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Divorce of Love and Life
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Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
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What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

There is widespread evidence of a concerted campaign underway in our country to make homosexuality acceptable. Court cases and referenda in various states have as their goal recognition of homosexual marriages on par with heterosexual marriages.

The homosexual movement has produced videos that are shown widely in public schools. The first, It’s Elementary, is a primer for teachers to help them persuade children that homosexuality is normal and natural. A sequel, That’s a Family!, is a three video series depicting various kinds of families of which homosexual unions are an acceptable example. The videos try to force-feed children who are a captive audience with a pro-homosexual message. It is odd that our public schools grant no admittance to religious content but readily accommodate a message that is an affront to several thousands of years of Judeo-Christian moral tradition. What has happened to the supposed neutrality in public schools? The fact is that public schools have never been neutral with respect to religion. But that is a topic for another article.

Television programs and motion pictures portray homosexuals in sympathetic roles. The media beat the drum of civil rights for homosexuals. They portray them as victims of discrimination because of their sexual orientation, which in their minds is equivalent to discrimination because of ethnic or religious origin. The analogy is false but many are taken in by it. It is rather like arguing that we must respect the activity of drug addicts and alcoholics because of their orientation to narcotic substances. Persons who denounce homosexuality as immoral are called homophobic and are considered to be as dangerous as hydrophobic canines. They are grouped with half-rational, right-wing religious fanatics. Recently GLAAD, a homosexual activist group, is threatening Paramount Films with respect to a television show conducted by Dr. Laura Schlesinger, a conservative commentator and opponent of homosexuality. The group says that if she bashes gays she will appear "hateful" and "bigoted."

Many corporations give domestic partners in same-sex relationships the same benefits as they give to heterosexual unions and thus validate same-sex "marriages" as the moral equivalent of traditional marriage. Their rationale is that they want to treat their employees "fairly" but does their sense of fairness extend to polygamous or incestuous unions by consenting adults? Their reasoning with regard to homosexuality would logically extend to polygamy and incest.

For those who believe in revelation it is clear that homosexuality is a sin, an "abomination," making one worthy of death in the Old Testament, "shameful," depriving one of inheriting the kingdom of God. See Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:24-27; I Corinthians 6:9-10; I Timothy 1:10. But what if one does not believe in revelation. Why should that person regard homosexuality as evil? The typical answer is that it is a threat to marriage. What harm can homosexuals do to marriage? Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), a self-acknowledged homosexual, asks, "How does what I do in my bedroom endanger the institution of marriage?"

To answer his question we should first see whether we agree on what things do harm marriage. Most would agree that marriage and family life are harmed by adultery. It is a fundamental betrayal of the marriage covenant. It creates distrust, discord, and marital breakup. That is fundamentally bad for children. It creates doubts as to the paternity of children. That could leave their maintenance in jeopardy. After the decades-long and continuing experiment with single parent families in our nation there should be no doubt about the social pathology produced by them.

Marriage is also harmed by fornication, premarital sex. If fornicators can satisfy their sexual urges without responsibility many will do so gladly. The current tidal wave of single parent families mainly headed by women is in large part the direct result of prevalent premarital sex. The fathers are around long enough to produce the pregnancy but absent when it comes to rearing the child, probably because they are too busy impregnating someone else.

There is a common thread in adultery and fornication. They divorce sex from procreation and education of children. The language of sex says, "I am willing to be a parent with you." This necessarily involves a life-long commitment because it takes many years to rear children and bring them to a state of mature independence. If a commitment to parenthood and lifelong marriage is lacking, the language of sex says merely, "I am only willing to enjoy myself with you." Many in our society try to justify adultery and fornication and other forms of sexual expression. They operate on the principle that sex is a kind of indoor sport and any sort of sexual pleasure is permissible among consenting adults. Of course a principle of this sort could also justify homosexuality, which necessarily is sex without reference to reproduction and education of children. Acceptance of this principle also invalidates any of the biblical strictures on adultery and fornication because these are pleasurable acts. Indeed the principle that sex is for fun alone without reference to reproduction would also justify teenage sexual activity because they seem to enjoy it very much.

The answer to Mr. Frank’s question as to how homosexual activity harms the institution of marriage is that like adultery and fornication it can be counted moral only on the principle that sex only for the fun of it is morally good. It is generally agreed that adultery and fornication undermine marriage defined as the procreation and education of children and homosexuality does the same, only more so.

One of the reasons that even Christians have a problem with recognizing the evil of homosexuality is that they have conceded the basic premise of homosexuals that sex for pleasure alone is always moral among consenting adults. They may not do so in words but they do so in their acts. Contraception, for example, is precisely sex for pleasure without reference to reproduction, which the couples carefully avoid by whatever means are available to them. If married people want to say that contraception is a morally acceptable activity they must logically endorse the principle that sex for pleasure alone is not only permissible but moral. That leaves them defenseless in attacking homosexuality as an evil because homosexuality is sex for pleasure alone. Indeed under that principle possibly the only things prohibited would be rape and pedophilia. If they still object to homosexuality as a matter of preference and esthetics, their objection is merely a matter of taste and not of principle. It is well documented that tastes differ.

Those who object to homosexuality should not shoot themselves in the foot by adopting in their lives a principle that would justify it. And to do this they will have to cease divorcing the unitive and the generative aspects of sex. Otherwise they have embraced the basic principle justifying sexual hedonism even as they illogically condemn homosexuality.