Why choose celibacy? A gay Catholic speaks out | Catholic News Agency

Contents:

• HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE
• THE STRANGE NOTN OF “GAY CELIBACY”
• GAY CELIBACY IS WEIRD, AND THAT’S A GOOD THG
• CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS: IS THAT BIBLIL?
• 'SO MANY OF THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS ARE CEL'
• SHOULD GAY CHRISTIANS REMA CELIBATE?
• WHY CHOOSE CELIBACY? A GAY CATHOLIC SPEAKS OUT
• GAY, CHRISTIAN AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY BATE
• ORTHODOX, CELIBATE, GAY AND THAT’S OK
• GAY, CHRISTIAN, AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY DEBATE
• THE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEG OF CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS

HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE

” The terms origated nservative Christian circl the late 1990s on a webse lled Bridg Across the Divi, a discsn fom created to brg together Christians who “disagree about moral issu surroundg homosexualy, bisexualy and genr variance.

THE STRANGE NOTN OF “GAY CELIBACY”

Some church and Christian anizatns that once promoted nversn therapy (to “turn” people om gay to straight) have now shifted away om , cludg Exod Internatnal, an anizatn of “ex-gays” (Christians who claim to no longer be gay, lbian or bisexual) that disband 2013. Th still n’t expla exactly what ma her tst the church’s teachgs on homosexualy but thks the charist, the sacrament which the bread and we is transformed to the body and blood of Christ, had a lot to do wh . “So I knew celibate gay Christians who were given rol as rince advisers, stunt learship rol, whereas male stunts who had boyiends were explicly told that they wouldn’t be given those posns.

But bee they see actg on their orientatn as ungodly, they m to a life of, for the first time, a soclogist has taken an -pth look at what mak Si Bs tick, particularly how they navigate their same-sex sir and their awkward posn as stuck the middle of ex-gay groups and ntent gay Christians. (The origs of the "Si B" term are foggy, but the termology seems to e om the anizatn the Gay Christian Network, which labels gay Christians who do not see their sexualy as sful as "Si A" and those who do as "Si B.

GAY CELIBACY IS WEIRD, AND THAT’S A GOOD THG

" Numbers on ex-gay dividuals are hard to e by, but Exod Internatnal claims 3, 000 people worldwi attend one of s mistry events each terviewg people who had sought help om ex-gay groups and then left, Creek found two distct groups: Si As, who renciled their sexualy wh their relign and believe beg gay and Christian is not ntradictory; and Si Bs, who accept their orientatn but m to celibacy orr to rema le wh anti-homosexualy tes. "I tend to tegorize myself as a gay, celibate Christian, but I am very hant g that [scriptn] bee secular society, the word 'gay' means attracted to men, and Evangelil Christian subculture, means ‘sleeps wh everybody five days a week, ’" said one terviewee, lled "Jam" the report.

Dealg wh the nnotatns of the term was often too much of a headache, Jam said, so he equently kept the rmatn to other tim, claimg a gay inty was a way to nnect wh other Christians, both gay and straight.

CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS: IS THAT BIBLIL?

It is for this reason that I am grateful for the wise words wrten by then Cardal Ratzger 1986, when he said that “today, the Church provis a badly need ntext for the re of the human person when she ref to nsir the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and sists that every person has a fundamental Inty: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.

'SO MANY OF THE CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS ARE CEL'

As the 1986 Letter On The Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person wisely tells me, “every one livg on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulti, but challeng to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. By llg myself gay, I reject my te sexual inty, and the sort of emotnal, physil and psychologil creature God ma me; To ll myself “celibate” when I haven’t taken vows of celibacy seems a willful rejectn of the potential will of God my life that he may sire to brg to me a woman wh whom I might realize my sexual plementary.

I hate that kids who grow up gay and Christian are so often told they mt choose between lovg J and “beg gay, ” as if their mere sexual orientatn were enough to send God nng the oppose directn. The article begs wh a discsn about Eve Th, a celibate Roman Catholic, Th is a lear a small but growg movement of celibate gay Christians who fd easier than before to be out of the closet their tradnal church bee they’re celibate.

SHOULD GAY CHRISTIANS REMA CELIBATE?

She is by speakg at nservative Christian nferenc wh other celibate Catholics and Prottants and is the most well-known of 20 bloggers who post on, a se for celibate gay and lbian Christians that draws thoands of visors each is an tertg article not least bee secular people tend to fd celibacy strange and even subhuman.

Now, for the first time, a soclogist has taken an -pth look at what mak Si Bs tick, particularly how they navigate their same-sex sir and their awkward posn as stuck the middle of ex-gay groups and ntent gay Christians. In terviewg people who had sought help om ex-gay groups and then left, Creek found two distct groups: Si As, who renciled their sexualy wh their relign and believe beg gay and Christian is not ntradictory; and Si Bs, who accept their orientatn but m to celibacy orr to rema le wh anti-homosexualy tes.

WHY CHOOSE CELIBACY? A GAY CATHOLIC SPEAKS OUT

) Many of the celibate gay Christians I know claim that they eely choose the celibate life bee most rrectly reflects God’s purpose, but as someone who grew up that environment, I know that they simply don’t want to lose their church, their iends, their fay, and potential reer. Sometim I feel like a total eak, but I have to remd myself to feel sorry for them, bee they are simply sperate to have a normal fay, a normal life, while everyone around them is sayg they n’t have that unls they “pray away the gay.

Sce the closeted or celibate gay Christians will not speak to me, I n only hope that they notice that my girliend and I are not the evil, broken, God-hatg liberals that they are told we are.

I thk many straight people, or liberal people, or people om Northern areas really have no ia jt how many gay Christians still enter straight relatnships as late as 2016, or how limed our rights are on Christian mp. Forced celibacy evably leads to a hery far worse than what most nservative church fear about homosexualy: leads to the belief that is by works, and not Christ’s Grace, by which we are saved… and even worse, God’s grace transforms to a curse.

GAY, CHRISTIAN AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY BATE

In 2015, the official Semary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church produced a statement on homosexualy which fally, for the first time, accepted and acknowledged that many of those who are Gay, were possibly born as such.

While homosexualy is a distortn of the Enic ial, “there is no nmnatn” for homosexually oriented persons as long as they “are Christ J” (Rom 8:1) and do not harbor or act upon their orientatn and propensi… [Some] may have to wrtle wh such tennci all their liv.

The ia behd this seems to be an attempt to allow for the scientific fact that some people are born Gay, while matag that fact balance wh biblil junctns that seem to prohib all homosexual relatnships. While that may sound good theory (accept homosexualy as not sful but medil, but mata biblil thory to ny acceptabily to their relatnships which are seen as sful), the tth is that such a procre, as seen above, directly and ntrovertibly appears to ntradict the Bible….

ORTHODOX, CELIBATE, GAY AND THAT’S OK

Another problem wh the ia of celibacy, and a particularly terrible one, is the fact that evably leads to a hery far worse than what most nservative church fear about homosexualy: leads to the belief that is by works, and not Christ’s Grace, by which we are saved.

While I regnize the dilemma that the Adventist church currently fac, namely how to accept the realy of naturally occurrg homosexualy and the seemg biblil junctns regardg homosexual acts, I n say (and I hope others n agree upon review of this analysis) that the solutn of celibacy do not solve anythg, but rather, appears to e the very thg hop to avoid: ntradictg the directiv of scripture. Rourc were srce for a man stgglg wh homosexualy and tryg to rema fahful to the Church’s the terveng years, Catholics experiencg same-sex attractn have bee a more vol prence the the words “gay Catholic” and one of the top s to appear will be Gershom’s own blog, a blog wh the tagle: “Catholic, Gay, and Feelg Fe. ” There, the 30-somethg wrer nsirs his own experienc as a man stgglg wh same-sex attractn and tryg to live out the virtue of follows is an eded versn of a nversatn about everythg om homosexualy and Batman to poetry and football.

I thk ’s immoral, for one reason, bee is trsilly closed to life and thereby distorts what the sexual act is meant to gets tricky is where we talk about the emotnal realy of homosexualy, bee some people ask me, ‘well, that’s fe if you thk that gay sex is wrong, but what about gay romance? And the specific problem of silence is that if you grow up Catholic and gay, or at least if you did a few years ago when I was growg up, or before that, then the overwhelmg imprsn you get is not so much that you’re bad or evil, but ’s that you’re absolutely not allowed to talk about this.

GAY, CHRISTIAN, AND … CELIBATE: THE CHANGG FACE OF THE HOMOSEXUALY DEBATE

They should start by tellg somebody about , preferably a prit who is willg to talk wh them and help you thk pastors and others should do a better job of beg aware of what people are gog through regards to homosexualy? Like the Catechism says, the number of people wh ep-seated homosexual tennci is not negligible: this is a large segment of the populatn we’re talkg about, and ’s not a matter of a few ‘edge’ s. And that is exactly the sort of suatn I alt wh growg up, which is where was sort of standard to make jok, ‘ha ha, gay people’ bee nobody we know is gay – and of urse if you hear that sort of thg all the time, you beg to thk of yourself as outsi of the realm of normal human that how you felt growg up?

I only say that bee I’m thkg of a particular Evangelil iend of me who nstantly has to al wh – he’s gay, but believ basilly what the Catholic Church teach about homosexualy – he has to al nstantly wh people tellg him that for him to ll himself gay is for him to be embracg a s. The are people who say, ‘well, I might go around experiencg temptatns to adultery, but I don’t go around intifyg myself as an “adultero Christian, ” so why are you gog around intifyg yourself as a “gay Christian? Sce sexualy self is so eply tied to so many aspects of our personaly, and our experience as human begs, then homosexualy has very wi-reachg effects to almost every aspect of our liv, or at least as many aspects of our liv as sexualy Ameri, stereotyp on many levels associate gay men wh beg effemate.

It's also te that eher many or most, or possibly all of gay men I've ever known have experienced some difficulty ftg wh other men, and very many of them have experienced what they feel is a lack of masculy themselv. I thk the reason people are so terted homosexualy at all is bee people are profoundly terted how human begs relate to one another, and what sex has to do wh any of that – and nobody is really clear about any of those thgs right now. But sudnly, the qutn of homosexualy requir to thk clearly about those thgs, and a lot of are fdg out that we have no, everythg is nnsg to this one, huge weather system – I don't even know what's gog to happen.

THE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEG OF CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS

They are poems that exprs the ‘masculy’ of God and the ‘femy’ of God and we have to take them serly, which don't mean we n p down (exactly) what the poems are you thk a lot of the cultural nversatn gog on is not precisely about homosexualy, but about humany?

The reason I'm glad that everyone is talkg about homosexualy is that we are beg forced to nont all of the qutns, which we've need to do for a very long of me had imaged that after I me out, then there would be lots of people lg up to talk about my gayns, and that we would be talkg about all the time, and that everyone would talk about . Requirg all gay Christians to be sgle and celibate for life stands tensn wh the teachgs, which the Christian tradn has affirmed for two ’t straight people who never fd an appropriate partner “forced” to celibacy the same way?

Celibate Christians remd married Christians of the ultimate relatnship their marriag pot toward: our eternal unn wh non-affirmg theology requir gay Christians to be celibate as a rejectn of their sexualy, not as a fulfillment of . " -Genis 2:18Facts About "Ex-Gay" MistriFor s, nservative Christians enuraged gay people to pursue “ex-gay therapy” orr to velop a heterosexual 2013, the leadg “ex-gay” mistry, Exod Internatnal, shut down and nced that “reparative therapy” efforts have been eply damagg to many LGBTQ year before, Alan Chambers, the print of the anizatn, admted that “99.