I just had to add this to my blog.  It is my response to someone’s post.  Somehow, I can’t resist sticking my foot in my mouth at any given opportunity…. 

Just a couple of notes regarding:

“for male homosexuals, there is the additional incentive of a rather closed men’s community where they need not prove themselves as men; …. and in the catholic and russian orthodox churches, there is the attraction of the garments and the aesthetic rituals, which male homosexuals may, in their childish perception, experience as feminine and which enable a narcissistic showing off, comparable to the exhibitionist joys of homosexual ballet dancers …. These interests stem for the most part, then, from an infantile, self-centered imagination and have precious little to do with the objective contents of Christian belief.”

Okay,  1) no matter if you are homosexual or heterosexual, in the course of your ministry, you may be placed in situations where you may be tempted.  Temptation exists everywhere, inside and outside of the priesthood.  We are all called to chastity, whether we are ordained, married, or single.  I don’t necessarily believe that it is a different issue for a heterosexual man to refrain from engaging in illicit activities with a woman, than for a homosexual man to refrain from engaging in illicit activities with a man.  Again, isn’t it supposed to be about your *will* and not your *emotions*?

2)”rather closed men’s community where they need not prove themselves as men” – Well, I can’t say with any type of authority, but I would imagine that whenever you have a community, you will have people looking at whether or not you live with integrity.  Is the author here referring to some public display of machismo as the “proof” that might be required or not?  I don’t know about you, but for me, the priests that I know are perhaps some of the strongest men, real men and an incredible credit to their gender, that I have met.

3)  It appears that this author is reducing all people who have homosexual inclinations to people who are childish and feminine, and that they are caught up in narcissism and are unable to control their “urges.”  I would submit that we all have disordered thinking to one degree or the other and that temptations to pride, irreverence and narcissism are not solely reserved for this population.  It sounds an awful lot to me like a stereotypical judging, and not like a reasoned loving of our neighbor, this statement.

Shouldn’t we give each individual our love and respect as a child of God with his own innate dignity?  After all, we are all sinners.

Update:  I knew I should have linked to the original post, but in my HTML suckage, I am forgetting how to make a link.

Here’s to the initial blog post that I was reading:  Orthometer

And, here’s to the blog post that was referenced in the initial post — the one I actually responded to:  Abbey Roads