In a recent interview with “Gay, Catholic and Feeling Fine” author Joseph Prever, a reporter from The Catholic News Agency asked him:
“If the understanding in the Christian world is that homosexuality is a ‘disorder,’ and homosexual activity is a sin, then logically it would seem like as Christians, we would want to help our fellow Christians who are ‘dis-ordered’ to be ‘ordered.’ Do you think there’s a problem with that logic?”
He answered: “I think there’s a problem with that phraseology. There’s a subtle but importance difference in saying that somebody has a disordered inclination and saying that somebody is disordered.”
In actuality, the reporter’s assumption was 100% correct; in his “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” then Cardinal Ratzinger warned against such ambivalence or equivocation:
“3. Explicit treatment of the problem was given in this Congregation's ‘Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics’ of December 29, 1975. That document stressed the duty of trying to understand the homosexual condition and noted that culpability for homosexual acts should only be judged with prudence. At the same time the Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being "intrinsically disordered", and able in no case to be approved of.
In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
Therein is the truth: the homosexual act as well as the inclination to homosexuality is “disordered;” then, to claim to be “gay” is to align yourself with a “moral evil;” with that in mind: I find it highly disturbing that several well-know “gay” Catholics, including Prever, as well as Eve Tushent and Ron Belgau; who have all be given prominent bully-pulpits in which to further their gay and chaste message, often hold-fast to their gay identity; Tushnet stated in her book: “I’m in no sense ex-gay. In fact, I seem to become more lesbian with time—college was my big fling with bisexuality, my passing phase…” while Belgau said: “The first definition for the word ‘gay’ on Dictionary.com is ‘of, relating to, or exhibiting sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one’s own sex; homosexual.’ Although I am celibate, I still fit that definition with regard to sexual desire, so I accept the label.”
I think this attitude goes part and parcel along with a larger misunderstanding which attempts to maintain that after all – gay people do not need fixing; in the same interview Perver said:
“I think a lot of gay men and women do have emotional issues that aren’t going to be dealt with if they’re told that everything is already ok. But on the other hand, this is dangerous because you have a lot of Christian people already assuming from the get-go that if somebody is homosexual, then they must have various and many emotional issues that need working on, and that’s not necessarily the case.”
This is an odd response, as the mere fact that gay men want to take another man’s penis into their bodies, something that does not belong there - nor does it fit, proves without a doubt that all is not well within the homosexual psyche. The ongoing tragedy of AIDS also shows how endemic and pervasive the problem has become: “the CDC notes that while homosexual men make up only a very small percentage of the male population (4%), MSM account for over three-quarters of all new HIV infections…if HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to rise at the current rates, more than half of college-aged homosexual men will have HIV by the age of 50.”
Anyone who has survived the gay lifestyle, including myself, knows that just as homosexual acts are clearly “disordered,” the inclination and the desire to partake in those acts is also disordered: for it was that all-encompassing need for male approval and love, twisted by our gay-approving culture into something purely sexual, that led so many of us to the grave. We saw being “gay” as the answer – the promise of happiness embodied in the rainbow flag; once we know Christ – to claim to still be gay is hold onto that false ideology and all it stands for; because we must be made anew – and leave behind all those old ways of thinking and those old “labels.” ~ “And no man putteth new wine into old bottle: otherwise the new wine will break the bottles, and it will be spilled, and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.”
In the above context, this work is worth re-citing:
The Archives of Sexual Behavior reports “One of the most salient findings of this study is that 46% of homosexual men and 22% of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender.”
Marie E. Tomeo, “Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescent Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 30 (2001): 539.
Also look at these previous blogs on the same subject:
Is it Okay to be Catholic and Gay?
http://www.josephsciambra.com/2015/05/the-disorder-in-gay-lifestyle-defense.html
The "Disorder" in the Gay Lifestyle: A Defense of Catholicism
http://www.josephsciambra.com/2015/05/the-disorder-in-gay-lifestyle-defense.html
Note: Thank you to my friend John for inspiring this blog.