Abbey-Roads2

I did not want to expose Gerald to this.

(Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t my fault - but anyway…)  When he returned from Europe, he was surprised by all the negative email as regards his personal positions on gay people.  As a result, he is thinking of deleting his blog.  NO, no, no Amy Winehouse!  You keep going.

In a couple of previous posts here,  I pointed out the incongruity of Gerald’s “evolved” thought on gay people in order to demonstrate how easily our emotions, our friendships, even our marriages can affect our thinking.  In other words, how the gay agenda has infiltrated Catholic thought.  

We are all so immersed in the world that we easily become affected (infected) by worldly thought - which leads to compromise and permissiveness - even in the best of us.  This in no way implies Gerald is a bad Catholic - all of us can veer off track.  To demonize him is totally wrong.  If he holds views in opposition to Church teaching, then let him be admonished, but certainly not tarred and feathered.  People - we have bishops in office who are genuine heretics - keep a modicum of perspective.

I just can’t stand uber-Catholics dictating as if they are the new magisterium - which Gerald and other bloggers appeared to have done  many times - so when they derail, I may mention it here. 

Gerald is thinking of quitting the blog, so go tell him not to be such a puss.

Again, I doubt my posts had much to do with this controversy, RCblog  pretty much swept sweeps week with his rather intense expose (treatise) on the evils of CIC and everything queer.  Don’t ever tell me  ’me thinks she protests too much’, much less ask, ‘what’s with all the gay stuff?’ ever again.

So anyway - just because you disagree with a blogger, don’t demand their execution.  You realize blogs are simply the author’s (contributor’s ) opinion, right?  I mean, I never heard a Pope say, “Save this or that -  save the world” - yet some one with no real job or assignment repeats a similar mantra, and people think it is Church teaching.  Another guy tells you the Lord is telling him to do this or that on such and such day - fine - whatever - remember, a lot of these people do not have real jobs, they have nothing else to do!  (Just like me!  LOL!)  So remember what I always say - a blog is a blog is a blog - and Gertrude Stein was a dyke.

And the queering of …

Okay, so you know I know you knew I knew that he knew, the Cafeteria was pretty much always open.  Well, at least since the wedding.  Because Mrs. N. is  a psychologist and she taught  Mr. N. about homosexuality;  and apparently it isn’t as bad as the Catholic Church says it is if two happening/active SSA people are nice and they happen to be your friends and are kind of married  - but stay away from the altar boys or Mr. N. will get really angry.  

Traditional Catholics may be Puritans…

Well, I always thought trads were sort of like fundamentalists, but now I hear they may be Puritans.  Funny how tolerance can often lead to permissiveness… and how easily one’s faith can be compromised.  It is called human respect - people get caught up in that stuff.

Links:

Not Quite So Closed - Wild Reed

Excuse Me While I Whip This Out

The Cafeteria Is Now Open

You Decide - Is it Open?  (This post on Roman Catholic blog is extremely long and detailed.)

Please remember to support Roman Catholic blogs and use their donation buttons because it is so expensive to vacation in Europe now days!

[Tab and Roddy - the perfect couple.  Thanks to RC blog.] 

Change. 

Alcoholics usually hate it when a drinking buddy decides to quit drinking, and they definitely hate drinking heavily in front of a recovered alcoholic.  Unless of course they were like my dad, who told people they just thought they were alcoholics and they should just give in and have a drink with him - to be social.  Because an alcoholic’s best friend is drink, losing a drinking buddy is not the end of the world for them.

However, there is something in human nature that inclines all  of us to want to keep our companions, who support or enable us in some fault or weakness we find ourselves inordinately attached to.  Think of the gossip whose friend tells her she doesn’t want to hear or discuss that stuff any longer.  She may think to herself,  ‘Who will I tell these things to?  What will I talk about?  I’m all alone now.’  That is pretty simplistic, but I’m sure you get my point.

Symptoms of loneliness and heartache.

These fears may be intensified for the gay person whose friend announces he is going to quit the lifestyle, go into therapy, or even get married.  One fellow told me that after two of his friends actually fell in love (with women) and got married, he felt betrayed by them.  The three of them had been friends since grade school, and after college they went out to gay bars together - they were inseparable friends.  It was not long before the man’s two friends got tired of the gay scene, the drugs and drinking, and casual sex, and began going to church.  To make a long story short - his friends became more religious, each met a woman and fell in love, and both of them got married and have families today.

Much later, the forsaken friend was able to admit that he was angry with his friends, not only had they betrayed him by “going straight” - he felt abandoned by them as well.  He said he feared being alone and felt like an outcast because of his sexual orientation.  They would be normal now, and he would always be abnormal.  They would find happiness, fulfillment, and acceptance, while he would always be the outsider, the “interesting”  or “fun” one, but never “one of them”.  He rejected his friends, only keeping in touch through Christmas cards and birthday cards. 

Ex-gays expose the fears and insecurities of gay culture.

That is pretty extreme and an isolated case, yet it seems to me it may also be an unconscious motivation for gay people who virulently reject what is termed the “ex-gay movement”.  That is, men and women who have left the homosexual lifestyle, and through reparative therapy, come to accept their heterosexuality.  The folks who are successful are highly motivated to change, and although not all people may be able to overcome SSA issues entirely, many go on to live their lives with greater freedom of spirit.  Again, the Catholic Church does not require individuals to change their orientation, rather to live chastely and celibately.

Isn’t that special.

That said, I think the self-conscious-uniqueness  of being gay, reaffirmed by an artificial and separate cultural identity, helps to foster a sort of fundamentalist conviction that homosexuality is a natural variant of human sexuality.  Therefore the  ”gay community” promotes “coming out” as an act of solidarity amongst active homosexuals, who otherwise,  for a large majority,  led more or less quiet, normal lives prior to the late 1960’s.  The idea of safety and community, as well as power in numbers, led to the coming out campaign and gay activisim, based upon the feminist and civil rights movement. 

Any deviation from the agenda threatens the gay political movement which seeks parity for homosexuals with heterosexuals as far as marriage and family rights concerns,  and so on.  Hence, the ex-gay possibility is perceived as a heretical and rebellious act by proponents of the gay agenda.  I’m convinced the resistance of gay people to the idea is similar to the story above, of the man whose friends left the gay lifestyle to marry women, while he took it personally as a betrayal of their friendship.  

Soul Deep. 

Anyway - this lengthy analysis has been my introduction to the following article on Lifesite which deals with the issue of ex-gays:

ARLINGTON, VA, May 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Individuals who once considered themselves homosexuals but who have since left the lifestyle, often remain silent about their past life due to persecution from homosexual activists, an ABC News video revealed on Monday.

“A person may not be happy being gay, has anyone ever thought of that?” asked “David,” an anonymous man who has overcome his homosexual inclinations, on ABC News.

“I’ve found feelings could change,” David added.

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) observed that “David’s” desire for anonymity reflects the wide-scale persecution individuals like him face from those supportive of homosexuality.

“Many ex-gays are afraid to come out of the closet because of the harassment they will receive - their names, phone numbers and personal information posted on gay websites, attacked at ex-gay exhibit booths, press releases issued against them, etc,” stated PFOX.

“The tactics of gay activists are to go after anyone who comes out publicly as ex-gay, force them back into the closet, and then claim that ex-gays don’t exist because there aren’t any out in public.” - Lifesite News 

Check out Abbey-Roads for a Will and Grace segment on the topic - it’s funny.  Oops!  People were offended so I took it down.

PFOX - parents and friends of ex-gays.  (I only know about them through Lifesite.)

Silent no more. 

At one time of course, the word homosexuality was never spoken in polite conversation, in fact up until the 1950’s the only reference it might have received was limited to novels, the theater, and maybe the court docket or the list of vice arrests published in the local newspaper.  Otherwise the topic was rarely if ever discussed, and then only in whispers that wouldn’t permit the speaker to name the vice; rather the perpetrators and what they did came to be identified by more perjorative and descriptive terms, such as fruits, fairies, queers, gay, and other more vulgar appellations.  Legal, medical, and religious terms included buggery, sodomy, sodomites, and so on.  My point is that it was rare for the subject to be discussed openly as it is today. 

Private lives. 

In the last year I’ve been reading the lives of important figures in the world of design, fashion, and entertainment.   People most of my readers probably have never heard of, but who were influential in my career over the years.  Billy Baldwin, a New York designer, Van Day Truex, an important figure from Parsons and later a director at Tiffany’s, Bill Blass, a fashion designer, and the film and opera director, Franco Zeffirelli.   Aside from their great artistic talent and achievements which propelled them to the top of their profession, all of these men were homosexuals.  The only one to ever publicly reveal the issue was Franco Zeffirelli, and I expect that is because the political climate in Italy and the rest of the western world made it convenient for him to do so.  I mention these men because they quietly lived their lives without making a big deal out of their sexuality.  (Incidently, Zeffirelli, a Catholic, agrees with Church teaching that homosexual activity is sinful.)

Polite society.

Yes, the discretion exercised by these men was due in part to social restrictions and lack of acceptance, although many of their contemporaries perhaps “knew” about them.  Nonetheless,  of the three Americans, not one ever lived with a lover, although they had close male and female friends and companions.  All of the men were considered bachelors, and gentlemen - socially and professionally.  At the time, only the avant-garde, or the members of the artistic community would ever dare to be the least bit open about their sexual preferences, albeit never to the degree that people are today.

After Kinsey. 

Anyway - this is a long intro to a few personal observations on the subject of homosexuality.  People need to realize the public discussion has only been out there since the mid to late 1960’s, when popular magazines began discussing the sub-culture of homosexuality in various publications, such as Time and Life.  I’m sure the Kinsey Report (1948) along with academia, and popular culture (novels, magazines, tabloids, theater, movies) played a role in paving the way for more openess.  I do not presume to do a detailed study on the homosexual revolution here, but I do want to note how radically things have changed in society as regards the acceptance of homosexuality as well as the facade being constructed to hide what was once referred to as “the love that dare not speak its name.”

So few influence so many.

I hate long posts so I will conclude here for now.  Going forward I want to discuss this subject that seems to dominate the conversation in our culture and the Catholic Church.  A fact which should strike everyone as a rather curious phenomenon when one considers we are really only speaking about (in our nation’s case at least) less than 3%  of the population of the United States - who just happen to be very vocal.  (Some might say, “screamers”.  Kidding - I want to keep this light.)  

On the pregnant “man”

From Cosmos, Liturgy and Sex…

The fantasy of changing one’s personal meaning by changing one’s gender is derived from the fallacious belief that sexuality somehow frees us from our bondage to fear, inadequacies and despair. There is the tendency among many of us to cling to what can be lost or taken away, but there are those among us who invest their total being into these fears to the point where there can be no rest or satisfaction of ever receiving enough in return. To carry the burden of an external locus of control, one lives life with the constant feelings of being controlled by the actions of others and blown about by the whims of the world - being terrified of the bitter taste of losing or being denied of whatever is held in high value to them, some to the point of life itself.

Gender roles and identities are ultimately formed through the individual mind as experienced within the world which immediately surrounds us; consequently, some of us fail to recognize the potential fraud of assuming an identity in the first place. Constrained by deep insecurities and fears through reacting against the reality of one’s own sexual identity, some cling to a fantasy of there being something “wrong” with the external body vs. something being “wrong” internally, within the heart and mind. Simply speaking, Gender Identity Disorder is more of a rejection and abandonment of who one is, than the adoption of who and what one desires to be. - Post on “How does it feel to be a pregnant man?”

Whoever Shelray is, I thought this to be very insightful.

Gay clubs on campus.

A recent study reports nearly half of all Catholic Universities host pro-gay clubs on campus.

“These groups tend to celebrate the homosexual lifestyle and promote a social environment that condones homosexual activity,” he told CitizenLink. “That is inconsistent with a Christian university’s responsibility to encourage chastity and students’ moral formation. It would be more appropriate to provide faithful pastoral care for students wrestling with their sexuality.” - Source

Doh!  So do Catholic high schools.  I’ve been told of two locally.  I’m not sure about Catholic elementary education, but I’m sure organizations such as the so-called  Catholic Pastoral Committee On Sexual Minorities are doing their best to infiltrate the schools.

Parents - you get what you pay for, and sometimess a little bit more.

Links:

Gay agenda gaining foothold in Catholic Education.

St Catherine’s Review on Bishop Moeddel 

LifesiteNews

and an exhibit in the Austrian Cardinal’s art gallery. 

When I was in 5th grade an unidentified fellow student drew an obscene picture on the back of a holy card Sr. Hiltrude distributed to the class.  We never found out who did the drawing, but I had my suspicions, as did my other classmates.  The drawing was crude, although it might be considered art today.  Especially by the curators of the Dommuseum of Vienna, the art gallery attached to the Cathedral of St. Stephen, and adjacent to the Archbishop’s palace of Christoph Cardinal Schonborn.

The Marxist artist, Alfred Hrdlicka (no, the last name is not a joke) is featured in a one man exhibition of his work, entitled, “Religion, Flesh, and Power”.  His heavy-handed, ‘Teutonic’ style  is decidely homo-erotic; compositions depicting Christ and the disciples engaged in homosexual sex acts.  (The ’art’ is similar to the gay grafitti a man might see in a public restroom.)   Gloria Television produced a short video of the works here.

“Dommuseum Director Bernhard Böhler said visitors asked “in a more or less emotional way” why the Apostles are depicted engaged in sex with one another.  According to the director, the artist responded, ‘There were no women around.’” - Religion and Spirituality.   

Arrogant response.

Photo: The artist, Hrdlicka.

Links:

LifesiteNews

“Sashay, sashay, sashay, sashay, sashay.” 

Rainbow Sashers  plan to greet the Pope when he visits next month with whistles and ashes instead of confetti.  It is in protest of how the sexual abuse crises was handled and ongoing discrimination against gay people by the Catholic Church.

That’s mature.

From PinkNews:

A group that works for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans in the Roman Catholic church is planning a series of protests against Pope Benedict during his visit to the US next month.

The Rainbow Sash Movement said it is calling on “Catholics of good will” to take the Papal visit as an opportunity to shower the Pope mobile with ashes instead of confetti.

“Ashes are an ancient and appropriate greeting for a sinner who has caused the Church so much division and pain - we will also be greeting him with whistles,” RSM said in a statement.

“We will not enter any Churches but we will bring ashes to reign down on the Popes motorcade, and call on individuals to blow whistles at any public papal events such as outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Ground Zero, St. Joseph’s Seminary, and Yankee Stadium as a sign of our disgust over the way the clergy abuse scandal has been handled under his leadership,” the group said in a statement. - PinkNews 

(Thanks to Paula for the story.)

When dad does tricks. 

I came across an interesting article about a woman who wrote a book describing her experiences growing up with a homosexual father.  We often hear stories from parents of homosexual children, and now it seems children of homosexuals are coming out to tell their side of the story.  The author of  Out From Under, Dawn Stephanowizc is quoted here:

“Children are impacted long-term in homosexual environments – not just while they’re growing up, but throughout their adulthood,” said the author. “Children [of homosexuals] who have been in touch with me, even into their fifties and sixties, still describe certain difficulties that they are facing long-term.” - Americans For Truth 

One should think legislators and society would take a more cautious approach to same sex marriage and adoption before giving blanket approval - especially after listening to the kids.