COMMENTARY: Instead of bashing gays, how about some sympathy?

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.) (RNS)-One of the many dishonesties of the Republicans currently dominating […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. His home page on the World Wide Web is at http://www.greeley.com. Or contact him via e-mail at agreel(AT)aol.com.)

(RNS)-One of the many dishonesties of the Republicans currently dominating Congress is their disregard for elementary truth in packaging.


The House of Representatives is considering a measure its proponents call the Defense of Marriage Act. It really has nothing to do with preservation but is rather designed to enable states to forbid legal commitments between gay people. It could more appropriately be labeled the Gay-Bashing Bill.

Proponents of the measure apparently are convinced that if you prevent gay people from professing marriage-like commitments you are strengthening”real”marriage, which they define for legal purposes as the union of”one man and one woman.” Thirty seconds of rational thought would suggest otherwise.

Why would heterosexual unions be weakened if gay people can solemnize their relationships?

If Congress really was interested in preserving marriage, it would make life much more difficult for men who beat their wives, desert them, or fail to pay child support.

Congress is not the only institution bashing gays these days. The Southern Baptist Convention recently announced it would boycott the Walt Disney Co.’s films and other entertainments because of Disney’s policy of extending benefits to the partners of gay employees.

And then there’s House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who announced that if his lesbian sister were to attempt a formal wedding ceremony, he would decline to attend. Did anyone ask his sister whether she would want him at her wedding? Would anyone want Newt Gingrich at their wedding?

The marriage bill, the Baptist boycott and Gingrich’s inane posturing are all based on the assumption that gays are evil people. Biblical literalists tend to think of gays as”Sodomites,”a reference to the residents of that sinful city mentioned in the Old Testament upon whom the wrath of God rained down. But if you read the story closely, it appears that the sin of the citizens of Sodom was not sexual misconduct, but rather murder and the violation of the code of hospitality.

Some polls indicate that sympathy for homosexuals has increased in the United States in recent years (though the highest approval rating for gay”marriages”is to be found in Ireland and the Netherlands) while approval of extra-marital sex has declined.


There is psychological and physiological research that indicates sexual orientation is a condition over which an individual has no control. And many clinicians who deal with gay people agree that permanent and stable monogamous unions are much to be preferred to promiscuity.

The Catholic Church agrees on the issue of sexual orientation. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a letter on the subject a few years ago bluntly stating that men and women do not choose to be homosexual and that sexual orientation is not in itself sinful. Ratzinger did add, however, that homosexuality remains”objectively disordered”and that homosexual acts must still be regarded as sinful.

Many priests who counsel gays and many of the moral theologians who advise them understand that life-long celibacy is not a possible option. In pastoral practice, many clergy urge gay people to pursue permanent unions rather than indulge in irresponsible promiscuous behavior.

This compassionate approach to men and women who have been dealt a difficult hand in life is, of course, intolerable to many Catholics, to Southern Baptists and to the members of Congress who support the Preservation of Marriage Act.

To these folk, gay people are by definition evil and they look to government to do whatever it can to punish them. This is a characteristic position of a certain kind of American who wants the government to enforce personal morality. It is by no means clear whether issues of personal morality have any major impact on the common good. Earlier in this century, moralists called upon government to forbid the sale and consumption of alcohol. Nearly everyone agrees it was a disaster.

Why is there so much rage in some quarters against people who are trapped in their sexual orientation? Perhaps the gay-bashers need someone to hate; perhaps they are insecure in their own sexual identity.


I don’t see why the gay-bashers just don’t leave gays alone. Nor do I understand the profoundly un-Christian hatred for them. I see no trace of the compassion of Jesus in their attitudes.

MJP END GREELEY

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