Posted on 03/03/2014 6:30:00 AM PST by sitetest
Alasdair MacIntyre once quipped that “facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.” Something similar can be said about sexual orientation: Heterosexuals, like typewriters and urinals (also, obviously, for gentlemen), were an invention of the 1860s. Contrary to our cultural preconceptions and the lies of what has come to be called “orientation essentialism,” “straight” and “gay” are not ageless absolutes. Sexual orientation is a conceptual scheme with a history, and a dark one at that. It is a history that began far more recently than most people know, and it is one that will likely end much sooner than most people think.
Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations. Heterosexuality was made to serve as this fanciful framework’s regulating ideal, preserving the social prohibitions against sodomy and other sexual debaucheries without requiring recourse to the procreative nature of human sexuality.
On this novel account, same-sex sex acts were wrong not because they spurn the rational-animal purpose of sex—namely the family—but rather because the desire for these actions allegedly arises from a distasteful psychological disorder. As queer theorist Hanne Blank recounts, “This new concept [of heterosexuality], gussied up in a mangled mix of impressive-sounding dead languages, gave old orthodoxies a new and vibrant lease on life by suggesting, in authoritative tones, that science had effectively pronounced them natural, inevitable, and innate.”
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
There is no question whatsoever that the law condemns the acts, and those who commit the acts.
That is not in dispute and cannot be in dispute, b/c that is what is set forth in Scripture. But those same verses do not condemn the “homosexual” in the way that we understand that concept, ie, someone with an orientation...which is real independent of what acts one commits or doesn’t.
I think what can be disputed and I think would be disputed by Paul is that when someone commits a sin (let’s abstract it out here, and deal with theft), that they are then a Thief.
And that somehow that sociological status as a Thief takes on a reality that is something new and not accounted for in Scripture.
It seems that both the OT and Paul agree that there are only two categories that matter: God’s people, and those who are not God’s people. The regenerate and the unregenerate; or, those accepting God’s grace and those living in rebellion.
Those are clearly the main two categories.
The whole of Pauline theology goes to that point.
But...on the other hand, there also does seem to be this indicator from Paul that while categories like Thief (or Homosexual) may not exist in the same way that we modern, sociologically driven folks think they do, still in some way there is a sub-category of those outside of God’s grace who are bring onto themselves a greater condemnation as it were, having been turned over to their depraved mind.
In any event...just a few more thoughts.
On a lighter note, there is long tradition of making comments whether one has read the underlying article or not! I have often availed of that great tradition myself! So no disclosures necessary in that regard!
However, I would add that the author is also saying that, for example, sodomy is sodomy, whether it’s between two men or between a man and a woman.”
Yep, the author is saying that. And that is certainly how I understand the Catholic viewpoint from which the author launches.
I guess my difficulty is that I’m not certain that Paul agrees with that, as he does call out same sex acts as unnatural and deviant in a way which different sex acts are not.
That said, I do think the author is making a very important point and that is that when sinful men create categories, we can’t just acquiesce in them as if they are going to somehow give us a prop against decaying morality. Never works. AT least not in the long term. And that is a very astute reminder!
Delay of game, 5 yard penalty.
“’Heterosexuality,’ as a reified ‘sexual orientation’ does bless or sanction, in my mind, various heterosexual sins.”
Should have been:
“’Heterosexuality,’ as a reified ‘sexual orientation’ does NOT bless or sanction, in my mind, various heterosexual sins.”
Yikes.
Sorry.
sitetest
St. Paul wrote that marriage is an icon of the love of Christ for the Church ... a love that is unique, sacrificial, and life-giving. Do you really think he had oral and anal sex in mind?
I didn’t notice what you considered an error because I thought your first statement was accurate. I think that setting up “heterosexuality,” which is “good and natural,” as a category opposite “homosexuality,” which is “unnatural and abhorrent,” does tend to vitiate heterosexual sins, because, after all, “It’s only natural, it’s the way I was made.”
I don’t think this is required by logic, but I think it naturally follows, because it makes “What one does with Mr. Wiggles” *the* identity-defining characteristic of a person.
My hermeneutic is literal, taking even “fleeting thoughts “ as sinful, as they miss the mark of “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”II Corinthians 10:5; indeed “sin lieth at the door” Genesis 4:7, which as far as I can see is the first use of the term, at least in English translation.
I'm not really sure that the notions of those sorts of activities with a WOMAN ever occurred to Paul.
The author discusses teleology in the article. The ancients were much more accepting of the idea of teleology of things than modern folks in the west, today. It takes a real rejection of the teleology of sex for it to even enter one’s mind to engage in such practices with someone of the opposite sex. My understanding of the ancients was that homosexual acts were meant to mirror, to mimic, the heterosexual act, the difficulty being that men don't have the parts unique to women to actually obtain of the same act, and thus the use of other parts as substitutes.
But why use the substitutes when, with a woman, she's got the right set of parts for the act?
sitetest
Marriage protection need not rest on religion alone. In fact in the political world to use mere religion to argue in favor of traditional marriage is to surrender the logic and reason side to the enemy.
ALL arguments must be able to stand WITHOUT religion in order to win the day and future.
That's a good question. From what I read on FR ... maybe I was happier when I was a lot more naïve ... there are plenty who have reasons.
I’m not sure those things were political , certainly nobody campaigned on a platform of masturbatory freedom. As for porn,it was a social movement that used the interpretation of the First Amendment by the courts to advantage. Whether it would have gotten 50% + 1 in an election anywhere, I don’t know, especially in the era that the victory was won as opposed to today. Maybe as an appeal to the First amendment, but not likely on its own. “ You can’t legislate morality” is a phrase older than any of that.
What doesn’t this author believe about “Male and female he made them.” from the Book of Genesis?
Looks like he believes none of it.
Your reply seems utterly unrelated to my post.
However, it is not necessary to use religion to make a case for enforceable marriage between a man and a woman. The known benefits for the formation of a stable and productive society are sufficient. However, this will not persuade people whose time horizon doesn’t even reach tomorrow morning.
I’ll change that to “some of it.” after reading through the article.
Michael Hannon notes that public moralists "were forced also to trade the robust natural law tradition for the recently constructed standard of “psychiatric normality...” He clearly sees this as a mistake: he wishes they had stood their ground and defended "natural law," which of course recognizes the natural binary of "male and female".
Hannon says that even the radical queer theory academics like Jonathan Ned Katz, (a radical-left historian of sexuality) now argues that "the heterosexual/homosexual binary is not in nature, but is socially constructed, therefore deconstructable."
So Hannon is saying the same thing as Katz, except for radically different reasons. Katz says the gay/straight binary should be dumped because we are all a LOT kinkier than just two choices. We're polymorphously perverse! Three, four, five, a hundred sexualities! Hannon, in contrast, says that the false gay/straight binary should be abandoned, because the true, natural binary is that we are all "male or female".
Hannon is defending Natural Law and teleology --- the opposite of what you initially supposed.
FYI... the initial quote from Alasdair MacIntyre is from his “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?”, which I have almost finished reading. It is not an easy text for anyone with less than a MA in Philosophy. I have an MA in Catholic Philosophical Studies, and have read MacIntyre’s other books, and I still struggle with it.
I saw that after re-reading the entire text. Thanks.
They certainly promoted a platform of porn freedom, called it a First Amendment issue; that's the same as a pro-masturbation platform, since porn is the paraphernalia of masturbation. They campaigned for it, just as figures like Anthony Comstock campaigned against it.
As I remember, when Playboy was celebrating its 50th anniversary, about 10 years ago, one of their editors came out with a book which was a triumphal and revealing history of the Sexual Revolution. I am sorry I can't remember the name of the editor, or the exact name of the book. Anyway, it shows the aggressive leveraging of all branches of government (legislative, judicial, executive) as well as the use of clever and pervasive propaganda, to camapign for the forms of vice which have now become so ubiquitous as to be unremarkable.
All this straight Sexual Revolution campaigning --- especially, via contraception, the mainstreaming of intentionally deconstructed, denatured sexuality --- simply paved the way for the present overwhelming gay legal and social triumph.
I don't think that Paul had any particular physical sex act in mind when he used marriage as an example of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I don't think that heterosexual genital coitus was in his mind, either. I think that Paul was referring to the overall intimacy involved in the entire act of human sexuality. It was the spiritual, emotional one-ness that he seems to have in mind.
The Bible seems to paint broad guidelines for human sexuality. Permissible sex is between a man and a woman who are married to one another as a private act involving no one else. Beyond that, the Bible is pretty silent on what sexual conduct is allowed in marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:1-6 tells us that married people cannot withhold sexual favors from the spouse. Verse 5 tells us the purpose of this sex is to deal with natural physical urges. While I might say ICK at some particular sex acts, it is hard to find specific chapter and verse to condemn them. If God hasn't specifically called it sin, then it is not my place to call it such - even if I might find it disgusting.
I have a B.A. in Management ;-).
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