Posted on 06/18/2014 12:16:25 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
When I became Catholic in 1998, as a college sophomore, I didn't know any other gay Christians. I'd been raised in a kind of pointillist Reform Judaism...
This sheltered upbringing may help explain my sunny undergraduate confidence that even though I knew of literally nobody else who had ever tried to be both unashamedly gay and obediently Catholic, I was totally going to do it. No problem, guys, I got this.
[snip]
[M]any Christian churches are beginning to integrate gay marriage into their theology... With so many more options for gay Christians, why [not] just de-pope myself?
It's that I fell in love with the Catholic Church....I didn't switch from atheistic post-Judaism to "belief in God," but to Catholicism: the Incarnation and the Crucifixion...her insistence that seemingly irreconcilable needs could both be met in God's overwhelming love: justice and mercy, reason and mystery, a savior who is fully God and also fully human. I didn't expect to understand every element of the faith. It is a lot bigger than I am.
[snip]
At the time of my baptism...I figured, everybody has to sacrifice something. God doesn't promise that He'll only ask you for the sacrifices you agree with and understand.
[snip]
Right now, the Biblical witness seems pretty clear. Both opposite-sex and same-sex love are used, in the Bible, as images of God's love. The opposite-sex love is found in marriage—sexually exclusive marriage, an image which recurs not only in the Song of Songs but in the prophets and in the New Testament—and the same-sex love is friendship. Both of these forms of love are considered real and beautiful; neither is better than the other. But they're not interchangeable.
Moreover, Genesis names sexual difference as the only difference which was present in Eden...
(Much more at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
It seems that's the perspective of the author (at least from this one piece), but quite a few others, both male and female, have had different experiences. That's part of the problem with the words "gay" and "lesbian," convenient though they are compared to the alternatives. The terms imply a fixed identity, while, "I feel sexual desire for other women," describes a present condition.
It would be interesting to know what Ms. Tushnet was thinking when she wrote that she was celibate "for the foreseeable future." It can't be that she anticipates the Church's deciding homosexual activity is copacetic; she's too well informed to think this moral norm is arbitrary.
She could mean that it's possible she'll give in to temptation and have a physical relationship with a woman. On the other hand, she could recognize that she, like others who have been in lesbian relationships in the past, could in the future experience love and marriage with a man.
I think one of the things we need to keep in mind is that a mindset doesn’t completely change over night. Our travel as Christians is a growing and learning experience. Those who are gay or lesbian have been taught that they are born that way and that it’s not a choice. So with that in mind we can better understand where she is coming from. The main point of the article is that she realizes that same sex relations of a sexual nature are against scripture and she has accepted that and chosen to follow scripture.
I must add my thanks for your stepping up to her defense.
Well, thanks for the compliment, making me think I could do such a thing... And 'defense' is probably the wrong word, albeit that she might be content to let us think so... More than once a Southern gal has tore me up one side and down the other, leaving me hat-in-hand, murmuring apologies, and digging my toe in the dirt... And they do it so sweetly, that's the thing... If you don't catch that tiny little pinch at the corner of her eyes, you'll never even know what hit you : )
So it weren't nothing, and I know better. : D
Regarding the thread as a whole, it's alarming and quite discouraging to see how poor basic reading comprehension can be. It's a reminder to me to read carefully and to think things through.
Part of it is just a failure to read the material, but another part, I think, is a knee-jerk abhorrence, partly due to the incessant headlines, but also a bit of 'holier than thou'... IIRC, along with homosexuality being a sin for which the land will spit you out, so is adultery, among other things (Lev 18). Folks tend to forget that the permissiveness toward adultery came first, to the point now of being commonplace.
And the Father tells us that any sin is all sin... we do tend to forget that.
Certainly it should be! I wouldn't want to be the person I was 25 years ago. I might like her, if I met her today - she was informed and fairly original - but I don't want to be her.
Anyway, I think it's beneficial for Catholics and other Christians to be engaging in conversation with people who experience same-sex desires but recognize that acting on them is sinful. As this thread shows, a lot of light can be cast (as well as heat generated) when we all start thinking about these issues.
No, I am asserting that she is saying that when the Bible speaks of love between members of the same sex, it is referring to phileos or brotherly love - that is to say friendship. She is explicitly REJECTING the argument that some homosexuals try to make, that when the Bible speaks of love between two men, Jonathan and David for example, that it is referring to a homosexual relationship.
BTTT
David and Jonathan were both married to women. David was married to many women. I don't know how many wives Jonathan had, but a son of his survived the fall of the House of Saul.
When Jonathan was killed, David's lament over Jonathan, 2 Samuel 1:26, included the lines, "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women."
Look at how Abraham treated Sarah and David treated his wives. It was no friendship of equals, but a relationship of utility. Men needed women as a sexual outlet, to bear sons ... at best, a wife might be a trustworthy and politically useful partner, but maybe not. There's a reason the king's mother was crowned and sat beside him, not his wife.
Bump your post!
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She should definitely be more appolongeticle.
Well said, and thank you for such a clear simple declarative summation of the article.
Punctuation saves lives: LET'S EAT GRANDMA. Vs. LET'S EAT, GRANDMA.
If he had said: I’m not going to battle “wits” with somebody who continues to use the Lord’s name in vane. would he have been against the use of it determining the wind direction?
" WOMAN, WITHOUT HER MAN, IS A BEAST. "
I think it’s reasonable. Love and sex are separable, although they can certainly combine. If she remains celibate, or if confesses and repents any sins she commits, then she is as good a Catholic as most of us.
Having lesbian desires is a disorder, but it is only sinful insofar as one fails to resist or repent of it.
By choosing to be abstain from sexual activity, this young woman can be a good witness to not only gays, but single heteros too. Unfortunately, while preaching against gay marriage, Christians have forget to mention that sex outside of marriage for heteros is immoral too.
Amen.
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