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A Gay or A Bigot, You Choose?

May 18th, 2012

Time magazine released its latest issue with this caption on the cover, "The first gay president". First thoughts are like What? Dude, does Michelle know - that's awkward? However, what time magazine is inferring here is this - Either you fully agree on the homosexual marriage issue, which makes you "Gay in Spirit," or you disagree and are labeled a Homophobic Bigot. How does a Catholic respond? I sure don't want to be a bigot! Seeing these options, most Catholics choose the lesser of two evils, "gay in spirit".











But is there a third option? YES!!! I emphasize yes! Did I say Yes? Yes! You might be like chill dude, your making me a little something-phobic, why are you so excited? And I answer, Yes! The Third option is this, the Catholic Option.
First, let me point this out, This is so necessary! The great movement within the church called Courage states, one should never call someone "gay," this is how so many horrible actions have happened in the past!  Everybody through that gift of reason is able to see, even if clouded, how a person is suppose to be treated. With respect, dignity, love, compassion, etc. However, we as human beings are so good at labeling a certain race, religion, or a group of people who share a common characteristic as "lesser-persons" or "non-persons." Look at the Jewish Holocaust, Slavery, Rwandan holocaust, and  abortion. While these people who degrade these individual groups into one of the two categories and do horrific things, they perceive the rest of humanity as persons and do sometimes great good for them. Hitler did a fantastic job at fixing the German economy after WWI, slave owners provided well for their families and other whites, Hutu stood up for other Hutu and tried to help advance them in the nation, and mothers most of the time love their born children. BUT ONCE WE PLACE AND SEPARATE CERTAIN PEOPLE INTO A CATEGORY, EXCLUDING THEM FROM THE REST OF HUMANITY,  WE POTENTIALLY SET THEM UP FOR HORRIBLE THINGS.
 Here is the CHURCH'S RESPONSE on the dignity of those with same-sex attractions. Nobody is taken away from the human family, no categories. All have the same dignity!!! All are to be loved, cared for, the end of every action, never the means, even worth giving thy own life for. But it is not because of age, gender, race, etc. The one and only category that defines EVERYBODY IS THIS: CREATION IN GOD"S IMAGE. No matter if you are an unborn baby, born with a horrible disfigurement, Brad Pitt, Justin Bieber, elderly or a person who struggles with same-sex attraction - we all have the same dignity. Why? All people in the same image.




The Truth
  Truth is conformity to reality, and you can believe in Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, or Telletubies/Anime (although not recommended) as your God, and still see truth. We, as human beings have the POWER

to perceive truth even without the help of Faith. The power comes from our animus, Latin for heart or soul. The power is named the intellect. Through this power we are able to perceive what is the order of things, that is reality. Through the intellect we can perceive what is good = what is fulfilling to as as human persons = happiness. The bible calls this "knowledge of good and evil."
FORGIVE MY DIGRESSION BUT If I hear one more time that Eve sinned, because she ate a forbidden apple, as if God got jealous because He and the Holy Spirit were planning to make a FRUIT SALAD for the Son, I'm going to puke! This is just terrible simplification and non-sense. The creation stories are so endlessly deep, symbolic and need to be read when on your knees with the Church to guide you - or you can come up with something like this!

  Adam and Eve sinned because they perfectly perceived what was reality, and the goodness of God's commands. They knew He was a loving Father, who ordained the good, (good = what is truly fulfilling to the human person = happiness), yet they "ate" anyway in an attempt to become "like god" and create an allusion, their own reality in which they got to choose what is good and evil, what was truth. Yet this is impossible! We don't change reality, we create an allusion of our own reality, and God's reality still exists and in our allusions we end up hurting ourselves against THE TRUE reality. Adam didn't realize this after the fall, he says, "the woman YOU gave me MADE ME DO IT. Adam blamed first God and second the Women (Determinism). Eve, however is truthful and realizes she had been deceived and went against truth. Because of this God rewards Eve by promising that the Person that would lead humanity back into conformity with the truth would be her one of her descendants. Sin is not just a sin because we hurt God, sin hurts God because it hurts his children who he so desperately loves. The Punishments given to them were not Divine Vengeance, but fatherly correction used to help order Adam and Eve back to the truth as they awaited the "fullness of time," the arrival of their Savior.

Example: My wife and I just went for her second ultrasound - for the first time I got to see my little precious baby girl! I felt the happiness that only a parent can experience. God had created these moments for parents. It was truly amazing, because it was in conformity to truth. Yet we in our society kill babies at the exact time I experienced my daughter, 18 weeks. They kill these babies most of the time, because it gets in the way of their allusion of the good, what true happiness is - disordered attachment to wealth, power, pleasure, popularity and subsets of these categories. That child could be an inconvenience for the brand new job, the new relationship, the pursuit of happiness not in line with God's command. These women have created an allusion of their own good, separated from what is truly good, what has been ordained. These women, even if they don't realize it, hurt themselves and their happiness against the truth. So many women enter into despair when they commit acts like this. And even if their conscious is hardened and they don't experience guilt, they can not experience true happiness apart from the truth!

 This is what "homosexual marriage" is. It's an allusion, it's a false reality created by people to try and bring happiness to those with same-sex attraction, but since it is not in conformity with the reality of marriage, it will bring the exact opposite. (For the reasons why see http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm). 

In LOVE
We as people NEED TO BRING THE TRUTH TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO STRUGGLE WITH SAME-SEX ATTRACTION - BUT NOT SIMPLY SAY IT BUT HELP THEM LIVE THIS REALITY! WE CHOOSE TO HELP THEM CHOOSE IT. Not force it upon them, not Bible thump them!
  but love them into it! We need to choose their good. Give them circles of companionship, talk to them through the middle of the night struggles, give them affection, make our LOVE SO STRONG they see not the bible thump-er but THIS when they see us.

This is Christ's Way! The truth in love. Christ came to testify to the truth and was willing to lay down his life for it! This is how we defend it. "For man has no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends (John 15:13)." This is how the victory is won, by our neighbor not being able to deny how far and how willing we are to go, to be with him in his struggle. Find your friend with this struggle, tell them you are there for them, then back it up as Mother Teresa did as she gave until it hurt and then gave more - LOVE THEM WITH THE TRUTH!