Homosexuality
Every human being is called to receive a gift of
divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive
this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts
intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of
the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations
of divine and natural law.
Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves
sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which
they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a
person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging
the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out.
People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual
desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner.
Divine Law
The rejection of homosexual behavior that is found
in the Old Testament is well known. In Genesis 19, two angels in disguise
visit the city of Sodom and are offered hospitality and shelter by Lot.
During the night, the men of Sodom demand that Lot hand over his guests
for homosexual intercourse. Lot refuses, and the angels blind the men of
Sodom. Lot and his household escape, and the town is destroyed by fire
"because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord"
(Gen. 19:13).
Throughout history, Jewish and Christian scholars
have recognized that one of the chief sins involved in God’s destruction
of Sodom was its people’s homosexual behavior. But today, certain homosexual
activists promote the idea that the sin of Sodom was merely a lack of hospitality.
Although inhospitality is a sin, it is clearly the homosexual behavior
of the Sodomites that is singled out for special criticism in the account
of their city’s destruction. We must look to Scripture’s own interpretation
of the sin of Sodom.
Jude 7 records that Sodom and Gomorrah "acted immorally
and indulged in unnatural lust." Ezekiel says that Sodom committed "abominable
things" (Ezek. 16:50), which could refer to homosexual and heterosexual
acts of sin. Lot even offered his two virgin daughters in place of his
guests, but the men of Sodom rejected the offer, preferring homosexual
sex over heterosexual sex (Gen. 19:8–9). Ezekiel does allude to a lack
of hospitality in saying that Sodom "did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezek.
16:49). So homosexual acts and a lack of hospitality both contributed to
the destruction of Sodom, with the former being the far greater sin, the
"abominable thing" that set off God’s wrath.
But the Sodom incident is not the only time the
Old Testament deals with homosexuality. An explicit condemnation is found
in the book of Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman;
it is an abomination. . . . If a man lies with a male as with a woman,
both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death,
their blood is upon them" (Lev. 18:22, 20:13).
Reinterpreting Scripture
To discount this, some homosexual activists have
argued that moral imperatives from the Old Testament can be dismissed since
there were certain ceremonial requirements at the time—such as not eating
pork, or circumcising male babies—that are no longer binding.
While the Old Testament’s ceremonial requirements
are no longer binding, its moral requirements are. God may issue
different ceremonies for use in different times and cultures, but his moral
requirements are eternal and are binding on all cultures.
Confirming this fact is the New Testament’s forceful
rejection of homosexual behavior as well. In Romans 1, Paul attributes
the homosexual desires of some to a refusal to acknowledge and worship
God. He says, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise
gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for
one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their
own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see
fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper
conduct. . . . Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things
deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them"
(Rom. 1:26–28, 32).
Elsewhere Paul again warns that homosexual behavior
is one of the sins that will deprive one of heaven: "Do you not know that
the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither
the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes
nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers
nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9–10, NIV).
All of Scripture teaches the unacceptability of
homosexual behavior. But the rejection of this behavior is not an arbitrary
prohibition. It, like other moral imperatives, is rooted in natural law—the
design that God has built into human nature.
Natural Law
People have a basic, ethical intuition that certain
behaviors are wrong because they are unnatural. We perceive intuitively
that the natural sex partner of a human is another human, not an animal.
The same reasoning applies to the case of homosexual
behavior. The natural sex partner for a man is a woman, and the natural
sex partner for a woman is a man. Thus, people have the corresponding intuition
concerning homosexuality that they do about bestiality—that it is wrong
because it is unnatural.
Natural law reasoning is the basis for almost all
standard moral intuitions. For example, it is the dignity and value that
each human being naturally possesses that makes the needless destruction
of human life or infliction of physical and emotional pain immoral. This
gives rise to a host of specific moral principles, such as the unacceptability
of murder, kidnapping, mutilation, physical and emotional abuse, and so
forth.
"I Was Born This Way"
Many homosexuals argue that they have not chosen
their condition, but that they were born that way, making homosexual behavior
natural for them.
But because something was not chosen does not mean
it was inborn. Some desires are acquired or strengthened by habituation
and conditioning instead of by conscious choice. For example, no one chooses
to be an alcoholic, but one can become habituated to alcohol. Just as one
can acquire alcoholic desires (by repeatedly becoming intoxicated) without
consciously choosing them, so one may acquire homosexual desires (by engaging
in homosexual fantasies or behavior) without consciously choosing them.
Since sexual desire is subject to a high degree
of cognitive conditioning in humans (there is no biological reason why
we find certain scents, forms of dress, or forms of underwear sexually
stimulating), it would be most unusual if homosexual desires were not subject
to a similar degree of cognitive conditioning.
Even if there is a genetic predisposition toward
homosexuality (and studies on this point are inconclusive), the behavior
remains unnatural because homosexuality is still not part of the natural
design of humanity. It does not make homosexual behavior acceptable; other
behaviors are not rendered acceptable simply because there may be a genetic
predisposition toward them.
For example, scientific studies suggest some people
are born with a hereditary disposition to alcoholism, but no one would
argue someone ought to fulfill these inborn urges by becoming an alcoholic.
Alcoholism is not an acceptable "lifestyle" any more than homosexuality
is.
The Ten Percent Argument
Homosexual activists often justify homosexuality
by claiming that ten percent of the population is homosexual, meaning that
it is a common and thus acceptable behavior.
But not all common behaviors are acceptable, and
even if ten percent of the population were born homosexual, this would
prove nothing. One hundred percent of the population is born with original
sin and the desires flowing from it. If those desires manifest themselves
in a homosexual fashion in ten percent of the population, all that does
is give us information about the demographics of original sin.
But the fact is that the ten percent figure is
false. It stems from the 1948 report by Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior
in the Human Male. The study was profoundly flawed, as later psychologists
studying sexual behavior have agreed. Kinsey’s subjects were drawn heavily
from convicted criminals; 1,400 of his 5,300 final subjects (twenty-six
percent) were convicted sex offenders—a group that by definition is not
representative of normal sexual practices.
Furthermore, the ten percent figure includes people
who are not exclusively homosexual but who only engaged in some
homosexual behavior for a period of time and then stopped—people who had
gone through a fully or partially homosexual "phase" but who were not long-term
homosexuals. (For a critique of Kinsey’s research methods, see Kinsey,
Sex, and Fraud, by Dr. Judith Reisman and Edward Eichel [Lafayette,
Louisiana: Lochinvar & Huntington House, 1990].)
Recent and more scientifically accurate studies
have shown that only around one to two percent of the population is homosexual.
"You’re Just a Homophobe"
Those opposed to homosexual behavior are often charged with
"homophobia"—that they hold the position they do because they
are "afraid" of homosexuals. Sometimes the charge is even made that these
same people are perhaps homosexuals themselves and are overcompensating
to hide this fact, even from themselves, by condemning other homosexuals.
Both of these arguments attempt to stop rational discussion
of an issue by shifting the focus to one of the participants. In
doing so, they dismiss another person’s arguments based on some real or
supposed attribute of the person. In this case, the supposed attribute
is a fear of homosexuals.
Like similar attempts to avoid rational discussion
of an issue, the homophobia argument completely misses the point. Even
if a person were afraid of homosexuals, that would not diminish his arguments
against their behavior. The fact that a person is afraid of handguns would
not nullify arguments against handguns, nor would the fact that a person
might be afraid of handgun control diminish arguments against handgun control.
Furthermore, the homophobia charge rings false.
The vast majority of those who oppose homosexual behavior are in no way
"afraid" of homosexuals. A disagreement is not the same as a fear. One
can disagree with something without fearing it, and the attempt to shut
down rational discussion by crying "homophobe!" falls flat. It is an attempt
to divert attention from the arguments against one’s position by focusing
attention on the one who made the arguments, while trying to claim the
moral high ground against him.
The Call to Chastity
The modern arguments in favor of homosexuality
have thus been insufficient to overcome the evidence that homosexual behavior
is against divine and natural law, as the Bible and the Church, as well
as the wider circle of Jewish and Christian (not to mention Muslim) writers,
have always held.
The Catholic Church thus teaches: "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" (Catechism of the Catholic
Church 2357).
However, the Church also acknowledges that "[homosexuality’s]
psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. . . . 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
that they may encounter from their condition.
"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"
(CCC 2357– 2359).
Paul comfortingly reminds us, "No temptation has
overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not
let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also
provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13).
Homosexuals who want to live chastely can contact
Courage, a national, Church-approved support group for help in deliverance
from the homosexual lifestyle.
Courage,
Church of St. John the Baptist
210 W. 31st St., New York, NY 10001
(212) 268–1010
Web: http://couragerc.net
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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