Newspaper Column on Same-Sex Marriage

This column appeared today in the Boston Herald.

Despite the name, the writer is not Catholic — Baptist, I think. But anyway, his views on the topic are similar to mine. Unfortunately, when we focus on the issue, we are focussing on the issue. It may seem as if those of us who oppose same-sex marriage hate those who undertake it. But when we consider people as people, we wish them well, even if we disagree with them about the issue.

Unfortunately, there are also people who do not wish same-sex couples well, people whose disagreement on the question of public police is accompanied by malice toward those on the other side, and they often grab the headlines. But it is important to realize that the haters are not the only opponents of same-sex marriage, and it is important for all of us, on every side, to respect the humanity of  our opponents — and for those of us who are Christians to include them among the neighbors whom we are commanded to love.

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.

Belief and Orientation: Reconciling the Contradiction I.

An anonymous commenter asks, "How do gay people with strong religious beliefs explain themselves to one who sees this as an impossible contradiction?"

I hope most of what I post here has some connection to that question, but I'll try to say something directly responsive to the question as I understand it. And I take it the contradiction in question is between the strong religious beliefs and being gay. For starters, it seems to me that there are three different things in play here. There is my orientation. There are my beliefs. And there is my conduct.

I think that my beliefs are dependent on faith, which in turn I consider a gift from God. In other words, it is not something that is demonstrable in the way a mathematical proposition or a logical syllogism is. It is possible to say that I find none of it absolutely self-contradictory, and that a lot of it seems to me to make sense. But I have no illusion (as I once did) that I can prove it in such a way that any honest person would be compelled to accept that everything I believe is true. So it's about faith, and you've got it or you don't. I don't mean to be cavalier, just to say that my beliefs are based on a faith which tells me many things which you may not agree with if you don't start from the same or similar faith. So first I will say some of what I believe, not to tell you what you must believe, but to tell you about myself.

I believe that the world was created by God out of love and that God loves all of us and wishes to share his joy with us in a life which extends beyond the limits of our earthly existence. I believe that God has let us come to know of his love for us and how we can live now and forever in his love. I believe that we can use our intelligence to help us understand what he has revealed. I believe that the Bible shows us God progressively revealing himself to human beings in ways adapted to their ability to comprehend. I believe that all morality is not arbitrary but what God, in his love knows is best for us.

More specifically, I believe that human sexuality is part of God's loving creation. I believe that God created sex to enable us to be a physical image of his loving act of creation, and in doing so to experience a taste of his joy. I believe that engaging in sex in a way which precludes the procreation of new human life falls short of what God gave it to us for. But since homosexual activity cannot procreate, I believe it is one way in which we can fall short of what God gave the gift for (and, btw, "falling short" is the meaning of the Greek word which is usually translated "sin" in our Bibles).

I also believe that God gave us the Bible as his word in human language, and that the Church has been given God's help so it can correctly interpret God's word to us. So I did not make up my beliefs on my own but found them in the teachings of my church, and found them credible.

This is getting kind of long. I'll give another post or two to deal with orientation and conduct.

My Wonderful Halloween Adventure

This is hardly what I expected my first post to be, but here goes.

My doorbell doesn't work and I wanted to take a nap, so I took a neighbor's suggestion to set a bowl of candy on the porch. I put a sign over it inviting people to "TAKE ONE". Shortly after five I heard excited voices and then the sound of the steel bowl hitting the porch floor. Glancing out I caught a glimpse of some boys running away. I went out (without a jacket in just under 60° F weather, although I have a cold coming on) and headed after them.

There were four boys, maybe 14 years old. They saw me following them at a pretty good pace for an old guy. After about 1/10 of a mile, two began to run while the other two kept a fairly constant distance ahead of me. I started noticing some of the candy on the sidewalk, and I picked it up as I went along. Eventually the nearer boys speeded up, and they all gathered at the seawall at the beginning of a 1/2 mile long causeway leading to a peninsula. So they could only avoid me by crossing the causeway.

As I got close, waved, and called to them to stay, they ran about 1/3 of the way across the causeway and sat on the wall. Altogether we had gone over 1/2 mile. They stayed there long enough for me to get within earshot. One waved to me, I waved back, and the others followed suit. I called that I wanted to ask a question. (I'm glad I had had more than 15 minutes to figure out what to do if they ever let me catch up to them.)

So I said, "Suppose someone sets a bowl of candy on his porch with a sign telling people to take one piece, because he can't be available all evening; and suppose some kids come along and take a lot and knock the bowl off its table, so there may not be enough for everybody else who comes by — do you think that's a good thing to do?" While I was asking, two of them put bandanas over their faces, but they all answered, "No." One said he only took one piece, and I said I was happy to hear it. Then they asked if there was anything they could do about it. I said I had picked up some of the candy I found on the sidewalk, and there was really nothing practical for them to do now, but I was glad they agreed with me that people should not do that sort of thing. At the end, they were calling me "Sir."

They wished me a Happy Halloween and I returned the wish, waved to them, and returned home — finding and gathering a fair amount of additional candy on the way back.

Maybe there was something better I could have said to them, but clearly they knew they had done something wrong, so I thought a simple acknowledgment was plenty. I saw no need to belabor it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the offer to make it up somehow. In effect, I wanted to show them a bit of mercy. They may think I'm a crazy old coot, but I prefer to hope that I both made them uncomfortable enough about what they had done that they are less likely to do something like it again and treated them respectfully enough that they can accept the lesson. So I came home feeling pretty self-satisfied and bursting to share the story with the world. And an added bonus: while I was out on this adventure, my cold symptoms didn't seem to bother me.