Speaking of homosexuality . . .

People think that because I’m Catholic I must be a gay-bashing homophobe. Not so. Whenever anyone accuses me of that I ask the accuser if he and his wife have ever gone on a weekend trip to the mountains with another couple—and the other couple happened to be lesbians? Well, my wife and I have (and please, no speculation on kinky group sex. Nothing remotely like that happened. Whatever the lesbians did in their own bedroom was something I didn’t ask about.) I then submit that such a trip isn’t something a gay-bashing homophobe would be likely to do.

True, that trip was before I was Catholic, and today, before going on it, I would have to discern whether such a trip would be seen as condoning of a lesbian lifestyle, because that lifestyle is something the Church declares to be a sin. There are arguments on both sides, and I won’t go over them right now, but consider: On the one hand, I couldn’t attend a “wedding” of these friends (they’ve long since broken up anyway). That’s pretty clear. But on the other, am I supposed never to speak to them again because (Horrors! Ick!) they happen to be gay? Where, exactly, is the line? (And for those of you who would say never to speak to them again—what about all your straight friends that are undoubtedly sicko, un-American, pinko commie perverts within their own marital bedrooms? Given the influences of the sexual revolution, you know that some of them must be doing unnatural, unspeakable things in there, right? Seems to me like you’d better just ditch all of your friends to be on the safe side.)

As understood and taught for two thousand years by the Church, sexuality is bound up both in terms of unity and fertility. If God is love, and God created the heavens and the earth, then love created the heavens and the earth. The Church has always understood this creativity to be the creation of actual, biological life. That’s why sex must therefore always be open to the creation of new life; intentionally contracepting or separating sex from reproduction, by use of a device, a drug, a sexual practice, or a misuse of NFP/FAM is a perverting of what sexuality is designed to be from the ground up.

It used to be that all Christian traditions believed and taught this. Not until the Lambeth Conference of the 1930s did the Anglicans carefully say that there might be some very few circumstances when contraception was allowed. That was the crack in the dike. Within a generation, every other Christian tradition except Catholicism had abandoned this constant teaching of Christendom. Today only Catholicism agrees with two thousand years of Christian history on this point. Individuals in other Christian communities may agree, but not because their doctrine tells them they must.

So here’s the problem with homosexuality. By its very nature, by virtue of the facts of biology and anatomy, it is not fertile. And no, technological or legal replacement of the natural biological function isn’t sufficient. So the Church lacks the authority to say that homosexual relationships are acceptable, or that gay “marriage” is in fact a marriage.

But the thing that most people—including a lot of Catholics—forget is to hate the sin but love the sinner. Can you imagine how hard it must be to have a strong same-sex attraction—just as strong as your own heterosexual sex drive—and never be able to licitly satisfy it, in any way, for your whole life? Can you imagine what torture that must be? Could you manage that, my friend, even as a heterosexual? Truly, if someone achieves that goal then it’s massive time off from Purgatory—shoot, a complete bypassing of Purgatory. And if someone isn’t able to manage it but gives in, perhaps even repeatedly—well, go ahead. Cast that first stone. Make it a good big one. Go for the kill shot. You know you want to. He’s just a homo, right?


The fact is that the Church can never accept homosexual behavior. It’s another fact that if someone is dealing with same-sex attraction, he deserves every bit of friendship and support we can give him within the context of the previous fact. If he is able to deal with his homosexuality only in an imperfect way, we don't just ditch him for that reason (or else, get that first stone ready). And if he’s a flat-out apologist and advocate for gay rights and a Catholic basher? Well, in that case, treat him as you would any other rage-filled irrational anti-Catholic, however that may be. Ignore him, reason with him, or issue a corrective. But there’s no reason to get into the gutter with any such people.