Unabashedly a Homophile

While I have been called a homophobe, I am in fact, unabashedly, a homophile. I love homosexuals. I am drawn to them by qualities of intellect and character: intelligence, sensitivity, wit, generosity, wisdom, piety and kindness...to name a few. They themselves are drawn to religion, art, books; they are interesting and challenging on many levels. Throughout my adult life, I now realize, about 30-40% of my best friends have been such.They are gifted, graced and good...loving and lovable! But this homosexual thing is complex, dense, mystifying. What suffering! A dear friend came out to me, in the 70s, and said: "The gay life is a sad one." He died of AIDs. He didn't say that it was sad the way society treats us; he said the life itself is sad. I believe a small portion of this suffering is due to social rejection: research shows that where the stigma is largely removed (e.g. Scandanavia)there are still elevated levels of substance abuse, suicide, depression and violence. The gay lifestyle itself is deeply toxic; while the chaste life, for a Christian homosexual, is a heavy cross, if an ennobling one. The condition itself is associated with suffering and loneliness. A special respect is due. If this attraction is often linked with gifts, goodness,and grace, it also comes, normally, with difficulties: the "father wound," low masculine self-esteem, difficulty in relating in a brotherly way with other men, distance from women, troubles with authority, and inadequacy in paternity. It is, then, a disorder: a suffering, a disability, and a challenge. For me, however, this condition is merely a particular type of concupiscence, not different significantly from the sexual chaos that I share with all men: the longing and the loneliness, the sense of inadequacy, the tormenting frustration, the compulsivity, the waves of shame and guilt,and the sense of powerlessness over my passions. The attraction is, then, a normal, garden-variety problem, not exceptional. I identify with them, while my own chaotic longings take different directions. My closest homosexual friends share my faith and so would clearly agree with me that certain acts are toxic for all of us, married and single, whatever our attraction: those would be sexual exchanges that are sterile and non-unitive. The Catholic principles apply to all of us: it is equally a mortal sin, maybe worse in some circumstances, for a married man to request these actions from his wife. Our judgment is against the actions, not the person. Because we love the sinner, we hate the sin. And so, I am and always will be, without apology, a lover of homosexuals. I cherish them in all their goodness and identify with their pain and struggle. They do not and I do not identify them by their sexual desires: they are neither "gay" nor "queer." They are my beloved brothers. They are like me: gifted in Love, but tormented with weakness and longing.