HOMOPHOBIA
The Church argues that heterosexuals do not identify as heterosexuals the way gays identify as gay. The gays are thought to equate themselves with their sexuality as if there is nothing else important about them. If it is a sin to be a practicing gay then clearly the sinner in this case becomes the sin so the command to love the sinner and hate the sin cannot apply! LGBT sense that love the sinner and hate the sin is a Christian way of politely hating them. And they are not wrong! It is Church teaching that only those go to Hell who see their sin as an essential part of themselves. So denying love the sinner and hate the sin puts you in Hell!
Homophobia, the irrational fear
of homosexuals and stereotyping them and being disgusted by what they do in bed
and by men loving men and women loving women, is indulged in only by those who
have gay feelings themselves or maybe they might fear they have them. They are
disgusted at themselves and they project that disgust unto practicing
homosexuals. It often happens too that they are just jealous. They may even have
refused to let themselves notice that they had those feelings. People hate the
thought of being gay because an alleged communication from God said being gay is
bad and wicked so religion is to blame more than anything else. It makes them
fear their own gay feelings and suppress them and the result is hatred of gay
people. When people just pick doctrines and principles that suit themselves and
just worry about themselves and not at all about loyalty to the communication
you may think you see that there is more to it than that. But there is not for
as long as others are happy we should not care what they do. Something is making
us care and religious conditioning is responsible. Because homosexuality looks
strange and people fear what is strange, religion easily brainwashes them to
turn against gays and lesbians and this will stay with them even if they are not
religious. Attempts to say that homophobia is not a hatred of homosexuals but
simply disgust at what they do are doomed to fail for there is less disgust at
things like heterosexual male promiscuity and boiling lobsters alive. Gay sex
can be clean and healthy and straight sex is often messy business. People are
disgusted at old people going to bed together but do not try to make their lives
a misery like homophobes do gays.
Homophobia is hate. To say that homosexuals are doing
wrong of their own free will is to say they should be feared and to say they
should be feared is to say they should be hated for hate is caused by fear and
is its direct offshoot - there are only two emotions love and fear. (Read The
Gospel According to Atheism for verification.) There is no doubt about that. To
say the homosexual urge is a disorder is to say it should be feared and
prevented which is the same thing as saying homosexuals are dangerous even when
they seem not to be. When that is believed all the homosexuals will get is being
treated as if they were hated or there just to be manipulated and they will be
provoked to hate those who persecute them.
The Church does harm when you see it condemning the
belief that two gay men masturbating each other are not doing wrong and then
claims to be open-minded. It is really close-minded and condemning open-minded.
We cannot stand for this if we are open-minded people. The Church is being
consciously unfair to us and to gay men.
Gays have a right to sue the Church for condemning
them for the Church cannot give a believable reason why homosexuality is wrong
and though freedom of speech is important what the Church is doing is not
practicing freedom of speech but practicing freedom of abuse. The pope should be
jailed for incitement to hatred. And it is a scandal that the Church dwells on
the negative side of homosexuality in order to condemn it for that does not
prove homosexuality wrong for it is up to each individual gay to make the best
of it and increase the positive elements in his or her life. Everything has its
pros and cons. When all is said and done you cannot allow incitement to hatred
under the guise of freedom of speech. All who spew hate towards minorities or
whatever use that excuse. You cannot hide your hatred for the so-called sinner
by saying you hate their sin but not them.
The Catholic Church holds that children needs
heterosexual role models so people who are known to be gay must never be
appointed as teachers. Gay men are barred from the priesthood. The priesthood
requires that the right to marriage must be sacrificed to the duty to live as
celibate priest. The Church reasons that gay men don't want to marry women so
they cannot really make this sacrifice. Indeed, if gay men get ordained it is
because they deceive the Church.
WORKS CONSULTED
A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Catholic Truth
Society, Westminster, 1985
A Teenager’s Answer to “Shall I Go to the Prom?”
Sherry Burgess, Guardian of Truth Publications, Kentucky
Courtship and the Dangers of Petting, John R Rice,
Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1943
Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke Heinmann,
Penguin, London, 1991
Moral Questions, Bishops Conference, Catholic Truth
Society, London, 1971
Rediscovering Gay History, John Boswell, Gay Christian
Movement, UK, 1982
Saint Saul, Donald Harman Akenson, Oxford University
Press, New York, 2000
Sex & Marriage A Catholic Perspective, John M Hamrogue
C SS R, Liguori, Illinois, 1987
The Pope and Contraception, Brenda Maddox,
Counterblasts 18, Chatto & Windus, London 1991
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993
The WWW
How to Fight the Religious Right, Brian Elroy McKinley
http://elroy.net/ehr/fighttheright.html
