The Gay Agenda: Pushing Homosexuality On The Front Page Of The New York Times Web Page On Palm Sunday
The New York Times prominently featured an article about a seventh grade boy "coming out" to his family (and his entire school) on their web page on this Palm Sunday. The article was the most prominent article on the page. It was featured "above the fold" with the picture on the top.
Here's the story (free web subscription may be required) Parenting: Accepting Gay Identity, and Gaining Strength
Here are some quotes:
One month before Zach O’Connor, a seventh grader at Brown Middle School here, came out about being gay, he was in such turmoil that he stood up in homeroom and, in a voice everyone could hear, asked a girl out on a date. It was Valentine’s Day 2003, and Zach was 13.“I was doing this to survive,” he says. “This is what other guys were doing, getting girlfriends. I should get one, too.”
...
Cindy and Dan O’Connor were very worried about Zach. Though bright, he was doing poorly at school. At home, he would pick fights, slam doors, explode for no reason. They wondered how their two children could be so different; Matt, a year and a half younger, was easygoing and happy. Zach was miserable.The O’Connors had hunches. Mr. O’Connor is a director of business development for American Express, Ms. O’Connor a senior vice president of a bank, and they have had gay colleagues, gay bosses, classmates who came out after college. From the time Zach was little, they knew he was not a run-of-the-mill boy. His friends were girls or timid boys.
“Zach had no interest in throwing a football,” Mr. O’Connor says. But their real worry was his anger, his unhappiness, his low self-esteem. “He’d say: ‘I’m not smart. I’m not like other kids,’ ” says Ms. O’Connor. The middle-school psychologist started seeing him daily.
The misery Zach caused was minor compared with the misery he felt. He says he knew he was different by kindergarten, but he had no name for it, so he would stay to himself. He tried sports, but, he says, “It didn’t work out well.” He couldn’t remember the rules. In fifth grade, when boys at recess were talking about girls they had crushes on, Zach did not have someone to name.
By sixth grade, he knew what “gay” meant, but didn’t associate it with himself. That year, he says: “I had a crush on one particular eighth-grade boy, a very straight jock. I knew whatever I was feeling I shouldn’t talk about it.” He considered himself a broken version of a human being. “I did think about suicide,” he says.
Then, for reasons he can’t wholly explain beyond pure desperation, a month after his Valentine “date” — “We never actually went out, just walked around school together” — in the midst of math class, he told a female friend. By day’s end it was all over school. The psychologist called him in. “I burst into tears,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Yes, it’s true.’ Every piece of depression came pouring out. It was such a mess.”
That night, when his mother got home from work, she stuck her head in his room to say hi. “I said, ‘Ma, I need to talk to you about something, I’m gay.’ She said, ‘O.K., anything else?’ ‘No, but I just told you I’m gay.’ ‘O.K., that’s fine, we still love you.’ I said, ‘That’s it?’ I was preparing for this really dramatic moment.”
Ms. O’Connor recalls, “He said, ‘Mom, aren’t you going to freak out?’ I said: ‘It’s up to you to decide who to love. I have your father, and you have to figure out what’s best for you.’ He said, ‘Don’t tell Dad.’ ”
“Of course I told him,” Ms. O’Connor says.
“With all our faults,” Mr. O’Connor says, “we’re in this together.”
Having a son come out so young was a lot of work for the parents. They found him a therapist who is gay 20 miles away in New Haven. The therapist helped them find a gay youth group, OutSpoken, a 50-minute drive away in Norwalk.
Dan Woog, a writer and longtime soccer coach at Staples High in Westport, helped found OutSpoken in 1993. He says for the first 10 years, the typical member was 17 to 22 years old. “They’d come in saying: ‘I’m gay. My life is over,’ ” Mr. Woog says. “One literally hyperventilated walking through the door.”
But in recent years, he says, the kids are 14 to 17 and more confident. “They say: ‘Hi, I’m gay. How do I meet people?’ ”
...
For the first 10 years, Mr. Woog never saw a parent; meetings were from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, so members could get out of the house without arousing suspicion. Now, he says, parents often bring the child to the first meeting.Still, seventh grade was not easy. “We heard kids across the street yelling ‘homo’ as he waited for the school bus,” Mr. O’Connor says. Zach says classmates tossed pencils at him and constantly mocked him. “One kid followed me class to class calling me ‘faggot,’ ” he says. “After a month I turned and punched him in the face. He got quiet and walked away. I said, ‘You got beat up by a faggot.’ ”
...
His father took him to a gay-lesbian conference at Central Connecticut State in New Britain, and Zach was thrilled to see so many gay people in one place. His therapist took him to a Gay Bingo Night at St. Paul’s Church on the Green in Norwalk that raises money for AIDS care. Zach became a regular and within a few months was named Miss Congeniality.“They crowned me with a tiara and sash, and I walked around the room waving,” he recalls. “I was still this shy 14-year-old in braces. I hadn’t reached my socialness yet, and everyone was cheering.
“I was the future. Most of the men were middle-aged or older, and to see this 14-year-old out, they loved it. They were so happy.”
Now, as a 17-year-old 11th grader, Zach has passed through phases that many gay men of previous generations didn’t get to until their 20s, 30s, even 40s. “Eighth grade was kind of his militant time,” Mr. O’Connor says.
“Everything was a rainbow,” says Ms. O’Connor.
These days, Zach is so busy, he rarely has time for the gay-straight club. He’s in several singing and drama groups and is taking an SAT prep course.
“I’ve been out so long, I don’t really need the club as a resource,” he says. “I’m not going to say I’m popular, but I’m friendly with nearly everybody. Sophomore year, my social life skyrocketed.”
In music groups he made male friends for the first time. “They weren’t afraid of me,” he says. “They like me.”
His brother, Matt, says sometimes kids come up to him and ask what it’s like to have a gay brother. “I say it’s normal to me, I don’t think of it anymore.”
As for his parents, they’re happy that Zach’s happy.
“Coming out was the best thing for him,” Ms. O’Connor says. “We ask him, ‘Why didn’t you come out in fifth grade?’ ”
The article featured an mp3 you can listen to here: Zach O'Connor on Coming Out Gay
Not only does this article prove (to me) that the New York Times is cramming an agenda down people's throats, it also indicates (to me) that they aren't as serious as they pretend to be in their opposition to the Iraq war and the policies of the Bush Administration, because if they really cared about that stuff, they wouldn't do puff pieces like this promoting the "normalcy" and need for absolute societal acceptance of anal and/or oral sex between two or more men while the nation is supposedly crumbling because of George W. Bush.
What are people thinking doing this big story about this young kid telling his parents he's "gay"? Why is his sexual confusion at an age too young to declare anything definite about himself headline news? What if he changes his mind about himself later? It seems to me he's locked himself in now, with the help of his parents.
What type of parent runs out and finds a therapist who is "gay" right away when their seventh grader announces he's "gay"? Don't people realize that "gay" therapist is invested in spreading the idea that homosexual tendencies and activity are good?
Homosexuals and those who sympathize with homosexuality will likely accuse me of "homophobia".
My response is that I am not afraid of people with homosexual tendencies, and I certainly don't hate them. Actually, I'm more worried for them than those who have decided that enabling them is the best policy.
The Church teaches that homosexuality is an intrinsically disordered orientation towards a serious and intrinsic moral evil. It is a tendency, more or less strong, depending on the individual, to be physically attracted in a sexual way to persons of the same gender. It is a tendency towards a moral evil, not a gift. It is a temptation, a conflict between desire and duty. One never hears of other intrinsically disordered orientations such as alcoholism, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or kleptomania, celebrated as gifts; they are rightly understood as harmful disorders. Pro-anorexia websites supporting the right to live an anorexic lifestyle are correctly viewed as profoundly dangerous, even in secular society. However, homosexual activism has made such tremendous strides within the culture that any criticism of the homosexual lifestyle is vilified as hate speech. What a difference! Sadly, this politically correct mindset, under the mantle of buzzwords such as tolerance and diversity, has crept into Catholic circles, with the collusion of homosexually-oriented priests and religious (male and female) and has paved the way for preparing rank and file Catholics to tolerate the homosexual lifestyle as a sign of God’s diverse creation, and ultimately, a gift. A correct understanding of Catholic teaching shows that, as with any other aberrant drive or appetite, homosexuality can only be called a gift in the sense that it is a cross to bear. In living as the Church teaches, utilizing prayer and the sacraments, homosexually-oriented persons can overcome their homosexual temptations and merit abundant graces.
As a lifestyle, homosexuality is statistically unhealthy. As Catholic Answers’ special report on “Gay Marriage” relates:
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of diagnostic disorders. In retrospect, this decision appears to have been inspired by political pressure rather than medical evidence.Homosexuals of both sexes remain fourteen times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexuals and 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide successfully. Thirty years ago, this propensity toward suicide was attributed to social rejection, but the numbers have remained largely stable since then despite far greater public acceptance than existed in 1973. Study after study shows that male and female homosexuals have much higher rates of interpersonal maladjustment, depression, conduct disorder, childhood abuse (both sexual and violent), domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse, anxiety, and dependency on psychiatric care than heterosexuals. Life expectancy of homosexual men was only forty-eight years before the AIDS virus came on the scene, and it is now down to thirty-eight. Only 2 percent of homosexual men live past age sixty-five.
Male homosexuals are prone to cancer (especially anal cancer, which is almost unheard-of in male heterosexuals) and various sexually transmitted diseases, including urethritis, laryngitis, prostatitis, hepatitis A and B, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, and genital warts (which are caused by the human papilloma virus, which also causes genital cancers). Lesbians are at lower risk for STDs but at high risk for breast cancer. Homosexuals of both sexes have high rates of drug abuse, including cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other psychedelics, barbiturates, and amyl nitrate.
Male homosexuals are particularly prone to develop sexually transmitted diseases, in part because of the high degree of promiscuity displayed by male homosexuals. One study in San Francisco showed that 43 percent of male homosexuals had had more than 500 sexual partners. Seventy-nine percent of their sexual partners were strangers. Only 3 percent had had fewer than ten sexual partners. The nature of sodomy contributes to the problem among male homosexuals. The rectum is not designed for sex. It is very fragile. Indeed, its fragility and tendency to tear and bleed is one factor making anal sex such an efficient means of transmitting the AIDS and hepatitis viruses.
Lesbians, in contrast, are less promiscuous than male homosexuals but more promiscuous than heterosexual women: One large study found that 42 percent of lesbians had more than ten sexual partners. A substantial percentage of them were strangers. Lesbians share male homosexuals’ propensity for drug abuse, psychiatric disorder, and suicide.
In the face of such evidence, it becomes clear that any pronouncements of tolerance for the homosexual lifestyle or the "gifts" that flow from a homosexual orientation run contrary, not only to Church teaching, but also authentic charity. Homosexuality hurts people. It’s a serious disorder, not a gift. Telling people otherwise isn’t Christian and loving. It’s ignorant, cowardly, and irresponsible. Imagine embracing an alcoholic, drug addict, anorexic, or bulimic and telling them that you accept, respect, and support their lifestyle choice! Imagine telling someone diagnosed with the beginning stages of cancer that you support their decision to continue smoking and continuing their other unhealthy lifestyle choices. Yet this is what progressives ask of Christians in regard to the homosexual lifestyle, ignoring evidence that homosexuality is bodily harmful, and becoming outraged at Christian concern for the immortal souls of persons who actively engage in this spiritually deadly "lifestyle".
If you will not believe me, here is what homosexuals admit about themselves: 'The Gay Report'
I encourage you to read this article: The Truth About the Homosexual Rights Movement. A homosexual man wrote it and he is very honest about what homosexuality actually involves. It isn't graphic or disgusting in its detail. It is an honest, heartfelt life story and it is extremely eye-opening.
Authentic Catholic teaching on these matters is not discrimination against persons with homosexual tendencies. All deliberate sexual acts (whether they are actions done alone or with others) outside of the context of marriage, or which are deliberately closed to the creation of new life (within marriage) are objectively serious matter and to engage in such acts with sufficient reflection and full consent is a mortal sin.
Any sexual act that does not comply with Church teaching is not an act of love. It is an act of masturbation, whether alone, or through the use of another person's body.
This teaching is a struggle for everyone, not just homosexuals, because of our fallen nature and the war of our passions against right reason. We can all pray for deliverance from such temptations, but nobody can reasonably expect that they will forever remain free from any temptation in this area, regardless of the specific nature of the temptation. We are simply called to pray and struggle. Through our struggle we are constantly reminded of our frailty and therefore our total dependence upon God. Such temptations, understood properly, are a means of keeping us close to God, even though they are a cross.
Any thoughts?
I know it's a contentious topic for many Catholics, but the Catholic Church's teaching on the matter most closely comports to reality, experience, and common sense.
There exists a group of people who are very intent on denying reality and nature, and they will brook no dissent from we who remain in our backward ignorance and waywardness. Those so disdainful of religious dogma, have no problem hoisting their secular dogmas on us...and penalizing us when we break from their orthodoxy.
38-year-old life estimate? That is amazing! When I had a fiance out in Palm Desert, there was a Gay Pride Festival every year. They listed the number of drug over-doses, hepatitis infections, and the likely number of AIDS transmissions because of the Parade. The reported incidents were amazing, as were the estimated transmission stats--although there's no way to know for sure what transmissions actually occur. Do you think Palm Springs would ever allow or promote a Smokers Pride Weekend? I doubt it.
When we humans fight against the laws of nature, we lose. When will we have the courage and plain old common sense to admit the obvious? Men and women were meant to be with each other in a way two men/women can't. You're a hater of truth and denier of obvious reality who can't see that.
Posted by: | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 05:32 PM
And what if those numbers about the dangers of homosexuality you cite are incorrect? Or, if they are correct, what if most of the dangers come from having to lead a life of stealth? How many teens have been forced onto the street or tempted into a life of drugs or other danger because they were not accepted by their family? How much promiscuity amoung homosexuals would be reduced if their parents and siblings accepted their monogomous partners as family? How much would STDs decrease among gays if gay teens and young adults could get the same guidance and support from their parents about dating and sex as their straight counterparts?
In other words, what if the damage done to an adolescent by his family's lack of support is greater than any harm that may come to him through the nature of the physical act of homosexual sex?
Assume, just for the sake of argument, that the dangers of homosexuality were products of its stigma, as Zach's parents seem to believe. In that case, could you support (or at least understand) the actions of Zach's parents in preventing those dangers through their support?
Also, an alcoholic is someone whose drinking will destroy their life; an anorexic is someone whose eating habits constitute a medical emergency. There are many happy, healthy "practicing" homosexuals living full (and even Christian) lives BECAUSE they have the support of their families -- the situations are not analogous.
Posted by: Ralph | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 06:57 PM
It's not about someone being "happy" because their families accepted them. After all, no one can objectively claim that homosexual acts are normal. And they aren't. Just the fact that homosexuals feel marginalized is proof enough that their actions are abnormal. I may feel uncomfortable at times if I'm in a hostile environment against my faith, but I don't have to hide the fact that I have religious convictions. Do homosexuals really have the same attitude. All you need to do is read so many stories about gays who ended their lives because of society's rejection. I don't recall anyone committing suicide becuase they're labeled as intolerant, e.g. Christian or judgmental. Really, it just doesn't add up. Even nature alone is a very good indicator of what is normal and what isn't.
Posted by: fernando | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 07:20 PM
Ralph,
Read this:
The Books Were A Front For The Porn: The Truth About the Homosexual Rights Movement by Ronald G. Lee
Pax,
Thomistic
Posted by: Thomistic | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 07:36 PM
I'm sorry, but I find your comments very naive. When society rejects you because of what you believe it does not present the same existential crisis as a rejection based on the belief that you are an abomination.
If you wanted to stop being Catholic with all of your might, you would become apostate. There are plenty of gay people who want to be straight will all their hearts, but physically that will never happen. That is the tension that leads to suicides that is absent in religious or racial discrimination.
That tension is also a major reason that many gay activists fight religious teachings about homosexuality: many of them consider those teachings directly responsible for their friends' suicides. It's not that they hate religious teaching per se, it's that they see it as dangerous to the health and lives of young gay people because it drives them to self-destruction.
Also, your claim that marginalization is prima facie evidence of abnormality is absurd. You naively point out that Catholics are not marginalized today, but if you lived in this country 200 years ago you would certainly feel more than "uncomfortable" being Catholic and you probably would have to hide your faith. A lot of people fought religious intolerance very hard to create a country where you can feel merely "uncomfortable" instead of outright persecuted today. That tradition is now fighting for gays to enjoy the same freedom.
Posted by: Ralph | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 07:57 PM
The Church could easily justify changing its anti-gay policiies by recognizing the scriptural ambiguities and/or superseded historical context. I have very confidence that someday that will happen and the all of this controversy about gay issues will be as irrelevant and the old debates on slavery.
Posted by: | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 08:14 PM
Also, you seem offended that this article ran on Palm Sunday. I don't understand why; there wasn't even a single reference to religion or God in the entire article. I'm not trying to flame or provoke you -- I really don't understand and hope you'll explain.
Why do you feel it's offensive to describe a family accepting their gay son on Palm Sunday? Would you feel the same way about an article on divorcees entering the dating scene or advances in the science of contraception or the legal effort to reinstitute the death penalty in New York? Why?
Do you feel that the NYT intentionally ran this story on Palm Sunday to offend Catholics / Christians?
Do you feel they should have been more sensitive to Christians / Catholics by holding the story for another 2 weeks (since it's a Sunday article and next Sunday is Easter)?
Posted by: Ralph | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 08:17 PM
The Church cannot and will not change the consistent sexual ethic which is found throughout Sacred Scripture and the 2,000 year history of Catholic teaching both because the Church has no authority to change the natural law and because the Church can never err on matters of faith and morals, and so has not been "wrong" for 2000 years. If the Church were to change Her constant teaching, it would amount to saying the Church was wrong on a matter of faith and morals, which would mean the Catholic Church is not the Church Christ founded, promised to preserve in Truth, promised to send the Holy Spirit to preserve in truth, promised the gates of hell would not prevail against, and promised to remain with until the consummation of the world.
A Catholic who rejects Church teaching on matters of faith and morals ceases to be Catholic, because they implicitly deny the infallible authority of the Church.
Every time a progressive asks a Catholic (or the Church) to reject or change the constant teaching of the Church they ask them to deny their Faith. You may as well ask a Jewish person to reject their denial that Jesus is the Messiah and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. If they did so, they would cease to be Jewish.
Finally, those who are "confident" the Church will change her teaching need to read the article I linked in my last reply.
Pax,
Thomistic
Posted by: Thomistic | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 08:27 PM
Thomistic, no disrespect, but you seem to be getting a bit obsessive here on topic of homosexuality. Since this IS Palm Sunday, don't you think it is incumbant on you to post on THIS topic rather than contribute to the exposure of the secular New York Times article you claim to disavow, yet link and quote at length?
I ran across this blog a few months ago via a web-search on the Tridentine mass and thought the articles were interesting from a Catholic stand-point. But take a step back and take a look at how much time you are spending on the subject of homosexuality. There are so many other issues to cover regarding Catholicism (and tutularly, this is a Catholic blog). So, why the hyper-focus on homosexuality as of late? Let's reverse this trend, shall we?
Happy Palm Sunday to all!!!!!
Posted by: Qualis Rex | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 08:29 PM
Do you feel that the NYT intentionally ran this story on Palm Sunday to offend Catholics?
Yes.
Posted by: M_David | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 10:17 PM
As someone who knows a whole lot of New York media types, I would be shocked if anyone working on the front page layout of the New York Times is even aware that today is Plam Sunday. I am confident that most of those same people don't even know what Palm Sunday is.
This article is nothing but a reflection of the utter alienation of the secular world from Catholic morals. We must present our case compassionately and delicately. Outrage only highlights our alienation from the moral structure that informs the editors at the NYT. They would read this post and find it almost quaint.
Posted by: Aaron | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 10:37 PM
What a beautiful article about parental love and family values. When I try to discern a moral path, I always meditate on WWJD. I am convinced He would, as he always did, say love God and love all others, and send this family on with His blessings. Blessed Palm Sunday to all of you.
Doug
Posted by: Douglass Allen | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 11:03 PM
I am chaplain to a Courage group in my parish. Most if not all will tell you that the lifestyle is destructive. The majority also went through some form of abuse that led them into the life. A high number of people with same-sex attraction end up in depression and often suicide. Those that don't often end up dying from HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. Who would want their child to go into this kind of lifestyle. I certainly would not be angry with my son or daughter who shared their thoughts with me. However, I would be certain that they got proper help. I would get a solid Catholic counselor who would help them sort through their woundedness and figure out why they are feeling what they are feeling. I would not want to chase them away, but help them to find healing. This is what the Church teaches. I suggest you all look at the Courage website. http://www.CourageRC.net There is a wealth of good information to help anyone struggling.
Posted by: a priest | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 11:46 PM
Qualis Rex,
Maybe the reason that homosexuality is discussed on this blog, with great emphasis on Church teaching regarding such, is to help us remember what an abomination it is.
We're bombarded with it everywhere else and told it's a perfectly legitimate lifestyle.
If you don't know, the present-day scourge of the Bride of Christ is homosexuality in the priesthood; not just in orientation, but in practice!
Thank God for this blog!
Posted by: Rita | Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Ralph, with all due respect, you're simply wrong. I have many things I'd like to say and point out, but I'll resist, because I'm not so sure it will do any good...I'm not sure you're a person arguing from good faith. Let me just ask: Is homosexuality just as good, just as productive, just as normal, just as fuctional as heterosexuality? If so, why? If not, why not? Doesn't society have a right to come down on the decision which will ensure and encourage its survival? Many like you, frankly, are long on social critique, but very short on explaining what is in society's best interests. We're frankly sick and tired of people who can only articulate how idiotic and irrational we are, without explaining your own reasons and explanations. I've never really been impressed with the "everything goes" argument, because it is less discriminative. Make your point that homosexuality is not disordered, that society can be reproduced extolling this collective lifestyle, and we'll listen. Until you address this issue, we'll just be arguing past each other.
By the way, it really doesn't help your point to argue that all the pathologies of the gay community are the fault of heterosexual society's taboo. It just proves its point. In the most accomodating society on the face of the earth vis a vis homosexuality, gays have an amazingly low life expectancy. Your argument may hold water in Saudi Arabia, but not here. It's absurd...that you don't see it is your problem. That's what happens to people who get a daily overdose of victimology...everything is the fault of other people. NO RESPONSIBILITY--it must be nice.
Posted by: jameswrich1234 | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 12:11 AM
They can say what they like about sodomy it will be avenged ultimately. Sacred Scriptures are clear in both Old and New Testaments. That's the final word.
For anyone who still thinks that Mr Blair was against the legislation of his own government on this matter then go to
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07032609.html
This shows him up as the unctuous, corrupt and patronising creep he is. The most immoral PM UK has ever had. The PM who turned UK into a modern Sodom.
I have quite a few statistics on the ravages of the sodomite lifestyle. The greatest psycho-sociologist Who is Almighty God Himself was quite right to put it on the top 4 hit list of crimes to be avenged, since sodomites have got only one obsession which is to openly flout their immoral lifestyle and have it accepted and practised by everyone else whether they like it or not. For well less than half a percent of the world population, they want normal society overturned and the public health placed in immense danger, while they sodomise children and themselves. Yes, they want to remove all legal obstacles to its trail of moral and economic devastation.
Posted by: Hugh | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 12:41 AM
Perverts and pedophiles crowning a 14-year-old boy Queen, and we're coming to a point when speaking out against this insanity will be criminalized.
A bunch of adults cheering for a fourteen-year-old in the matter of sexuality!
The New York Times finds nothing wrong with that.
What if a bunch of priests did that?
Posted by: Anonymous | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 12:59 AM
Rita, I am aware of the abomination of homosexuality. I am also aware that ANY sex outside the marriage (i.e. heterosexual sex) is a FAR bigger issue for the church, as we have seen the fall of morals and values in the sacrament of marriage, hyper-sexuality in the media, and younger and younger children having sex and thus an increase in abortion and children out of wedlock. Personally, I just don't come up against the gay agenda at all in my day to day life. In fact, aside from the ocassional joke on TV, I really don't think about the issue of homosexuality or the "gay agenda" at all...EXCEPT when coming to THIS website. I have my own problems, sins and salvation to worry about. And I think people who keep fixating on it are either sensitive about their own sexuality or trying to shift focus from their own sins.
Just my two cents here.
Posted by: Qualis Rex | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 01:31 AM
Entirely apart from Catholic morality, this shows that the parents, whose ideas of gender roles date back to the cave man era, decided when the child was 5 that he was effeminate, non-masculine, and therefore a good candidate for homosexuality. Because every boy with no interest in football is gay (oh no! don't tell my son that!!). I doubt if soccer counts. So they cultivated a miserable, "gay" child as they continued to do when he came "out" by pushing him into homosexual-specific activities. Isn't this a little separatist? Aren't the parents--and isn't the article--promoting rather fixed and primitive gender identity? The funny thing is that this logic gets lost in the liberal warm-fuzziness. In another context, to say that a male child must play football would be condemned by every liberal (and any sensible person) within earshot. Sometimes you need to forget the morality card and just point out their absurdity on their own terms!
Posted by: Literacy-chic | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 01:35 AM
Qualis Rex,
For starters, it's tacky to suggest the following, as you did:
Not only is that rash judgment, but it opens the door to pointing a finger back at you. Why are you so hypersensitive about posts on this issue?
You mentioned that you have your own issues to work through. It may be more productive to concentrate on those rather than speculate about mine.
I have never, ever, said that homosexuality is the #1 problem facing humanity or that homosexual sin trumps abortion (or even heterosexual sexual sin, except in that it is unnatural, which cannot be denied).
I do take issue with the fantasy that homosexuality is a minor issue in society or the Church. The holy Father has mentioned it a number of times in his short pontificate, and wrote a number of documents about it when he was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
I post about lots of topics; including the war in Iraq, the war on terror, Islam, abortion, God & science, liturgical norms & controversies, Ann Coulter, President Bush, the death penalty, Bishop Tod Brown, and all sorts of other topics.
Once I tried to do an American Idol post and people complained that this isn't a pop culture blog. I had tried to tie in a story about a son hitting his mother over the results of the show to tie in a moral component, but people weren't interested.
You would think that spiritual topics would fare better, but most posts from Maximus about the latest statements from the pope also get few comments. If the topic is interesting, people care more, but otherwise, the response is tepid.
If you check the comments under the things I post, you will see that the posts I have done about God and science or other things of that nature get very little attention. The more controversial topics are the ones people choose to comment on, whether they are about wayward priests and bishops, homosexuality, liturgical norms, the war, or what have you.
I have had complaints about every controversial topic I have ever posted about. Any controversial topic I have covered has caused at least one reader to act like a bee flew up his or her nose and lecture me about what I should be thinking, saying, or posting about. Sometimes they are less than charitable in the way they present their opinions. At times, they seem to forget that their criticisms can come across as condescending, and even accusatory. I have, in various threads throughout Roman Catholic Blog, been explicitly or implicitly accused of: having a Republican agenda, an anti-gay agenda, of overcompensating with homophobia for my own sexual insecurities or closeted homosexuality, of bashing priests and bishops and/or cheerleading for those who do.
I generally take such things in stride, but when they have been repeated, I have responded in my own defense as well as in defense the teachings of the Catholic Church. I'm not equating myself with the Church, but I will say that my Catholicism informs all of my beliefs and opinions. Generally, I try to respond with evidence for why I think and feel the way I do about things, but in this case, the more evidence I gave as to why I think homosexuality is a significant problem was twisted into a suggestion that I am somehow only concerned about that issue or that that subject is my only focus or the only thing that interests me, or whatever way people want to word it.
I think people don’t really realize the danger to society that homosexuality presents, and I definitely think they don’t see it as a major problem in the Church. People have been brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is a harmless human variant or even a flip side of the coin from heterosexuality.
People don’t seem to understand that homosexuality destroys homosexuals, and they don’t realize that homosexuals within the Church are so paralyzed by their homosexuality and so fixated on dealing with their own sexual issues (as well as on getting Catholics to accept homosexuality as okay) that they aren’t teaching the faith. Homosexual priests and bishops are enormously compromised, especially if they are acting out sexually. They are targets for blackmail (like Archbishop Rembert Weakland). They also tend to sympathize with dissent from Church teaching, especially in areas of sexual morality. For example: if artificial contraception were moral, that would lead to the acceptance of homosexual activity. The correct understanding of the necessary unitive and at least potentially procreative elements required of human sexual morality is completely destroyed by a belief that artificial contraception is moral. Homosexual priests and bishops know this. They want to encourage dissent from Church teaching in that area because it would open the door for homosexuality.
It is completely unfair to paint me as singling out homosexuality as the only evil we face in society or to falsely accuse me of believing that homosexuality is the single most evil problem of our age. I have never said such things. Ever.
However, I will not back down from saying that homosexuality is a pervasive evil. It is! The sin of homosexuality is lionized in almost every facet of the mainstream media. It's gotten so that you can hardly avoid references to homosexuality. It's all over the news and it's constantly discussed and endorsed in movies, television shows, and news programs.
Homosexuality has gone from the (so-called) "love that dare not speak its name" to the "love" that won't shut-up! (I'm not saying shut-up to be rude, I just read that description of the homosexual rights movement somewhere and I believe it rings true.)
Here’s the real beef I have with all the talk about homosexuality being harmless and just two people loving each other: its not love. It’s a fetish. That’s the big secret. It’s an acquired taste developed over time, sometimes more perceptibly than at other times, but developed and acquired. It’s an addiction, like alcoholism or any other addiction, and eventually, it consumes people.
Despite what homosexuals and the media would like us all to believe, homosexual sex is the primary cause of the spread of HIV. Yes, heterosexuals can get AIDS and HIV, but those heterosexuals that do contract the virus, generally get it through unnatural acts with a partner of the opposite sex, drug use (with shared needles), or bisexual infidelity.
AIDS is killing people, and it is a global problem. It is primarily spread by homosexual activity and unnatural sex.
The latest statistics on the world epidemic of AIDS & HIV were published by UNAIDS/WHO in May 2006, and refer to the end of 2005:
AIDS is killing a lot of people. Yet people who don't view AIDS as a threat don't focus on these things and instead focus on the large number of abortions. I can understand how people would forget what a plague AIDS has become, especially since it has primarily affected only homosexuals in the U.S., but the death tolls are real and the numbers are beginning to rival the numbers that are killed through abortion.
Now, I never set out to compare abortion to homosexuality and try to say one is worse that the other, etc. Other people claimed I said it, but I cite these statistics in order to show that this is a real problem.
As Catholics, we can't support the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS & HIV, so it seems to me that the only way to stem the tide is to stop the behaviors that are spreading the disease, and those behaviors, for the most part, involve sexual sin.
Another factor to consider is that sexual sins are celebrated in society, whereas sins like alcohol and drug abuse, and disorders dealing with eating are still recognized as negative things, even in the mainstream media. Although people commit all seven deadly sins all the time, I don't see them glorified as personal freedoms and basic human rights the way I see sins that deal with lust are glorified.
I realize that only 1 to 4 % of the population is homosexual, so it might seem like its not really a problem or worth much attention. However, you might want to rethink that notion.
According to the US Census Bureau:
1% of the U.S. population = roughly 2,991,147 people
4% of the U.S. population = roughly 11,964,590 people
That's a lot of people! (I'll let you do the math on the world population percentages.)
All of those people have mothers, fathers, family, and friends. All of them, and those they are close to, are all around us and are working to influence and change society. Many, if not most, want society to accept homosexuality, and in a culture where most heterosexuals have lost their own moral compass, such a task is all the more likely to be successful.
So-called "gay rights" threaten our entire society, and the Church has said this repeatedly. Things like homosexual adoptions, homosexual marriages, and civil unions are a threat to the family unit in itself and to recognizing the value of the family unit in society.
If people don't wake up and realize the direction the homosexual agenda is striving to take society, then the battle is nearly over.
Personally, I believe the way our society is headed indicates "gay marriage" is an inevitability. It's just a matter of pressure and time. (FYI – that was a gratuitous Shawshank Redemption reference.)
Countries who have adopted gay marriage have seen a decline in marriage altogether. The meaning of marriage is redefined, as is the meaning of family, and this is unbelievably harmful to society.
All that being said, if I were to mention what I believe to be the greatest threat to society, people might be surprised. I think it's artificial contraception and the war on female fertility. (I've posted about that in the pat too, but nobody commented.) The widespread acceptance of contraception caused people to believe sex and children are no longer intrinsically tied together. Once that's out the window, anything goes. Monogamy is no longer needed because marriage is for families and families are for children. So now we have a society where discreet promiscuity is considered normal, especially among younger people (older teens and young adults). This has led to a loss of respect for marriage (and a huge divorce rate, and I think divorce is right up there with contraception in terms of being one of the most evil things that frequently happen in modern times), and then these additional effects fuel even greater loss of respect for marriage and family life. Sex has become a means of recreation because of contraception. Sometimes it’s connected to feelings that resemble love, but often, even those feelings are missing and it’s all just an exercise in mutual self-gratification. It's very sad.
Contraception and the contraceptive mentality lead to abortion, which is one of the greatest evils of our age.
All sexual sins lead to a sort of structure of sin within society. They create broken homes and broken hearts. They damage people at the core of their very being, because they are so intimately connected with faculties that create new life and also the capacity to love. They also create situations that foment other sexual sin and it becomes a vicious cycle. Broken homes create absent fathers. Absent fathers foment lost little boys and girls who act out sexually in ways that range from simple fornication to promiscuity. Absent parents also influence the way we relate to persons of the same gender, and are a likely factor in what makes a person homosexual.
Sexual sin is the primary fuel for the culture of death, and that includes all sexual sins, and I am opposed to all such sins. That is why I have covered the topic of homosexuality (and other sexual sins) so frequently.
I do not blog about homosexuality more than any other topic, but you are welcome to that perspective. Perhaps the blogs about homosexuality stand out more for you, and I can't speak to why that may be. I'm not here to psychoanalyze you, and I hope that you aren't trying to psychoanalyze me. It does seem to really bother you that I address this issue. I am sorry that my blogging about the issue (often or at all) troubles you so much, but I am going to continue blogging about it.
I'm pretty sure I've blogged more about corruption within the Diocese of Orange and the Church in general more than about issues dealing with homosexuality. I blog about abortion and contraception a lot too.
I don't sit around worrying about the number of times I post on a given topic. My posts are based on news articles in the recent headlines. I don't generally invent topics to post on from whole cloth. I suppose I limit myself in that way and should be more willing to branch out and just invent topics to post on, but in the past, my topics have all been ripped from the headlines (as they say).
This post was from today's New York Times' Web Page at the top of the page. It's not like I pulled the topic out of thin air.
I get a lot of my ideas for topics from here: New Oxford Review. Check out the news link section. Scroll to the bottom and click on "more news..." Keep looking at the headlines for each month for a succession of months. You will see that I have covered less than one tenth of the stories about homosexuality that relate to the Church that are floating around, and possibly less than 1 out of 30 or 40 (at least) of the stories on the issue in the wider media.
I use the Drudge Report and Spirit Daily for source ideas as well.
Obviously, I can't cover all the topics on Drudge or Spirit Daily. Some of them don't interest me. Others don't really fit here, or don't seem to. Plus, I can't just post a zillion topics, because that doesn't give readers enough time to respond before the topic disappears off the front page. I try to post on a handful of topics a day (and often fail to find more than one or two, if that), and I tend to pick the spicier topics (and will continue to do so). reader interest is always higher with controversial topics.
I did a five day series on the Five Proofs for the Existence of God and have gotten more comments on this one post than in all five of those. It's not all about comments, but I tend to think posts that get few comments haven't interested people.
I do a lot of pro-life posts, and I still do try to do positive posts and spiritual posts.
As you have noticed, I support the Traditional Mass and post about that whenever there is significant news.
I post about politics, as well. (I tend to be conservative, if you hadn't noticed.)
I do believe that the other evils you mentioned are significant, but I do blog about them, as I have indicated, and I will continue to do so. If the New york Times cover story had been about the Plan B pill or about the wonders of contraception or about how divorce is good and healthy, I would have certainly thought that worth blogging about.
I do want to point out that I went out of my way in the post to point out the fact that heterosexual sexual sin is also condemned by the Church and is also a mortal sin and that heterosexuals have to struggle with sexual sin as well. I could have gone on and posted everything I know about sexual morality, but the post was long enough and there will be other posts.
I also tend to respond at length to posts on almost any topic I post about (as I have here), if the answer requires a lengthy reply. Brevity may be appealing form the perspective of retaining reader interest, but it doesn't teach the truth on most matters, especially on issues of moral theology. I have posted lengthy responses on other topics as well, some of which have nothing to do with homosexuality. I have had debates with people about Bishop Brown and even in a Stephen Hawking post. I am interested in Church teaching and I become passionate when it is challenged. So I respond, sometimes, with passion and at length. I tend to try to support my positions with objective facts and direct citations from Church teaching. That tends to make my responses longer, as well.
Moral theology is my primary interest. It always has been. The articles that catch my eye tend to deal with moral theology. You may or may not agree with my perspective and you may not like the topics I post about.
I welcome you to e-mail me with topic ideas at thomistic@romancatholicblog.com and would be very happy to blog about those topics, if they interest me. I'm sure many topics you might suggest would be of interest to me. I'm interested in many things. In fact, if you look back through the months on the many topics I have posted on, you will see that there is more variety in my posts (in terms of subject matter) than you may realize.
If you do not like reading posts about homosexuality, you are always welcome to skip those posts and move on to a different topic, but I don't see why I should have to tailor what I blog about to suit you. I don't mean that in a smarmy way, I'm just saying that I should be able to blog about whatever I want, whether the subject matter interests you or not.
You are also welcome to start a blog and if the topics you post on are interesting, I will be sure to read them.
I am more than a little confused as to how you don't see that the issue of homosexuality is a big problem for the Church. I suppose you are entitled to that opinion, but I think you may be out of touch in your thinking. I believe, based on objective empirical evidence that a homosexual subculture within the Church is doing significant damage to souls. The recent sex abuse scandals are one example of how this has manifested itself, but there are others and I have blogged about them.
Here is one article that I will link as an example of how homosexuality within the Church has become such a problem that even the pro-homosexual mainstream media can't avoid reporting on it: Trail of Abuse Leads to Seminary
Christian groups like Focus on the Family often talk about the corrupting influence of homosexuality within our culture.
As far as the Church, Fr. Paul Marx, formerly of Human Life International, often spoke of a problem with homosexuality within the Church throughout the 1980's. Roman Catholic Faithful is one lay organization (among many) that has focused on this issue (more than I have, if you can believe that possible). They have priests counseling them. Here is an essay written by one of their priests that you might consider reading: A Few Blunt Words To Catholics.
Maybe you have not personally experienced the harm that the homosexual subculture within the Church has caused. For that, you can be most grateful. However, many other people have. If they hadn't, there wouldn't be such a wealth of material for me to blog about on that particular subject.
I'm sorry that you do not understand that the Culture of Death is the most pervasive evil in our present age and do not understand that most of the culture of death is intrinsically rooted in sexual sins.
Artificial contraception, deliberate sterilization, and homosexual acts are all unnatural acts, and there is a link between them, because heterosexual couples who deliberately render their sexual activity a sterile, barren act that seeks pleasure and a misguided sense of love essentially distort their heterosexual acts in such a way that they more closely resemble homosexual acts.
Moreover, the widespread acceptance of homosexual activity is directly correlated to the widespread acceptance of the contraceptive mentality.
Although I can understand your discomfort with discussion of homosexuality, for whatever personal reasons they may be, it is a pervasive evil in our culture and I will continue to address the issue as it comes up in the media.
I couldn’t disagree with your assessment that the increasing acceptance of homosexuality within society and the Church is not cause for serous concern.
The media is saturated with positive references to the homosexual lifestyle. My posts are wholly insignificant when contrasted with the tidal wave of media supporting the active homosexual lifestyle Americans are subjected to on a daily basis, yet you have expressed displeasure with a handful of posts I offered on this blog articulating my perspective on the subject through the lens of my Catholic faith.
As I said before, homosexuality is a pervasive evil in our time. It is celebrated unlike ever before in human history. Entire cable networks now exist to cater to homosexuals. Homosexual marriages are legal in Britain and other places in Europe, as well as in Massachusetts.
Homosexuals are demanding homosexual marriage, showing up to Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn, going to communion in rainbow sashes, and promoting movies like Brokeback Mountain, a movie that initially got a breathless, glowing review from USCCB film critic, Harry Forbes and was only changed (and dramatically so) after the USCCB was flooded with complaints.
Here is the original review by USCCB film critic, Harry Forbes.
The review has been almost completely rewritten; a testimony to how the original review was truly offensive to Catholic sensibilities.
Jimmy Akin had some excellent commentary on the review.
Here is some more commentary about the review: US Bishops' Organization Gives Glowing Review of Homosexual-Sex Propaganda Film
Homosexuality is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ, His apostles, and both the Old and New Testament.
Yet society is becoming increasingly pagan in this post-Christian era.
There has been an active campaign among homosexuals, many in the media, and those on the political left (as well as the "Log Cabin Republicans" on the right), to change the cultural perception of homosexuality.
This isn't a wild conspiracy theory, it is a verifiable, documented fact. The article, "How 'gay rights' is being sold to America" is just one example of such documentation.
Propaganda masked as entertainment is also being utilized to the same end, namely, getting people to not only accept homosexuality, but to protect and defend it.
Homosexually themed movies are coming out more and more. Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don't Cry, Philadelphia, and American Beauty, all won significant Academy Awards. There have been so many homosexually themed movies in the last ten years that I can't even remember them all. Several of the movies nominated for Academy Awards last year had homosexual themes or characters, including Brokeback Mountain and TransAmerica. The X-Men movies (at least the first two) were directed by an openly homosexual director, Brian Singer, who wove homosexual allegories in the first two films (and the trend continued with the third under another director). The question of whether or not Superman is a homosexual icon was all over the media when Superman Returns hit theaters.
Homosexual characters are now commonplace on television shows. Will & Grace is popular in syndication. Ellen Degeneres' talk show is winning Emmy Awards left and right (and quite popular in the ratings). Oprah is very homosexual friendly and talks about homosexual issues all the time (including how so many married and/or professedly straight black men go "on the down low", meaning they enjoy homosexual sex on the side and put women at risk for AIDS and STDs). She has a homosexual designer, Nate Berkus, who lost his lover in Thailand because of the tsunami, come on the show all the time.
"Brokeback Mountain" is well produced propaganda.
"Brokeback Mountain" also subtly manipulated viewers into seeing heterosexual marriage as a trap.
The media and homosexual activists spread lies about the motive for Matthew Shepard’s brutal, absolutely unjustified murder. His death was, and still is, invoked as a kind of homosexual martyrdom. ABC News has demonstrated that Matthew Shepard's murder was not a so-called "hate" crime: New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder. Yet Matthew Shepard's tragic murder is still used as a means of silencing any objection to the homosexual lifestyle. In fact, many liberals and homosexual activists frequently imply that all Christian opposition to homosexuality is not only "homophobic" but also shares the blame for what happened to Matthew Shepard or any other homosexually oriented crime victim.
The movies "Boys Don't Cry" and "Brokeback Mountain" also perpetuate the idea that homosexuals need to be cherished and protected by society because those who oppose homosexuality are dangerous and will kill homosexuals.
In response to another comment above, the Catholic Answers piece on Gay Marriage I quoted in the post makes some more excellent points I hadn't included:
Another reason to be concerned with the widespread acceptance of homosexuality within our culture and in the Church is this ugly secret: Pedophilia is more common among 'gays'.
Here is another article supporting the same premise: Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse
Support for homosexuality will eventually lead to the acceptance of pedophilia. In fact, the movement to normalize pedophilia has already begun: The Problem of Pedophilia
Here is evidence of more efforts at normalization: Gay-Affirming Psychologists Propose Redefining Child Sexual Abuse
Something to consider: Woman Reared In Same-Sex Household Speaks Out Against Gay Marriage
Additionally, homosexuality is a serious problem within the Church. In January of 2001, The Kansas City Star reported that Catholic priests are dying of AIDS at a rate four times higher than the general population.
A significant number of priests, some say as high as 40% are thought to be homosexuals.
This article gives further evidence that Catholics have good reason to be concerned about the homosexual subculture within the Catholic priesthood: 'Gay' culture in Catholic Church grows
Despite the recent Vatican instruction entitled, “Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders”, stating that the Church "cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture"", U.S. Bishop's president, Bishop William Skylstad, supports the ordination of homosexual men to priesthood, and by all indications California prelates will continue to ordain homosexuals.
Bishop Tod Brown explicitly told his priests, "We need priests who see themselves in a wider and more mature way, whatever their sexual orientation."
Fr. Arthur Holquin, pastor of the Mission San Juan Capistrano Basilica (which is located in the Diocese of Orange, California), published the following article in his December 4, 2005, parish bulletin: Can gays be priests? by Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, former Master General of the Dominican Order. In his bulletin, Fr. Holquin proclaimed the article, which calls homosexual priests a gift to the Church, "a helpful and wise commentary".
Fr. Radcliffe’s article was written for the November 26, 2005 issue of the progressive international Catholic weekly magazine, The Tablet. It is interesting to note that the article actually pre-dates the November 29, 2005 release date of the Vatican instruction. The article was written in response, not to the actual Vatican document, but rather a leak of the document, which, while accurate, did not include the other documents released simultaneously by the Vatican with the instruction.
Fr. Radcliffe’s hasty spin on the instruction was clearly meant to soothe the impending apoplexy of Catholic priests and lay persons who have a progressive mindset about homosexuality, and a deeply vested interest in the acceptance of homosexual clergy, over the wording of the soon to be released Vatican document. It reads like a heartfelt attempt to mollify the anxiety of homosexually-oriented priests, seminarians, and vocation candidates. However, the balm Fr. Radcliffe offers to ease the pain is offered by obfuscating the truth.
You may be aware that Fr. Radcliffe has had much to say about homosexuality lately. He was recently quoted in the April 7, 2006, issue of the National Catholic Reporter:
Rev. Donald Cozzens, former rector at the Archdiocese of Cleveland seminary, suggested in his 2000 book, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," that each bishop should determine what percentage of homosexuals priests would be acceptable in his diocese.
In the same book, Fr. Cozzens famously said that the priesthood is becoming a homosexual profession.
Catholic bishops, like retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, have engaged in homosexual activism. Bishops Kenneth Utener (Saginaw, Michigan), Walter Sullivan (Richmond, Virginia), Joseph Imesch (Springfield, Illinois), Matthew Clark (Rochester, New York), Howard Hubbard (Albany, New York), and John Cummins (Oakland, California), have all promoted and enabled the homosexual agenda.
Here’s more information about Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
In February of 2000, Bishop Tod Brown sent each priest in the Diocese of Orange two articles by Fr. Gerald D. Coleman dealing with the Prop. 22 ban on homosexual marriage. In the message accompanying the articles, Bishop Brown wrote that Fr. Coleman's article "expresses very well my own thoughts on this subject." Fr. Coleman’s article, “Is Prop 22 Discriminatory?” argued: "Some homosexual persons have shown that it is possible to enter into long-term, committed and loving relationships, named by certain segments of our society as domestic partnerships."
Bishop Brown has shown support for the homosexual lifestyle on numerous occasions for years, as the Open Letter To Bishop Brown ably demonstrates. In fact, the Rainbow Sash movement has praised Bishop Tod Brown.
Cardinal Roger Mahony has also promoted and enabled the homosexual agenda, both through questionable ministries to homosexuals, and public statements by Tod M. Tamberg, Director of Media Relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles welcoming members of the Rainbow Sash Movement who come to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to receive Holy Communion at Mass while wearing their rainbow sashes, which represent their commitment to the homosexual lifestyle and their belief that Church teaching on homosexuality is discriminatory.
Cardinal McCarrick said he would be fine with homosexual civil unions on CNN. He later said that he was misunderstood, but never actually withdrew his statement or explained exactly how he was misunderstood. See: Cardinal McCarrick Says He 'Misspoke' On CNN
About eight U.S. bishops have been forced into resignation over homosexual affairs (or homosexual activity with minors) within the past sixteen years. See: Bishops Besieged
Additionally, Bishop J. Kendrick Williams (Lexington, Kentucky), was accused by three plaintiffs of sex abuse. He resigned on June 11, 2002.
Studies of the sex abuse scandals revealed that 81.9 % of sex crimes committed against young people by Catholic priests during the past 52 years involved homosexual men preying on boys. Only 5.8% of victims were under age 7; 16% percent were between ages 8-10; and over 78% were between the ages of 11-17. 44% of the accused priests were accused by more than one person, and contrary to the suggestions implied by the media, the victims have not been preadolescent children; they were generally teenage boys. It is reasonable to conclude from this data that the majority of sexual abuse within the Church has involved homosexual men who have a sexual appetite for teenaged boys.
Sadly, according to a June 12, 2002 article by Fox News, “A review of American bishops found leaders of 111 of the nation's 178 mainstream Roman Catholic dioceses allowed priests, religious brothers and lay employees accused of sex abuse to keep working.”
I, personally, know a number of agenda driven homosexual priests. I know over ten priests, personally, who molested boys. About five of them were from Orange County (and more than five priests in Orange County have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors, I’m just talking about the ones I have personally encountered).
In addition to all the other evidence I have presented, here are some more articles that demonstrate that homosexuality is a significant problem within the Church:
(Warning: The site immediately below contains quotes with profanity and censored graphic pictures.)
Roman Catholic Faithful ~ St. Sebastian’s Angel’s Website Exposed:
http://rcf.org/Old_web/REMOVESEB/angels/confidentialhomosexualpriestringstartingpage.htm (copy and paste link)
St. Sebastian’s Angels
By Jay McNally
Catholic World Report
June 2000
The Gay Priest Problem
By Rev. Paul Shaughnessy
Catholic World Report
November 2000
The Wisdom of Bishop Cawcutt
By Peter W. Miller
Seattle Catholic
August 31, 2001
‘Pedophile priests’ and Boy Scouts
By David Kupelian
WorldNetDaily
May 8, 2002
The Fallen Angels of "St. Sebastian’s"
By Peter W. Miller
Seattle Catholic
July 19, 2002
Gay priests cited in abuse of boys
The Washington Times
By Julia Duin
February 28, 2004
Trail of Abuse Leads to Seminary
By Paul Pringle
Los Angeles Times
November 17, 2005
I'm sorry we disagree. You are entitled to your opinion, but I am not persuaded by it, because I believe there is a mountain of evidence that indicates that this particular issue is significant enough to be mentioned as often as I have mentioned it.
I am sincere in offering you the opportunity to make suggestions about topics.
Pax,
Thomistic
Posted by: Thomistic | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 02:26 AM
Well, I am sad to say that I caused a stir in the RCIA group I have been attending when I pointed out that the Magesterium maintains that homosexual acts (which I call 'homosexuality,' as distinct from 'same-sex-attraction') are sinful. Interestingly, I caused an even bigger stir when I quoted the CCC: "Homosexual persons are called to chastity (2359)." The 'stirs,' of course, consisted of unfriendly looks and pointed silences from sponsors. The catechists were simply politely silent.
I found the experience depressing, to be perfectly frank. Why would someone who thinks they know better than the Magesterium want to be Catholic? (By the way, I am not a catechumen or candidate; I am being confirmed this Easter vigil.)
Well, after reading most of this article, I can only pray: may God help us. In our culture, it is becoming acceptable to thoroughly scandalize or children to such an extent; but God forbid that a child should be exposed to the Light of Jesus. Alas, Babylon!
Posted by: Paul K. | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 02:45 AM
Thomistic, I did not know that you were posting topics with the hopes of receiving high level responses as a factor. This now explains a lot. I was not "judging" you with my statment, which was not even directed toward YOU (and to be honest, I am SO tired about people whining about "being judged" or "hate" whenever someone makes an observation that apparently hits home).
As an aside, you mention Catholic Answers, and this is a PRIME example of the topic at hand. Karl Keating is a hypocrite and panders to the lowest and most basist emotions to get a following. If you go to his site, he (and subsequently nearly everyone else who posts on the chat boards) are usually talking about TWO (count them TWO) topics: abortion and homosexuality. It's almost as if there is a challenge or competition to see who can show their contempt and revulsion the most vocally on both subjects, which should be natural and obvious without having to beat one's chest and render one's garments in every post.
Does Karl talk about the MORTAL SIN of Gluttony? No, because he is extremely obese. Does Karl talk about the MORTAL SIN of sloth? No, because anyone who knows or has met him realizes he is trying to bilk Catholics out of donations to keep his website going without actually doing any work. Does Karl talk about the MORTAL SIN of pride? No, because his ego is even larger than his obese loins, and he will not tolerate open debate on any subject he disagrees with. Say...there! I just gave you three topics for future posts. Happy Easter.
Bottom line, I can only speak to my own interest levels, and as mentioned, found this blog due to a web search on the Tridentine mass, which is definitely a topic I continue to follow. if you want to make this yet another homosexual/abortion website since those are topics which generate the most response, then go right ahead. You're the boss here. I personally have always preferred the Frontline to Maury Povich crowd. So, when the topics and posters begin to get to plebian for me, I'll move on.
But I stand by my earlier assessment, in that people who are quick to condemn abortion and homosexuality (definite evils, and I don't think anyone here is disputing this) and harp on these subjects over and over are usually either masking their own sexual dysfunction/indescretions (i.e. as we have seen with the fallen Evangelical ministers in recent times) or trying to shift focus from their own short-comings and sins (a la "fat Karl").
With that, I say this from the bottom of my heart, please enjoy the coming Holy Week, and have a very blessed Easter, for Christ is Risen.
Posted by: Qualis Rex | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 03:14 AM
Well, if the parents tell this sad child that engaging in homosodomy is good and right, and this boy does as as teen, he'll likely have AIDs by the time he's 25, and he'll likely die before 50. He'll also likely have two or more permanent venereal diseases by the time he's 40. He'll likely be anally incontinent in middle age. He'll also likely suffer from other psychological disorders - like alcoholism, panic attacks, depression, etc. etc.
But apart from that - the boy needs psychological help - to learn how to be a boy (and a man).
Just like homosexuality has no genetic basis, neither does pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, the desire for sadomasochism, etc. etc. Neither is trasvestitsm or transsexuality. They are all serious psychological/emotional sexual disorders.
The best thing this boy could do is to trust God on His loving morality and plan for his life.
Whenever you use God's gifts in ways in which they were NOT designed to be used, and in ways which harms oneself and others, and in ways which God specifically prohibits, you're asking for a dark life, and a darker next life as well.
Pray that someone will lead this boy away from the diseased and sordid sodomite lifestyle.
James
Posted by: James | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 10:35 AM
"But I stand by my earlier assessment, in that people who are quick to condemn abortion and homosexuality (definite evils, and I don't think anyone here is disputing this) and harp on these subjects over and over are usually either masking their own sexual dysfunction/indescretions (i.e. as we have seen with the fallen Evangelical ministers in recent times) or trying to shift focus from their own short-comings and sins (a la "fat Karl"). "
---
I disagree Qualis Rex. Society is now glorifying and promoting sexual depravity of all sorts to my (and others') children. That's why I'm outspoken on this issue.
It's harming kids all over the country; the sodomite battalian has infiltrated the Church (to the point where my wife and I can no longer trust any priest to be alone with one of our sons).
I'm angry that my sons' Boy Scout troop has been attacked by radical sodomites; I'm angry that my Church is infiltrated with sodomite evil (and that the Church leadership can't speak honestly to it); I'm angry that not a day goes by that my children don't see some reference (in magazines, newspapers, in the media, in kids' shows, in politics, etc. etc.) that attempts to promote sexual degeneracy - and to downplay and deny the chasmatic difference between male and female.
I personally have had it. Society has gone off the deep end, and I won't have innocent kids go off with it.
God IS right. This stuff IS an abomination. The amount of homosexual evil in society is relentless and is aimed squarely at children.
James
Posted by: James | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 10:41 AM
"I said: ‘It’s up to you to decide who to love. I have your father, and you have to figure out what’s best for you.’"
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A Mom giving up on love, and settling for indifference and evil.
(Yes, son - getting anal with men is what's best for you, if you think it is...)
James
Posted by: James | Monday, April 02, 2007 at 10:45 AM