Belief and Orientation: Reconciling the Contradiction II.

My homosexual orientation is something I consider a given. I don't profess to know exactly how it came to be. I have described here when it first manifested itself explicitly in my life at age 12 and how I came to realize what it was at age 16. I made unsuccessful attempts to change it, but eventually concluded that it was so strongly established that further attempts at change would be wasted effort.

Since I think God created sex as a way for us to be an image of his creative love, I find entirely reasonable the teaching of the Catholic Church that my same-sex attraction goes in a direction inconsistent with the meaning of sex. In the word the Church uses, my sexual appetite is disordered. Not my fault: I didn't choose it. Not God's fault any more than any other disorder in the world: he permits it, but I don't think he miraculously intervenes at our conception or some later time to say, "Zap, you're gay." Not anybody else's fault, because nobody else intended it either.

But if God loves me, am I not as much entitled to the joy and the pleasure of sexual activity as any heterosexual person? In a word, no. I have to go back and give some more of my beliefs. I believe that God's love for us is shown most clearly in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that if there was ever a possibility for perfect happiness on this earth, sin destroyed it, and all of us have to put up with some elements of pain, suffering, and sorrow in our lives. Some people get dread diseases, some people lose loved ones to death at times or in circumstances that are especially painful, some people are homosexual. I believe that Jesus calls me and all his followers to take up our cross daily, that is to accept the suffering and sorrow which we cannot overcome, and that somehow it gets joined to what he did to restore to us the everlasting joy beyond this life which is God's plan for us.

In other words, I don't think God is obligated to give any of us happiness in this life. I think we should be profoundly grateful in the first place simply for our existence, and then for whatever happiness we do experience on this earth.  I look forward to eternal joy.

I can see that I may have missed out on a lot of happiness because I have chosen to act in accordance with my beliefs. To do otherwise, I would have had to change my beliefs (not easy to do), or to try to tell myself that I had changed my beliefs when I hadn't, or to behave contrary to my beliefs. But I also think that I had problems other than my choice to be celibate, and that those problems also contributed in considerable degree to my loneliness through much of my life. I really believe that with support, such as that offered by Courage, which did not exist when I was growing up, and with counseling and therapy if necessary, it is possible for a homosexual person to find emotional intimacy and true happiness in a loving "Platonic" friendship or friendships.

So how do I explain myself? I see no reason to believe that I am entitled to sexual fulfillment. I see myself as one whom God loves infinitely and unconditionally. I see my homosexuality as merely one instance of the mystery of why God lets pain, sorrow, and struggle exist. I cannot explain the mystery, but I cannot let that mystery drive me away from God. It's a matter of accepting creation as I see it. I live my life in the joy of God's love and in the sorrow of an imperfect world and in the hope of a life extending beyond this earthly existence where the pain of this existence is vastly outweighed and makes it all worth it.

I hope this answers the anonymous commenters question. I hope it doesn't sound too preachy, but how else can I say what I believe when it happens to be what my church teaches? How can I leave my beliefs out of it? I hope it tells other readers why I choose not to engage in conduct which they think is not at all wrong.