There’s something wrong with homosexuality. Can we agree on that?
Men and women are not designed to be that way. I’ve tried it with plumbing parts – it never works. Only male and female parts fit together right without an adapter, and I’m not going there with this.
Yes, homosexuality is aberrant: deviant, divergent, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, or irregular.
Why do I make this insensitive observation? It’s not to be mean, I assure you. I just want to remind the self-righteous, indignant GLAADiators among us that the rest of us have a legitimate point of concern about their lifestyle. They’re right to be defensive – but not offensive.
And offensive they were – going after Phil Robertson that way! He’s such a genuinely kind, generous person. It takes a special kind of person to disparage someone like that. They could only claim that he’s “outside the mainstream,” which to them means that since they won a popularity contest, the science is settled. All they can do is incite others to be self-righteous and indignant as well.
Now, I’m offended at these GLAADiators taking action against someone just for expressing an opinion. Apparently, lots of people feel the way I do, and many have reacted passionately, in support of Mr. Robinson – writing, blogging, making phone calls, buying Duck Commander merchandise, and otherwise complaining to A&E.
Rather than get a clue, GLAADiators only see this as a “we still have a lot of work to do” moment. So next, these angry homosexual activists are going after companies affiliated with the show, accusing them of being “anti-gay” and “racist”:
Silence is agreement in this case,” he said. “With such egregious anti-gay and racist comments, those companies that choose to be affiliated with this family need to speak out.
“Anti-gay and racist”? Wow! It’s amazing that anyone could be so evil – even a Southern, Christian duck-hunter! What could Phil have said to elicit such outrage? He quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9,10:
Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God.
What is the point of Corinthians, here? What do these subjects all have in common? Lasciviousness, laziness, substance abuse, lying and cheating: these are all destructive behaviors known as “sin” or “missing the mark.” These behaviors are selfish obsessions that monopolize a person’s attention, alienating them from “the kingdom of God.”
Well, I see no discrimination here – both hetero and homo-sexual behavior are included in the list. Sexually-oriented lifestyles are “sinful” because, being based in the need to constantly gratify sexual desire, they create problems.
Buddhists know it:
The cause of suffering is ‘desire’ or ‘craving’.
Taoists know it:
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage …
Lets go of that and chooses this.
Our nation’s founders knew it:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. – John Adams
Hell, anyone with common sense already knows that self-control is foundational to society. Why should Phil Robertson be demonized for pointing out this self-evident truth?
The Sexual Revolution, with its self-aggrandizing focus on self-fulfillment through sex, is one of the main reasons for the breakdown of the family, traditional marriage and the subsequent rise of many forms of poverty in our society.
And the normalization of homosexuality by organizations such as GLAAD is another egregious nail in the coffin of moral support for a moral society.
Without the stigma associated with promiscuous sexual activity, homosexuality is the latest fashion – I see it everywhere, like breast implants.
You might be thinking – some people can’t help being homosexual. Well, you’re right, some can’t help it. I sympathize with them. It’s like having a disability. But the fact is, many, probably most, of them could help it if they wanted to.
Our society has been sexualized beyond recognition, to the point where it’s considered offensive to point this out.
Now, I have friends who are homosexual. Why are they my friends? Because they don’t shove their parts in my face, insisting that I promote them. They’re no more proud of being homosexual than I am of being heterosexual. We keep our sex life in its place and in private – that’s the way it should be.
But others, like GLAAD, are Mad!
Man, I remember when gays were fun! These GLAAD guys whine like crotchety old ladies (apologies to crotchety old ladies), whiney whiners. I say, grow up and get over it. Christians take criticism, even ridicule, all day every day, and you can’t?
You know, if anyone is insulting to gays these days, it’s got to be the Obama administration (via the Center for American Progress – John Podesta):
I mean, really! What unbelievable stereotyping. If I was gay and portrayed like that, I would be hopping mad, and not in a good way. It makes gay people look like self-obsessed morons – embarrassing!
So if you think this video is okay, but you can’t take a little ribbing from someone genuinely concerned about your well-being – take a chill-pill. Quack!
Excellent article
OF COURSE IT AMAZES US WHEN PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS SUPPORT PERVERSION IN ANY WAY…BUT I WONDER HOW MANY WHO CALL THEMSELVES CONSERVATIVES, OR WHO CLAIM TO HONOR THE US CONSTITUTION UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS BASED ON THE SAME TRUTH AND LOGIC THAT PROVE PERVERSION IS WRONG AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE ANY SUPPORT:
NATURAL LAW:
The discussion of homosexuality brings up the issue of utilitarianism. So far the discussion of the morality of homosexual acts was very incomplete because any moral issue about which people disagree ALWAYS raises a more fundamental issue about criteria. In other words, by what criteria should we judge whether a given act is right or wrong?
Before looking at the issue of criteria, however, we have to remind ourselves of the ever-present tendency in all of us to judge morality by emotion. The most frequent reason I hear people supporting same-sex marriage is that they know some gay couples or individuals. Empathy is a noble human quality but right or wrong does not depend on who is doing the action or on how I feel about those people, just as judging an action wrong should not depend on disliking someone. This might seem obvious to a right thinking person but I have encountered many well-educated people who do not (or cannot?) make the distinction between persons and acts when engaging moral reasoning. I encourage you to read the final essay editorial I sent earlier to reflect on this. In short, to judge an action wrong is not to condemn a person. A person and his/her acts can be distinguished for the purposes of morality.
So, then, by what criterion should we judge whether sexual acts are right or wrong? This is where utilitarianism comes in. Utilitarianism in the popular sense is fundamentally a moral theory that judges right or wrong by its practical outcomes. It is somewhat akin to a cost/benefit analysis. So, when a woman is deciding whether it’s right to have an abortion, the utilitarian says it’s right or wrong based on what the best outcome is. Similarly, a man who is trying to decide whether he should cheat on his wife, if he is a utilitarian, will weigh the various consequences. If the cheating side of the ledger is better, he will conclude that it’s okay to cheat. If the faithful side is better, he will refrain from cheating.
I think it’s fair to say that many, maybe most Americans employ some type of utilitarianism in their moral decision making. But there are at least two problems. One is that to judge the best outcome can be very subjective. What may be judged good for the pregnant woman may not be good for the baby. What may be judged good for the about-to-cheat-husband may not good for his wife or his children. This problem of subjectivity is inherent in utilitarianism for a second reason. Utilitarianism counsels that moral decisions should NOT be based on the inherent meaning of acts. Acts are only good or bad relative to outcomes. The natural law theory that I expounded in class assumes that human acts have an inherent meaning (remember my fist vs. extended hand of friendship example).
One of the most common applications of utilitarianism to sexual morality is the criterion of mutual consent. It is said that any sexual act is okay if the two or more people involved agree. Now no one can (or should) deny that for a sexual act to be moral there must be consent. Certainly, this is one reason why rape is morally wrong. But the question is whether this is enough.
If two men consent to engage in sexual acts, according to utilitarianism, such an act would be morally okay. But notice too that if a ten year old agrees to a sexual act with a 40 year old, such an act would also be moral if even it is illegal under the current law. Notice too that our concern is with morality, not law. So by the consent criterion, we would have to admit certain cases as moral which we presently would not approve of. The case of the 10 and 40 year olds might be excluded by adding a modification like “informed consent.” Then as long as both parties agree with sufficient knowledge, the act would be morally okay. A little reflection would show, I think, that “informed consent” might be more difficult to apply in practice than in theory. But another problem would be where to draw the line between moral and immoral acts using only informed consent. For example, if a dog consents to engage in a sexual act with its human master, such an act would also be moral according to the consent criterion. If this impresses you as far-fetched, the point is not whether it might occur but by what criterion we could say that it is wrong. I don’t think that it would be wrong according to the consent criterion.
But the more significant problem has to do with the fact that the consent criterion is not related in any way to the NATURE of the act itself. This is where Natural Moral Law (NML) objects. NML says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same. How do we know this? By looking at REALITY. Men and women are complementary in their anatomy, physiology, and psychology. Men and women are not interchangeable. So, a moral sexual act has to be between persons that are fitted for that act. Consent is important but there is more than consent needed.
One example applicable to homosexual acts illustrates the problem. To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the “woman” while the other acts as the “man.” In this scenario, homosexual men have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted. I don’t want to be too graphic so I won’t go into details but a physician has told me that these acts are deleterious to the health of one or possibly both of the men. Yet, if the morality of the act is judged only by mutual consent, then there are clearly homosexual acts which are injurious to their health but which are consented to. Why are they injurious? Because they violate the meaning, structure, and (sometimes) health of the human body.
Now recall that I mentioned in class the importance of gaining wisdom from the past. One part of wisdom we gain from such knowledge is how people today came to think of their bodies. I won’t go into details here but a survey of the last few centuries reveals that we have gradually been separating our sexual natures (reality) from our moral decisions. Thus, people tend to think that we can use our bodies sexually in whatever ways we choose without regard to their actual structure and meaning. This is also what lies behind the idea of sex change operations. We can manipulate our bodies to be whatever we want them to be.
If what I just said is true, then this disassociation of morality and sexual reality did not begin with homosexuality. It began long ago. But it took a huge leap forward in the wide spread use of artificial contraceptives. What this use allowed was for people to disassociate procreation and children from sexual activity. So, for people who have grown up only in a time when there is no inherent connection between procreation and sex –- notice not natural but manipulated by humans –- it follows “logically” that sex can mean anything we want it to mean.
Natural Moral Theory says that if we are to have healthy sexual lives, we must return to a connection between procreation and sex. Why? Because that is what is REAL. It is based on human sexual anatomy and physiology. Human sexuality is inherently unitive and procreative. If we encourage sexual relations that violate this basic meaning, we will end up denying something essential about our humanity, about our feminine and masculine nature.
I know this doesn’t answer all the questions in many of your minds. All I ask as your teacher is that you approach these questions as a thinking adult. That implies questioning what you have heard around you. Unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter. All I encourage is to make informed decisions. As a final note, a perceptive reader will have noticed that none of what I have said here or in class depends upon religion. Catholics don’t arrive at their moral conclusions based on their religion. They do so based on a thorough understanding of natural reality.