In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Karlo Broussard to discuss the controversial claims about the Catholic Church being a hate group. Karlo tackles Richard’s objections regarding LGBTQ issues and the Church’s teachings, providing clarity on the term ‘disorder’ and its implications.
Transcript:
Caller: You are an officially open hate group to the lgbt. There’s just no way around that. And you’re in the Roman Catholic Church, always across the board, openly supports fascist regimes when they come rise to power. And also, your ultimate goal is to really cloak your goodwills and works into turning everything into a theocracy where it’s patriarchal and male dominated.
Cy Kellett: So we want to tackle all three of those. Carlo, or proceed.
Karlo Broussard: Well, let’s start with the. Let’s start with. With the claim that we’re an open hate group. Richard, how do you define hate? What is it about the Catholic Church’s teachings in relation to lifestyle choices associated with the LGBTQ community that you think are hateful?
Caller: Well, just from your explanation to that young woman just earlier today, you say that this is a disorder. Your church officially describes it as. As an. As an open disorder that can be changed. No, it can’t. This is who these people are. No more than people that black or white can change their race.
Cy Kellett:: Where does the church say it can be changed?
Caller: Sexual orientation?
Karlo Broussard: Well, well, well, the disorder, there’s nothing wrong with. Okay, so first of all. First of all. Yeah, so first of all, we’re focusing on the problem of the church’s language of calling the same sex romantic attraction as a disorder. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does use that language, and it is true. The reason why, Richard, that we claim it is disordered is because the inclination is ordered toward a behavior that we have a prior conviction that we know philosophically is immoral. That’s a claim that needs to be defended. I realize that, but that’s all we mean by disorder, I.e. order toward an immoral behavior. So, for example, if somebody finds themselves as having a propensity or an inclination to overindulge in alcoholic beverages, we would say that propensity, that inclination is disordered, is a disorder. Why? Because the propensity is ordered toward a disordered behavior, an immoral behavior. Now, the propensity itself doesn’t constitute any culpability for the individual, but we simply acknowledge it as being ordered to something that is immoral or that’s all we mean by disorder. Now, Richard, in order for that teaching to be hateful, as you’ve labeled it, that would have to necessarily involve ill will towards the other person. And so I would invite you to articulate for your position, where is the ill will in simply acknowledging that an attraction to an immoral behavior is contrary to nature’s design? So are we being ill will for saying that the propensity for Overindulging in alcoholic behavior, alcoholic beverages is hateful? I don’t think so. Are we being hateful by saying, well, people who have a disordered attraction to members of the opposite sex, maybe somebody’s addicted to pornography and they have a hard time relating to a member of the opposite sex in a healthy, ordered way? Are we being hateful for saying that that desire to objectify. Let’s just use the man’s case, objectify women is hateful and an expression of ill will towards them? In fact, Richard, we actually have goodwill for these people and anybody who has an attraction to sin because we want to invite them to not indulge in the attraction that’s leading them to the immoral behavior. Because if we would do that, Richard. Well, then we actually would be expressing ill will, because then from our view, we would be saying, go ahead and do the immoral behavior. We really don’t care. But that’s not our view. We actually care about people living moral lives versus immoral lives.
Caller: Am I allowed to respond now or is that difficult?
Cy Kellett: Go ahead, go ahead. You can follow up on that one.
Caller: Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, let me get a quick throat clearing real quick before you cut me off, because I know you will. Everything that you just said there is what you guys used to say when you guys preached against interracial marriage. But then when you got your tax exempt status threatened by the US Government, you then dropped that, and then you transitioned over to being actively more vocal and more throat clearing on being anti lgbt. And being LGBT is not the equivalent of what you just described there of alcoholism or pornography addiction. Because LGBT want to have monogamous relationships with single partners for the rest of their lives, just like everybody else does. Having one partner in your life does not make you an addict at all.
Karlo Broussard: Okay, I agree. I agree 100%, Richard. I agree 100%, Richard. So I apologize for not being clear with the analogy. Here’s the purpose of the analogy. In one scenario, there is an attraction to immoral behavior, period. That’s as far as the analogy goes. Okay? And the other scenario, in the same sex romantic attraction scenario, we’re saying there is an attraction to an immoral behavior, period. That’s as far as the analogy goes. That was the purpose of the analogy. So just as it’s not ill will to say an attraction to immoral behavior is a disordered attraction, namely, as contrary to nature’s design, so too it’s not an expression of ill will to say the same sex romantic attraction is a disorder because the Attraction is to a behavior that contravenes the natural moral law. That was the only point of the analogy. And so therefore there’s no expression of ill will in that particular teaching of the church. But I appreciate you pushing back on that because that was provided an opportunity for us to make some clarifications lest there be any confusion on the part of our listeners.
Caller: All right, well, you keep going back to this natural as the. As the reference of morality. Morality is a setting between two people wanting to respect each other’s love language. What is something naturally designed to do is irrelevant to the morality of what you consent to do. And so that’s why, because our lips are naturally designed. Dying for eating. You’re being immoral by breaking natural law by kissing your wife. See, you’re prescribing natural law onto people that they’re not. That has nothing to do with this. You’re just using that as an excuse to hide your bigotry.
Caller: Well, we do believe in natural law, so, Carlo, go ahead.
Karlo Broussard: Yeah, so, Richard, I appreciate your response, and you brought up a few issues there. So that last comment of hiding our bigotry. Notice, Richard, you. You diverged from the question at hand. You distracted. That’s a red herring because you appeal to our motivations rather than whether the question, the issue we’re discussing is true or not. So I want to point that out. So I’m not going to charge you of bigotry, Richard. So I would ask that you not charge us of bigotry. We’re honestly trying to think through these issues just as you are. We’re coming out with different conclusions, obviously, but I don’t think there’s a need for throwing charges at each other. Okay, now you brought up the issue of. I think you touched on the root of our disagreement, Richard. Notice in that latest response, you appealed to a more fundamental framework of morality that’s driving your analysis. Namely, what is moral is what two people consent on. So you have a consent basis, a consent based principle of morality, which is what we would technically call cultural relativism at its core. But we would deny that we actually have a different fundamental framework of morality rooted in our nature as human beings. That applies to you, Richard, as a human being, to myself, to Saya, to every other human being. And they’re. Richard, is the heart of the disagreement. Because if this, if human nature is the measure for us determining what’s good and bad for us as human beings, including our good and bad and appropriate and inappropriate human behavior, well, then we would be able to assess before consent. We would be able to assess behavior even regardless of people are consenting on it. Consent would not matter if the behavior is fundamentally immoral, rooted in our human nature. Now, if your fundamental moral framework is true and morality is just based upon consent, and that’s it, well, then, of course, yeah, your argument would work. We would be wrong. But notice the issue at hand is this more fundamental question of what is the base moral framework for morality itself. And unfortunately, Richard, that’s a discussion that goes beyond what we have time for today. But I appreciate you calling in my friend and challenging us and pushing back and sharing your thoughts and your concerns. And hopefully there was something that I said today that perhaps just might get you thinking a little bit more to inquire a little bit further as to actually what the church teaches on this issue and how we come to those teachings.
Cy Kellett: Richard, thank you for the call. If you’d like a copy of Carlo’s book, the New Relativism, I’d be happy to give it to you.