Catholic parents of gay children protested on the steps of the cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota, last week and called the Church’s teachings unfair. Unfair? Who said life was supposed to be fair? I think it’s unfair that the Red Sox aren’t going back to the World Series this year, but so what? The question shouldn’t be whether something is fair, but whether it is just.
The specific objection is apparently against the 1986 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which said that homosexuality is “objectively disordered” and “evil.” Or did it? Here’s what the CDF actually said:
Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.
That’s somewhat different from the oversimplified version in the article.
“The effects of such language are profoundly dehumanizing and spiritually abusive of these persons and those who love them,” said Mary Lynn Murphy, reading a statement to the 75 people who attended. “Additionally, language of this kind fuels the fires of bigotry and places GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered] persons in physical and emotional danger.”
