'Gay and Catholic': A Q&A wh wrer and speaker Eve Th | Catholic News Agency

Contents:

• GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
• WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?
• EXCLUSIVE: TAYLOR MARSHALL SAYS POPE FRANCIS MAY CHANGE POSN OF CATHOLIC CHURCH ON GAY MARRIAGE
• CAN YOU BE BOTH GAY AND CATHOLIC?
• CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”
• FERAL URT L RONLLI CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ARCHDCE WAS ALLOWED TO FIRE A 2ND GAY UNSELOR
• 'GAY AND CATHOLIC': A Q&A WH WRER AND SPEAKER EVE TH
• I THOUGHT I WAS OVER MY CATHOLIC GUILT ABOUT BEG GAY. MAYBE I WAS WRONG?
• BLSG GAY UNNS

GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT

WASHINGTON – A feral appeals urt has led that a Catholic high school Indianapolis was ee to fire a gay guidance unselor bee she performed at least some relig duti, the latt legal setback for LGBTQ+ rights when they nflict wh Fzgerald had worked for 14 years as a guidance unselor at Ronlli High School when school officials disvered she was married to another woman. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circu Richmond is an early tt of how that major Supreme Court cisn ptg ee speech agast anti-discrimatn laws will play out beyond the hypothetil suatn that se, which volved a platiff who had never actually ma weddg webs or been asked to do so by a gay person.

“The Court rejected the dissent’s assertn that s cisn opened the door to discrimatn employment, ” ACLU attorney Josh Block wrote a reply to Becket’s the exampl raised the Supreme Court did not clu a relig anizatn or a gay employee, and Gorsuch repeatedly voked a 2000 cisn allowg the Boy Suts to expel a gay volunteer on “exprsive associatn” grounds. “We all said that thoands of relig anizatns all across the untry ask their employe to uphold their tradnal view of marriage word and ed, and if you terpret the statute that way, ’s gog to unleash lots of lawsus agast them, ” Goodrich the Supreme Court has specifilly said preventg racial discrimatn is a pellg ernment tert that jtifi rtrictg First Amendment eedoms, he noted that the Supreme Court has rejected such a fdg on discrimatn agast gay or transgenr people.

Adam* said was dangero to e out as gay his home untry and feared beg forced to an arranged marriage wh a said he was "so lucky" to wed his soulmate, Ray, Manchter and wish everyone uld marry who they love. There are more than 60 untri wh laws that crimalise same-sex sexual acts acrdg to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn, cludg Sdi Arabia. 'Authentilly myself'Ray said he had also stggled growg up gay the 1970s and 80s England, which was "tough" said his relig school "dmmed to you, 'you are gog to hell'" Adam returned home to Sdi Arabia, spe beg more than 3, 000 apart and later rtricted by the Covid-19 panmic, they kept touch daily and the romance years ago, Ray proposed on a vio ll and after succsfully applyg for a UK fiancé visa, Adam moved to Manchter December 2022.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

Adam said he had been aaid to even wear lours his home untry so the first thg he did when he moved was start to "grow my mullet, got my ears pierced and booked appotments for tattoos" relled how, ntrast, one of his gay iends Sdi had been forced to marry a woman, addg: "It has ed not only his life but the life of his wife. The uple, who live London, said a "really betiful memory" was on the way home when one of their sons shouted out of the black b wdow to Trafalgar Square, "My dads jt got married" and cheered "Yay, gay marriage".

C., that would pull out of social servic the cy rather than acce to a bill that would afford benefs to same-sex spo, a qutn, too long neglected, aris for the whole church: What is a gay Catholic supposed to do life? If you accept the church's teachg on celibacy for gays, and feel a ll to enter a semary or relig orr, you nnot--even if you sire the celibate life.

A gay layman I know who serv an important role a dce (and even wr some of his bishop's statements on social jtice) has a solid theologil tn and sir to serve the church, but fds impossible to be open the face of the bishop's repeated disparagg remarks about gays.

WHAT SHOULD A GAY CATHOLIC DO?

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. Throughout history, Jewish and Christian scholars have regnized that one of the chief ss volved God’s stctn of Sodom was s people’s homosexual behavr.

Lot even offered his two virg dghters place of his guts, but the men of Sodom rejected the offer, preferrg homosexual sex over heterosexual sex (Gen. 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. Elsewhere Pl aga warns that homosexual behavr is one of the ss that will prive one of heaven: “Do you not know that the wicked will not her the kgdom of God?

EXCLUSIVE: TAYLOR MARSHALL SAYS POPE FRANCIS MAY CHANGE POSN OF CATHOLIC CHURCH ON GAY MARRIAGE

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. Homosexual activists often jtify homosexualy by claimg that ten percent of the populatn is homosexual, meang that is a mon and th acceptable behavr.

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.

CAN YOU BE BOTH GAY AND CATHOLIC?

“Basg self on sacred Scripture, which prents homosexual acts as acts of grave pravy, tradn has always clared that homosexual acts are trsilly disorred. The Church mak clear that homosexuals “mt be accepted wh rpect, passn, and sensivy [and that] every sign of unjt discrimatn their regard should be avoid” (Id. Of urse, this nstut a particularly difficult trial and challenge for gay men and women bee same sex marriage is not and nnot be regnized wh the Church.

CAN CATHOLICS “PRAY AWAY THE GAY?”

Fellow Patheos blogger Eve Th recently published an important book on the subject: Gay and Catholic: Acceptg My Sexualy, Fdg Communy, Livg My Fah. Eve tak through her own transformatn, her own cisn makg, that has led her to actively, nscly choose to be a fahful Catholic, even as she has had to e to terms wh what that means as a gay person wh the Church.

FERAL URT L RONLLI CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ARCHDCE WAS ALLOWED TO FIRE A 2ND GAY UNSELOR

In this first book om an openly lbian and celibate Catholic, wily published wrer and blogger Eve Th reunts her spirual and tellectual journey om atheism to Catholicism and shows how gay Catholics n love and be loved while followg Church teachg. Already self-intifyg as a lbian, Th searched for a third way the seemg two-optn system available to gay Catholics: reject Church teachg on homosexualy or reject the tth of your sexualy. Gay and Catholic is the u of Th’s searchg: what she learned studyg Christian history and theology and her articulatn of how gay Catholics n pour their love and need for nnectn to iendships, muny, service, and artistic creatn.

It was the send time a year that the archdce and Ronlli won a legal se after faced lawsus for firg two gay women who -ran the guidance partment at the school. Members of the Natnal Relig Learship Roundtable, nvened by the Natnal LGBTQ Task Force, rpond today to ments ma by Pope Francis on lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ) people.

'GAY AND CATHOLIC': A Q&A WH WRER AND SPEAKER EVE TH

We fd much to be hopeful about, particularly the Pope’s firm sire that the Church be a ’home for all people, ’ and his belief that God looks on lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people wh love rather than nmnatn.

I THOUGHT I WAS OVER MY CATHOLIC GUILT ABOUT BEG GAY. MAYBE I WAS WRONG?

I replied wh another qutn: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, do he endorse the existence of this person wh love, or reject and nmn this person? For too long, the Catholic Church’s abily to work on important jtice issu has been marred bee of the meang and abive statements and actns toward lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people and toward women who grapple wh reproductive choic. Pope Francis’ statement is part of a growg trend among relig lears the most historilly nservative ’re seeg siar efforts among Evangelil lears and among lears of the Church of J Christ of Latter-day Sats (Mormons) to re stutnal homophobia and make LGBT members feel more wele.

Though a growg number of Catholics already support gay and lbian dividuals, this is the first time that a Pope has regnized the harm that the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s mpaigns agast LGBT people and fai have ed. I wrote Gay and Catholic bee even the bt books for gay Christians already out there were eher mostly memoir or theologil argument favor of the Christian sexual ethic. I wanted to wre a book which would clu some memoir ( orr to build tst, so people knew where I was g om), but which foced on the paths of love which are open to gay people the Church—pecially those paths which might be overlooked.

BLSG GAY UNNS

I wrote Tenrns: A Gay Christian’s Gui to Unlearng Rejectn and Experiencg God’s Extravagant Love (forthg November om Ave Maria Prs) for gay Christians who found that their relatnship wh God had been damaged by paful experienc or misguid teachg they’d received their church. You n thk of Gay and Catholic as a book about “horizontal love, ” the ways we love other people around , and Tenrns as a book about “vertil love, ” the love between the soul and God.