Michael Coren, the conservative Canadian Catholic
commentator has taken on a noble, but extremely treacherous, task: he is trying
to follow the age-old Christian wisdom, “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner” [link]. This is never easy to do
well, but in choosing to apply the maxim in the currently controverted area of
homosexuality and law, he is treading on dangerously unstable ground. While I admire his moral courage (he is
receiving some intense and, often, rather un-Christian backlash from the
Christian side of the question), and I admit that his heart is in the right
place, I’m not sure that he isn’t doing more harm than good.
First, where
Coren is right. Catholic Christians have
an undeniable obligation to treat homosexual persons with love and dignity [here]. That rules out name-calling, not to mention
more severe forms of persecution. So
yes, we should publicly denounce “gay bashing”, both literal and figurative,
and laws such as those in Uganda that mete out harsh punishments to
homosexuals. That’s the “Love the Sinner” side of the equation.
On the other side
. . . well . . . here’s where things get
complicated. It’s always very hard for
us to separate the sinner from the sin, and it’s even harder in this case because
the “sinners” have made the sin their primary locus of self-identification: “If
you hate my sexual preferences, you hate me.”
But it’s even worse than that, because, when it comes to the public
controversy over these issues, homosexuals themselves are not really the problem:
after all, they make up no more than 3% of the population, far too small a proportion
to cause all the ruckus we’ve been experiencing in recent years. No, the problem is that professional
“activists” have seized upon homosexuality as a battering ram to topple the
various institutions (most notably, Church and Family) that stand in the way of
their project of remaking society according to their designs. For this reason homosexuals’ rights, whether
real (the right to be treated decently) or imagined (the right to have public
approbation of their sexual relationships), are only of interest to them
insofar as they can be used as a weapon against their targets of choice. The Leftists who are running the gay rights
juggernaut are not interested in coming to a mutually agreeable solution, they
want only to steamroll their opposition.
I spoke in
another recent post how the forces of “social change” have set a trap for those
of us looking for an honest discussion about gay marriage [here]. So it is in
this case, as well: they are perfectly willing to use any conciliatory gestures
we make out of compassion for the humanity and the suffering (which can be very
real) of people with same sex attraction to undermine our moral position on the
acts themselves. Notice how even the
Pope’s statements, which are fairly innocuous on their face, are wrenched out
of context and used against Catholic moral teaching.
I am most
emphatically not saying that we should refrain from defending the dignity and legitimate rights of homosexuals, even
when they are public advocates of the gay lifestyle, gay marriage and the
rest. We do need to be very clear,
however, that we’re doing so from the perspective of the Gospel, according to
Catholic teaching, and in such a way that we do not appear to endorse, even
indirectly, the political and social agenda of the gay rights movement. This is where Coren gets himself into real
trouble. In a recent tweet, for instance, he says:
“This is a group resisting the new wave of anti-gay laws in Uganda, Russia,
etc. Vital that we all support it”. With
all due respect, no, it’s not vital that we support it. The group to whom he links is an activist
group pushing the entire gay rights agenda.
I’m all for opposing the laws he mentions, which are cruel and abhorrent
(or should be) to any Christian’s conscience, but supporting this particular
group, or others like it, is the wrong way.
Laws can be repealed, but once you’ve taken apart the institution of the
family and denigrated the moral authority of the Gospel, how do you fix
that? How do you restore the damaged
lives and wounded souls?
No comments:
Post a Comment