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Recent events illustrate the strides homosexual activists have made. Several incidents have come to national attention that would have been unthinkable a generation ago — or even a few years ago.
The best known is President Barack Obama’s May 9 endorsement of homosexual “marriage.”
Homosexual activists hailed Obama’s endorsement as “historic,” and it was. At no previous time in U.S. history has a sitting U.S. president, much less one running for re-election, endorsed the idea of treating homosexual unions as marriages.
Another noteworthy incident occurred just days earlier, when, on April 28, homosexual activist Dan Savage addressed a national conference of high-school journalism students, including students from religious schools, and told them, “We can learn to ignore the bull**** in the Bible about gay people.”
Savage is an “anti-bullying” activist and creator of the “It Gets Better” Project, which affirms young people in the homosexual subculture.
At the event, he proceeded to deliver a vulgarity-laced rant against the Bible, citing in particular various Old Testament laws relating to diet, sexuality and slavery.
When some students walked out on him, he characterized their protest as “pansy-*****.”
The two national groups sponsoring the event, the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association, were initially reluctant to repudiate Savage’s remarks.
However, within 24 hours, they issued a statement saying: “NSPA and JEA consider Mr. Savage’s use of harsh language and profanity to be inappropriate and offensive to many in attendance. This is not what our organizations expected. In his attempt to denounce bullying, Mr. Savage belittled the faith of others — an action that we do not support. Ridicule of others’ faith has no place in our programs, any more than ridicule of the LGBT community would.”
The fact that Savage had been invited in the first place, along with the organizations’ resistance to repudiating his remarks, illustrates how entrenched pro-homosexual attitudes have become in the American educational establishment.
Church Teaching
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (2357).
“The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition” (2358).
“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection” (2359).
Grounded in Natural Law
Dominican Father Brian Mullady, a doctor of moral theology, criticized Obama’s endorsement of same-sex “marriage.” He said it “is contrary to the natural law and is one of the things that will undercut the existence of the family and the state, because the family is the building block of the state.”
He also faulted Savage’s tirade against the Bible, saying, “A person who makes remarks like that obviously hasn’t read the Bible deeply.”
He explained that Old Testament laws such as those criticized by Savage were written during a time of “progressive revelation” and that “the New Testament is the fullness of revelation and so has to be the interpretive device for morals.”
To illustrate, he cited the example of Moses permitting divorce for the Israelites because their hearts were hard, contrasting it with Jesus’ teaching on the permanence of marriage (Mark 10:2-12).
“You can’t reduce a complicated book like the Bible to a one-liner,” he stated.
Outreach to Those With Same-Sex Attraction
The Register also spoke with Dominican Father Vincent Serpa, chaplain and apologist at the San Diego-based apostolate Catholic Answers. During a previous assignment in San Francisco, Father Serpa conducted extensive outreach to those with same-sex attraction.
Asked to suggest an organization to help people struggling with this problem, he recommended Courage International, a Connecticut-based ministry founded by the late Father John Harvey, of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
“I think very highly of it,” Father Serpa said. “I knew Father Harvey, and we discussed similar challenges” in doing this type of outreach effectively.
Father Paul Check, the current executive director of Courage International, told the Register that Courage provides an alternative to the false choices that many with same-sex attraction feel confront them.
“One is radical isolation, which is worse than loneliness, and the other is the so-called gay lifestyle. Both are false alternatives.”
“At the center of the Courage apostolate is the figure of Jesus Christ, and he is ultimately the answer to all of our human questions and human needs. I cannot know myself fully unless I know Christ,” Father Check said.
Courage has chapters in a dozen countries, including chapters in about half of the dioceses in the U.S. It also operates national and regional conferences, as well as a website.
Father Check highlighted the apostolate’s positive message of chastity, saying that most people think that the Catholic Church simply delivers a message of “No,” but “Courage is a ‘Yes’” to those seeking to live a Christian life despite same-sex attraction.
Jimmy Akin is a Register blogger and senior apologist at Catholic Answers.
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The upcoming biblical debate between Brian Brown (NOM) and Dan Savage will be most entertaining. Dan accepted Brians challenge of “any time, any place” to be at Dan and his partners house after dinner, with film crew and moderator re: the bible. Since Dan grew up Catholic and Brian is, it can’t miss being great.
This quote begs a question:“He explained that Old Testament laws such as those criticized by Savage were written during a time of “progressive revelation” and that “the New Testament is the fullness of revelation and so has to be the interpretive device for morals.” I would have though that an all knowing god would have been able to be clear in meaning from the start as he dictated his word. How much “interpetation” are need to understand the prescription to “kill the Gays” do you need?
Well, Look forward to the debate after the debate.
as the Church and its Shepherds went cowardly and for decades let the feminists run wild in the Church and with the womens religious orders…so the Church lets the same sex crowd overtake the cafeteria catholic…but they love each other they say….if the sight of 2 men kissing each other isnt repulsive enough, let alone these 2 deviates having sex with one another…ABOMINATION OF ALL ABOMINATIONS HAS ENTERED THE CHURCH OF CHRIST…scripture surely condemns the HOMOSEXUAL ACT and to hear christians say but what harm is there???..but isnt it not a surprise when about over 80% of catholic women take birth control, that sin nowadays cant even be seen as sin, but as acceptable….YOU COWARDLY SHEPHERDS OF THE CHURCH HAVE LET THIS SMELL OF SIN PERVADE THROUGHOUT THE CHURCH FOR DECADES AND NOW THE WHOLE WORLD AND SOCIETY IS INFECTED WITH THIS ABOMINATION OF ABOMINATIONS AS AN ACCEPTABLE LIFESTYLE….GODS VERY JUSTICE WILL COME DOWN UPON ALL CIVILIZATION SOON AND WOE TO ALL CREATION
2358 is dead. The Roman Catholic Church is now openly advocating throwing Gays in prison for the ‘crime’ of having sex, petitioning their government, holding private religious ceremonies, and even forming discussion groups. In Nigeria, the Roman Catholic Archbishops Conference has endorsed legislation that makes any Gay meeting or religious ceremony illegal. It was endorsed on the Nigerian Bishops Website and even carried as a news story (without criticism) by Radio Vaticana (so the Church obviously knows about the advocacy by the Church in Nigeria). The Roman Catholic endorsed law could possibly be used to make Courage meetings illegal. The law makes the private practice of religion by liberal churches (which exist in Nigeria) illegal. So much for religious freedom.
There is one Catholic Church, not a separate church in the USA and in Nigeria.
The Roman Catholic Church has also endorsed making being Gay illegal in Belize (by the Bishop of Belize in the mass Belizian media) as well as in Zambia.
How does the Roman Catholic Church’s direct and public endorsement of legislation to throw all Gays in prison for up to 14 years for the crime of private behavior consistent with 2358?
I don’t see how it can be. 2358 is dead.
Uh do these laws actually have people throwing people in jail for “being Gay” or do they throw them in jail for committing an act of sodomy? There is a difference.
@Rover Serton: When is the debate between Savage and Brown supposed to take place, and where will it be aired? I would very much like to see it!
Scott, the law mandates 14 years in prison for Gay people living together (with or without sex). It mandates a 10 year prison sentence for meeting in private (without sex). It mandates throwing any minister that solumnizes (in accordance with their faith) any PRIVATE same sex marriage ceremony. There are churches in Nigeria that believe that marriage for Gay persons is a part of their faith. This Roman Catholic endorsed law will make these churches ILLEGAL.
“Progressive revelation” in this area is bull. God commanded the death penalty for mortal sins in general not just sodomy prior to Christ bringing sanctifying grace and prior to Christ lessening the power of satan (so that possession cases are now minimal compared to His time.) Prior to grace, men needed great threats to choose good actions. Current Catholic commentators are apparently lining up in excessive conformity behind John Paul II’s section 40 of Evangelium Vitae which attributed the OT death penalties not to God as Scripture explicitly attributes them….but to a less refined culture. Can we please have some non papal creativity in our theologians…or let’s just admit we are totally mimetic to whoever is in office. The oath within the Profession of Faith is producing parrot city.
Here is scripture and Aquinas to the point that OT death penalties were not imperfect but were Holy:
OT death penalities ( judicial precepts) were not imperfect but were Holy (Romans 7:12) and they were due to man’s imperfection..St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica.
First part. of the second part, question 107, art.1, reply to obj.2
” Hence the Old Law, which was given to men who were imperfect, that is, who had not yet received spiritual grace, was called the “law of fear,” inasmuch as it induced men to observe its commandments by threatening them with penalties; and is spoken of as containing temporal promises.”
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First part of the second part, question 99, art.4, “I answer that…”
“We must therefore distinguish three kinds of precept in the Old Law; viz. “moral” precepts, which are dictated by the natural law; “ceremonial” precepts, which are determinations of the Divine worship; and “judicial” precepts, which are determinations of the justice to be maintained among men. Wherefore the Apostle (Romans 7:12) after saying that the “Law is holy,” adds that “the commandment is just, and holy, and good”: “just,” in respect of the judicial precepts; “holy,” with regard to the ceremonial precepts (since the word “sanctus”—“holy”—is applied to that which is consecrated to God); and “good,” i.e. conducive to virtue, as to the moral precepts.”
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