Fr. Neuhaus on the "reckless use" of the term "homophobia"

It turns out that Fr. Richard John Neuhaus addressed the slurs of Andrew Sullivan and Co. nearly nineteen years ago, in a May 1990 review of Homosexuality in the Priesthood and the Religious Life (edited by Jeannine Gramic, Crossroad):

In addition to being insensitive and unfeeling toward non-homosexuals who are coping with sexuality and its discontents, the activist literature is typically cruel and slanderous in its explanation of why most people have negative views of homosexuality. Anything other than the “correct” view of homosexuality is attributed to “homophobia,” which is consistently described as the result of bigotry, ignorance, and the fear of one’s own sexuality. If it is an instance of homophobia that parents earnestly hope that their children will not turn out to be homosexual, then almost every parent in the world is homophobic. Books such as Homosexuality, which incessantly talk about the fears, frustrations, angers, and depressions involved in being homosexual, inadvertently reinforce the reasons why parents hope their children will not be homosexual. The dramatically higher incidence among homosexuals of suicide, psychological disorder, and sexually related disease (frequently lethal) suggests that homosexuality is anything but gay. Of course the activists blame these pathologies on society’s intolerance, but it is not intolerance that produces another and very basic reason why people hope their children will not be homosexual. Whatever its alleged merits, homosexuality is sterile. Few things are more fundamental to societal interest and parental desire than the hope for children and grandchildren, for successor generations that will carry on our communal stories. The society’s “failure” to put homosexuality on a moral par with heterosexuality is not a result of homophobia, as that term is now recklessly used, but of a human refusal to accept the end of history.

With far better insight into the life and thought of Fr. Neuhaus, here is George Weigel in the pages of Newsweek:

For a man of sharply expressed opinions, he was also a skilled listener and a gentle counselor, with a particular care for helping young men and women figure out what God had in mind for their lives. In the Catholic phase of his ministry, which began after his ordination by Cardinal John O'Connor in 1991, an act which he regarded as completing his commitment to Lutheranism as a reform movement within the one Church of Christ, he served a working-class parish, as he had done as a Lutheran; in both cases, he declined to preach "down" to his congregations, such that his challenging sermons deepened many people's faith. He was generous in supporting the poor throughout the world, giving away a significant portion of his lecture fees and book royalties.

Richard Neuhaus was also an American patriot with a critical love for the country to which he moved, permanently, at age 15, after a rambunctious childhood and adolescence in Pembroke, Ontario, where his father was a Lutheran pastor. As a teenager, he ran a filling station in Cisco, Texas—likely the only counselor of two popes and several presidents who ever joined the Texas Chamber of Commerce at age 16. His distinguished career as a public intellectual led some to think that he was embroidering things a bit when he claimed he had never graduated from high school; but he hadn't.

He had the remarkable, and mathematically counterintuitive, ability to multiply his enthusiasm and energy while dividing it with others. That was a grace. And that is one of the many reasons why so many of us will miss him as we shall miss few others.

Read the entire piece.

Comments

[Todd]

It's important to be discerning. Many critics fail to disentangle emotion from argument.

There is indeed such a thing as a fear of homosexuality. It is possible for a person to strive honestly for the truth, yet be overcome with passions. Many critics of homosexuality really fail to discern. If "reckless" can be charged, it may well be the result of the widespread fear of the unknown.

[Carl E. Olson]

Todd: So, are you saying that Fr. Neuhaus didn't know—or "discern"—what homosexuality is, or that it was reckless of him to point out that some homosexuals openly attack traditional Christian morals and beliefs and demand that homosexual acts be accepted as normal and good?

[Todd]

Carl, "reckless" is your word. I wouldn't use it.

Not being on the receiving end of homosexual insults, prejudice, and hate, as many people I know are, Fr Neuhaus' take might be described as "incomplete."

If the problem is with the attack on Christian morals and beliefs, then the defense should stand there. Not with the singling out of one group (homosexuals) and not noticing others.

Moral believers need to discern. Are homosexuals a scapegoat for the moral problems of society? Or are they prepared to reject the hermeneutic of subtraction and take a stand in a positive way?

Let me add Neuhaus dodges the question of born or made:

"Books ... which incessantly talk about the fears, frustrations, angers, and depressions involved in being homosexual, inadvertently reinforce the reasons why parents hope their children will not be homosexual. The dramatically higher incidence among homosexuals of suicide, psychological disorder, and sexually related disease (frequently lethal) suggests that homosexuality is anything but gay."

Many homosexuals aren't in denial about this. But one can find disorders, even "frequently lethal" ones, among certain human groups. Is it wrong to be White because you'll live fewer years than Asians? Or to be Black and tend to suffer sickle-cell anemia?

It would suit moral believers better to go on the offensive against promiscuity. But that would cut a wider swath in modern society. Imagine going toe to toe with Fox Network. Not many conservatives can.

[Carl Olson]

Carl, "reckless" is your word. I wouldn't use it.

Not that I disagree with the word "reckless," but it was used in the article by Fr. Neuhaus. Thus my use of it.

If the problem is with the attack on Christian morals and beliefs, then the defense should stand there. Not with the singling out of one group (homosexuals) and not noticing others.

Fr. Neuhaus's review was of a book titled Homosexuality in the Priesthood and the Religious Life. Thus it's hardly surprising he focused on homosexuality. As you must know, he wrote hundreds of articles on hundreds of topics, with homosexuality being just one of those topics. There is no "singling out," save to the degree that the aggressive and obvious agendas of some homosexual activists make it necessary.

Moral believers need to discern.

Apparently, in your view, "conservatives" are unable to "discern." But please keep in mind that this is likely due to some sort of physiological disorder that we "conservatives" are born with, and we demand that you not only acknowledge that this is the way that God made us, but that you also defend, celebrate, and promote our right to fail in discerning things as you do.

[Todd]

More reading into my points things that aren't there, Carl.

"Apparently, in your view, "conservatives" are unable to 'discern.'"

Not apparent at all. Discernment is difficult, subtle, and far beyond the experience of most human beings ... though not beyond their potential. I said "many," though not "all" conservatives would have difficulty. The same is true of liberals. Liberals may buy in to the culture of victimhood a little deeper (though not exclusively) the attempt to legislate morality in the public square is the venue of religious conservatives. I find it ironic that the Fox Corporation, so well known for conservative views in news, would be so ... envelope-pushing when it comes to sex and violence on tv.

[Fernando]

Todd, why do you use political terms ("conservatives") rather than theological ones; instead of "conservatives" and "liberals/progressives," why don't you say "orthodox" and "heretics"? Too harsh for your muliebral nature? This would be "too simplistic" for you? Yours is a political religion?

[Fitz]

Todd – I get your point generally, but I believe you are being deceived as to the depth of the challenge being presented.

"Moral believers need to discern. Are homosexuals a scapegoat for the moral problems of society? Or are they prepared to reject the hermeneutic of subtraction and take a stand in a positive way?"

What you wrote above may seem that way, put such a perception is a delusion presented by the media & secular culture.

Christians and “conservatives’ have always stood firmly against divorce, fornication, abortion, pornography & general licentiousness.

However: you won’t see the media or the secular culture report on any of the myriad and Herculean efforts that represent our counter revolution to the sexual revolution.

On the contrary, these efforts are rarely reported and never reported as part of a overall sexual ethic designed to promote a culture of Life and solid families and communities.

Instead you get an aggressive demand like same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality as the latest proletariat in the expansion of the sexual revolution.

The secular culture has worked hard to portray homosexuals as a sort of “baby harp seal” –specifically so – when conservatives confront this threat they can be portrayed as “insensitive’ not “inclusive” and (as you attempt to say) “hypocritical”.

You have bought into a carefully crafted propaganda campaign. Of coarse Christians are going to (necessarily) meet the point of the spear, which is now homosexuality & same-sex “marriage”.

It is the secularists that refuse to accurately portray the larger continuum of the Christian sexual ethic and social conservatism that we are fighting for.

So they spend forty odd years misrepresenting us and then thrust homosexuality as the cutting edge, avante’guard issue – all the while daring us to publicly –“club the baby harp seal”.

This is the most transparent & obvious of truth’s. After forty years of ignoring Christians and social conservatives. After forty years of ignoring massive family breakdown & the cultural breakdown in sexual norms – the same sexual revolutionaries now claim we cannot (with integrity) oppose the point of the spear they have sharpened just for us.

As soon as we do they “wave the bloody shirt”. As you have attempted to do.

[Stephen J.]

"Is it wrong to be White because you'll live fewer years than Asians? Or to be Black and tend to suffer sickle-cell anemia?"

No; but I'd suggest there would be some moral wrong, in self-deception if in nothing else, in claiming that anyone who sees that shorter lifespan, or that vulnerability to anemia, as organic malfunctions rather than simply acceptable variant "healthualities" is arguing from the irrational bigotry of "defectophobia". Likewise, there would certainly be some moral turpitude involved in claiming that because your genes predispose you to diabetes, asking you to control your diet is an unacceptable imposition of "nutritive repression".

And there would certainly be a lack of charity and a great tendency towards pride in insisting, in defiance of science, society and tradition, that all definitions of health care and medical law should be rewritten to treat such malfunctions as if they were *not* malfunctions -- in effect, forcing the rest of us to participate in a deliberate charade for the sake of validating the egos of the minority who insist, somewhat contradictorily, that they have both a right to everyone else's validation and approval, and simultaneously a right to freedom from everyone else's evaluation and judgement.

[Mike D'Virgilio]

To answer Todd, it is very important to single out homosexuality. Critically important. Why? Because adulterers, or thieves, or fornicators or liars or you pick the sin, are not trying to force a view of morality on America via the courts. If I believe that adultery is wrong and say so, I don't find a large group of adulterers picketing and forming political action committees to pressure me to shut up, calling me a bigot and adulterphobe and otherwise trying to get me to believe that adultery is as good and right and just as morally legitimate as faithful monogamy.

In fact I am of the opinion that homosexual activists don't really give a rip about same-sex marriage. They are simply using SSM, and leftist, activist judges, to force all Americans to agree with them that heterosexuality and homosexuality are morally equivalent, that one is no better than the other. And that if you dare to disagree with this, you will be branded as evil as any garden variety racist. And they will use the law to shut you up if you dare speak out. Make no mistake, this is their endgame, and to not single out homosexuality in this context is a dereliction of Christian duty.

[Fernando]

Refuse to say "same-sex marriage." There's no such thing. By definition, marriage is between a man and a woman. What homosexual activists and their allies (like Todd, for example) are pushing is not marriage. It's essential that we in no way legitimize this filth via any terminological acquiescence. Similarly, never use the word "gay" unless meant in the sense of happy. Before its perverted cooption, this used to be a wonderful word. Let's purify it.

[Todd]

Sorry, people, I think you're misreading what I'm writing here. We all know examples of being right, but for the wrong reasons or in the wrong way. Since I pay little to no attention to mainstream media, I seriously doubt I've been brainwashed by some program.

To reply briefly: I use political terms to describe political activity: the social interaction between people. California's prop 8 was political, not moral.

I don't see the same-sex union "agenda" to be anything more than a unified attempt to gain benefits sought. These benefits might well benefit people who take an elderly parent into their home, or other family-friendly arrangements that are of benefit to society, but are not recognized in the tax code, in the legal system without indulging the voluminous jurisprudence.

My caution to all of you is to avoid hearing from the people themselves what it is they seek. Lensing through others who have their own agendas is not the wisest or most prudent course.

[brendon]

California's prop 8 was political, not moral.

This is a false distinction. Morality is about the right ordering of human life. Politics is about the ordering of human life within a community. Thus politics is, by definition, a species of morality.

...the attempt to legislate morality in the public square is the venue of religious conservatives.

I know I am addressing this out of order, but it follows from the previous point. Law is nothing less than an official promulgation meant to order the behavior of a community. Law deals with morality by definition. It is fundamentally false to say that the legislation of morality belongs to any one group alone. Any group that attempts to influence the law, by definition, attempts to legislate morality, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

I don't see the same-sex union "agenda" to be anything more than a unified attempt to gain benefits sought.

Then it is the wrong way of going about it. If an injustice is being perpetrated by making it too difficult for some to gain certain necessary legal arrangements, then the correct solution is to change the law to make it easier, not to play some nominalist game by pretending that marriage has no nature but is rather whatever we say it is. One does not right one injustice by perpetrating another, greater injustice.

I would also note that I am not convince that every so-called "right" demanded by those lobbying for same-sex "marriage" is actually something that they are justly due. And if they lack things that are not justly their due, then no injustice has been perpetrated.

[Pazdziernik]

I wish I had Fr. Neuhaus, quotation memorized word for word when in a company conference room recently someone mentioned, "My theory is that those who are 'homophobic' (that is those who are against active homosexual activity and its elevation to a high good) actually reveal a closeted homosexuality in themselves" with many nodding in assent around me.

[Telemachus]

Todd: "I don't see the same-sex union 'agenda' to be anything more than a unified attempt to gain benefits sought."

There is no "same-sex union" agenda, there is a "same-sex MARRIAGE" agenda. Same-sex couples are already given legal benefits and rights through "civil unions" in multiple communities.

Todd: "My caution to all of you is to avoid hearing from the people themselves what it is they seek."

Please clarify. It sounds like you're saying "don't believe that people actually want what they say they want."

*******************

And I'll just chime in on the general issue. Homosexuals are NOT being singled out as a "cause of all things evil" like various groups of people have been throughout history (e.g. Jews, blacks). Queer-activists are consciously doing battle with the rest of society to redefine the meaning of marriage to suit their vanity. They push; we either respond or don't.

What's at issue is the idea of "inclusiveness" which dominates the secular West (and part of the religious) and originated from a (understandable) desire to avoid harm because of ideological differences. In pursuing said inclusiveness, activists go to far. It is one thing to say "a human being is a human being," but quite another to say "you should accept someone's behavior simply because he is a human being." Activists go a step further by saying "you should be required by law to accept my behavior."

And to cut-off the thought at the pass, opposers of homosexual-marriage need not consider anything concerning the origins of homosexuality, nor its character. These questions are separable from (but informative to) the issues at hand: is it just to legally bind civil society in recognizing a lifestyle as legitimate despite massive disagreement? No. Freedom of thought is more important than the supposed "rights" of a fractional minority who are acting in ways detrimental to themselves and others.

[Stephen J.]

"I don't see the same-sex union "agenda" to be anything more than a unified attempt to gain benefits sought."

That's the most charitable interpretation and it's one I'd prefer myself, but it's simply not borne out by the facts; whenever a legal arrangement has been offered by compromisers that offers all the benefits SSM advocates say they want, but refuses to call it "marriage" or is useable for other forms of adult familial interdependency, it has always - always - been rejected by the SSM advocates as inadequate.

SSM advocates want to change the law to compel people to acknowledge as marriage something that has never been defined that way. Period. Paragraph.

And I find it telling that the SSA community only began seriously agitating for marriage once the rest of us had weakened marriage to the point where fidelity and permanence -- things the SSA community, by its advocates' own unashamed admission, have never espoused as desireable qualities -- were no longer considered standard expectations for anybody.

[Todd]

Ask yourselves: is it easier to nitpick through hospitals, schools, adoption agencies, nursing homes, funeral homes, inheritance law, and the like, or go after a public redefinition of "marriage" and cover all the bases at once? Last time I checked, Christian churches define marriage as they see fit. For Catholics, that includes a sacramentality that won't be extended to homosexuals.

What same-sex unions will compel people to do is allow non-related people to do all the things spouses and family members can already do. Nobody is "forced" to recognize marriage, simply the legal parallel that allows consenting people to do as they wish under a legal umbrella, not a dozen or two parasols.

Cynical, I know, but ...

For the matter of damage to marriage, the secular sphere already recognizes adultery, at least in the context of the routine end of marriages Catholics would otherwise consider valid. Do Catholics, in their professional lives, work with people in second and subsequent marriages? By the definitions set forth in this thread, almost everybody is already corrupted by selling to, buying from, rubbing shoulders with divorced people ... and other public sinners.

Marriage, especially sacramental marriage is better served by building up from within, not by attacking disinterested pretenders without. The focus on gays is misplaced; people concerned about the strength of marriages should go on a Marriage Encounter instead. Or if they already have, urge at least three other couples to do so. My wife and I have steered five couples to ME: anybody ahead of the liberals on the defense of marriage on this front?

[brendon]

Ask yourselves: is it easier to nitpick through hospitals, schools, adoption agencies, nursing homes, funeral homes, inheritance law, and the like, or go after a public redefinition of "marriage" and cover all the bases at once?

Why is this at all relevant? What is easier is not equivalent to what is just and true.

I would point out that "adoption agencies" are on of those areas where same-sex couples have no rights to claim. Children have a right not to be subjected to intellectual, moral and spiritual violence for the sake of adults feeling validated.

Last time I checked, Christian churches define marriage as they see fit. For Catholics, that includes a sacramentality that won't be extended to homosexuals.

Last time I checked, marriage was not only a sacramental, but also a natural and pre-political institution. So the argument that the Church can still define sacramental marriage and She sees fit and deny it to those who cannot receive it does nothing to change the fact that natural marriage is derived from human nature as being between a man and a woman, and is something no state or law has the authority to change.

Nobody is "forced" to recognize marriage, simply the legal parallel that allows consenting people to do as they wish under a legal umbrella, not a dozen or two parasols.

This is a distinction without a difference. This "legal umbrella" is called "marriage." Is is treated by the legal system the same as true marriage. The law, by definition, forces this erroneous definition of marriage upon the citizenry. It is nominalism at its finest made the law of the land. It does violence against the truth and is intellectual, moral and spiritual violence against the citizenry.

The focus on gays is misplaced...

It would only be misplaced if there was not a movement to do violence to the truth by treating marriage and non-marriage as the same thing under the law, and even to erroneously call them by the same name.

[Ed Peters]

Todd wrote: "Last time I checked, Christian churches define marriage as they see fit. For Catholics, that includes a sacramentality that won't be extended to homosexuals."

Todd, your assertions make plain that you suffer from SEVERAL serious misunderstandings about Church teaching on marriage. Start with 1983 CIC 1055 and standard commentaries.

[Francis Beckwith]

"Nobody is "forced" to recognize marriage, simply the legal parallel that allows consenting people to do as they wish under a legal umbrella, not a dozen or two parasols."

Yes they are Todd. If I own an apartment complex and refuse to rent to cohabiting couples--gay or straight--the law will coerce me to rent. If I am a photographer in New Mexico, I cannot refuse to photograph a gay wedding on religious grounds unless I am willing to pay a steep fine. If I am Catholic Charities in Mass., I cannot exclude gay couples for adoption; so, I get out of the adoption business. If I am a public school teacher in California, I cannot make critical comments about homosexuality, but I can make critical comments about those religious traditions of my students that maintain that homosexual practice is disordered. If I offer a carefully crafted argument against homosexual practice, I am equated, in the legal regime of many communities in this country, with a thoughtless, racist bigot, even though sexual practices are a legitimate subject of moral assessment while one's race is of no moral consequence whatsoever.

And yet, it is a rare thing to hear a Christian gentleman or lady use terms like "fag," "queer," or "homo" in public or even in private. This is because they understand that sin is ubiquitous in our culture, families, and marriages. And for this reason, they offer to their homosexual brothers and sisters the love of Jesus, which, for each of us, requires that we carry our cross. But then, for some strange and sad reason, these Christians are called bigots and homophobes. Revealing, it seems, a perverse self-understanding, that one's disorder can be called goodness if one labels those that point out the disorder as fools and bigots. It seems bad form to insult people who expect better of you.

[Todd]

"Why is this at all relevant?"

Because it is more helpful to see the effort from the point of view of your opponents, not the imaginings of allies. Without the full picture, without accurate diagnosis, your efforts to oppose will likely fail.

"What is easier is not equivalent to what is just and true."

Clearly, if all homosexuals were practicing celibacy, the point of all this would be moot.

If the state cannot change the definition of marriage, then we have nothing to worry about, right? The only thing at stake are the secular benefits accorded to people living together. Is marriage defined by biology? By theology? Or by legal benefits in a society?

I just don't see how two unmarried persons seeking legal benefits they each agree upon is a threat in any way to traditional marriage. As a Christian, I wouldn't be able to apply or advocate for such benefits with a person who is not my sacramental wife. But on the other hand, if I were to take an elderly relative into my home, why wouldn't some benefit be of help to the rest of my family or to society at large?

The bottom line for the thread topic is this: is the Christian reaction to same-sex unions something logical or something phobic? I have yet to read any concrete threat to marriage coming from a pair of homosexuals who want the legal side of permanence and stability. Lots of talk about undermining stability of marriage, but unions mimic the majority choice. Lots of talk about moral decay, but heterosexual promiscuity, pornography, addictions, and abuse damage millions of marriages from the inside out.

[brendon]

If the state cannot change the definition of marriage, then we have nothing to worry about, right?

The state cannot change the definition of humanity either, since the definition of something, strictly speaking, merely expresses what it is. So I suppose the concentration camps, the gulags and the abortuaries are things that we did not and do not have to worry about, right?

The only thing at stake are the secular benefits accorded to people living together.

What is at stake is the truth. The law has pedagogic power. By treating marriage and sodomy the same it teaches that marriage and sodomy are equally valid and acceptable choices. It teaches that they have equal dignity and are equally worthy of protection and societal approval. In short, it teaches lies.

Is marriage defined by biology? By theology? Or by legal benefits in a society?

Natural marriage is defined by human nature. Sacramental marriage is defined by the revealed will of God. Neither is within the authority of the law to change.

I have yet to read any concrete threat to marriage coming from a pair of homosexuals who want the legal side of permanence and stability.

I am not surprised. You have not demonstrated that you hold the truth to be of any value, so why would you find the fact that the law lies by teaching a moral evil to be a good at all problematic?

[Todd]

My friends, you seem to be misdsing the point.

Ed, people usually refrain from caps in this setting. The use of them is considered rude. I'm not quite sure you have the context right, either. I was arguing in favor of the Church's definition.

And Brendon, your equation of same sex unions to concentration camps rings somewhat false. Most homosexuals, knowing others were on the receiving end of such camps, would say the situation is somewhat flipped.

"Neither is within the authority of the law to change."

My point exactly. But some Christians seem to be arguing otherwise.

I appreciate the pedogogical "momentum" law can provide. I don't see how that affects heterosexuals. It may free SSA women and men to aspire to some of the qualities of heterosexual marriage. It doesn't change the definition, either biologically or theologically.

As for the compulsion to cooperate with homosexuals, may I ask Francis if he advocates refusing to interface with businesses, clients, or colleagues who are immoral?

If a person singles out homosexuals, but not other sinners, then this is prejudice. A person would be failing to apply the full extent of her or his moral standards to all potential clients, employees, etc.. If a Catholic were willing to extend a boycott to cohabiting couples, contraceptors, divorced-and-remarried, child abusers, and their enablers, then I would applaud their stance. But applying a moral standard to homosexuals alone while looking the other way at others: this is not moral.

[Telemachus]

Todd: "I just don't see how two unmarried persons seeking legal benefits they each agree upon is a threat in any way to traditional marriage."

This has been answered over and over again in this post, as well as in countless articles on the subject. The issue is "What IS marriage?" If SSM is codified in positive law and forced on society, then the very idea of "marriage" completely and irrevocably loses its meaning outside of a relgious context. When this happens, marriage will not exist in any meaningful sense within civil society, the ramifications of which require a book in order to fully detail. I don't know how this can be more clearly and succinctly stated.

Todd: "I have yet to read any concrete threat to marriage coming from a pair of homosexuals who want the legal side of permanence and stability... Lots of talk about moral decay, but heterosexual promiscuity, pornography, addictions, and abuse damage millions of marriages from the inside out."

There are a few things that need to be addressed here:
(1) Legal recognition is not sufficient to produce "permanence and stability" in ANY relationship. This is self-evident from the disintegration of marriage within the United States, a phenomenon noted by you already.

(2) Are even a significant minority of homosexual persons focused on what you call the "legal side of permanence and stability"? What I continually see are very angry and ideologically-driven people who wish to have their lifestyle FORCIBILY validated by civil government. In fact, as in the case of (Oregon's?) "Back Bash" activist group, some groups of queer-activists explicitly state that they wish to do away with marriage altogether because they see the institution as "oppressive" and "unjust." This is Marxism, not a desire for "stability and permanence."

(3) Time to put the "heterosexuals can't stay married, so why are you being so uppity about homosexuals?" attack in the ground. The very fact that marriage is on such shaky ground in this country is THAT MUCH MORE of a reason not to further dilute its meaning. In other words, you seem to argue that "we should recognize SSM because marriage is failing in this country" while we argue "we SHOULDN'T recognize SSM because marriage is failing in this country." Which one is more reasonable?

(4) Mike D'Virgilio already answered your statements in this post: "Because adulterers, or thieves, or fornicators or liars or you pick the sin, are not trying to force a view of morality on America via the courts. If I believe that adultery is wrong and say so, I don't find a large group of adulterers picketing and forming political action committees to pressure me to shut up, calling me a bigot and adulterphobe and otherwise trying to get me to believe that adultery is as good and right and just as morally legitimate as faithful monogamy."

*NOTE: I use the term "queer activism" because I've read interviews with activist homosexuals / transgenders / etc. and they seem to promote the term "queer" as preferrable. I'm just being polite.

[Todd]

Telemachus, your points in turn:

1. There are secular aspects that maintain stability: inheritance laws, visitation rights for ill or dying partners, care of adopted children.

2. But they're not forcing a lifestyle for heterosexuals to emulate. In other words, nobody is forced to marry a same-sex partner. And as I pointed out before, non-cooperation with *all* sinners, not just the ones picked and chosen by activists, would seem to be warranted by the stance against same sex unions.

3. I might seem to be arguing as you suggest, but I'm not. I'm addressing the supposed decay in traditional marriage as a line of reasoning to oppose same-sex unions. I submit they are not related. In fact, insistence on this line of reasoning is akin to the culture of victimhood. "I can't fix my own marriage, so I'll blame the economy, the kids, my spouse's pressure, my in-laws, my job, contraception ... but not my drinking, my drug use, my isolation, my emotional immaturity."

4. I hate to bring bad news, but adultery is already decriminalized in the US. Opponents of no-fault divorce will tell you they've already been coopted by society. Adulterers don't need to picket and form PAC's: they already won.

[brendon]

And Brendon, your equation of same sex unions to concentration camps rings somewhat false.

The analogy rings completely true. The prime analogue is the unchangeable nature of the true definitions of both marriage and humanity. You say there is no reason to oppose laws that treat sodomy as marriage because they cannot change what marriage really is. To which I respond that, if this is true, then there is no reason to oppose laws that treat humans as non-humans because they cannot change what humanity really is. What anyone would or would not say or feel about this doesn't change the fact that the analogy stands.

It may free SSA women and men to aspire to some of the qualities of heterosexual marriage.

And this is a bad thing. To make those who suffer from same-sex attraction believe that their desires are natural and unproblematic is to make them believe a falsehood. To make them think their relationship in anyway has the dignity of marriage is to make them believe a falsehood. To make them believe that acts of sodomy are equivalent to true acts of marital love is to make them believe a falsehood. And to make them believe these falsehoods is to enable them to sink further into the mire of sin and vice. In short, the primary victims of legalizing same-sex "marriages" will be those who suffer from same-sex attraction.

You might respond that they do not think they are suffering or that they would be victims from such laws being passed. To which I could only respond that their confused subjective states do not alter the reality of the matter in the slightest.

As for the compulsion to cooperate with homosexuals, may I ask Francis if he advocates refusing to interface with businesses, clients, or colleagues who are immoral?

All of Dr. Beckwith's examples involve the law forcing someone to knowlingly participate in an evil act, so your response is not to the point. Dr. Beckwith says nothing of whether or not a Christian should "interface" with those who are immoral in situations that do not require such knowing participation.

But you have sufficiently demonstrated to me that you are not interested in the truth of things and have led me to believe that you are being purposefully disingenuous. And so I am shaking the dust from my sandals.

[Augustine]

Todd, whose side are you on?

"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."

-Mt. 12:30