also certainly something the a secular government would have legitimate interest in.
On balance, I believe the detrimental effects outweigh the possible positive effects of officially recognizing and elevating homosexual pairing.
This is very brief and insufficient, I know, but I hope it at least lays out the beginnings of some reasons against it.
Augustine, you present good arguments. Essentially, I believe our disagreement is to the weight given to State interest vs. individual rights--which then should be compared to the least intrusive legislative solution. Also, though it may seem a semantic difference, I'm not speaking of recognizing homosexuality, rather I suggest taking out all sexual consideration in the formation of a marriage-type contract. Under such a model, two equally chaste and thoughtful priests who have shared a long and classical friendship would be able to enjoy the financial, legal, and personal benefits of being able to form a civil union.
Beckwith,
Okay, that's a useful clarification, thank you. But it seems to me there is something that needs further consideration/explanation.
As you expressed that you are a true legislative conservative (I believe that's correct, yes?) ought there not be a compelling state interest in creating a new legal class with preferential treatment: those civilly united? I am not arguing that the law ought to discriminate against those in homosexual relationships, of course, but I don't see why the state would make laws to officially recognize this new class of relationship and then give it special status essentially equal to marriage.
It seems to me that civil unions basically ape marriage. If we open that door, where anyone and any relationship is treated equally by the state, I think that naturally undermines the intended effect upon all of them. If the state elevates unions of two, three or four, men and men, women and women, friends, business associates or whatever, then the protection and elevation loses its meaning, don't you think?
Put another way, if marriage can be anything (and civil unions as you seem to be defining them are simply secular marriage, really) then it is nothing. And so, elevating everything else is effectively the same as lowering marriage in the eyes of society/government....it is simply a matter of perspective, relativity.
And marriage is too important, and fragile these days, to further undermine it....to try social experimentation. If anything, I believe we ought to be doing things to strengthen and encourage it.
I know that was a bit rambling, but I'm trying different ways to communicate the idea.
Augustine,
I'm not sure that I can really be called a legislative conservative--I'm farther to the left, but with some distinct libertarian flavor.
Compelling state interest is not needed to form a new class of citizens. To avoid writing a term paper here, I again will clarify that I am not creating a new class as traditional families' rights would be materially unchanged. What my suggestion does, is vest the power to form certain types of contracts in all citizens, where before it was restricted to one narrower class of citizens.
I'm leary of continuing down the road of the polygamy angle as I think it is really a red herring. It would be quite easy to limit the civil contract to between two people and presumptively that is what would happen.
I understand the perspective/relativity aspect. I don't really buy it though (and I know these comparisons are trite) but that is essentially what happened in the civil rights mvt.
Certainly, from a Catholic perspective, marriage should be encouraged. From my perspective, stable personal, financial, and legal relationships should be encouraged, and that is my aim. As to the fragility of marriage, it seems that it would be rather strengthened by making a solely religious institution as that would set the Church free from governmental interference. Likewise, I don't really see the plan I suggested as social experimentation. I believe that experimentation came in the last few decades, and the results of the experimentation show in many of the problems that have been cited as existing in the homosexual community.
Anyhow, don't worry about rambling--I just rambled back, and it is all related to my rather novel solution.
Beckwith,
Who said the homosexual PERSON was a cannibal?
In our current culture (so far as it is managed and mangled by the elites) homosexuality has become a BELIEF SYSTEM. It is this that is cannibal-like: it has no outside confirming reference; boomerranging, it feeds upon itself.
Taking to homosexuality on a lark - you've seen it up close, Augustine. Like your patron you seem to preach (and pastor) right through it. There is something Manichaeism about homosexality's belief-system: denying man's truth-bearing body.
Final posting.
Praise be, Lord Jesus. From the corner of Hollywood and Vine to the reception of the theology of my wife's body. It's been a long (and delicious) journey.
I thought the Church taught that in a case where there is a choice between the mother's and the embryo's life, the embryo cannot be sacrificed and the mother must die (apart from ectopic pregnancies and cases of double effect). I am surprised to see myself challenged to provide evidence of this. Am I wrong?
That sex can be a language of love even between people of the same sex is what many such people say. Who are you to scoff at them and reduce their sexual lives to your own demeaning terms?
Pius XI: "Venerable Brethren, however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperiled in the performance of the duty allotted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: 'Thou shalt not kill.' The life of each is equally sacred, and no one has the power, not even the public authority, to destroy it. It is of no use to appeal to the right of taking away life for here it is a question of the innocent, whereas that right has regard only to the guilty; nor is there here question of defense by bloodshed against an unjust aggressor (for who would call an innocent child an unjust aggressor?); again there is no question here of what is called the 'law of extreme necessity' which could even extend to the direct killing of the innocent. Upright and skilful doctors strive most praiseworthily to guard and preserve the lives of both mother and child; on the contrary, those show themselves most unworthy of the noble medical profession who encompass the death of one or the other, through a pretense at practicing medicine or through motives of misguided pity."
Cf. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (196, Vatican Declaration on Abortion (1974); John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1993).
SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
DECLARATION ON PROCURED ABORTION 1974
14. Divine law and natural reason, therefore, exclude all right to the direct killing of an innocent man. However, if the reasons given to justify an abortion were always manifestly evil and valueless the problem would not be so dramatic. The gravity of the problem comes from the fact that in certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by denying abortion one endangers important values to which it is normal to attach great value, and which may sometimes even seem to have priority. We do not deny these very great difficulties. It may be a serious question of health, sometimes of life or death, for the mother; it may be the burden represented by an additional child, especially if there are good reasons to fear that the child will be abnormal or retarded; it may be the importance attributed in different classes of society to considerations of honor or dishonor, of loss of social standing, and so forth. We proclaim only that none of these reasons can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of another's life, even when that life is only beginning. With regard to the future unhappiness of the child, no one, not even the father or mother, can act as its substitute- even if it is still in the embryonic stage- to choose in the child's name, life or death. The child itself, when grown up, will never have the right to choose suicide; no more may his parents choose death for the child while it is not of an age to decide for itself. Life is too fundamental a value to be weighed against even very serious disadvantages.
The burst of synapse formation between 25 and 32 weeks gestation marks the period during which the brain is transformed from a collection of individual cells into a connected machine capable of carrying out human thought. Before the wiring up of the cortex, the fetus is simply incapable of feeling anything, including pain. Signals may be sent by the nerves, but there is simply nothing to receive them. They stop at the brain stem for the simple reason that there is nowhere else for them to go.
It seems then that the vast majority of abortions occur in a period in which the child, according to the most modern science, is a potential, not a real human being. Even very late abortions can be justified in the case of ectopic pregnancy or law of double effect.
These quotes are from an embryology textbook:
Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (or spermatozoon) from a male.
A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).
—The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology
"It seems then that the vast majority of abortions occur in a period in which the child, according to the most modern science, is a potential, not a real human being."
"Spirit," on this logic, a large percentage of my knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing freshman students would find themselves in grave danger, unless you can offer a clear rationale for why they should be viewed as more than "potential human beings."
Sorry, but these sorts of impressionistic arguments just don't cut it. A being of a certain kind that is organically on its way to realizing its full potential is still a being of that certain kind. It is not potentially a being of its kind. Hence, what can a fertilized human egg be other than a being of a human kind? It may not be able to think and talk like a Catholic dissident yet, but it is surely a "human" "being" in the literal sense of those words.
The discussion in this comment box has been a good one, I believe. It has been good to see Beckwith jump in with some good give & take, however much we may disagree at points.
I am especially grateful for the extended footwork done by Augustine in this thread. I'm ceaselessly amazed by the energy and time and even hard work individuals are willing to commit to a debate such as this. Thank you.
PP: I glad I had the time to give...which seems to be coming to a close for various reasons.
1) Regarding the potential life argument, you are correct and Spirit is wrong. I can provide (and actually did on a previous thread, I believe) a plethora of quotes from biologists, embryologists, etc. who say very clearly that human life begins at conception. This is not in scientific dispute. Spirit's argument essentially about sentience is a horrible one. It can easily be used to dehumanize people on life-support, those who are catatonic, etc. And I am disappointed and disturbed that he seems to have slipped even further down the slope of heterodoxy on this issue. Peter Singer of Princeton, meet Spirit.
2) Spirit's arguments about the life of the mother do not help his case. I asked for evidence that the mother's life must be "sacrificed", i.e. directly and purposely taken, for the sake of the unborn child. He provided no such evidence. In fact, his very first quote from HV actually proves almost precisely what I previously said:
"what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature."
As I said, the very thing that protects the unborn child from being "sacrificed" is exactly what protects the mother from being "sacrificed". They are innocent human beings and it is illicit to directly and intentionally kill either one.
3) Spirit's information is incorrect on the development of the child's brain and the possibility of perceiving pain. It is still somewhat disputed. However, as we have seen in England, it is clear that the perception of pain may be inferred MUCH earlier that originally thought, perhaps as early as 8 weeks: http://www.abortionfacts.com/onl...s?%20Show%20me!
4) Spirit does not understand double effect and the connection with ectopic pregnancy/abortion. The excision of the fallopian tube in order to save the mother is NOT an abortion. It is an action taken to save the mother which neither directly attacks the unborn child nor intentionally kills it.
Spirit, why do you insist on making such statements when you KNOW and have admitted that you do not know all that much in this area? You seem to strive to find a purported factoid that you believe helps your case and you run with it. Lord forbid that you should make a serious attempt to understand Church teaching and conform yourself to it by the use of reason!
Spirit writes:
"where there is a choice between the mother's and the embryo's life, the embryo cannot be sacrificed and the mother must die."
This is the kind of invalid, misleading rhetoric to which I referred. "The embryo cannot be sacrified and the mother must die." you pit them against each other like typical pro-aborts here. And you paint it as though the Church values the right to life of the unborn more than the born. That's nonsense. It's twisted and offensive, can you not see that?
Do you genuinely not understand the moral distinction between directly and purposely killing someone and enduring serious risk of death due to circumstance? Do you not understand that one may licitly take actions which indirectly and unintentionally bring about the death of an unborn child in order to save a mother's life?
I think you do.
Steve:
Please be assured of my prayers in your journey. You have my most profound respect for your efforts to radically follow Christ. Please pray for me and my family.
Augustine, I quoted Vatican documents. Of course they do not say that the embryo's life is of more value than the mother's, but they do appear to say that it is of equal value. This is in contrast to pre-Pius IX church teaching which did not regard abortion as homicidal. It seems that abortion up to a rather late stage is just that -- the abortion of a potential rather than the direct killing of an innocent human being as prolifers portray it.
If there is a clash between the mother's life and the embryo's survival, abortion absolutists say that under no circumstances (other than double effect cases or ectopic pregnancies) may the embryo be aborted. That also appears to be what the Church teaches. Your own embarrassment with this leads you to dance like an angel on the tip of a needle to find all sorts of errors in my wording. How would you yourself word the matter?
Beckwith:
I don't see a valid comparison between Civil Unions and the Civil Rights Movement in regard to the potential negative effects which are likely to occur (i.e. a relative devaluing of traditional marriage).
Also, you seem to see a rather bright line between religious and secular aims and effects. I do not see that they are so easily separated, especially on something as fundamental as marriage.
I don't see by what basis you draw a definitive, safe line at Polygamy. Once that door is opened, you are just an opinion on how far it should go. The difference between 2 and 3 can easily be argued to be less fundamental than the difference between man and woman.
Last, I don't see how this can be called anything but social experimentation, by definition, really. We are talking about creating a whole new, state-sanctioned and upheld class of relationship that is given beneficial rights and privileges.
Btw, of course I understand the double effect issue to which you refer. But I am pointing to another issue, as you well know -- the fact that where double effect does NOT apply the mother's life may not be saved at the cost of aborting the embryo. The Vatican would say that to practice abortion in order to save the mother's life is a case of false compassion.
Or perhaps you yourself are confused, and imagine that double effect always applies when the mother's life is endangered by a pregnancy?
Human life begins at conception is not in scientific dispute? If you mean that an individual human being exists at the moment of conception it might be said not to be in scientific dispute in the sense that no scientist believes it for a moment! Certainly the Church did not believe it, nor did Islam, until recent years (Islamic fundamentalist now teach this). The ONLY person who was a full human being at the moment of conception was Christ, according to Thomas Aquinas.
Spirit,
1) We've already covered this. Until recent times, we did not have the scientific understanding of the development and condition of the unborn child. As such, the Church has developed a clearer teaching in light of this additional information. This is genuine, organic development, as opposed to the kind of development you keep hoping for in terms of the validation of homosexual relationships.
2) You keep misusing the term abortion. Abortion is the direct, intentional killing of an unborn child. Taking action to save a mother's life that indirectly and unintentionally brings about the death of an unborn child IS NOT AN ABORTION. Do you not follow that?
3) With all due respect, the only embarrassment I am currently enduring is having a public debate with a Catholic priest in which he is taking a position against his own Church and spreading misinformation.
4) I would simply put it this way:
Both the mother and the unborn child are innocent human lives and as such, everything possible must be done to respect both lives. One may never purposely and directly take EITHER life. In the case of the mother, this is called "murder", in the case of the unborn child, it is also murder, but commonly called "abortion".
However, it IS morally permissible to consider saving actions taken for the sake of one or the other that may unintentionally and indirectly bring harm to the other, even death.
Happy to see that Pertinacious at last recognizes that the embryo is a POTENTIAL human being and allows the notion of potency, dynamis, the place it deserves in this debate.
"A being of a certain kind that is organically on its way to realizing its full potential is still a being of that certain kind." Yes, an acorn is an oak, in a sense. It is an oak in potency, dunamei.
"It is not potentially a being of its kind." I would say an acorn is potentially an oak. Why is that so controversial? An embryo is potentially a human being in the same sense.
"Hence, what can a fertilized human egg be other than a being of a human kind?" It can be a potential human being -- not yet endowed with an intelligent soul. The emergence of the soul, as in the processes of evolution, happens together with physical events (the synapses business resumed above).
"it is surely a "human" "being" in the literal sense of those words." Only in the sense that an acorn is literally an oak.
A few quotes on when human life begins, as these seem to have been forgotten (these could be multiplied, btw):
"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, M.D. 1967
"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.
"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School.
"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic.
At conception, everything that we are genetically has come to be. A newly conceived human is identical to a 90 year old man in this regard. The only difference is time. An independent life-force commences at conception that is only thwarted by accident, disease or murder. We call this process a life-time.
A sperm is "potential human life". An unfertilized egg is a "potential human life". They have no life-force spurring them on independently until they are united.
Until recent times, we did not have the scientific understanding of the development and condition of the unborn child. [Not quite -- embryology is an ancient science.] As such, the Church has developed a clearer teaching in light of this additional information. [But current information is strongly against the idea that the child is fully human at the moment of conception -- it may be the 19th century cult of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Virginal Conception of Christ, rather than modern science, that led the Church to insist so heavily that the just-conceived embryo is already a human being.]This is genuine, organic development, as opposed to the kind of development you keep hoping for in terms of the validation of homosexual relationships. [This judgment is rather difficult to substantiate -- surely if science is moving in the other direction now, church teaching may be expected to develop again?]
2) You keep misusing the term abortion. Abortion is the direct, intentional killing of an unborn child. [or of an embryo] Taking action to save a mother's life that indirectly and unintentionally brings about the death of an unborn child IS NOT AN ABORTION. [I agree, in the moral sense of abortion.] Do you not follow that? [I have never objected to that at all. This is a red herring.]
3) With all due respect, the only embarrassment I am currently enduring is having a public debate with a Catholic priest in which he is taking a position against his own Church and spreading misinformation.
[WHAT misinformation? It seems to me that it is you who are having trouble taking on board the teaching of the Vatican documents I quoted. They clearly state that a mother's life may NOT be saved by having recourse to abortion.
4) I would simply put it this way:
Both the mother and the unborn child are innocent human lives and as such, everything possible must be done to respect both lives. [of course] One may never purposely and directly take EITHER life. In the case of the mother, this is called "murder" [in earlier church teaching it was not even called homicide, much less murder; aborting a potential human being is NOT the same as killing an innocent human being], in the case of the unborn child, it is also murder, but commonly called "abortion".
However, it IS morally permissible to consider saving actions taken for the sake of one or the other that may unintentionally and indirectly bring harm to the other, even death.
[Of course, every Catholic schoolboy knows this. But nonetheless I stick to my point that the Church ALSO teaches that if a mother's life can be saved only by an abortion, even of a day-old embryo, the mother's life must be allowed to be lost.]
BTW, Spirit, do you intend to ever provide a case that demands the direct and intentionally murder of an unborn child in order to save the life of the mother.
Or is this to remain solely theoretical discussion without practical application?
Spirit, this is the kind of misuse of the term "abortion" to which I referred: You wrote:
"abortion absolutists say that under no circumstances (other than double effect cases or ectopic pregnancies) may the embryo be aborted."
This is NOT ABORTION at all. You seem to keep conflating these concepts. And that is what I was referring to.
Do you recognize the valid development of Church teaching or not? If you do, then why do you keep referring to teaching on the humanity of the unborn based upon inferior knowledge in the past as though this development in understanding is a major point for you? It isn't.
"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." The same is true of an acorn. But the individual identity of a just conceived embryo is very limited, in human terms, since it can split into two individuals or two can fuse into one. The embryo is an individuum (that is, an individual organism with a certain autonomous pre-personal identity) from about the 20th day, I understand.
"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Unfortunately for Professor Lejeune, this seems to be untenable. I agree that I had a neat beginning at conception, in the sense that the basic premises of my identity were laid down then. But I do not believe that I existed as an individual human being until ensoulment. The complete DNA may be present at conception (as I gather it is), but that is only the potential for a human being.
"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Just as an oak begins when the acorn takes root. That does not mean that the acorn is already the oak.
"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Life, yes, but not human life; rather life on the way to hominization, human life in potency.
"A newly conceived human is identical to a 90 year old man in this regard. The only difference is time." Nope, the difference is between potency and actuality, between acorn and oak.
"An independent life-force commences at conception that is only thwarted by accident, disease or murder. We call this process a life-time." Twinning of the embryo or fusion of two embryos in the first 14 days illustrates the limits of this "independence" -- it is not yet a sturdy individuum much less an individual soul.
A sperm is "potential human life". NO, a sperm is not human life in potency; nor are a sperm and an ovum separately human life in potency. You would not say that oxygen is potential water, nor even that hydrogen and oxygen separately are potential water.
" An unfertilized egg is a "potential human life"." NO, for the same reason.
Spirit, you write:
"But current information is strongly against the idea that the child is fully human at the moment of conception."
GIVE THE EVIDENCE, PLEASE. Enough ipse dixit. You admit you do not know much in this area, yet your hubris is monstrous.
Have you taken the time to discuss this issue in depth with leading Catholic bio-ethicists who are orthodox?
If not, why not? Why this propensity to elevate that which contradicts Church teaching and to denigrate and dismiss that which upholds it?
I pray to God you do not spread your personal musings and leanings anything further than this web site....this is bad enough.
The "inferior knowledge of the past" is not so inferior at all, as it now appears that late ensoulment is a fairly good approximation to late hominization of the embryo within the womb as seen in modern science.
The killing of the embryo in the case of ectopic pregnancies is commonly called abortion, as far as I know -- of course I did not describe it as abortion in the moral sense. Again, your semantic fussing suggests that you have no serious argument against the facts I am pointing out.
Augustine, did you not already agree that the embryo is not a human individual at conception, since it can twin or be fused up to 14 days later?
By the way, is it in fact church teaching that the human being is fully ensouled at the moment of conception? I understand the church to concede that the timing of ensoulment is obscure.
I am off to bed and will not be back for a while, at the very least. Ought we expect the usual? Several supremely confident...and errant...posts now that you are left alone?
What to do with you!
I will pray for your soul....and that others find themselves far from your influence. I love you, but you behave so wrecklessly and arrogantly, Fr. O'Leary....and every time you open your mouth with another heterodox word and mislead Christ's "little ones", that millstone becomes more and more tightly wrapped. Lord have mercy.
SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
DECLARATION ON PROCURED ABORTION 1974
14. In certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by denying abortion one endangers important values to which it is normal to attach great value, and which may sometimes even seem to have priority. We do not deny these very great difficulties. It may be a serious question of health, sometimes of life or DEATH, for the mother.
Here the VATICAN refers to the case that you see as purely theoretical with no practical bearing. But even if it were purely theoretical the moral issue would be clear as daylight. In the case of a clash between mother's life and embryo's life both must be treated as equally sacred, even if that means the mother will die.
NO.....no one agreed to that....did you not read Alphonsus? Do you not remember?
Good night!
Dei Verbum describes itself as a DOGMATIC Constitution, which suggests that its teachings have more than pastoral status.
"the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error teaches that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures" DV 11 -- this would seem to admit that Scripture can contain errors or inaccuracies that do not compromise the salvational truths communicated. The document on the Interpretation of Scripture in the Church admits even moral error due to the undeveloped state of reflection in ancient times (this is an attempt to come to terms with the scandalous wars of extermination glorified in the Pentateuch).
oops . wrong thread
Thanks for the reminder that I really know very little about these issues. However, I must admit that the discussion here has brought me to a new (provisional) opinion on the matter. I am now inclined to think that human life begins much later than the anti-abortion propaganda has led us to imagine. I deplore abortion as an act of death, but not as homicide or murder, for it is not that.
Alphonsus? Alphonsus Liguori had a very liberal outlook on abortion it seems (he being a moral theologian and all).
The other Alphonsus wrote:
twinning.. is thought to occur due to a weakened zona pellucida i.e a dysfunction... In twinning either the original embryo dies giving rise to two others (symmetric split) or a new embryo buds off a pre-existing one.
SO CLEARLY ALPHONSUS DOES NOT BELIEVE THE ORIGINAL EMBRYO IN THIS CASE IS THE HUMAN BEING THAT IS BORN.
"It becomes 2 souls either by dying - and giving rise to 2 new souls - OR one souls is present and gives rise to another (just as if I cloned a cell of mine I would remain me and have given rise to a new embryo which was genetically near identical but had his own unique soul). The fac that I have the potential to do that does not change how many souls I have!"
Augustine, can you make sense of this? How does it support the idea that the just conceived embryo is a human being?
Anyway, it seems increasingly obvious that hominization is a gradual process, and that the strongest that can be claimed is a passage from potency to actuality as in the case of the acorn and the oak.
"Abortion is not murder"
Thus saith Father Joseph "Gay Bar" O'Leary, pride of Hibernia!
New Catholic, it is indecent to joke about abortion. Apart from Da Rulz which bar personal insults.
Indecent??? Indecent is the name of a priest who defends that our smallest brothers and sisters and not human beings.
Indecent is the name of a priest who goes to "gay bars": http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8645666/
#823504
I found these, too:
When does human life begin?
1) "Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning of a human being." (Moore, Keith L., Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker, Inc., 1988, p.2.)
2) "Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity." (O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29).
3) "Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote). The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." (Carlson, Bruce M., Patten's Foundations of Embryology, 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p.3.)
4) "Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus." (Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146.)
*"The fertilized egg, now properly called an embryo, must make its way to the uterus." (Carlson, Bruce M., Human Embryology and Developmental Biology. St. Louis: Mosby, 1994, p.3).
Wes Grant, conception is the beginning of human life as the acorn is the beginning of the oak. None of your sources say more than this. You cannot say that the just fertilized ovum is already an individual human soul, since it can become twins or fuse with another zygote to become one individual with it.
New Cath, keep your vulgar insults for your own schismatic website, if you don't mind.
"Schismatic"?... Tradition annoys every heretic, especially when it means faithful adherence to the Bishop of Rome.
Vulgar is a priest who goes to "Gay Bars": http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8645666/
#823504
There is only one kind of priest who goes to "gay bars": exactly...
By the way, this bizarre revelation will always be here in Dr. Blosser's commentboxes: Joseph O'Leary, the priest who goes to "Gay bars".
Xavier spread the Gospel in the East.
O'Leary went to "Gay Bars".
New Cath, would you react in the same way if I said I hung out with Jews, with blacks? I have frequently pointed out that your homophobia (clearly on display here, n'est-ce pas?) is of the same cloth as antisemitism and racism.
I have not looked at your website lately, but the message that it seems to be broadcasting loud and clear is that Vatican II was a diabolical synod. Do you believe this? If so, how are you not schismatic?
Sometimes the ravings of rightist schismatics is quite amusing: "Lefebvre made some terrible mistakes, not the least of which was his participation in the Second Vatican Council. Every bishop and priest who entered that four-year diabolical debacle broke the sacred oath they had all taken, imposed by Saint Pius X: the Oath Against Modernism, in which they vowed to Almighty God to support wholeheartedly the admonitions of the Encyclicals Pascendi dominici gregis and Lamentabile sane. This is because it was clear from the beginning that it was an Ecumenical Council called for the wrong reason and controlled by the wrong people, who had their heretical way in all that counted by way of brutal chicanery and ambiguity."
" when Christ said the gates of Hell shall not prevail, his reference was, of course to the Church and not Peter. But . . . He did not say HOW that was to be accomplished. There is also His rhetorical question indicating that the visible Church someday likely will not anywhere be found (Mat); as well as St. Alfonse's vision that there would come a time when no Mass would be found on earth."
"As for "communion with the Pope," all the material I have encountered regarding the Antichrist maintains that his right-hand man will be a legitimate Pontiff. Are we then, were this the case, to be in communion with this one particular individual? All the popes since Vat II have been, to one extent or another, anti-Christ."
This sounds familiar. It was probably a comment in my blog -- I almost never censor and I leave the most absurd comments, as Dr. Blosser does here with you, because they are great signs of the dangers of heresy (your case) or apostasy.
So, regarding your analogy, do you believe a "gay bar" is akin, say, to a synagogue?... Is that your point?... A place where sodomites go to find partners for their promiscuity and the Jewish people are somehow analogous?...
I guess you go to "gay bars" to spread the Gospel and call sinners to repentance and salvation, right, Father? Yeap, right...
The gay bar to which I referred is a perfectly innocent spot, where men and some women sing karaoke, chiefly. I suppose any bar can be a place where people pick up other people for casual sex -- on that front I could be impugned for dining at the Irish pub in Shinjuku, which is quite cruisy heterosexually. It is blatant prejudice that classified gay bars in the way you do. Of course, Japanese bars of any kind are probably more respectable than American ones. Anyway, your ad homs are quite in conflict with Da Rulz. Instead of waxing indignant at me you might at least argue with the extreme schismatics who have flocked to your website.
And yes, gays are analogous to Jews -- both are human beings, worthy of respect, against home virulent prejudice exists, which in both cases is explicitly condemned by the Catholic Church.
against whom, I mean
What life would do Catholics, who have it all sewn up in their own minds, offers their gay sons or daughters?
You shall not congregate with other gays.
You shall not live with another person.
You shall not have any sexual life.
You shall accept that your sexuality is disordered and that you are not made according to God's plan.
You shall not ask questions.
Sounds pretty barren.
I read the following letter, nodding agreement, and then I realized to my horror that the text being discussed is a Vatican document, possibly penned by the present Holy Father:
14. The "sexual orientation" of a person is not comparable to race, sex, age, etc. also for another reason than that given above which warrants attention. An individual's sexual orientation is generally not known to others unless he publicly identifies himself as having this orientation or unless some overt behavior manifests it. As a rule, the majority of homosexually oriented persons who seek to lead chaste lives do not publicize their sexual orientation. Hence the problem of discrimination in terms of employment, housing, etc., does not usually arise.
This simply is not the case.
Just ask the gay boy who is repeatedly beaten up and called the "F" word at school-- long before he has done anything sexual with anyone else. "Not dating girls? Not interested? Must be a f... Let's beat him up. "
Trust me on this - I know.
Or ask the soldier whose commanding officer called her a "d*ke" only because she doesn't seem very feminine to him. And the harrassment is severe enough that she finally admits she is a Lesbian and is dismissed from the Military.
Try as some people might to deny it, gay people face all sorts of societal stigma, whether they are "chaste" or not, and even if they are securely "in the closet".
Parents often figure out their kids are gay, years before they even reach puberty. So do peers, teachers, even neighbors. "Chaste" or not, gay people face all sorts of dangers from a hostile society.
And even if some gay people could hide who they are, that does not mean that they *should* hide who they are.
One of the really great things about forums like this is that it gives people who would otherwise not know a glimpse into other people's worlds - it gives them a sense of just how difficult it is to be gay in a hostile society.
http://www.dignitycanada.org/rights.html
This gives the text of the Vatican document -- I had forgotten quite how odious and offensive Ratzinger can be.
gotta love this boy -- and his dad:
http://tullysatre.livejournal.co...l.com/
5891.html
Spirit writes: "And yes, gays are analogous to Jews -- both are human beings, worthy of respect, against home virulent prejudice exists, which in both cases is explicitly condemned by the Catholic Church."
No, Jews and "gays" are not exactly the same. There is nothing intrinsically disordered about being a Jew. There is nothing gravely immoral about doing what flows from their Jewishness. Conversely, same sex attraction is disordered and those with same sex attraction who act upon that attraction, engage in sin.
I am still interested to see a real case that would demand the direct, intentional killing of a pre-14 day old unborn child in order to save the life of its mother. Remember, a good part of your hurdle will be the remoteness of the threat to the mother's life at this early stage, perhaps somewhat analagous to just war theory.
And also remember, it must be during this time as you have only questioned the human status of VERY young pre-borns....unless you are now expanding to even older children now?
Also, I thought W.G.'s citations were helpful. And the sperm-ovum as potential life comments were intended to be viewed in the correct context. After coitus, the sperm and egg are in circumstances that make them "potential" human life. The actual results will determine whether that potential is realized or not, of course. However, once joined, there is no question that a new human life, with its own complete human DNA and its own life force that pushes its own development, exists. It is not "potential human life" at this point, it IS human life. It can be no other kind of life. Pigs are not born of humans.
As to ensoulment, you never answered this question: if one is hunting deer, and one sees that which may either be a deer or a human in the distance, may one purposely and directly try to kill it while still unsure?
What if it is a quail in the distance?
I am agnostic about the moment of ensoulment (achieved hominization) but I find plausible the idea that it corresponds with the commencement of brain activity -- late in pregnancy.
No, Jews and "gays" are not exactly the same. There is nothing intrinsically disordered about being a Jew. [You would not have said this fifty years ago!] There is nothing gravely immoral about doing what flows from their Jewishness. [Such as denying the divinity of the Savior?] Conversely, same sex attraction is disordered [not the way theologians are now "interpreting" Ratzinger's statements to this effect -- statements that put the Church in the camp of Islamicist homophobes, Nazis, pseudo-psychoanalysts like Bergler and Socarides, and other embarrassing companions] and those with same sex attraction who act upon that attraction, engage in sin.
[even if the action is just a chaste kiss or hug?]
Here is the HOMOPHOBIC HATRED you have failed to distance yourselves from: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9K-wEUCCvE0
Isn't it interesting how much this homophobe drools over the prospect of sodomizing his victim after killing him??
Wow, well written and with the ring of truth in every word. Too long? I couldn't stop reading.
Thanks for the good read and the bucket of clear, cold spring water from the well of Truth.
Mary, reflect well and judge with right judgment.
We in Europe do not believe that "the homosexual rights movement is rotten to the core" (to take only one of the false statements this piece contains). We have learned to respect gay rights as human rights and to offer gay couples the possibility of celebrating their union in full public view. Today's Irish Times shows the Irish Prime Minister with leadesr of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, and Outhous, a transexual support group (see www.ireland.com). Such humanity is expected of politicians all across Europe. (We are not ruled by fundamentalist nannies who believe in Armageddon and rip off our money to make nuclear bombs and conduct illegal wars!)
Surely homophobia isn't wrong - merely silly. Why would we fear homosexuals who practice their arcane arts [i.e., sodomites]? The people who coined the term some years ago assume that only those who fear homosexuals could possibly oppose the wholesale remaking of society. What they have done, rather, is misconstrue what a word means. PHOBIA is understood to mean FEAR OF, usually irrational fear. We are right to be afraid of fire, drowning, terrorists and similar threats, however remote an individual occurance may be. I only fear homosexuals [i.e., sodomites] for irreparable damage they are wreaking on our society. It will be left to those of us who survive (outlive) this crazy age to pick up the pieces and carry on as bravely as grace allows.
Spirit writes:
"I am agnostic about the moment of ensoulment (achieved hominization) but I find plausible the idea that it corresponds with the commencement of brain activity -- late in pregnancy."
Brain activity can be measured quite early on, before any surgical abortions are performed (40 days gestation or earlier). Brain activity does not develop "late in pregnancy."
Spirit continues:
>>No, Jews and "gays" are not exactly the same. There is nothing intrinsically disordered about being a Jew. [You would not have said this fifty years ago!]>>
Well, that is true. As I wasn't born I would not have said it!
Spirit cont'd: >>There is nothing gravely immoral about doing what flows from their Jewishness. [Such as denying the divinity of the Savior?]>>
LOL. Do you know, when I wrote that, I expected that was exactly what you'd say. We're getting rather predictable, I think! Before you know it, they'll be calling us an old couple (don't get me started!) You do know there are Jews who believe Y'shua ha Moshiac, right?
Spirit: >> and those with same sex attraction who act upon that attraction, engage in sin.
[even if the action is just a chaste kiss or hug?]>>
Spirit, what exactly do you mean by "a chaste kiss or hug"? If it has NO sexual aspect or intention to it, then it cannot correctly be called a "homoSEXUAL expression" (OR a "heteroSEXUAL expression" for that matter). It would be a NON-sexual expression of affection given by someone who HAPPENED to have same sex attractions. In such a case, of course it would not be sinful.
If the kiss or hug had any sexual element to it, then it would be sinful to varying degrees (depending upon the nature of the kiss, length, etc.).
There is NO true sexual expression that is licit between people of the same gender, period.
Fr.
My parents live in Ireland so I am well acquainted with what Ireland has to offer: socialism, increasing permissiveness, breakdown of the family, illegitimate births, a welfare state that discourages adults from working, medical care that is a disgrace, corrupt politicians on every level. They are quite looking forward to returning to the greatest country in the world. Maybe you should try to get out of Ireland every once in a while and become less ethnocentric and xenophobic.
You have nothing to fear from the U.S. as your American immigrants have bankrolled Ireland for years.
And you are welcome.
Mary
'Here is the HOMOPHOBIC HATRED you have failed to distance yourselves from: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9K-wEUCCvE0
Spirit of Vatican II'
Father O'Leary, I won't bother to click the link again, as I'm sure it is more of Iron Shiek. His behavior is absolutely sinful. How much more distancing do you want???
On a different issue, will you care to distance yourself from Peter Singer, who endorses infanticide?
Mary, Father O'Leary has gotten out of Ireland, and now haunts gay bars in Tokyo. Not that there's anything wrong with that!!!
Couldn't resist the Seinfeld allusion.
I suggest you guys check no. 1 of Da Rulz.
As to the supposed degeneration of Ireland, I'd like to quote a few lines attributed to a fictional priest by Irish-American novelist Mary Gordon: "I'm not sorry it broke up. It wasn't really the truth about life. So many lies to keep it up. So much left out. They insisted that it be left out. It's better now. More truthful. I'm very hopeful about the way things are."
The Irish are becoming a truth-telling race who put America to shame. As to IRA terrorism, guess who kept it going with huge financial donations?
The embryo must be respected as a person even before brain activity (consciousness), but it is quite possible that "ensoulment" occurs only with the emergence of consciousness in late pregnancy (long after most abortions are performed).
'The embryo must be respected as a person even before brain activity (consciousness), but it is quite possible that "ensoulment" occurs only with the emergence of consciousness in late pregnancy (long after most abortions are performed).'
AMEN to the first part of your comment, Fr. O'Leary! As to the second part, present Church teaching on abortion does not focus on "ensoulment", but on personhood. This is truly a development of Catholic moral doctrine. The basic teaching remains the same, yet the reasoning in support of the teaching has developed based on new information.
Personhood, I take it, is a moral or legal rather than strictly ontological category. Present Catholic teaching admits agnosticism about ensoulment -- that is, about the moment at which an embryo becomes a human individual, a person in the ontological sense, but insists that from the beginning of biological existence the embryo must be surrounded with the respect due a person (in potency rather than in act, presumably).
Given that abortion is a moral and legal issue, and not an ontological issue, I'll say AMEN again to Spirit's analysis.
http://www.nationalcatholicrepor...org/word/
#three
Here Radcliffe speaks with a Christian voice.
fascinating thread ... there are clearly lots of closet (and not so hidden) homophobes who read and contribute to this blog, and Blosser with his false airs of academe and monumental ego is, as always, their cheerleader in chief.
Lovehandles, don't just call names. Anyone can call people names. That's puerile. If the thread is so fascinating, and you actually have something interesting to say about it, then say something about it.
Would we expect anything else from lovehandles?
To borrow an idea from Fr. O'Leary:
what exactly is homophobia? I don't deny the existence of such a thing, but, being a skilled and learned and well read theologian, I'm not at all sure what the term means. Perhaps we should ask the Early Church what it means? Perhaps we should allow authentic homophobes to dialogue with the Church? Perhaps we should be more open to the witness of homophobes? How dare lovehandles pontificate on such a topic when all NT scholars disagree on it?
homophobia: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals
(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
Evolutionary origins of homophobia are suggested in http://uk.gay.com/headlines/8588
But of course, you are right -- "homophobia" is not easy to define and it is a word, like many others, whose meaning is destined to change with time, or which may go out of use. Exactly the same is true of the word "sacrifice".
Why should we accept Merriam Webster -- or anyone else, for that matter, since the historical-critical method and a good dose of Crossan can not be used to substantiate it!
The suggestion of a comparable ephemerality between the word "homophobia" and the word "sacrifice" is the most absurd thing that I have so far seen on this blog.
All words change. There is no single word for sacrifice in the Old Testament, but a variety of expressions for different kinds of rituals. In the New Testament the death of Christ is presented in terms of "sacrifice" (thysia) sometimes. "In the Christology of Paul the figurative concept of sacrifice is no more than a help towards the understanding of the basic saving fact of the death of Christ" (TDNT III 185). Hebrews makes a qualitative distinction between Christ's saving death and Old Testament sacrifice. "Sacrifice is brought to an end in Him" (ibid., a topic much developed by Rene Girard later).
In short, giving the word "sacrifice" a sort of massive stability that other words do not have could create a verbal block against apprehending the paschal mystery in its open dynamism, and would freeze our reading of Scripture in a 16th century polemic. (Note, by the way, that the Council of Trent refrained from giving a definition of "sacrifice" just as it refrained from entering theological controvery about the meaning of "transubstantiation".)
I would simply contend that the word "sacrifice" has more stability than the word "homophobe".
Sacrifice is a word. Homophobia is what my Medieval literature professor would call a "formation savante" -- a back formation that has no organic development in the history of the language.
"sacrifice" , the Latin word, was a formation savante too -- sacrificium has no roots in Greek or Hebrew has it?
I don't know the origin past Latin of the word "sacrifice" -- but homophobia is as contrived a word as the phenomenon it purports to describe.
Homophobia certain points to something real enough, as the slaughter of gays by the inquisition, Hitler, Stalin testifies, as does as the ongoing murder and persecution of gays in many countries today. It is at least as entrenched a reality as racism or anti-Semitism -- both of which words are also denounced as newfangled inventions to which nothing real corresponds.
Father O'Leary:
Not to belabor the point, but -phobia means "FEAR of" something. He who is claustrophobic avoids tight enclosed spaces. He who is "homophobic" surely has a fear of people we will, for the moment, call homosexuals. THe difference is this: You will not lambaste someone for claustrophobia because of his closed-mindedness. If I fear the tremendous damage sodomites do to their own souls and to the fabric of society, this is merely because they do evil things to both. Some actions are simply morally evil.
No, Father, your real point in all this nonsense is to deprive the rest of us of any vocabulary or grammar with which to raise objections to the hateful nonsense perpetrated by sodomites and supported by their willing stooges in the media.
And again I urge that words like "sodomites" are laden with hate, a hate rooted in fear. They are toxic words.
Reading the life of Rudolf Nureyev, sublime dancer, I would have to agree that his extreme promiscuity was decadent. But you can make that criticism without indulging in hate-laden words that effectively taint a person's god-given sexuality rather than merely offering a rational critique of irresponsible behavior.
Isn't it amazing? Fundamentalism goes with Terrorism! How many people should hate each other to make you understand that you are wrong? What "god" of mercy inspires you to write and teach so many hatred? I do not believe in your god... but I pray for your conversion.
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