Melinda Selmys is a Canadian Catholic convert and married mother of six who is an ex-lesbian, ostensibly accepts all that the Church teaches about the orientation being an "objective disorder" and and the acts being acts of "grave depravity," and does a lot of writing and speaking about her conversion story. But Selmys flatly states, to my astonishment, and as if everybody knew this, that "gay" does not mean a person who is engaged in, or wants to engage in, same-sex sexual or romantic relationships and acts.
She says it just means --- well, I don't know what she means. It had something to do with a sensibility, and aesthetic, a temperament, a culture, a community, a giftedness --- sheesh.
I try, but I don't quite grasp what she's talking about.
The American Psychiatric Association used to count homosexuality as a disorder until-- was it 1973? At that time, homosexuality meant an orientation, and it was a clinical diagnostic term.
The Catholic Catechism uses the word "homosexuality" in this sense, as a diagnostic term for an orientation --- while rejecting any suggestion that homosexual conduct --- in thought, word, or deed! --- could under any circumstances be approved.
I see that "gay" spokes-entities now officially disapprove of the word "homosexual" because it sounds clinical --- "Like there's something wrong with it!
The healthcare people are now using MSM ("Men who have Sex with Men") because many men who have sex with men do not identify with the words "gay" OR "homosexual."
You'll notice you see less and less now of "Gay" and more of "LGBT." Even the Gay Pride parades aren't Gay Pride parades anymore, they're just "PRIDE PARADES."
And it's terribly bigoted and homophobic to say "queer," unless you're majoring in "Queer Studies."
I think the aim is to make it impossible for anyone to think or talk about it coherently.
