"Gay" is in quotes because its reference to homosexuality is entirely ironic, transgressive, antiphrasic (you may have to google that, Dear Reader!) , and contradictory. The reality is profoundly sad. Even in places gay-friendly for decades (Scandinavia, lower Manhattan, San Francisco) and long free of social stigma, the culture surges with mental illness, addictions, suicide, violence, and early death. In 1970, my college roommate and dear friend George Lissandrello, then part of the emerging homosexual culture of the lower east side of Manhattan looked at me...gently, pensively...and said "The 'gay' life is a sad one." George died of AIDS about a decade later. Those seven words remain for me the abiding truth about the active homosexual life. The entire "gay" crusade (Pride, LGBTQ school clubs, priestly blessings) is a diabolic deception of global proportions.
What is "Gay?"
Quite a history: the word means happy and joyful, and then became associated with bohemian freedom and promiscuity, and then homosexuality, and now can mean strange or weird as in "...SO gay!"
It is NOT synonymous with homosexuality. There are same-sex-attracted men who live holy, chaste lives as priests, brothers or single men. They are NOT "gay." There are priests (notably in 1970-2000) who live secret, double lives and married men (particularly in the evangelical black community) who likewise live a hidden life. These likewise are not "gay" unless they so identify. The word indicates more than the sexual desire or even the active practice, it means that one self-identifies substantially with the attraction. It becomes defining. A person could be left-handed, redheaded, or work for UPS but not identify as such. Grey hair or baldness will not undo his identity. The "gay" says "this desire is what interiorly defines me. This is truly me." This is a catastrophic mistake. We know that by virtues of original sin we are all wounded in our sexual nature by concupiscence, a disorder of desire. It manifests in a vast variety of vices, sins (adultery, fornication, promiscuity, pornography, masturbation) and paraphilias (voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, attraction to animals, dead bodies and other.)
We avoid here the word "orientation." There is no such thing as "sexual orientation." There are not two (homo and hetero), nor are there ninety-nine. There is simply man-and-woman. Sexual desire can take a million different forms. Such is not an orientation. The word comes from the Latin oriens meaning east or rising sun. So it means a direction. In Catholic life, we might speak of orientation to marriage or the vowed religious life of chastity; or we might scrutinize our direction toward purity of heart or sin. Otherwise, this idea of sexual orientation is entirely ideological and defensive of the lifestyle.
Let's first consider what causes same-sex desire.
Born That Way?
"Born that way" is not a scientific fact; there is no homosexual gene or DNA prediction. It is a myth or dogma of gay ideology. It is intuitively obvious to those indoctrinated into the faith much like us Catholics intuitively understand realities like chastity, spousal fidelity, mortal sin, hell, concupiscence, absolution and reparation. There has emerged a scientific consensus that about 30% of this condition is caused by nature, a predisposition; the remaining 70% by nurture, experience and environment. Most, but not all homosexuals have suffered a disconnect with the father. This may contribute about 40%. Another, related factor, failure to detach from the mother, may account for 20% or so. A third factor is weak bonding with peers and male friends, including "the sports wound." And lastly, there is a bad body self-image, a feeling of being unattractive, too thin, or small, or heavy. These last two may account for the remaining 10% or more. Each person is unique of course. It is unlikely to encounter a homosexual who is entirely free of these nurture factors.
Decision to Act; Sex is Not a Need!
Sexual desire...for all of us...in its complexity, variety, profundity and power...is received, not chosen. It is a "passion"...something suffered, an affliction not deliberately intended. In puberty, the adolescent is overwhelmed by powerful, mysterious, involuntary cravings. The reality of "concupiscence" is that, since Adam and Eve, we are all wounded, disordered deeply and interiorly in our sexuality.
But the decision to act sexually is an exercise in freedom. Whether with oneself (pornography) or with another, the act is voluntary and therefore moral, or actually immoral, outside of marriage. We are already inclined, through concupiscence, to do wrong. That is our weakness of the flesh. But in this world that emerged 60 years ago with the cultural revolution we are all contagiously, mimetically (Rene Girard) drawn to self indulgence and narcissism.
Sex is a powerful drive and desire, it is not a need. No one goes to the hospital due to abstinence from sex. In the perverse Marxist-Freudianism of the Sexual Revolution (Reich, Marcuse, Mead, Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Hefner, etc.) a defining LIE took possession of society: that we NEED sex. The defining myth emerged: repression of sex leads to pathologies of resentment, guilt, shame, hatred, authoritarianism, yada yada yada.
(Analogical anecdote: when our son was in 5th grade the teachers called my wife to school and alleged that he was disrupting class by repetitive flatulence. When confronted, he had two explanations. First, that it had become a class joke so that whenever the sound of passing gas was heard the class erupted into laughter and pointed to him. Secondly, he admitted to a fair share in the ruckus as he had learned from a cousin that resisting the urge to pass gas was bad for ones health. (BTW did you know that the average person allows this 10 to 25 times a day?) You see the relevance here? Our culture, especially in wake of the contraceptive disconnect of sex from marriage/family/children, came to believe that self indulgence, rather than discipline and restrain, was the path to psychological freedom. The isolation and loneliness of masturbation was reconfigured as healthy Sex was no longer the generous, life-giving, sacrificial communion with Another; it was vacated of its iconic, sacred profundity; it was perverted into a solipsistic, narcissistic, isolated release and right of the lonely individual. The "triumph of the therapeutic!"
And so, across society and in Catholic progressivism, the cult of spousal fidelity, chastity, femininity as virginity/femininity, masculinity as paternity, and the sacred-iconic nature of sexuality was dismissed. It was replaced by the cult of sterility, loneliness, individualism, narcissism, indulgence and perversity. It was in this environment that "gay" militance flourished.
Bohemian vs. Bourgeois "Gay"
Homosexual practice and its accompanying culture has, through the ages, been a subculture, an alternative, a transgression of and rejection of both mainstream culture and Christianity. It was a Dionysian as artistic, revolutionary, substance using-abusing and often politically radical. It was largely practiced covertly, secretly...married men or priests living double lives. In this secrecy, it implicitly recognized the moral legitimacy of the societal taboo. In small niches it was performative, flamboyant and arrogantly transgressive. It never presented itself as normal, respectable, wholesome, enlightened, or Christian.
Let us note here that Catholicism on the whole has always been merciful towards sins of the flesh. Confession and absolution are readily available for all who seek it. Moral purity is not required, rather some degree of genuine contrition and intention to repent. While we recognize the gravity of mortal sin, we are not frightened by it. We know with certitude that sacramentally the Mercy of Christ triumphs.
Far more threatening to Catholic life than the ubiquitous sins of the flesh is the spread of moral, spiritual falsehood. This occurs when evil is reconfigured as good. This leads the credulous, the ignorant, the innocent into the disaster of sin. This is what has happened with the emergence of "bourgeois gayness." The bourgeois gay presents as normal, acceptable, admirable, and more enlightened. "Gay marriage" is the keystone of this revolution: the couple presents as respectable middle class...stable, educated, faithful, caring for children, often affluent. It is a parody of real, natural marriage of man and woman.
Beyond that, it reconfigures the traditional Christian disapproval of homosexual activity as itself hateful, ignorant, biased, and homophobic. It presents as more inclusive, accepting, empathetic. It embraces "pride" in a flamboyantly prideful manner as spiritually/morally superior. And so, in this new gestalt or model the saints, father and doctors, the virgin martyrs are now seen as homophobic, ignorant, hateful, not intentionally of course but objectively and systemically. To emulate their concept of chastity is itself a moral depravity.
Hard Progressives and Soft Progressives
Hard progressives are aggressive, militant, indignant. They insist on moral approval of sodomy, contraception, legal abortion, female Catholic priests, and gay marriage. Theirs is a harsh moralism, a judgmentalism, an arrogance of moral superiority.
The critical mass, in our Church and society, are soft. They avoid conflict. They want peace at any price. They don't want to confront the real cultural progressives. So they vote pro-choice, approve of gay marriage, agree with woman priests.
They want to remove sexuality from common life and reserve it as private. For example, Pope Leo recently said: "...the unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters." He is a classic soft, cultural progressive. He does not want to fight about it. He adopts a "live and let live" attitude; he has no dog in this fight. He welcomes Fr. James Martin S.J. as well as Courage, even though they mutually contradict each other. He prefers to talk about borders, the environment, wealth distribution and such. The soft progressive is embarrassed about this sex stuff. This was in large measure the singular weakness of the liberal legacy we boomers received from our parents, who are in many other matters "the greatest generation."
Consider: what is worse for a family? A father who drinks too much, works too much, gambles too much? Or one who cheats on his wife? The integrity of the family depends upon spousal chastity and fidelity. Nothing...Nothing...Nothing is worse for the family and the entire society as the loss of spousal fidelity, especially on the part of the husband.
Conclusion
By abstaining from the culture war, the soft progressive effectively cedes the battlefield to the hard, militant progressive. This is what happened to the largely Catholic DNC in the 1970s. This is what happened in the Vatican under the Francis and apparently the Leo pontificate. It is clear that Leo, notwithstanding all his virtues, lacks the theological decisiveness and clarity to guide us on this. He wants to look away.
We now know that the alleged "lavender mafia" was a reality in Rome and across the Church in the decades after the Council. But McCarrick, Maciel and company by their very secrecy, which was amazingly effective for a long time, implicitly affirmed the sexual code. The new crew is a deeper threat to the Church. Paglia, Fernandez, Martin, Cupich, McElroy...they enjoy a high degree of credibility which they use to aggressively, if cunningly, undermine our traditional sexual ethos. Soft progressives like Francis and Leo become for this revolution what Marxists classically call "useful idiots" as they comply not out of malice but a deficit of intelligence.
It is true: "now we are all gay." In the 1960s sex became contraceptive, sterile, non-spousal, isolated, individualistic, disconnected from family, past/future, and the heavenly. Or more accurately, the bourgeois became gay and the gay bourgeois. Corporate capitalism and most of our elite institutions have followed suite.
The soft progressive wants to avoid concupiscence, sexual sin, chastity and fidelity. Rather, he wants the Church to be united on political projects of justice and equality. This puts the cart before the horse. About political, policy issues the Church and the hierarchy have nothing particularly to offer. The Vatican Council made it clear that this is the responsibility of the laity, especially those with such duties of governance. These are prudential issues about which Catholics can disagree in good will. But the unity of the family and the Church is built upon emulation of Christ's love for his Bridal Church. .. in marriage, priesthood, and religious life. Christlike, chaste, tender, reverent, spousal loyalty...this is the lifeblood of society and the Church.
"Gay" is now the heart and soul of the American bourgeois: individualistic, therapeutic, narcissistic, sterile, secular, materialistic. The bourgeois, in contrast to the bohemian, is not content as a subculture, an alternative and transgressive community. It is righteous, indignant, entitled and insistent: society and Church MUST reconfigure to endorse their sexual proclivities. It is imperialistic: seeking hegemony, even as its methods are soft, smooth, pleasing.
Our battle is for the intellects, hearts and souls of our children. We can practice patience as we enjoy a confidence, a serenity, a clarity in the truth about the moral, natural and spiritual order. Let us persevere.. clear, calm, assertive and decisive...in sharing with our young the sacred legacy we have received, most recently from St. John Paul and Pope Benedict.
