Fault Line

‘Gay’ selves splinter into a ‘trans’ nation. The moral and psychological fault line underneath today’s homosexuality widens into a rejection of one’s sex altogether. ‘LGBTQ+’ is a spectrum of sexual disintegration that begins with misinterpreting same-sex desire as identity and destiny.

Why then are opponents of ‘trans’ rights advancing ‘gay’ causes?

‘Gay’ Catholic Andrew Sullivan opposes ‘trans’ education as it calls into question ‘gay’ boys intrinsic love of other boys (Who is Looking Out for Gay Kids?). J.K. Rowlings leads her ‘trans’ critique with a big ‘yes’ to ‘gay’ whatever as this sly tweet suggests: ‘If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction.’ (Code: own your bodies, ‘gay’ folk…).

Abigail Shrier in her otherwise good book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters alludes to ‘gay’ stuff as a morally neutral human variable across time and culture. Even Pope Francis who recently railed against ‘gender colonialization’ (referring to the West’s exporting of gender ideology to the world) embraces ‘gay’ persons with the platitude: ‘God loves you, He made you gay, the pope loves you, and you must love yourself.’ (According to Juan Carlos Cruz in his keynote for Fr. James Martin’s Outreach Conference —June 18, 2023).

Puzzling. If ‘feelings’ of desire for one’s own sex are codified and celebrated by the culture, why shouldn’t we abet a person’s taking on another sex altogether?

Perhaps we must go deeper than the sum of feelings—many ambivalent—toward our own sex or the other’s. We must ask: what is the purpose of our sexuality? Why did God make us male and female? And what is our responsibility in the light of all our disordered desires east of Eden?

The blueprint of our human nature is not unknowable to us. Despite confusion in high places, the human mind can know the truth and act in accord with it. We’re built to know the truth of our nature, to be conversant with it and reconciled to it.

That’s why St. Paul describes homosexual behavior as an inexcusable rebellion against the One who made us (Romans 1:18-32). ‘To not judge’ such behavior as defying His will while villainizing ‘trans’ efforts is nonsensical and hypocritical. ‘Gay’ liberties open the way that goes down and down.

Pope St. John Paul II urges us to ‘reread the language of the body in the truth’ (Theology of the Body 107:5). Our bodies are emblematic of the purpose and direction of our sexuality. That’s why ‘LGBTQ+’ identification in sum represents a blurring of that direction. It concludes something about one’s sexuality that God doesn’t conclude.

God concludes that the ultimate purpose of our ‘sexed’ selves is to be fruitful (Gen. 1:28). He made us to be fruitful, and life under the rainbow bears no fruit. That begins with ‘gay’ identification and may well devolve to rejecting one’s sex altogether.

Sex is about the love that sees beyond itself, e.g., babies! Each human person holds an inherent capacity to be ‘co-generative’ with the other. Our sexual selves are about fathering and mothering life, both physically and spiritually. Each of us is capable of such fruitfulness by our very nature.

We all possess disordered longings. And we are each responsible before God and our fellows to reckon with the other’s good. I can and should cultivate a fascination (TOB 108:5) for the other, as to become gift to him/her. This work of grace fulfills nature’s potential.

Let us marvel at the truth our bodies tell. And refuse identifications that confuse and sterilize lives. We must see the whole picture, the spectrum of disintegration. That hastens with ‘gay’ pride and ends in the death of sex altogether.

Co-authored by Andrew Comiskey and Marco Casanova