Straight Talk About Gays

Straight Talk About Gays

Rev. John H. Hampsch, C.M.F.

      Among the many letters of inquiry that cross my desk almost daily was an angry letter I received recently from the mother of a gay young man. She had grieved over the discovery of her son's sexual orientation, but through a self-help group for parents of gays, she finally accepted the situation, and went even further to vent her resentment against what she mistakenly thought was "the Church'sattitude toward homosexuals." Besides her son, she had met many truly good persons who, she said were "born with this God-given sexual preference." Reminding me that "God doesn't make junk," she asked why such sexual orientation was associated with sin and the devil in many Christian sermons and articles dealing with this subject. If homosexuality is God's design for these persons, she reasoned, why should they be told to regard it as  something wrong, abnormal, or sinful? And why should they be told to substitute a heterosexual preference-if that is possible at all?

    Her letter, though full of anger, seemed well-reasoned. It deserved an answer more satisfying than a mere statement of platitudes or a naked reaffirmation of traditional Christian teaching on this matter, or an "obey-and-don't-ask-why" response. But since discussion of the morality of homosexuality, like that of abortion, birth control, etc., is often cluttered with emotional arguments and much ignorance about what the Church really teaches, I realized that my answer would probably be unavailing, no matter how well documented Scripturally , ecclesiastically or rationally. In discussion of this matter, reason and God's revelation are often forced to take a back seat. 

     Many TV talk shows, for instance, Or support groups for parents of gays that could and should provide helpful "moral" support, often provide only "immoral" support by ignoring or distorting God's laws, his holy word, and the God-supported teaching of his Church. Even some well-intentioned clergy, in their pastoral efforts to be compassionate, often unfortunately compromise God's revealed truth.

      The Church would certainly agree that "God doesn't make junk." The Church would also agree that most gays are born with same-sex orientation. Jesus seems to agree with that assertion in referring to "eunuchs born that way" (Matt. 19:12). In fact, two recent but debatable researches seem to indicate that there are brain structures unique to homosexuals; this may suggest a genetic cause (if the brain variants do not prove to be an effect) of homosexual thought and behavior .

     It amazes me that there are still so many who do not yet know that the Church has stated in countless documents (both from the Holy See and the various councils of bishops, etc.), that homosexuality as a sexual orientation, in itself, is not a sin. It is the sexual acting out of this tendency by the act of sodomy or other forms of unnatural sex that is sinful in itself. There is nothing to keep a homosexual from becoming eminently holy. Undoubtedly, of the thousands of saints, many were homosexuals, but they were either chaste or repentant homosexuals.

     The Church would also agree that God's love for the sinner is unconditional, but the application of his merciful love in granting forgiveness is not unconditional when actual sin has been committed, for God's word insists on a condition: "They should repent and turn to God and do things that would show they had repented" (Acts 26:20).

     The Church would not agree that we should downplay emphasis on sin--once it is established that the homosexual act is a sin in itself-for "everyone who sins breaks the law" (I John 3:4). Nor would the Church agree that the devil's frequent involvement in sin should be downplayed, because "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him" (IPet. 5:8-9). To disregard the devil's involvement in human life would be to disregard the counter involvement of Christ himself, since "the very reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works" (I John 3:8).

The Church has not only condemned "gay-bashing," but has also consistently affirmed that gays have the same human and civil rights as others. However, these sacred rights may be curtailed when the common welfare or the rights or safety of others is imperiled, just as anyone's civil rights may be curtailed under the same conditions.

Thus, a dangerous psychotic or one under drug influence, or anyone with a contagious disease may be justly confined, limiting the exercise of their rights. Likewise, homosexual couples may be justly prevented from adopting a child, for they would thus deprive the child of a normal family life. Gays who openly advocate or encourage a gay lifestyle should be prevented from teaching school children that pernicious evil, and prevented from exerting such influence on scout troops, etc. Thus, gay rights are as all-embracing as anyone's rights, but also are to be restricted-as anyone's rights-when they endanger the rights of others.

     The Church follows Paul's biblical command to "be prepared in season and out of season to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction, for the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires (lusts ) they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth" (II Tim. 4:2-4). This was Mary's lament in her Medjugorje apparitions, and in other of her many recent apparitions where it is claimed that she said that the three types of sin that most offend God today are abortion, child abuse and the practice (not inclination) of homosexuality.

     Are there truly "good" gay people? Of course. I know many of them. Many are heroically living a chaste life of prayerful celibacy, many living alone, and a few in prayerful and chaste companionship. I also know many sincere gay people living asexually active gay lifestyle while ignorant of, or unconvinced of, the objective sin involved.

     This brings up another distinction that the inquiring letter neglected to take notice of (one that I explain in my book, "Glad You Asked)." As St. Thomas Aquinas and other great theologians teach, there is a distinction between the objective moral norm (God's law) and the subjective norm (conscience). A person may be sinning objectively, violating God's law, and yet be innocent subjectively by reason of an unformed or malformed but sincere conscience.

   This objectively sinful but subjectively innocent state is found among some homosexuals, abortionists, euthanasianists, cannibals, artificial birth-controllers, etc. Even many prostitutes sincerely regard their lifestyle as good, because they support their children by prostitution. Through ignorance of morality or of God's law, such persons have a retarded or unrefined conscience. St. Paul says the conscience of such persons (depending on the presence or absence of malice), can either "accuse them or excuse them. ..God will judge men's secret thoughts" in this regard" (Rom. 2:15-16).

     Meanwhile, the Church's task of evangelization includes its obligation of enlightening people by moral teachings, so that the subjective non--conscience-will conform to the objective non-God's law: "Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that others may take warning" (I Tim. 5:20). "Rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:13).

     Notice how Paul presents objective moral truth to homosexuals to correct their subjective moral blindness ("their foolish hearts were darkened"): "In sexual impurity they degraded their bodies with one another. ..exchanging natural relations for unnatural ones. ..Men abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves (in their bodies) the due penalty for their perversion" (Rom. 1:21-27). (Some might conjecture that this "due penalty" in their bodies hints at threatened venereal disease;  today that is mainly AIDS, which originated among gays and,  through bisexuals, infected straight people-abetted by another sin,  drug abuse with infected needles.)

     Among the many scriptural condemnations of the practice (not orientation) of homosexuality, the book of Leviticus calls it a detestable "abomination" (18:22), for which God required Moses to apply the death penalty (20:13) to teach the Israelites effectively that homosexual acts such as sodomy entail objective (intrinsic) evil.

     The Church keeps reminding us of the distinction between the homosexual orientation and the homosexual practice or act. The abnormal sexual orientation is itself not sinful, just as the abnormal disorder of an allergy or asthma is not sinful. Homosexual orientation may be regarded morally as simply a form of deep-seated and persistent temptation, not a sin, just as a heterosexual inclination to adultery  or fornication is a temptation, not a sin-unless the person succumbs to the temptation. Just as a heterosexual person must avoid sins of fornication and adultery, so also a homosexual must avoid the sin of sodomy.

     This comparison, however, may seem to be weak. Many homosexuals (not bisexuals) regard a normal marriage relationship as repulsive, or at least totally unfulfilling. This means that to remain chaste, a gay person must remain sexually non-active, obliged to endure life-long sexual deprivation, possibly feeling "cheated" of sexual fulfillment in a kind of "forced" celibacy (unlike the voluntary celibacy of a priest or religious who finds fulfillment living a consecrated celibate life).

     But is involuntary celibacy or chastity always an unjust imposition by God or by the Church? Countless straight people are subject to the same involuntary ("forced") and often life-long sexual deprivation that is morally required of every gay person. For instance, there are many paraplegics or sexually impotent persons or low sex-drive individuals who feel "cheated" of sexual fulfillment in life. Even many married persons suffer the same "forced" sexual deprivation because their spouse is frigid or impotent, or sexually uncooperative, or chronically ill, or drunk, or emotionally repulsive, or venereally infected, etc. Also sexually deprived are countless prisoners, hostages, institutionalized inmates or patients, family-separated military personnel,  refugees, etc.-not to mention the millions of single persons who have never found a suitable spouse. If unhealed, a celibate, chaste gay  person requires no more sexual self-control than is required of  these countless millions of variously deprived straight persons.

     Of the many kinds of deprivation of normal sex, Jesus spoke of only three: "eunuchs (homosexuals) born that way," those castrated, and those choosing celibacy "for the sake of the kingdom" (Matt.19:12).

A life of freely chosen celibacy (see I Cor. 7:38.) has its special reward from God (Luke 18:29). But even involuntary celibacy is a cross that if accepted as God's will (1 Pet. 4:2 and 19), is rewarded by God. "It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good (e.g. obeying God's sex laws) than to suffer (punishment) for doing evil" (3:17).

    But what about the possibility of reversing this sexual preference? In my book, "Healing Your Family Tree," I point out that homosexuals can be cured of this "ego-distonic personality disorder ," even if it is proven to be genetic in origin. There are books on curing gays, retreat forms of therapy, psychiatric specialists in the field of orientation reversal, and at least 25 organizations, like "Exodus International," etc. founded by ex-gays, that have lead countless gays to" a new identity through Jesus. " The Catholic group of gays called COURAGE (not to be confused with morally unacceptable group of Catholics called DIGNITY ) offers tremendous help and support for Catholic homosexuals. In my own pastoral experience, almost all of those I have seen cured were ones who submitted with great humility to a deliverance prayer (not full-blown exorcism), in order to be delivered from a spirit of homosexuality. The book explains the scriptural basis for what is often an "inherited" bondage derived from ancestral sin that sometimes leaves one open to demonic intervention (not possession), which is often at the root of this disorder .

     But with or without the use of a deliverance ministry, no homosexual can be cured of this disorder without three pre-conditions: First, he or she must admit that the homosexual act is a perversion and totally "unnatural," as Paul explicitly states in several places in the first chapter of Romans. The act may seem "natural" to the individual but it must be recognized as "unnatural," i.e. not according to nature, in itself. To most people this is obvious from the most elementary study of male/female anatomy and physiology. But amazingly, the "denial syndrome" leads many gays to deny this element of unnaturalness in the homosexual act itself.

     Second, the gay person must admit that any homosexual act in itself is intrinsically immoral. There are several forms of unnatural sexual sin among gays and lesbians (Rom. 1 :26), the most common form of which is the sin of sodomy, detestable to God. In the Bible, this sin is often condemned, and is described as "the sexual immorality and perversion of Sodom and Gomorrah punished by God" (Jude, verse 7). The immorality of the act, just as its unnaturalness, is obstinately denied by many gays, so "God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done II (Rom.1 :28). 

At this point the devil freezes the person's thinking in this distorted understanding of sexual morality. "To suit their own lusts. ..they will turn their ears away from the truth" (II Tim. 4: Thus, the second obstacle to healing is lodged in place.

     Thirdly-and this is the biggest obstacle to a cure of the disorder-the gay person must want to become heterosexual-a nessrarity among gays. With no sincere desire for normalcy, healing of the sexual preference is impossible. However, even in the cases where this third condition (desire for normalcy) is not fulfilled, still the gay person is always free to practice chastity. (Almost every diocese has pastoral resources to support gays in this endeavor.) .Chastity is not impossible, if one is careful to avoid "proximate occasions of sin II of thought, word or deed, and exercises a prayerful reliance on Jesus for the supportive grace of God. Any gay person that cooperates with God's grace will know the truth of Paul's words: "I can do everything in him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:13).

     I'm sure that God has a special love for gays and lesbians that sincerely struggle with their disorder; their heroic efforts are most pleasing to him. Those sincere efforts probably carry a great intercessory power to draw down grace from God, not just for themselves but also for their fellow gays struggling to live a chaste life. When they experience the special reward God has reserved for those who faithfully strive to avoid sin and live chastely, these precious ones will praise God for all eternity, aware that their struggle was worth the eternal reward-a thousand million times over!

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Learning can do much good, it is true; but however much it may accomplish, experience teaches us, in the present as in the past, that moral evils never yield to any other force than the grace of God. A learned man may enlighten the minds of his fellow men, and expel their darkness and errors, but unless the grace of God touch their hearts, they will not embrace the truth.