i've been hearing recently that around 60-70% of practising Catholic youth don't understand why homosexual unions are wrong.
i have never heard a homosexual argument that shows a cogent, coherent understanding of WHY the Church teaches what it does. mostly we on this side hear what i heard described today as temper tantrums: how dare you judge me and how dare you say that i am wrong when it's a private decision between two consenting adults i shall come and spray paint obsenities on your walls! sort of thing.
so, for both sides, this is what i have to say. here is my explanation on why our Church teaches that homosexuality is not normal, not healthy, and not moral. take it or leave it, as you will. my challenge for both sides is to ACT like the adults you claim to be, rather than slinging insults and throwing hatred (yes, that means you, too, Left-leaners. because, just so you know, from "our" side y'all frequently look like a bunch of angry, bitter, irrational, very wounded people who cannot argue without insulting.)
as we believe . . . sexuality is at the very heart of human identity. it is not a "feeling" or even an "urge": it is one of the places where soul and body meet. one thing that has broken down since the so-called "Age of Enlightenment" and the protestant revolution is the understanding--not the "belief", but the understanding--that we are a whole, entire, integrated being. we are NOT a body driven by a soul, not a "ghost in a machine", not a spirit simply inhabiting this clumsy, crude, beautiful material world. "her soul shines through," we say. how, if it is not connected to the body? our bodies are how we act in the world, our bodies that, when used properly, work in union with the will, our hearts, our minds, our desires. how else would our emotional health be able to affect our bodies? emotions are not physical things, although they have physical components. neither are they just spiritual things, disembodied impressions, for they do affect the material world. even plants grow differently when in loving, harmonious homes than when in angry, unhappy homes. and neither are our selves, that mysterious, intangible thing that makes each person unique, each one of us slightly different from each other, that makes me be me, this is not just an immaterial part, call it soul or spirit or energy or what you will. certainly that is a huge part of it, but our bodies are part of who we are, as well. i cannot feel your body. i cannot make your body healthy or sick by how i treat my body. my body is me, it is part of me, which is why when it dies, i'm not in the physical realm anymore. i may still be present in other ways, but the me that requires my body no longer has existence.
this isn't just Christian teaching. this goes way, way, way back to pre-Christian times, to Greek and Rome, for sure, but also indirectly or diluted in nearly all philosophies (i would argue even in those favoring reincarnation, but that's a whole 'nother post).
okay, so there's a partial answer of why not just homosexuality but promiscuity is problematic: because what we do with our bodies affects our souls, as well.
and what about the next part? what about the part where the Church says that only heterosexual sex, in the context of marriage, is okay?
look, i'm not a licensed theologian. i'm not a canon lawyer. i am a reasonably well-educated individual who came to the full understanding of this not until my college years, and i really want to give you the opportunity either to be able to articulate this argument to other people, or to really, actually, factually understand why we believe what we do. that it is not just a blind subscription to arbitrary doctrines, but that there are really profoundly beautiful, logical reasons for this teaching, founded in a coherent world-view. if i don't explain it well enough for you, i apologize. but i am going to do my best, and i ask you to set aside any prejudice, anger, or hurt you may have long enough to give this idea a chance.
when God made the first man, He didn't make a "male." adam means "human being", "human creature". He made a being entirely in His image. what does this mean? well, folks, God is neither male nor female. He has both. although He is referred to as "He" and "Father", scripture, poetry and tradition frequently refer to what we think of as "feminine" qualities. so when He made this first human, "he" was a fully integrated creature with powers of free will, rationality, and physical harmony.
now, when God said that it isn't good that this human should be alone, He didn't go and create another human out of nothing, or the dust, or anything else. Scripture says He took a rib from Adam's side. whether He literally took a rib is, in my opinion, immaterial. what this signifies is that God separated this one being into two beings.
how does one portray, describe, such a mystery? we can't do it. we, as human beings, cannot say, oh, i'm going to create a completely new being--here are parts of myself! these parts of me would make a good companion! perhaps the closest thing is art: the artist writer painter poet takes his experiences, impressions, education, observations, emotions--all of the things that make him or her unique--and creates a new thing. but even this analogy is so limited, because once it is created, the work of art is a separate thing from the artist, and the artist still is a whole person.
see, in some way, we as individuals are not whole, not entire. this is borne out through the entire canon of love literature of any sort throughout the history of humanity: my other half; my better half; my missing piece; my purpose; my completion. most of us long for it, in one way or another. some of us are too scared and wounded to pursue it, but that doesn't mean we don't want it, and won't search for it in other ways (most notably these days probably is in animal companionship).
so love between man and a woman is not just a very worn trope. it is the fullest completion we can have, because when we love and give ourselves fully to the opposite sex and cement that bond through sex, we are coming together again as the original human, the original adam, before "he" was separated into what we now call "male" and "female".
and our bodies bear that out. in homosexual sex, there is no natural place for coming together, no physical way to do this without misusing another body part. i heard one anecdote from a teacher: just because i put food in my ear doesn't mean that i'm eating. it seems this is basic biology: certain body parts are designed for certain functions.
when i was teaching, this raised the question: yes, but not all heterosexual couples can have children.
well, okay, fine . . . but that's because something isn't working right! if you have a scratched CD, then it won't play. if the laser on your CD player isn't working, it won't play. but that's because something isn't right. you can get a new CD or player, or fix the old ones. and together, they will play music. but you won't ever get music by putting two CDs together, or by trying to play a CD player in another player. they're not designed to work that way. and if something as mechanical and impersonal as a laser disc and reader, how much more so the human body!
and there's another component to this, as well. my friends, when America bought the birth control lie, this was the beginning. because it was flying in the face of God and of one purpose of sex: to procreate. nowhere else in the physical animal world is sex used just for pleasure. we're lucky that way, that we are able to use it not just for procreation, but also pleasure and, perhaps most important, union. but to discount the procreative nature of it because of these other factors, especially, really, the least important and certainly the least noble (NOT that pleasure is bad!), we're in trouble. once sex is separated from procreation, the argument against homosexual sex weakens considerably. when you use birth control, you are with-holding part of yourself from your partner: your fertility. you are denying that fertility is a good thing. you are denying the scripture that says, blessed are the children of your youth for they will be like arrows in your quiver! you are denying that creation is a good thing. you are denying that personhood is a good thing. you are saying that the only thing that matters is yourself and your pleasure. no wonder divorce rates skyrocketed.
and: ah, yes, sex in the animal world. folks, c'mon. you know what animals use sex for? two things: procreation and domination. when a male dog, for instance, appears to be "having sex" with another male dog, you know what he is doing? he's humiliating the other dog to put him in his place, to establish the order of the pack. where do you think the terms "top dog" and "bottom dog" came from? this isn't an example of a loving act found in nature. it's dominance and humiliation. there always are aberrations; it really isn't a good idea to build an entire philosophy based on anomalies. because it ignores what is normal. there is a normal; there is a proper way that things work when they are healthy, functioning, and being used how they were made to be.
so that, in brief, is the basis. there is a lot more: the fact that we are rational beings, that we don't and shouldn't be controlled by our "urges," like someone who has the "urge" to beat a child or kill for drugs. and we are humans created by a loving God, which means we do not have to be trapped by our wounds: by abandonment, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal. and that's for another post.
peace.
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