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Comment by piokoch | Hacker News Reader

> "organization that condemns them"

Catholic Church is not condemning homosexuals. Why it should? According to Bible they were created by God, so they are good by definition. CC is condemning homosexual sex, in the same way as it condemns pre-marriage sex or killing other people. All those acts are done by people created by God, but given a free will to do the things that are wrong from the Church perspective. And that can be forgiven thanks do a deal that Jesus made with God.

As far as priests are concerned it does not matter much if they are gay or not as they should not maintain sexual relationships anyway.

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It's reductive to say that the Catholic Church merely condemns gay sex. They also do not allow gay people to get married - which is the difference between their stance on pre-marital sex. There is no way within the framework of Catholicism that one can live as a gay couple, completely equal in rights to heterosexuals. It is Catholic Church doctrine to discriminate between heterosexual and homosexual couples - and if that discrimination doesn't read as condemnation to you, the church also literally condemns people to hell who disagree.

"I won't condemn you for an intrinsic quality you were made with, but I will condemn you for acting on it."

I think most rational people would see through that, it's pretty flimsy.

> I think most rational people would see through that ...

Where is the inconsistency? A heterosexual man is called to chastity as well. If he acts against this by cheating on his spouse I don't think the CC would be 'condemning an intrinsic quality' he was made with.

The teachings of Jesus should piss everyone off in some way or another.

Jesus never preached against gay sex

It's because it's so specific in its targetting of a vulnerable minority group.

If someone cheats on their spouse the problem is a betrayal of trust between two people. It's part of a complex web of obligations, urges, and everything else that happens in a relationship.

It's not nearly as simple as someone expressing their sexuality.

It's inconsistent in that it discriminates against a group of people with an undue burden that they can never have a loving, passionate, sexual relationship with adults they feel attraction towards. This is a bit like saying both the wealthy and the poor have equal access to homelessness, and therefore making homelessness a crime punishable with death applies fairly to all classes.

I think you are correct in emphasizing that the burden of the Church's teaching on chastity does not fall equally on all groups of people.

But it should be stressed that this is no way a consequence a specific teaching that targets people with same-sex attraction.

The root cause of the trouble is the fact that the Catholic Church has consistently taught something that is always counter-cultural, difficult, and even quite radical. Namely that the only proper place for sexual intimacy is within a life long bond between one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children.

Whatever the pseudo-logic and precedence, these views have a real effect on real people. The intent is surely secondary to the harm?

>But it should be stressed that this is no way a consequence a specific teaching that targets people with same-sex attraction.

The Catholic Church teaches that gay sex is an act of 'grave depravity' and that same-sex attraction is 'intrinsically disordered'. How is that not a specific teaching that targets 'people with same-sex attraction'?

http://www.catholic-catechism.com/ccc_2357.htm

Of course the Church has a well-known teaching with regard to this activity. Just like the Church has a specific teaching about artificial contraception. So the Church obviously says specific things about specific things.

The point is that the identical moral reasoning process is being applied consistently to all people, namely, sexual activity is to be avoided outside of a marriage open to children. Gay people are not being targeted by some sort of religious moral carve-out.

The Catholic Church does not treat extramarital sex between a man and a woman who are infertile as morally equivalent to sex between two men. Nor does it treat the use of contraception as morally equivalent to gay sex, despite condemning both.

The Church specifically teaches that gay sex is wrong in a way that straight sex isn't, entirely independently of whether it occurs within or outside marriage.

In the case of the article we're commenting on, we have an example of the Church (or a closely associated organisation) specifically treating gay priests differently to straight priests, despite the fact that neither are permitted to have sex with anyone.

It's abundantly clear which group is being targeted here. It's not "people who are having sex with no possibility of having children", or "people who are having sex outside of marriage". It's gay people. And they're being targeted because the Catholic Church teaches very explicitly and specifically that gay sex is wrong.

Not really though.

>Catholic Church is not condemning homosexuals.

Only in the past ten years, under Francis' papacy, has rhetoric from the Catholic Church towards homosexuals began to soften. While that's certainly a great thing, that doesn't mean that the views shared by aged bishops, priests and general members of the church have changed as a result of that. We still see signs of that condemnation across the world regularly. They may be changing, but the damage is still present and still happening - it will take a long time for that to disappear, if ever.

>Why it should?

I'd say we should ask every priest, bishop and pope who has criticized homosexuality why they felt they should. I really don't understand why you would ask that rhetorical question when there are centuries of proof of them doing exactly that.

When there was a gay marriage bill in our state on the ballot, our bishop directed all catholic churches in the state to play a video he recorded talking about how maybe loving gay people is okay because we are supposed to love everyone but they are still heretics and we cannot give them basic rights. We aren't even a particularly conservative demographic.

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