A CATHOLIC LANDLORD CANNOT WILFULLY RENT A HOME TO A SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIP COUPLE
A Catholic has to believe that homosexual sex is a grave evil and hateful to
God, even if the couple don't sin by it - eg if they really sincerely believed
it was not a sin. Some think that if you refuse to allow them to let your
property to them you are saying that their sin is the worst sin. The sin being
the worst is not the problem. The problem is that the sin is serious even if it
is not the worst sin.
Even if practice is a different story, in principle the Catholic agrees that he
or she in an ideal world he or she cannot rent property to a same sex couple.
And the landlord or landlady would have the duty of making sure they are not
giving them a home in such a way that it constitutes illicit co operation with
evil or giving scandal.
The Catholic landlord and landlady would have to put the following in the
contract, "You will leave the apartment if it comes to my attention that
homosexual relations are taking place in it." As a matter of principle, that
would need to go in.
The true Catholic cannot say, "I don't support same sex couples, but they also
deserve a place to live." The same sex couple can find another place to live. If
they are really stuck they will have to live separately.
The true Catholic cannot say, "Landlords should be more concerned with the same
sex couples renting history. Do they pay their bills on time? Do they keep the
apartment in good order? Landlords are not moral arbiters." That is really
saying, expediency and money come before spiritual matters. The Catholic
landlord is a moral arbiter when he knows the couple are planning to use his
flat or house to live in sin.
The Bible forbids letting anybody who has teachings not commissioned by Christ
into one's house to visit never mind rent. "For many deceivers have gone out
into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the
flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that
you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone
who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have
God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone
comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your
house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked
works." 2 John 1:7-11.
The Christian has a duty to be intolerant of sexual sin and to mourn over it.
The true Catholic cannot give the gay couple a home for the pain it will cause
him.
"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a
kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.
And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this
be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit;
and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a
thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is
present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan
for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord." 1 Cor 5:1-13.
The true Catholic will hold that it would not be immoral to decline to rent to
them as there is no moral absolute right to renting an apartment. They would
argue that if one is concerned about illicit cooperation with evil or giving
scandal one is justified in not renting.
True Catholics say they cannot turn civil legal justifications into a type of
god that demands we conform our consciences to the world.
Even Catholics who would rent to same sex couples insist that if an apartment or
house belongs to the parish or the diocese, then the property should not be let
out to the couples.
Some questioning Catholics say that if you cannot rent your apartment to a same
sex couple, then you cannot rent it to an adulterous straight couple either.
They are right.
Others say that if you cannot rent your apartment to a same sex couple then
Catholic hospitals should refuse them care. But the two are not the same. A
hospital treatment is not in any way helping them to live together. The Catholic
does good in the hope that it stirs up the Holy Spirit's influence in the
person. So the hospital care in a sense would be an implied encouragement to the
person to refrain from same sex relationships.
If it is true that sin is so bad that to oppose it is to love the person, then
Catholic landlords who refuse rent to a same sex couple should not be accused of
hate.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church forbids discrimination against homosexual
people but as the right to work is not an absolute right like the right to
hospital care the Church endorses discrimination against gay people working with
children. By implication, nobody has an absolute right to a house.
In relation to renting out to gay couples, let a Catholic have the last word -
"Which is more charitable, to say nothing and let same sex couples do as they
will and end up in HELL or help them to understand the truth which never
changes? Not that many years ago such prohibitions as refusing them the right to
rent your property would have been common. That people are now desensitized to
right and wrong does not seem justification to allow anything simply because
people now have loose morals."
The Bible warns us to correct sinners and admonish hypocrites. Jesus said to his
disciples , “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." See
Luke 12.1. The only way a hypocrite can be judged is by their outward actions.
Clearly, he who gives the same sex couple a flat or house is a hypocrite and
failing to love the sinner and hate the sin if he does not sternly admonish
them.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/why_are_christians_judgmental.html
