Intellectual bigotry.
There is, amusingly, a site called "intellectual conservative". Please judge its intellectuality for yourself.
On it was a pro-life man being anti-gay, although being anti-gay isn't really pro-life at all in my eyes. ('Why are they called 'Politicians'? They are never very polite!')
I like gay people, they sing well and wear good clothes. So I replied, fuelled mainly by Christmas presents, Christmas chocolates, and Christ, who regularly fondles me full of beyond-the-grave sexual potence.
Please read my reply, without giving up halfway through to abort a baby in anger with this man.
Hello! I was searching for the term "intellectual", as I was interested in the roots of the word after reading the autobiography of Stephen Fry. [Note: I did not need to mention that Stephen Fry is gay. I am above such things.]
I came across "intellectual conservative", and read your story. There are some things I must ask you about.
1) 'Talk about your obvious agendas. For the last month the press and the public relations types having been pushing this movie called, Brokeback Mountain...'
Is it therefore true that 'pushing' a story or other form of entertainment featuring heterosexual love is also an agenda? I am interested in what your concept of 'agenda' is.
2) '...a story about two "gay" cowboys and their "love" and "loss."'
You are bunny-earsing in a fascinating manner. Evidently gay persons are not capable of love.
3) 'And if you do not like the movie or the subject matter, then the critics call you a bigot. So much for tolerance.'
This, again, is endearingly fascinating. I would take great pains to examine your concept of tolerance - perhaps imagine the gadfly Socrates questioning you. Is tolerance defined as the acceptance of some normalised facet of human behaviour - in this case erotic homosexual relationship and love - rather than its denial etc., or is tolerance to be defined as the quality of allowing people to not tolerate something? That is evidently quite a linguistic twist to make, that tolerance must itself be employed to tolerate intolerance, and that intolerance must therefore trump tolerance. Surely bigotry, as defined, is the broad and baseless denial of a normalised behaviour, and not the intolerance of intolerance?
It would enlighten me if you would help me understand your take on this.
4) '"A love story" the critics call it. Actually it is called sodomy; and adultery; and destructive behavior. Yet these are the actions that form the building blocks of a healthy relationship according to the movie critics and the Hollywood elites.'
If you were having trouble defining bigotry, sir, I think this would be a good place to start. If I were to say, "heterosexual relationships are all based on the ravaging of the vagina, the rape of the womb, leading to the destructive birthing of needless human babies who cannot be properly controlled, who take up too much space, who consume too much," I believe that would be bigotry, but it is in effect what you are saying about gay relationships.
5) 'So here is the question. Why? Why is there this push from every quadrant of the entertainment world to force upon the American public the notion that homosexual behavior is normal? Why is there the effort to have such behavior intrude into every aspect of everyday life? Why can I not open up the newspaper without having to read about it every single day? Why do I have to screen the newspaper before I can let my ten year-old son read it?'
The equivalent question is "why must you preach that it is abnormal? Why must we allow bigotry to be part of human speech?".
6) 'I am reminded of the story of the frog and the boiling water. The heat is put on very slowly so that the frog does not realize it is getting cooked until it too late.'
I have rarely, if ever, been cooked by news stories of gay love. Usually they leave me in an entirely raw state, inedible to all but the most starved human.
7) "The AIDS crisis was just one example of the deadly effect of homosexual behavior upon a society."
It seems to me that all sexual behaviour spreads AIDs. It would be more accurate to talk about semen as diseased butter. Is your semen diseased butter?
8) 'The man is a priest and he is supposed to have put aside his old self and become a new creation in Christ. But apparently, Christ is not enough for the fellow. He has to be "gay" as well. Now perhaps I am a little dense, but if the fellow is suppose to be chaste, why is it important that he announce to the world that he is "gay?" It seems like the man is more interested in putting himself in the center of his world than in being a priest and putting Christ in the center of his life.'
The very thing that stopped me from putting Christ "in the center of my life" was that it seemed a bit gay. Does it not seem so to you? Perhaps Jesus has put you, like a frog, in a big gay pot, and you are not realising that all around you there is cooking.
9) 'Perhaps this appears judgmental and strident. But there are some truths that cannot be denied. First is the purpose for which certain parts of the human body exist and their mode of operation.'
The penis exists to be stimulated and produce semen - it does this in all sorts of contexts, with all sorts of mechanical help. The hand, the trousers, the very imagination can cause it to become engorged and ejaculate. Does it not seem a legitimate purpose for the purpose to be used orally, anally, or digitally?
Plus, you cannot deny the prostate. Apparently it is the male g-spot. I would suggest that you try anal stimulation first to see if you like it. It seems to me a perfectly useful and beneficial mode of operation, which is perhaps why so many people do it.
That and it doesn't cause babies. Sex often does not cause babies, with or without contraception. Must we condemn all sex without babies? It would be quite a hit-and-miss affair then.
10) 'Second is the relationship of men and women in the natural order of things. Human beings are made male and female.'
Human beings are also made male and male, and female and female, and male and male and female and male and female and female and female and male and female and male. They come in all sorts of orders.
Relying on the 'natural order of things' is pretty odd, too. We don't live in trees anymore - are our houses natural? Are movie matinees natural? Is John Wayne natural? The natural order of things appears to be that we do whatever seems best. (This, if you haven't noticed, is where you and others are disagreeing.)
11) 'Trying to force the average fellow to accept aberrant human behavior by setting it in the context of two cowboys is not going to work. Most people just do not want to think about it. After all to quote one of my older sons, "That's just nasty."'
Speaking for most people is always a tricky thing. Maybe you could conduct a survey, "do you want to think about gay sex"? Or perhaps your son would then pronounce you 'nasty' as well.
Aside: may I ask what you would do if one of your children 'came out' as gay? Would that be sufficient to change your mind, or would you have them shot?
12) 'The problem is that we cannot ignore it because such constant bombardment is meant to wear us down into first acceptance and then affirmation. The "homosexual" agenda being fanned by the leftist elites and the ACLU types is not just about live and let live. It is about destroying marriage. It is about forcing us to accept their "behavior" as legitimate and equal to normal male female relationships.'
"This article is also part of a constant bombardment - to wear us down into denying humanity, denying love, to seek acceptance and affirmation of hatred and disgust. The "anti-homosexual" agenda is being fanned by the rightist elites to not just be about live and let die, but about promoting marriage, and forcing us to accept their "behaviour" of hatred as legitimate and equal to normal, loving human relationships."
Sir, you are not speaking for heterosexuality, or love, or marriage. You are reacting against, forever against, against love, the love which makes both hetero- and homo- sexuality both right and normal, that makes marriage possible. Please feel free, of course, to hoist your own petard.
13) 'This message will not endear me to those who see nothing destructive about homosexual behavior.'
Bravo!
14) 'Because only in truth can one truly be free. Unfortunately many do not realize that their actions can be enslaving and self-destructive. Having counseled and advised countless people over the years whose lives cascaded out of control because of addictive behavior, this plea for awareness and response is borne out of a genuine concern for the human person.'
Now you rely on pseudo-science, particularly pseudo-psychology, which is already so much of a science-meets-humanities that you are rending it into a homeopathic version of science - one molecule per Olympic swimming pool.
I am a trained psychologist, teaching students (in our second year, we do relationships, and ask them to consider that gay love is normal. Students are overwhelmingly in favour of such an idea), and it would be most beneficial if you could post any evidence for homosexual love as an addictive behaviour. If it was nothing but this, of course, I would be able to deny it was love.
Unless, of course, the data you have found would just as easily show that any 'love' can be defined as 'addictive behaviour' if you wish to disallow it. But you are too clever to allow that!
15) 'Each of us is made in the image of God.'
Well, then, a bit of God is gay. Not a surprise considering God is everything. Makes me much more amenable to him.
And that is what I wrote.
If you would like to know more of the widespread fear of the gay, there is stuff like this book on the 'six-point' plan to make gay OK! With the consequence of destroying the world.
Of course, there IS a plan of sorts to make gay OK, which is the same as it always is in any situation requiring vast change of human opinion - waiting for the idiots to die and their children's children's children to learn enough to change their minds. And people DO want to make gay OK, so on these points the book is right.
What really angers me about this man, however, is the lying and subterfuge used by such argumentation to conceal what they are really saying.
It is bad enough to say that "Jesus hates fags", or such hateful religious messages. But at least this would be a display of honest opinion - 'I am a Christian, and I take the bible to mean that Jesus hates fags'.
What this man is doing here, my friends, is even more thoroughly odious. Not for he the simple explanation of his own feelings about the gay community and the gay individual, he cloaks his simple and simplistic idea in the rhetoric of conspiracy. Not only is gay bad, gay-is-good is a vast Satanic campaign against family values.
This is not amusing, and this is not just silly. It is the main - almost the only - rhetorical device deployed by conservatives nowadays. When there is everywhere a common consensus that is tending towards the liberal, it is denounced as an 'agenda'.
Love is not an agenda. Repeat this after me - it is not. Sexual lifestyle or choice are also not agendas, but they're not as nice as love, so let's get back to that. Love is not an agenda. Gay people who want to form a relationship are not:
- Rabidly fighting normal heterosexual urges in order to degrage marriage
- Attempting to shock young Christian children to such levels of shame and disgust that they abort their unconceived children out of their ears
- Degrading family values with the acid of sodomy
Gay people are having relationships. Some are in love, some are sleeping around. Some are HIV+, some are not. Some are unpleasant, some are lovely. They are as complex and wonderful a group as heterosexual people, they are as simple and dull a group as heterosexual people, they are as progressive and conservative etc. etc. etc.
They are people, they live, they breath, they are part of our grand civilisation that endlessly goads itself towards failure - towards the edge of a precipice beneath which lies division and destruction - but never seems to quite get there. And to take their experience, their life, the phenomena of their very humanity and to call it an agenda, a willed thing that takes all the individuality and possibilty of free will and consciousness out of each of them to make them a sniping and bitchy whole attempting to degrade America... to do this is to deny their love, their feelings, the possibilities of their existences.
There is no conspiracy to destroy any values. There is only a conspiracy - an unwilled and surprised conspiracy - of people who have an unusual identity but who still want to be people and do people thing in people places. A 'conspiracy' of furthering their own lives so they can live them in the way that they think is well, which is exactly what our current system is supposed to be based on, for better or worse (often the latter). The gay conspiracy, the gay agenda, is to expand values, so that they fit more people and allow for more happiness.
Values are not meant to divide people into healthy and unhealthy, fit and unfit, human and inhuman. They are meant to keep us together, to keep us close, to prevent division; for we are not amoebae. We are us, altogether us.
And, really, this is what I must say to this man - but he would only deny it, and put conspiracy into its place. He would deny humanity, and put conspiracy into its place. And he would wonder why we feel sorry for him, and feel uneasy that he has children.
posted by News is Good at 4:39 PM
9 Comments:
Is there any way to see if this 'man' responds to you?
He replied:
Tom,
You are a "trained psychologist" as you say and no doubt have developed
"your" views based upon your assessment of things and your own biases and prejudices. They are apparent as one reads your missive.
So consider the premise of the story and its destructive path for all those involved. That one considers it tragic is not to have empathy for the human beings in the story nor is it to be unable to address certain behavior and label it as wrong. Addressing the destructive nature of relationships in general one finds at the core the use of the other or the objectification of the other rather than the concept of gift of self to the other. The idea that one may consider it 'love' when one is engaged in adulterous behavior( to use one example) is to misuse the term. Of course that seems to be the rule of thumb for many in the world of psychology these days: change the terms to meet the new definitions which undermine the meaning of the words. Reminds me of Orwell's 1984.
Since you reject the Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) perspective of the subject and the attending moral understanding, you will not appreciate the logic and validity of the argument. You have decided not to accept the general conditions or the natural order and have chosen to create your own
definitions and your own rules. Such is the ability of the person. He can freely choose what path to follow and also therefore choose the consequences of his actions. So be it.
One final note. you along with a number of others who took exception to my article, seemed to take delight in the ad hominum attacks. There also were a number of similar arguments made including wishing about my children's future. So sad.
Take care,
John Jakubczyk
I replied:
"You have decided not to accept the general conditions or the natural order and have chosen to create your own definitions and your own rules."
One could condense that as, "You have not decided to accept my argument".
I believe that your reading of scripture is biased, your use of psychology is wilfully ignorant, and everything you do is nothing more than seeking out, like a compass, the magnetic north of disgust at human closeness.
I really do hope that one of your children or their children ends up gay, it would be beneficial to the world if you were to learn the meaning of love.
Tom
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
He then replied:
Tom,
Aren't you being the judgmental one by accusing me of not knowing the meaning of love?
My comment reflects the inability of those who argue your position to acknowledge certain basic principles. You and those who argue as you do wish to change the definitions and the meanings of terms because you do not like the logical answers the use of such terms provide.
As for the use of Scripture, there is nothing in Scripture that condonse or endorses same sex sexaul intimacy. Indeed the scriptures consider marriage the only proper context for sexual intimacy. sexual activity outside ofmarriage is called sin. This is understood both in the Old and New Testament. This is not anything new. English and later American law held such conduct to be criminal. So it has nothing to do with "love." or if you wish to be specific "charity."
As for psychology once again you arrive at a conclusion without any grounds for saying so other than your opinion.
As for notions of human closeness, since when do feelings of affection have to move into the realm of the sexual? Cannot people be "close" without a "sexual" component? Or are you one of those fellows who sees sex as the root of everything?
I enjoy the wonders of "human closeness" with my family, my friends and those whom I serve.
As for learning the meaning of true love or charity, in understanding the life of Christ, one sees the tue meaning of love, that He sacrificed His life for you and me in perfect atonement for our sins and show us the way to live our lives consistent with will of the Father.
So in simple terms. "Seek the truth. The truth will set you free. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
Peace.
John
In essence, he relies on "simple basic principles" derived from the Bible. And then therefore gay is bad, all those who do not think so are bad, and collectively all are a conspiracy.
Furthermore, he has sent this article to me, which is just as ludicrous as one would expect from the title "Rape of the Marlboro Man". The author's tagline is 'author of the best-selling book, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom".'
From the title, I would assume it follows along the lines I have outlined. In my lines. Excellent fodder for a psychology of belief, hopefully something I will find a way into by learning how to be clever.
I am now asking Mr. John a few of my questions outlined in my article. This encounter has taught me a lot about the simple obstinacy of faith when it seeks to defend itself.
To my questions (a version of the post above this one) he answers:
Tom,
Let me try to address it in this fashion.
In my view homosexual conduct is gravely disordered and sinful. These acts
are always wrong.
Individuals with deep seated homosexual tendencies are called to live chaste
lives just as are all persons in whatever state of life they live.. As
persons they have a right to be accepted with respect and compassion. They
are called to discern God's will in their lives and to live out that calling
in faithfulness to the Gospel.
Since we are to avoid sin and seek the good, the true and the beautiful, we
as a society should not encourage or support such activity. It is neither
good for the society nor the participant.
Those with a same sex attraction who are Christian are called to live chaste
lives as are we all. As a married man, I am called to live a chaste life.
When I was single, I was called to live a chaste life. Aside from it being
healthy, it is a means toward self-mastery of the will.
To address your "argument" please consider that not all actions or
omissions may be intended toward an end or intentional that regard. The
person who avoids addressing a situation may not intended a "bad" result or
even consider that a possibility, and yet it may happen. Therefore placing
descriptive that indicate an "all" or "always" sets up a flaw in the logic.
Also premise (3) and (4) use words such as acceptance, endorsing and
designed which require a judgment as to motive. A person may be incorrect
in acting without knowing that the result of his action will cause harm. He
may now knowingly endorse the behavior. A properly formed conscience is
needed to be so specific. Some actions are known to be wrong. Because this
society is confused about judging acts, many refuse to judge actions. This
may not amount to endorsement but avoidance. this avoidance may be wrong as
well but the person is ignorant of such a moral perspective. The question of
'willed' also must be based on observing actions. There are those in the
media with a definite agenda to"normalize" certain aberrant behavior. One
sees it by their actions and statements. It is a stretch though to say that
the average person is "willing" anything automatically.
By the way, it is not a proper reduction of my analysis.
So I would go back to the drawing board on your "argument.".
Regarding the questions dealing with the issue of homosexuality and
Christianity, i would refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a
section of which is reproduced herein below to address these issues. In all
things we are to act in charity, mindful that our purpose is to do the will
of God and to bring about the salvation of our souls by living a life
consistent with the Gospel.
As for human beings, all of us have a right to life and no one should
deprive one of their right to life unless it follows due process of law.
The law should apply to all fairly .and in my observation tries to do so.
Marriage is public commitment between a man and a woman by definition.
One should not define oneself based on ones sexual desires or appetites but
acknowledge that we are created in the image and likeness of God to reflect
His glory and to do His will. In that we will find true joy and happiness
and ultimately peace.
the balance flows from the document.
John
from the Catechism.
"God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion.
Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the
humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and communion."115
"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them";116
He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply";117 "When God created
man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them,
and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."118
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his
body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and
to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of
communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual
identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are
oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life.
The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which
the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived
out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal
personal dignity."119 "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both
were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."120
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God,
with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in
marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and
fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to
his wife, and they become one flesh."121 All human generations proceed from
this union.122
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the
Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly: "You have heard that
it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every
one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her
in his heart."123 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.124
The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as
encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY
2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the
person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.
Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is
expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the
relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual
gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and
the integrality of the gift.
The integrity of the person
2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and
love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is
opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double
life nor duplicity in speech.125
2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training
in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions
and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes
unhappy.126 "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious
and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not
by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such
dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses
forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence
and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."127
2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist
temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge,
practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him,
obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity
to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and
led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."128
2341 The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance,
which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with
reason.
2342 Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it
acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of
life.129 The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as
when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.
2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by
imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up
through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes
moral good by stages of growth."130
2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a
cultural effort, for there is "an interdependence between personal
betterment and the improvement of society."131 Chastity presupposes respect
for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information
and an education that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human
life.
2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a
fruit of spiritual effort.132 The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of
Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.133
The integrality of the gift of self
2346 Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity
appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to
the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to
his neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness.
2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple
how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends,134 who has
given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine
estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.
Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one's neighbor. Whether it
develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents
a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.
The various forms of chastity
2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on
Christ,"135 the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to
lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the
moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life
in chastity.
2349 "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their
state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables
them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable
manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether
they are married or single."136 Married people are called to live conjugal
chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of
spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not
praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what
makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church.137
2350 Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in
continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual
respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one
another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of
affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in
chastity.
Offenses against chastity
2351 Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual
pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself,
isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.
2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the
genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of
the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of
the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that
masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 "The
deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of
marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure
is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral
order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human
procreation in the context of true love is achieved."139
To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and
to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective
immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other
psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a
minimum, moral culpability.
2353 Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried
woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human
sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the
generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when
there is corruption of the young.
2354 Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the
intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third
parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act,
the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the
dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one
becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It
immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a
grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and
distribution of pornographic materials.
2355 Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in
it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who
pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his
Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.140
Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men,
children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of
scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the
imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or
social pressure.
2356 Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another
person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the
respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has
a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is
always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children
committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the
children entrusted to them.
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 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.
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.
2359 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.
It is for reasons like this that I like to stick to as narrow a question as possible and simply asking the person to answer it. This usually ends up with the person refusing to answer the question, which I attempt to point out and bring them back to (and then, of course, comes the name calling). Dealing with too much at once is unfortuantely going to get a response like that shown above; it looks like a medieval priest vomited all over the webpage. It does, fascinatingly, show how all his lines of thought converge into one giant mess, which is useful psychologically, but in so far as you need an answer to the points you raised you would need to sit him on your knee like a baby and spoonfeed him an artificial conversation (he isn't constituted to handle a real one)
'tis true that it is not the answer that interests me - what can be said, but that "I have false reason to hate"? - I am interested in the psychology of this argument, the texture of the belief.
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