Can You Be Both Gay and Catholic? | Tom Zampo

Contents:

• WHAT DO LOOK LIKE TO BE GAY – AND A PRACTICG CATHOLIC?
• WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?
• CAN YOU BE BOTH GAY AND CATHOLIC?
• CAN I BE GAY AND CATHOLIC?
• CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”

WHAT DO LOOK LIKE TO BE GAY – AND A PRACTICG CATHOLIC?

The blog is about what 's like to be a gay Catholic – a gay Catholic who is of urse, celibate – and I say 'of urse' bee that seems to me like the only optn if you're gog to be both gay and Catholic. My iends and I joke that there's a gay Catholic renaissance on, or actually a gay Christian renaissance on, and we're proud to be at the foreont of – or at least we tell ourselv that we're at the foreont.

It was hard the sense that I'd actually always said that people shouldn't be public about beg gay, bee was not anybody's bs and I felt that would lend legimacy to this ia that beg gay is a sort of a sgle way to intify yourself: I actually still sort of hold that posn – kd of. ' I ed to joke that the only reason I ed the word 'gay' was so that I would tend to show up more on Google, which is only partially a joke, bee you know if you're gog to e the tools of technology to evangelize, then you have to be savvy about what Google is gog to fd and what isn't.

WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?

But I gus the shift maly happened as I began to approach beg more public about , bee as I beme more public I also me to ntact more openly wh people who intified as gay or who stggled wh same-sex attractn, or whatever. And fact, I rarely feel strongly about whether I should e the word gay or not, but the one time I do feel strongly about is when somebody starts upbraidg me for . It's the sort of thg where people feel, and I thk rightly, that they have been nstraed to keep silent for most of their liv – and a lot of people have, whether 's nstraed by actual explic homophobia among the people that they love and/or are related to, or whether 's jt sort of a general culture unrstandg that you don't talk about this sort of thg.

' This is tratg and across as very patronizg bee the are people who don't have any sight to the experience of what is to be gay tellg you what is or is not ok to talk about, and what is and is not ok to ll yourself. This is reason that I haven't yet e to a solid opn on this qutn – bee the problem is that secular people and Christian people mean two different thgs by the word 'gay. Now I thk that one reason Christians tend to dislike the word 'gay' is bee if somebody says that they are gay, then they are ually implyg that is an unchangeable aspect of their personaly.

CAN YOU BE BOTH GAY AND CATHOLIC?

I'll start first by sayg that I'm extremely grateful for the anizatn People Can Change, which is an anizatn found precisely on the ia that radil change wh rpect to homosexualy is possible. I'm grateful for them not bee they 'ma me straight' or somethg, but bee they gave me a space which to work out some of my issu, many of which turned out not to be related precisely to homosexualy particular, but were jt sort of emotnal issu that need alg wh.

But on the other hand, this is dangero bee you have a lot of Christian people already assumg om the get-go that if somebody is homosexual, then they mt have var and many emotnal issu that need workg on, and that's not necsarily the se. If the unrstandg the Christian world is that homosexualy is a "disorr, " and homosexual activy is a s, then logilly would seem like as Christians, we would want to help our fellow Christians who are "dis-orred" to be "orred. Many people assume that when the Church says 'homosexualy nsists of a disorred clatn, ' they take that word 'disorr' and assume that She means 'mental disorr.

CAN I BE GAY AND CATHOLIC?

However, to receive this gift, we mt reject s, cludg homosexual behavr—that is, acts tend to aroe or stimulate a sexual rponse regardg a person of the same sex. To disunt this, some homosexual activists have argued that moral imperativ om the Old Ttament n be dismissed sce there were certa ceremonial requirements at the time—such as not eatg pork, or circumcisg male babi—that are no longer bdg. Do not be ceived: Neher the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostut nor homosexual offenrs nor thiev nor the greedy nor dnkards nor slanrers nor swdlers will her the kgdom of God” (1 Cor.

Jt as one n acquire alholic sir (by repeatedly beg toxited) whout nscly choosg them, so one may acquire homosexual sir (by engagg homosexual fantasi or behavr) whout nscly choosg them. Even if there is a geic predisposn toward homosexualy (and studi on this pot are nclive), the behavr remas unnatural bee homosexualy is still not part of the natural sign of humany. Furthermore, the ten percent figure clus people who are not exclively homosexual but who only engaged  some homosexual behavr for a perd of time and then stopped—people who had gone through a fully or partially homosexual “phase” but who were not long-term homosexuals.

Sometim the charge is even ma that the same people are perhaps homosexuals themselv and are overpensatg to hi this fact, even om themselv, by nmng other homosexuals. The morn arguments favor of homosexualy have th been sufficient to overe the evince that homosexual behavr is agast dive and natural law, as the Bible and the Church, as well as the wir circle of Jewish and Christian (not to mentn Mlim) wrers, have always held. The Roman Catholic Church, the largt Christian nomatn the Uned Stat wh an timated 62 ln members, has weled celibate gay and lbian people to s church life but creasgly is beg more tolerant even of this populatn.

CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text which ntas dogmas and teachgs of the Church, nam “homosexual acts” as “trsilly immoral and ntrary to the natural law, ” and nam “homosexual tennci” as “objectively disorred. The 1986 Letter stat, “Although the particular clatn of the homosexual person is not a s, is a more or ls strong tenncy orred toward an trsic moral evil; and th the clatn self mt be seen as an objective disorr.