In the movie “I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” there is a scene where the LGBT community is having a costume party. Gathered outside is a group of religious zealots who are protesting the event. They shout, “Gay is not the way” and “Homosexuality is an abomination”. You see how badly these words hurt the party goers and you can empathize with their struggle.
Art often imitates life and this is no exception. Religious groups all over the world constantly protest and scream hatred towards these people because spewing hate is the easiest way to convert someone. The Westboro Baptist Church has captured headlines in recent years by protesting at the funerals of service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in war because of the government’s inclusion of people with same sex attraction in our military. This seems like such a long way from Jesus’ command to love our enemies. And therein lays the problem. The LGBT community is viewed as the enemy instead of people of God who are struggling with a disordered attraction.
A friend, a fallen away Catholic whose son has same sex attraction, recently asked me why the Catholic Church hates homosexuals. He left the Church because his son was not accepted there. He was open to listen and so we had a chat.
God created all things and all things were created good. All things were created by Love, through love, for love, and to love. God’s design is perfect. Through the envy of the devil sin came into the world and with it disorder. The second law of thermodynamics states that the state of entropy will always increase over time. In other words order always tends towards disorder. The natural course, if left unchecked, will always move towards chaos.
God created a perfect order, the way things are supposed to work. Anything that is contrary to this order is a disorder. God’s order for the family is one man, one woman, married for life, producing children. Anything that is contrary to that is a disorder. Same sex attraction is a disorder. At the same time so are fruitless-by-choice marriages, divorce, cohabitation, and casual sex. In God’s eyes these disorders are the same, disorders. There are those who think they speak for God who believe some disorders are worse than others. With all things being equal, a disorder is not a sin. Sin comes into play in the way we respond to a disorder.
It has been said that the Catholic Church hates the sin but loves the sinner. The problem comes in when we, who profess to be Catholic, mistake a disorder for a sin. We hate the disorder. But the truth of the matter is that we are all sinners therefore we all suffer from some type of disorder. The non-hypocritical thing then would be to all hate each other. That’s exactly what the devil wants us to do and exactly why Jesus commanded us to love one another has he loves us.
The Catholic Church does not hate those who suffer from same sex attraction. She does not view that disorder as being fundamentally worse than any other disorder. People who suffer with this disorder have the same dignity that every other child of God has and they demand the same respect due to this dignity. The Church is a safe haven for those who suffer with this or any other disorder. It is the only place one can find forgiveness and healing for responding to a disorder in the wrong way, a sinful way. As members of the body of Christ we should be standing on the steps of the Church welcoming every person with open arms. Instead, we are viewed as being locked arm in arm chanting “Gay is not the way. Repent or burn in Hell!”
This does not mean that the Church can or will accept a LGBT lifestyle as an acceptable lifestyle. At the same time friends with benefits, premarital sex, divorce and remarriage, or just casual sex is just as unacceptable. We don’t shun parishioners who are shacking up playing married and we shouldn’t be shunning people who are suffering with same sex attraction.
Love one another as I have loved you. Imagine what a world would look like if more of us could do just that.
