Repeat after me ...

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Aug 08, 2003

I suggested below that twisting what the Church actually teaches ("the inclination [of the homosexual person] itself must be seen as an objective disorder ") into the tendentious formula "homosexual persons are objectively disordered" is a commonplace of gay agit-prop. Here's a brief Google tour ad propositum:

From an ex-Jesuit, writing to the Pope:

You now violate both my faith journey toward health and the legacy of my ministry by telling me I am disordered and entitled to live with "dignity" only if I hide my sexual identity and live as a eunuch.

From another ex-Jesuit:

Hopefully the Church can begin to realize how oppressive it is. For the most part I am very discouraged by the current institutional position, which maintains that a homosexual is "intrinsically evil" and "objectively disordered."

From another Jesuit, in the process of leaving the order:

Many of his colleagues agree. In private, fellow priests say they wish they had the courage to speak out, too. They don't agree with certain Georgetown priests who tell gay students not to take communion or when Cardinals in the Vatican tell homosexual teenagers that they are intrinsically "disordered." To Ingebretsen, they are the bystanders who watch a crime occur as they sip their coffee, too complacent, scared or irresponsible to do anything.

From an active Jesuit this time:

Scripture teaches that "a good tree cannot produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit." If, as many in the church observe, "good fruit" is being produced by those whom the church considers to be "intrinsically disordered," something is profoundly amiss.

From a blogger:

As a member of the gay, lesbian and bisexual community though, I experience something other minorities do not: the constant and unfailing efforts of the Notre Dame administration to tell me I am a sinner, that I am "objectively disordered," I am unworthy and unwanted and that I deserve no legal protection from harassment or violence.

From another:

Being a gay man with a partner of some 25 1/2 years, the Church informs me I am "intrinsically disordered" and my relationship is "evil"; naturally I view that as hogwash and reject the Church's authority to judge it so.

And another:

If they really think I have no value to society, and am "intrinsically disordered," then one would think that they'd be glad to be rid of me. I really, really wish I'd never set foot inside a Catholic church.

An essayist weighs in:

It is the Vatican that is the source of the toxic poison that calls us "objectively disordered" and our loving relationships as "intrinsically evil" and our adoptions, as a "grave danger".

And in case you failed to draw the moral:

The Pope says that gay people are "objectively disordered," simply by virtue of being gay, and that all gay sex, without exception, is an "intrinsic moral evil." I say that by virtue of holding those beliefs, the Pope himself is an intrinsic moral evil.