In February, the journal Social Currents published a survey that purports to show the motivations that drive the overwhelming majority of those opposed to same-sex “marriage.” According to the research, “Nearly all respondents (90 percent) who strongly oppose same-sex marriage also believe that ‘sexual relations between two adults of the same sex’ is ‘always wrong.’” On the other … Read more
In the current debate about the wisdom of the proposals being made by those who call themselves “gay celibate Christians,” many find a problem with their self-identification as being gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or anything other than their God given male or female natures. The usual response they give to their critics is that those … Read more
Of late, much attention has been given in both the secular media and Christian media to those who call themselves “gay celibate Christians.” As a man attracted to men yet committed to traditional Catholic teaching on human sexuality, I find the notion both of being “gay” or “celibate” strange. Indeed, in the context of what … Read more
There is a group of Catholics who experience same-sex attraction. They accept the teachings of the Church on sexual morality. They do not act on their same-sex desires. They are chaste. They live lives of prayer, brotherhood and friendship, along with a sexual chastity that is proper to their station in life. You might think … Read more
It’s no secret that liberals adore Pope Francis. The more secular the “progressive,” the greater the reverence for the new man in the Vatican. Liberals—which includes liberal Catholics and Protestants as well as secularists—see the pontiff as the long-awaited liberator of the reactionary Roman Catholic Church. And yet, if you think about it, there aren’t … Read more
For many years now, I have pondered the use of the word “gender.” Before I began my work on same-sex attraction and wrote the book One Man, One Woman, I spent 9 years studying “gender” and wrote a book on the subject (The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality). Originally, “sex” was an inclusive term, which referred … Read more
I begin to write this article in a taxi on the way to the Rome airport. I cut and paste from my notes piled up during the Extraordinary Synod of the Family. Roman traffic swirls at mid-morning, no less than my own thoughts as I process and report what I saw and heard during the … Read more
The presentation of the so-called “mid-term report” of the extraordinary synod of bishops on the family (the Latin headline of which, relatio post disceptationem, may seem to the unenlightened to give it an authority it doesn’t in fact possess) aroused a predictable level of interest in both the Catholic and the non-Catholic media. Their general … Read more
I am 58 and have lived in small towns, big cities, our nation’s capital, New York City, and university campuses. I have traveled all over the country and a few dozen foreign countries. I have worked in big companies and tiny NGOs. For the life of me, I have never come across what First Things … Read more
There is widespread misunderstanding about what the Catholic Church teaches with regard to same-sex attraction. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding—which often construes the teaching as “offensive”—tends to isolate men and women who struggle with their sexual identity. They often feel ostracized at a time in their life when they need love from the people of God. This … Read more
More than four decades ago, Pope Paul VI predicted in Humanae Vitae that the emergence of the new reproductive technologies—especially the birth control pill—would lead to a “lowering of moral standards … and a rise in infidelity.” Today, with the emergence of Truvada, a pill that has been shown in clinical trials to be up … Read more
I have just watched an extraordinary and deeply moving film, soon to be released by the Catholic apostolate Courage, called Desire of the Everlasting Hills. It is knit together, like a polychronic chorale, from the personal witnesses of three people, two men and one woman, who have come out of a life of sexual sin … Read more
The modern day LGBT movement wants you to believe that the people featured in the new documentary “Desire of the Everlasting Hills” really don’t exist. They are figments of the fevered imaginations of the Christian right. Meet Dan, Rilene and Paul, all refugees from deep enmeshment in the LGBT life, each finding a home in … Read more
A gay guy gets up in the morning, does something, and nobody writes about it. Now that would be news. Will we ever see that day when we as a culture do not stare slack-jawed and unblinking—so as not to miss a single thing—at all things gay? There’s an old joke about how many lesbians … Read more
For Catholics, sexuality does not start with sexuality. In a fallen world, it starts with the cross—and almost everyone harbors stereotypes when it comes to the cross. Some worry I’m about to get wildly conservative. Others are afraid I’ll be too liberal. Some would like it if I said we were going to find a … Read more
In Making Gay Okay, Robert Reilly says the ascendancy of men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) started with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s victory over Aristotle and that once philosophy fell the triumphant march through the institutions was quick and maybe even inevitable. Reilly explains that the debate centers on the question of what is natural and not, and how to distinguish … Read more
“People say, ‘The price of genetic diseases is high. If these individuals could be eliminated early on, the savings would be enormous.’ It cannot be denied that the price of these diseases is high…, [b]ut we can assign a value to that price: It is precisely what society must pay to be fully human.” — … Read more
Secularists are known for dismissing religion as merely espousing a set of blind faith beliefs without any evidence to support them. The crudest among them will often do it in a snide and sneering way, holding that religious belief is imagination and fantasy—like a childhood fairy tale—in contrast to the “scientific” view that they espouse. … Read more
Are there some same-sex sexual attractions that are not disordered inclinations? Melinda Selmys, among those dubbed the “new homophiles” by Austin Ruse, seems to think so. At the “Spiritual Friendship” blog, Selmys presents this thesis under the title “Still Looking to Desire.” Now, I consider Melinda and everyone at the “Spiritual Friendship” blog to be … Read more
In my last post I made the case that sexual “orientation” as defined by secular culture today is conceptually far removed from the dignity of the human person and is an abstract and generic form of data collection that does not even accurately describe one’s total experience of sexual attraction once we have found “the … Read more