Posted on 10/07/2021 3:01:16 PM PDT by Ennis85
When I heard that Spencer Klavan would be a speaker at the Classical Learning Test (CLT) 2021 Summit in Annapolis last week, I was surprised — shocked really — that a man who is openly homosexual would be featured there.
The fact that well respected Catholic intellectuals would also be speaking at the Summit, and that others are members of CLT’s Board of Academic Advisors, was troubling to me, as troubling as the big incongruency in Spencer’s life. I worried that the presence of Princeton Prof. Robert George, University of Dallas Prof. Jessica Hooten Wilson, and other well-known Catholic educators would give the appearance of approval of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. More specifically, I worried that young same-sex attracted Catholics witnessing the gathering would be free to conclude, “It’s OK to be a conservative, Catholic, AND an out and proud gay or lesbian.”
Oxford-educated Spencer’s conservative credentials are impressive. He is host of The Young Heretics podcast, an author at The Daily Wire, Associate Editor at the Claremont Review of Books, frequent guest on Candace Owens’ show, and son of Christian conservative Andrew Klavan. Yet Spencer has self-identified as ‘gay’ since high school, is currently engaged to be “married” to a man, and was one of the high-profile conservative gays at the Outspoken Pride 2021 gathering in Nashville in September. His future “husband,” Joshua Herr, serves as general counsel for The Daily Wire.
Klavan is among the rising number of gays in the Republican Party whose presence nowadays generally elicits nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders among many conservatives and Christians, including Catholics. The ranks of gay GOP members grew during the 2020 presidential campaign as they enthusiastically supported President Donald Trump, famously touted by homosexual former Ambassador and Director of National Intelligence, Ric Grenell, as “[t]he most pro-gay president in American history.”
A rickety bulwark against criticism of homosexuality and same-sex ‘marriage’
Spencer Klavan is brilliant. A gifted teacher, his podcasts explain what is often impenetrable prose of classic writers that is easily digested by non-academics, while not losing an ounce of the beauty, truth, and gravitas of their messages. As I’ve listened to Klavan’s podcasts and read his commentaries, I confess, I’ve fallen in love with his work. He’s right about so much, but he’s wrong about homosexuality and same-sex “marriage.”
So how can one claim to be a Christian, a conservative, and a classicist?
Klavan began counting himself a Christian at age 16 — at about the same time he “came out” to his famous Dad, Andrew Klavan — and was baptized into the Episcopal Church at age 18.
In a video interview conducted in October 2020, Klavan was asked to on about the Catholic Church’s teaching on same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality. His brief response revealed the bulwark against personal criticism he has built in his mind.
He explained that natural law theory and the Church’s interpretation of the creation of man and woman in Genesis incorrectly form the basis for Catholicism’s disapproval of gay relationships.
“I don’t think that that is an accurate portrayal of Genesis,” said Klavan. “Obviously things have developed after the fall [of man] in such a way as to permit, to make certain things licit that were not, at least, part of the relationship between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”
“I think it’s a wrongly-selective reading of Genesis that would say because Adam and Eve are commanded to be fruitful and multiply, a commandment that I affirm, therefore there is no such thing as acceptable, praiseworthy, romantic committed loving partnerships besides one man, one woman,” continued Klavan. “Many of the biblical heroes are polygamists, something that I don’t condone, I don’t condone polygamy, but I acknowledge that there are forms of sexual relationships that go beyond what happens in pre-lapsarian Eden.”
In other words, the fall of man — which separated humanity from God — somehow made homosexuality and genderless “marriages” okay with God, despite the discordance with nature and perversion of God’s clearly visible, knowable intention.
Klavan’s chosen protestant denomination, the U.S. Episcopal Church, began warmly accepting both homosexuality and same-sex marriages years ago, causing a rift with the Anglican Church while also playing a role in the sect’s plummeting membership.
Homosexuality: ‘Dehumanizing’
The fact that classic writers appear to uniformly disagree with Klavan about homosexuality has not dissuaded him.
Plato thought homosexuality was “dehumanizing” and Socrates “loathed sodomy,” according to Catholic writer Robert Reilly, author of “Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything.”
Socrates and Plato, were unambiguous in their condemnation of homosexual acts as unnatural. In the Laws, Plato’s last book, the Athenian speaker says, “I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the intercourse between men and women; but that the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust.” By its nature, lust is unbridled, irrational, and therefore destructive of what it is to be human. Giving in to it is therefore Dehumanizing.
Socrates said that a certain man was “no better off than a pig if he wanted to scratch himself against a [young male] as piglets do against stones,” Reilly further noted.
C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist who Klavan views as the “greatest intellectual of the 20th century,” also disagrees with him about homosexuality. “The physical satisfaction of homosexual desires is sin,” wrote Lewis in a letter to a former student.
The relentless seeping in of homosexuality in Catholic education
“There has never been a better time to invest in the souls and minds of our nation’s kids!” exclaimed CLT 2021 Summit participant, Tony Kinnett, in a tweet.
https://twitter.com/TheTonus/status/1444336215772258305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1444336215772258305%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fblogs%2Fclassicist-teacher-homosexuality%2F
While the effort to steep America’s young people in the classics is admirable, does living as a homosexual with the intention of “marrying” a member of the same sex undermine that effort, risking the corruption of their “souls and minds?”
Does Klavan’s presence at the 2021 Summit create a problem for Ave Maria University, Christendom College, Franciscan University of Steubenville, The University of Dallas, and Hillsdale College, which are among the 204 schools that recognize the CLT? The incongruities of his life stand in opposition to the fundamental truths these institutions hold dear.
The Catholic school superintendent of Denver, Elias J. Moo, was another featured speaker at the CLT summit; Michael Moynihan, Head of the Upper School at Opus Dei’s prestigious The Heights School in the Washington suburbs, is on CLT’s Board of Academic Advisors, as is Catholic University of America Professor Chad Pecknold.
The seeping in of homosexuality into conservative circles, whether it be within the GOP, the Catholic Church, or conservative education institutions, continues with little notice.
In February 2020, Fr. James Martin, S.J. — the most prominent clergyman arguing for the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism within the Church — was “warmly welcomed” as he addressed 150 Catholic college and university presidents, urging them to promote “inclusion” on their campuses by promoting “LGBT-affirming liturgies,” permitting students to choose their own pronouns, and holding “Lavender Graduations.”
Klavan is not alone. Ambassador Grenell, FOX News commentators Guy Benson, Deroy Murdock, and Chadwick Moore, “Walk Away” movement founder Brandon Straka, outspoken pro-Trump activists Scott Presler and Christian Walker, and others — although brilliant, successful men — have not yet tapped into the intellectual curiosity and honesty necessary to reject the “born this way” lie which now defines them. Homosexuality remains a stumbling block, stalling their trajectory beyond political truth toward bigger, preeminent ones while also undermining their attempts to supplant liberal insanity with conservative principles.
In this way, their personal lives serve as obstructions, hindering the flow of maximum truth into the world as they continue to resist both science and nature. They cling to an impoverished self and worldview, leading to diminished personal lives and contributing to our pauperized American culture.
Klavan and the others could learn a lot from the intellectual honesty and integrity of Milo Yiannopoulos, who has left the world of sodomy and the cortege of lies and partial truths that follow in its train.
Yiannopoulos has accomplished more good during his year and a half as a chaste, dedicated follower of Christ than he was ever able to during his years as a famous gay conservative provocateur.
What does Wtf stand for?
So anyway my last words to fanatical unChristian haters and tyrants like yourself is this; F__K OFF,
What does F__K OFF mean? Did you forget a couple of letters?
I have no reason to justify my logical and conservative stances on issues to a scumbag like you.
I don’t think logic is your strong suit. Insulting a person’s intelligence and Calling people names to justify your position is a logical fallacy.
Maybe if you tried to use some of your logic you might come to understand that telling homosexuals they are sinning against God and nature is actually being loving to them. Letting them continue guilt free in their sinful lifestyle is, in reality, hating them since you are not warning them that they are on a wide road that leads to Hell.
There’s no way for you to understand since you do not think, you simply emote and claim to believe yet your own posts tell my fellow Sentient human beings all they need to know about a phoney Christian such as yourself.
This from a guy that picks and chooses which Bible verses are true and apparently uses the “F” word freely on a religious forum.
Why do I get the feeling that you love homosexuals but you hate me? Or maybe you hate homosexuals more because you want them to end up in Hell. Or maybe you don’t believe the Bible where it says that those who practice such sins will not see the kingdom of God. Or maybe you just don’t believe the Bible.
Fatman is simply not a biblical Christian, and that means in my book that he hasn’t the faintest clue what God wants. After all, his opinions are based on his own deductions and philosophies.
He is his own god. Let’s see how far that gets him.
I am not my own God. God gave us a brain with which to think and reason. I’m doing what I believe God intended all of his creations to do, THINK FOR YOURSELF. There can be no other reason for him bequeathing us the brain we have. If he did not mean for us to use his greatest gift to us, then he would have created us with a reptile like brain which is simply programmed for survival, no emotions no ability to reason. Kind of like you and the other fanatics.
Romans Chapter 1
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise!f Amen.
26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
A loving God would become human and leave a record to communicate with us.
We aren’t in charge of the record any more than of the incarnation.
He is perfectly capable of preserving his record.
Paul in Romans 1 and 2 is irrefutable
I don’t believe fatman believes that Paul wrote the Book of Romans. Up the thread he indicated that Paul’s writings were written by someone else a couple of hundred years after Paul was dead. It wouldn’t surprise me if he denied that Paul was even a real person.
Since he is making his theology up as he goes, I guess it would be an exercise in futility to try to convince him of the Truth by referencing anything in the Bible that contradicts what he deduced by his amazing intellect and logical deductive abilities from the infallible brain that God blessed him with.
He can correct me if I have misspoken.
I don’t care what you say. You and the rest of the religious fanatics are drones. End of story.
Did you leave out an F word before the word religious?
ped0gheyface has a way of showing itself.
It is usually accompanied by prim, preening, sense of undefined superiority of exactly the type you display.
Demons often manifest in profane language when confronted with Scripture or prayer.
Definitely not accepted in our conservative Christian circle.
Genesis 5:3 ESV
When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Seth's lineage continued on down thru Noah; from whence we all have descended.
HMMMmmm...
Dearly beloved - we are gathered here together in the sight of GOD, to...
You could have said a LOT more than that.
I just don’t understand people equating it to the 10 commandments.
Check it out; as it is a SIN before the 10 come along!
Genesis 13:13
Well; the Book said this was going to happen.
And 'gentile' is what Mormonism, Inc. calls non-Mormon folks.
So, you don’t even believe human beings were created in God’s image, and many of you believe that having hate in your heart, and showing hatred for many of God’s creations is what God commands you to do. Amazing. You people are simply evil, you’re doing Satan’s work, it is Satan that commands his followers to feel hatred and to hate others, just as the religious fanatics here do. Imagine that. As I’ve stated many times, the religious fanatics is the worst kind of hypocrite and there evil.
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