That thing you can’t explain? That’s called the Holy Spirit my friend, and you are right, it IS amazing.

God bless you -Dance

In all honesty, it is somewhat unfair for me to have tackled you so vigorously over a post you wrote almost a year ago and which is probably not really within your radar quite as much… You express being somewhat dispassionate about the issue, and I believe you… For this reason, I invite you to elucidate your views on the homosexual topic from a broader perspective *whenever* the Holy Spirit draws you toward it… Inform yourself on both sides of the issue: Read the 1986 Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, but also Father John McNeill’s “The Church and the Homosexual”… Approach Scripture but also approach reality… Be firm but also be compassionate…

At any rate, you say you have met hundreds of homosexuals throughout your life, but identified only a couple “choice” ones… It is fair for me to say that – in the event you have correctly identified the root cause – this is a negligible proportion…

That… Of course… Not even introducing the very tangible reality of bisexuality… You seem to think that heterosexual and homosexual are mutually exclusive categories… If either this chap or this lady you describe were bisexual, that could explain a lot of things…

I’m in my early 30′s and I live in a very large city… I was not always a pious Catholic… I have dealt with bisexuals… I have myself had affairs with men who had girlfriends and didn’t even have to grow “sick of girls” like the chap you describe… Much less hate them… They carried on with men while their girlfriends were out shopping or whatever… If you don’t think this is actually fairly common, you would be gullible…

All of this has been addressed in a Confessional and left behind… I only bring it up because I feel my own personal experience can shed some light on what you present…

I also bring it up because – as a future parish leader in the capacity of deacon – knowing what the world is really made of might help you in your ministry… A Religious Education teacher of my childhood once told me: “…Understanding how evil works helps us fight it…”

This is not visible because bisexuals have the chance to marry someone of the opposite sex… If they truly fall in love with someone of the same sex, they keep it under wraps and marry second best by grabbing any gullible girl/boy around that will do… This is called “survival”… They are not out with pickets in front of the Supreme Court… That’s why it doesn’t enter your equation…

We’re going to have to agree to disagree… I am not sold on your explanation that people can become gays and yearn to spend their lives with a person of the same sex just like one signs up to be a Goth… But… I have not met the two cases you mention, so I couldn’t rule either way… You may indeed be right, most likely you are wrong, but I can’t say for sure… From the way you speak of these two cases, it sounds like neither of them is a really really close friend, so probably neither could you say… I give you the benefit of the doubt (which, incidentally, is something it seems you are unwilling to give me, hahahaha).

I – like you do – do not feel that Marriage for gays is the right answer… Unlike you, I do feel that – for those of my gay brethren who cannot live a life of celibacy like me – my Catholic brethren should exhibit some extent of compassion… Is it really so dangerous that the civil government may allow these people the right to inherit property from one another (if they want to), the right to stand at each others bedside if one is dying (if they want to), the right to not be discriminated against…? That is what I mean by compassion…

Some people (I don’t mean you) would like to legislate morality… And from a Public Policy perspective that is a God-awful idea… Then we should also make masturbation illegal, perhaps even punishable by jailtime… While we’re at it, we might make lying illegal too, even outside the confines of perjury… Because, hey, it’s a sin, ain’t it…? So it should be a typified misdemeanor or felony…

And let us also, not only abrogate divorce, but make it a criminal violation to try to leave your spouse… Let us become a perfect Christian Taliban-style theocracy… The Saudi Arabia of the West… Right on…!

But do you see where the Public Policy fiasco would kick in…? To my last idea, the Jews – for whom we just prayed on Good Friday and who deserve the same legal protections as we do – might come in and say to us “…Hang on a minute… Since when is divorce immoral and therefore illegal… We’ve had the ‘gittin’ since before your little cult was even a religion…” What would we respond to them?

My reading of your Supreme Court post suggests to me you advocate for a small Federal government… I won’t stretch this to presume you are a Libertarian, but you certainly have some Libertarian airs… Don’t you think that legislating morality increases the size of government, State and Federal?

A pundit said a marvelous phrase to summarize the Republican Party on TV once… “…That Party that wants small government everywhere… except in the bedroom and the battlefield…”

On earth, we have the Church and our own drives to legislate our morality, not the State or the Federal government…

Now, you might say… Well, my friend, if you don’t think we could or should legislate morality… How can you be opposed to abortion?! Well… The answer is simple: To me, that is MURDER, which is already a typified felony in every jurisdiction in the world… End of story…

I have looked at Courage – the website you promote… I haven’t looked in depth enough to figure out if it is a call to chastity (like the one I am currently living), or if it is a regurgitation of the crazy (usually Protestant) doctrine of “Praying Away the Gay” which so loudly (and deservedly) humors television pundits… I hope it is more the former than the latter…

My Best to you, in Christ… !

I just don’t see what could possibly be productive about walking around the world telling people how sinful they are. Not only is it rude, but it simply isn’t productive in any sense. I have many homosexual friends and coworkers, and do not sit in judgement of them. I do not hide my views when asked, but I am just not this hate filled person you seem to want to paint me as.

The truth is, sex outside of marriage is a sin no matter how you play it out. I really don’t care if it’s sex with yourself, ten partners at the same time, your fiancee, with animals, with the the refrigerator, with your newest girl/boyfriend or with a same sex partner, it still adds up to the same thing in my mind. Sex outside of marriage is a no win situation.

Now I hate to burst your bubble, but I simply don’t find sexual sin to be first on my list. Hell, I’m not even sure it’s in the top ten. There are far worse troubles in this world that need to be dealt with, so it just isn’t really on my radar. That doesn’t mean that I won’t call it like I see it, but I certainly am not standing in judgement.

I do stand strong on the definition of what marriage is though.
If you want to sin, I’m certainly here to help if you ask, but it’s largely your business. I will not however allow you to rewrite the line between what is right and wrong so you can do what you want to do guilt free. That is in my mind a much, much larger issue, and one that is most definitely in my top ten.

As for your question, “who in his right mind would choose to belong to a marginalized, vulnerable minority?”, I would question whether that is really what you want to ask. In honesty, a great number of people make this choice every day, whether it’s the kid who decides he/she wants to start wearing goth clothes to school, the boy who wants to join the chess club, or the young mother who wants to join a conservative activist group in San Francisco. Humans almost have a hunger to find a small group they feel they are a part of. Not that I am claiming that humans are in their right mind, but I would say your question reflects a norm, not a minority behavior.

Your real question might be, “Who in their right mind would change their sexual preference just to fit into a group where they don’t naturally belong?” Well, I hesitate to draw the sketch you ask for, because I would be sketching real people without their permission, but I can share with you the reasons I have been given. For one, he was simply sick of girls, dating and the game. He lived in a world that was comfortable with homosexuality, and he just decided he was done with women. He kindof hates them now actually, at least when we last spoke. He was pretty straight before that. Another just felt she was more comfortable with women. I’m not sure why, as we were not that close. She had a couple long term relationship totaling about a decade, and eventually changed her mind, got married, and has a beautiful son.

In both cases, these people were very comfortable within the gay community. Many of their best friends were gay. They both just liked gay people in general, they were their support group. So when things went south for them in their romantic lives, emulating their friends seemed natural. Honestly, I’m guessing here, I’d have to really ask them in detail to know why.

Now I know you probably expected that I would jump down their throats and try to save them from their evil choices, but like I said, you have the wrong guy, I just am not like that. I honestly never even bothered to ask them, though we are still friends. They are walking their own path, and it will go where God leads it.

Fundamentally, it’s no secret where I stand, and that’s no reason to not go camping together. If you want an argument with me, you are simply going to have to find an issue that will actually get my blood boiling, and homosexuality simply won’t do it.

Abortion? Oh yea, fight’s on.

My child always looks for dress to determine who is a priest or deacon….but your choice had mislead and misguided….I will pray for you.

Let me restate my question:

“…WHO in his right mind would choose to belong to a marginalized, vulnerable minority?”…

I do understand the argument of love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin… When the love for the sinner, however, is so strongly overpowered by the hate for the sin, it may become invisible, so much so that it is only there in principle but not in any discernible real fashion…

Protestant nutcases like Bryan Fischer and the Westboro Baptist Church also say they love the homosexual, so much so that they feel forced to disrupt their funerals announcing that they have entered Hell… So much so that Fischer pleads for the re-criminalization of homosexuality, which means that both your brother and I should be behind bars… So much love that they must chant that God does indeed hate fags…

Like you, they say “Oh, we don’t judge, honey… Only God can judge”… (Shirley Phelps Roper actually does say ‘honey’… I’m not trying to be cute about how you might sound)…

Seriously ?! Come on…

When you throw in an out-of-the-blue entirely unrelated reference such as NAMBLA into your article, do you think your love for the sinner shines through?

John Paul spoke in largely general terms, and I most certainly agree with him. There is no singular clear “cause” for homosexuality. I simply mentioned two of the many possible causes that I have personally come in contact with. I do not mean to imply that either of the causes I have mentioned, being born with these proclivities and choosing them are the only causes, nor do I imply that one is necessarily better or worse than another. I am merely stating that in my experience, they both exist. Other causes most certainly exist, and to label one cause as being definitive would be an error.

There is, however, a tone in your post that is rather bothersome to me. It is a tone that assumes I stand in judgement in some way, not just of homosexual behaviors, but in homosexuals themselves as people. You could not be further from the truth. Let me attempt to explain.

Porn in my opinion is just as evil as homosexual behavior. It is not only sex outside of marriage, but it also objectifies real people. To use porn is a sin in the truest sense. If I am going to be honest with myself, as I walk down the street, 90%+ of the men I walk by are either using porn currently, or have in the past, and I think I am being overly generous at 90%. If you think that I am walking down the street staring at everyone who passes my way with disdain, you are greatly mistaken. Yes, I hate the sin, yes, I would love to see these men stop using porn, but I still love the person.

Not only that, but there are the logs in my own eyes that nearly blind me. It hardly makes sense for me to stand in judgement when I know that I am no better myself. My life is racked with sin, and that burden of my own problems and lack of purity is quite enough judgement for me to handle without trying to find others faults.

Don’t get me wrong, sin is sin, and I must call it what it is.

As for culpability, how one person comes to a desire for a particular sin is in truth altogether irrelevant. Whether by birth, choice, or some other unnamed factor, it is not the desire that is sinful and wrong. Culpability lies in actions, not in proclivities.

Lastly, I certainly do not mean to imply that most, or even many homosexuals have chosen the lifestyle. Merely that I have personally come in contact with those who have. Namely, two, and both before a single episode of Glee was ever created. Their existence does not imply that is is a normative behavior, merely that such persons do exist. Living in the West for most of my life, I have known hundreds of gay people, so finding a few who chose that life does not seem a stretch.

I did want to mention that my original post was about voting, and why I feel that voting for homosexual marriage is something I cannot do. It was not designed to share my feelings on homosexuality, especially in my opinions on how to work with homosexual persons. Such a post would have to be written with great care so that my readers would not misunderstand my position on sin. In fact, it would probably have to be a part of a series on sin that would include other sins I find to be equal in nature, cohabitation for example, for it to be seen in full context.

Blessings!

I am however surprised that – having a gay person so close to you – you can still have some ideas that exemplify why some sectors of the Church are so out of touch with reality in the context of homosexuality…

The Catechism promulgated by Blessed John Paul II in 1992 says in #2357 “…Eius psychica origo manet magna ex parte non explicata…” Its psychological origin remains in great measure unexplained…

Yet, I routinely run into folks who – such as yourself – will try to outsmart Blessed John Paul… Who will try to explain what the Church didn’t try to explain in 1992… And who will offer theories on the psychology of homosexuality which – inexorably – lead to caveats on which homosexuals should, and which others shouldn’t be afforded Christian compassion… Your theory about “choice” is a fairly common psychological tenet…

It is possible that you may not mean to… but… by expressing that you have known people who have “chosen to be homosexuals”… What kind of compassion are you inviting other Catholics to display for those people…? Pretty much the same level of compassion you could expect from a picket-brandishing nut at the Westboro Baptist Church…

Immediately next in #2358, the Catechism says “…ad eos vitandum est quodlibet iniustae discriminationis signum…” Towards them, whatsoever sign of unfair discrimination is to be avoided…

In other words, the Magisterium explicitly condemns Homophobia.

In Latin, “discrimen” can mean “dividing line, that which separates”… I propose that this is exactly what you have done when you drew a line between those gays who – to quote Lady Gaga and not bore you with St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas – “were born this way” and those others who “chose” (sic) that way…

Your logic dangerously implies culpability in those who chose it (assuming you’re right, more on that later)… You are saying “…My brother got this problem through no fault of his own… Others didn’t… Others CHOSE it…” Are you not inviting to different dosages of compassion by implying something like that?

Do you not see this is a direct contravention to the Magisterium, per the above #2358…? Do you not see this as your “discriminationis signum”… Would you be surprised if someone quick to judge could brand you a homophobe?

Which brings me to the main weakness of the argument… WHO in his right mind would choose to belong to a marginalized, vulnerable minority… Don’t think that life is a big gay pride parade… If your brother, however manly he may be, were to disclose his sexual orientation – even in the most liberal neighborhood of the world – there will be people who will laugh and sneer and call him names…! Don’t be fooled into thinking that being gay has become so fashionable people actually choose it… You’ve been watching too much friggin Glee !

I don’t think I have ever met a homosexual who has chosen to be a homosexual, other than a straight actor who has had to play one on TV… I volunteer your brother might agree with me !

If I am wrong, I promise you to pray so the Spirit will guide me and I may see where I was wrong… I beg you to do the same…!

First, I should let you know that my homosexual relative is in fact, my brother, and we are very close. We have most certainly shared our thoughts on this in great detail. I cannot tell you how lucky I am to have such a fine man as him as my brother.

Second, no, I was not setting levels of gayness, nor was I saying that different personality traits in homosexual people are better or worse than others. I was merely stating that my brother is not your stereotypical gay man, and that he is honestly homosexual. I was not implying that “nelly” as you say is in some way inferior, merely stating that I clearly see that he was born as he is.

As for social engineering, that is really a redundant statement of the above. I mean to imply that he was not talked into being homosexual, that he had little to no media in his life which included homosexual behaviors, and that while we as a family were never actively anti homosexual, it was never something that we promoted. In other words, by saying there was no social engineering, I am saying that his homosexuality is natural, and he was born with it.

I say this because that is not always the case. I have known those who have chosen to be homosexual. I will not pretend to know how many of these there are, I simply do not have that information. What I am saying, and hopefully I am doing it more clearly in this comment, is that some people are born homosexual. That is my only implication.

Hopefully, if this was the only implication of this post which you found disconcerting, then we should probably be on the same page. I want to personally commend to for taking your faith to task, and attempting to live a holy life. I would be proud to stand beside someone who bears his cross so bravely. It gives me the courage to carry my own.