A priest’s fond memories of gay-baiting
Have some nice clerical moral blindness from a tattling joke called Michael Seed.
The cathedral came under attack in different ways on many occasions. The publication of certain Catholic edicts, or the re-emphasis of traditional church principles, could incite mob fury…The protest that got completely out of hand was led by Peter Tatchell and concerned gay rights. The church was launching a new catechism that had upset various pressure groups. The section saying homosexual activity was wrong had particularly aroused anger, protest and even rioting around the world.
Really?! I can’t imagine why! Merely because ‘the church’ had announced that a whole substantial minority of people is of its essence ‘wrong’ despite the fact that there is no actual reason to think ‘homosexual activity’ is wrong in any sense that can be pinned down – people got angry, and protested! Astonishing.
But actually of course what’s astonishing is the obtuseness of Seed’s dismissive wave of the hand. The section saying homosexual activity was wrong aroused anger because homosexual activity is not wrong in any meaningful sense, and saying it is at this late date and in the teeth of awareness that gay people are subject to disdain and worse – is bad. That’s what’s wrong, if you like: not ‘homosexual activity’ but stupid settled prejudice dressed up in clerical robes.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church went rather farther than that, viz., claiming that homosexuality is wrong, much farther. Here is what it says:
This is much stronger than the word ‘wrong’ implies in the Times article. But it’s more than that. It’s incoherent. Homosexuality itself is said to refer to homosexual acts, not to persons with sexual preferences or inclinations. This is incorrect, but it allows celibate clergy to maintain that they are not homosexual, when in fact they may well be – that is, if they are really celibate.
In fact, the whole thing is about acts, and yet pretends to be about something whose psychological etiology could be studied. But it’s typical of catholic understandings of sexuality. Everything is focused on the act. It has nothing to do with love, sensitivity, pleasure, intimacy, or anything else, just plain straight forward acts of plumbing. Not only gays should have been upset by this. It’s a slander on all sexual being. Celibacy is the ideal, acts of sex are a declension from it.
Plus the unreasoning stupidity of that ‘Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of great depravity, tradition has always declared’ followed by unquestioning endorsement. ‘Sacred Scripture’ presents a lot of things, some cruel, some stupid, some just uninformed – who cares what Sacred Scripture presents how? It’s typical of catholc understanding of authority and tradition and knowledge and morality, too, and it stinks like last year’s fish.