Overturning Catholic Moral Teaching on Homosexuality: Are Salzman And Lawler Right?

By Phyllis Zagano
Religion News Service

(RNS) I was always told that you're not supposed to discuss religion or politics in polite company. That was before gay marriage became the item du jour.

Polls indicate a little more than half of Americans favor legal protections for same-sex couples. Gay marriage is another story; 44 percent of Americans support it, while 53 percent are opposed.

Gay marriage proponents want to redefine a word, marriage, and grab ahold of the hundreds of legal protections and financial incentives that are granted with a marriage license.

Regardless of which side you're on, you can be sure it will end up at the Supreme Court.

Then there's Don't Ask/Don't Tell, the ban on openly gay members of the military, which 70 percent of Americans support repealing. The current Uniform Code of Military Justice defines sodomy as "unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal."

That will probably go before the Court too.

So the question is: what's "natural" or "unnatural?" That, in turns, leads to a more overarching question: Is homosexuality a status or a choice?

Some thinkers, including several members of the Supreme Court, seem to reason that homosexuality is an inborn status.

Catholicism--and, indeed most religions--teach that while homosexuality exists, homosexual activity is a "disordered" choice against the laws of nature.

If homosexuality is indeed a status rooted in biology or genetics, then homosexuals, like left-handed people, act according to their nature. But if homosexuality is a choice rooted in behavior, then homosexuals act against nature.

Stay with me, because here the argument splits even further. Are we talking about civil rights or morality?

In terms of civil rights, individuals deserve and are afforded protections for both status (say, skin color) and choice (for example, religious affiliation).

In terms of morality, status is neutral, while choice has implications and consequences.

Catholicism argues that homosexuals deserve legal protections, but not because homosexuality is a status. Catholicism says homosexual activity is a choice. So while bishops support non-discrimination policies, they won't agree that homosexuals are protected because of their genetic makeup.

Catholic thinkers have grappled with this question for ages. Creighton University professors Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler are the latest voices on the Catholic circuit. Their 2008 book, "The Sexual Person," just earned a rebuke from the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee.

Salzman and Lawler's dense academic argument turns traditional Catholic teaching on natural law on its head. They redefine natural law, saying "nature" is personal and individual, and that sexual activity need not be directed at procreation (contrary to what the Catholic Church has always said).

Salzman and Lawler argue that what is "natural" for a heterosexual is not "natural" for a homosexual, and therefore homosexuals and heterosexuals must act in accord with their personal "natures".

In other words, if it's "natural" for a homosexual to perform homosexual acts, then--for that person--heterosexual acts would be "unnatural" and immoral. For the two professors, homosexual activity is only immoral for the heterosexual acting against his or her nature.

Bottom line: Salzman and Lawler are arguing that homosexuality is a status, not a choice. If that's the case, then everyone--including the Catholic Church--should line up in support of an entire rainbow of gay-related arguments and ideas.

Taken to their logical conclusion, Salzman and Lawler's arguments would mean that Catholic moral teaching must do a complete about-face and disconnect sex from marriage--even from procreation--altogether.

But the only evidence the professors give is from behavior, not genetics.

In a way, I'd like to think otherwise. But, until I see the biological evidence, I'll think Salzman and Lawler are wrong, and the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of religious teaching is correct.

(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)

Comments

[Slacktoo]

10:58 AM on 10/25/2010

All throughout the animal kingdom we see homosexual behavior, so it is completely natural for animals to be gay.

Humans are animals. Case closed.

[crowepps]

07:28 PM on 10/11/2010

Read this on the internet, and as I did was in dread that some 13 year old Catholic boy might also be reading Phyllis' pondering on whether or not gays are 'unnatural' and getting her clear message that she finds the whole idea of his existence so repulsive that she's reluctant to allow that gays deserve to be equal citizens.

Hey, kid, if you're reading this? Ignore Phyllis. Ignore the church's claim that the only time people are entitled to have sex is to make babies. Ignore her effort to make 'normal' and Just Like Me godly and justify inflicting suffering on everybody who doesn't fit in the parameters that are all she can cope with. You too deserve and will have a happily ever after if you'll just stick it out until you're an adult and free. Stay alive!!

[jerryatthebeach]

04:52 PM on 10/11/2010

Have they forgotten already that some of our greatest warriors throughout history were gay. This is someones personal, private life and shouldn't be up for debate...

[W Santiago]

09:10 PM on 10/07/2010

Regardless of which side you are on, either the government needs to get out of mandating what determines a marriage and let religions do that. Or let anyone who wants to marry do so without restriction or prejudice.

[rjhuntington]

03:25 AM on 10/07/2010

Willful ignorance is a choice.

[DevonTexas]

02:13 PM on 10/06/2010

Catholicism is a choice. So why is it protected by the First Amendment? Even if homosexuality was a choice, people have a right to be gay and the churches should keep out of the discussion altogether. If they don't want to be gay, they shouldn't be.

[EricaEcc]

12:49 PM on 10/06/2010

I can't stand arguements like this one. Given the rash of young gay teens committing suicide, why on EARTH would anyone CHOOSE to be gay? To go through life tormented and teased, bullied and threatened? That sounds like a blasty blast.

[rjhuntington]

03:24 AM on 10/07/2010

Another way to look at it is that those teens wouldn't have killed themselves if they thought they could simply opt out of being gay. Clearly it was not a choice for them. What most certainly is a choice is tolerance and acceptance, just like hatred and bigotry, those are choices too. Love one another, that's a choice, and would be the genuinely Christian thing to do, unlike the decidedly un-christian gay bashing so many so-called "Christians" engage in.

[rjhuntington]

12:35 PM on 10/06/2010

So, Phyllis, if sexual orientation is a choice, tell us about the choice you made to be heterosexual (assuming you are in fact heterosexually oriented). Surely you must have been torn between two attractions. If not, there would have been o choice. but you say it is a choice, so you must have had to choose. Tell us about your choice.

Or, tell us you understand finally that it isn't a choice, it's something you're born with. You can't have it both ways, you know, and it can't be a choice just for homosexually oriented people. If it's a choice, it's a choice for everyone.

What say you?

[Trismegistus22]

10:45 PM on 10/06/2010

I have wondered that myself. Not about Phyllis specifically,just as an in-general question. I can't remember ever "making a choice." It isn't like any of us actually pondered the options and "decided".

[Bob Wood]

07:01 PM on 10/05/2010

The churches have been on the wrong side of nearly every issue where science is involved. The churches have for millenia peddled ghosts and superstition. Sex is normal in all it's manifestations. Sex is bio-chemical. Sex is not sinful or evil. Accepting people on the basis of ancient books of mythology and superstition in the 21st century is just wrong headed. The churches and superstition are irrelevant to the modern world. It is time to reason and to treat human beings as human beings...(sigh)

[DevonTexas]

02:16 PM on 10/06/2010

good point. It's curious how the church has always been anti-science. For example, it took them 500 years to reverse their condemnation of Galileo! When will they finally accept Darwin? 1000 years from now?

[Trismegistus22]

10:54 PM on 10/06/2010

I don't wish to make a career of defending the RCC but actually the RCC is not so much anti-science as you may think. There are lots of examples. Head of Vatican observatory is internationally known for his work, he is a jesuit. One of main witnesses at Dover evolution trial was Brown U professor, a catholic. Pope JP says evolution is not contradictory to christianity. Actually regular main-stream christians are basically ok with science. Do some internet searching with the good old google machine.
The real anti-science people are the extremist christianists, often referred to as fundamentalists. They are the ones who are trying to establish a theocracy here in USA. They are supported by the GOP which pretends to prove such science denial as global warming is not good science or Darwin was wrong.

[Colabeanie]

06:04 AM on 10/05/2010

Nice Catholic bashing. Now I feel discriminated against. Check yourself.

[curiousdwk]

04:08 PM on 10/04/2010

The author says: "But, until I see the biological evidence, I'll think Salzman and Lawler are wrong, and the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of religious teaching is correct." As for the biological evidence, she means DNA evidence. But there is biological evidence other than DNA. I know when i was growing up, there were 10 year old boys who were effiminate, swishy, and declared to be gay. Before they had had their first orgasm. They were not that way because of choice.

As for the "accumulated wisdom" of the Catholic Church, although there may be certain areas where the Catholic Church has revealed wisdom like in compassion and forgiveness, I have not seen a shred of wisdom when it comes to matters pertaining to sex. Wisdom is the development of an individual. The opposite of wisdom is folly or foolishness which prohibits human development. The Catholic Church is much more guilty of folly regarding sexual issues than wisdom.

I'll take the wisdom of the Humanists before the folly of the Church. The Humanists have a much more entrenched mission of promoting human development while the Catholic Church denounces as evil anything human pertaining to the physical body.

[cohasset]

05:15 PM on 10/04/2010

Great post.

The same applies to handedness; as far as I know, no gene has been found to "cause" handedness, either right, left or ambidextrous. In the past, left-handed people were considered sinister or evil or wrong and many institutions including Catholic schools attempted to change and/or punish that trait. And the only thing they produced with that message was misery, hate, prejudice and discrimination. Lastly, like handedness, science has documented sexual oriention through observation.

[talkstocoyotes]

09:20 AM on 10/07/2010

"As for the "accumulated wisdom" of the Catholic Church, although there may be certain areas where the Catholic Church has revealed wisdom like in compassion and forgiveness, I have not seen a shred of wisdom when it comes to matters pertaining to sex."

That's to be expected, since you're talking about clergy who have taken a sacred lifetime vow to abstain from sex with adults.

[cohasset]

03:24 PM on 10/04/2010

Zagano wrote, "Gay marriage proponents want to redefine a word, marriage,..."

Not at all.
Lakota chief Crazy Horse had one or two male spouse(s) and many other Native American nations also have had what we now call same-sex marriages. Ethnographers have documented this. Some examples: Omahas, Zapotecs, Mohaves, Crow, Hidatsas, Ojibwas, Winnebagos, Yumas and Timucuas. Other cultures too. In 17th century Fukian Province China, same-sex marriages between gay men seem to have been common. And in West Africa, "woman marriage[s]" --a practice by many tribes in that region before anti-gay imposition by European invaders in the past.

[Catothemuchyounger]

10:37 PM on 10/05/2010

Our definition of marriage does not come from Indian or Chinese or African sources, but from Europe. Practices you cite are relevant to the issue of whether any society has ever recognized homosexual marriage, but have nothing to do with marriage as we understand the term.

[cohasset]

01:12 PM on 10/06/2010

In the journal of the French skeptic and essayist, Michel De Montaigne (1580-1581), he recorded Portuguese same-sex marriages celebrated in a nuptial mass in Rome:

".......They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriages, read the same gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. ..."

[Trismegistus22]

11:12 PM on 10/06/2010

Check on the meaning and derivation of marriage in the western cultures, especially europe. Marriage is primarily a function of wealth, property and inheritance. First of all, women were considered property. Marriage determined who had ownership. A married woman had no rights. The offspring of a marriage could reliably inherit the father's property and name. Hence the significant punishment in the tanakh and other mediterannean cultures for adultery. If a child were to be born with questionable parentage (an illegitimate son) property could not be passed on. Christianity didn't even recognize marriage as a sacrament until the 9th or 10th century. Pre-christian romans and greeks had marriage but again it was for inheritance and property. Women were better off before christianity, in general.
So of course there was no same sex marriage, there was no need for it! There were, however, same sex relationships. Over the past few centuries, western civilization has moved away from seeing women as property, seeing that others have rights, seeing that love is important in relationships. Now marriage is seen as a relationship based upon a willingness to make to a lifelong commitment. It is not focused on procreation.

[fireincarmation]

02:19 AM on 10/09/2010

And in the old Catholic marriage records from the last millennium, you see marriages between same-sex couples with not even a mention of it's strangeness. http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=3606

[notwaff]

06:31 PM on 10/03/2010

The title is provocative - "Overturning" church teachings.

My concerns are;

* is the specific Christian organization (Catholic, Protestant, evangelical, etc) being lead by Holy Spirit or by the world

* what is the conclusion of what God's word says and is God being overturned

* is the emphasis on Christian love and grace towards individuals (homosexuals) who God wants in his Kingdom or on condemnation of one particular moral position (and not equal emphasis on all moral positions)

[Trismegistus22]

11:35 PM on 10/06/2010

Christianity in general pays little heed to the bible (god's word) I know that sounds shocking to many. But as long as even the literalists pick and choose between which verses to work with then they are (in your words) overturning god. The extremist christianists choose to pick some essentially random set of rules from the Tanakh bolstered by (probably misinterpretations of ) Paul's pronouncements. And there you have it. At the other end of the biblical theology spectrum are such folks as the Jesus Seminar who work in the opposite direction. They attempt to ascertain the original teachings of Jesus and then try to interpret the rest of the scriptures. Personally I would go with the scholarship of the Jesus Seminar, but that's just the way I see it. There is no doubt, however, that all are picking and choosing which verses to value over others.
It would seem to me that the majority of christian leaders condemn one or a few particular moral positions and do not place equal emphasis on all moral positions. To answer your question. I acknowledge that there are christian leaders who do not fit into this generalization. Does the deity want homosexuals in the Royal Realm (Why KINGdom and not QUEENdom? why does it always have to be masculine?) I guess the answer to that question sort of depends on how you responded to the rest of my thoughts.

[Trismegistus22]

11:35 PM on 10/06/2010

How does one determine that the Spirit is leading the organization? Is it even possible that the Holy Spirit has been trying since the 3rd century to get christians to change back to the way they were at the outset: following Jesus (maybe instead of Paul)? Remember those years before Constantine and the Christian church married? And christianity became the state religion. Those were the days when it was said of christians "Behold how they love each other."

[notwaff]

05:57 PM on 10/03/2010

Answers to Your Questions
For a Better Understanding of Sexual
Orientation & Homosexuality
American Psychological
Association

There is no consensus among scientists
about the exact reasons that an individual
develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or
lesbian orientation. Although much research
has examined the possible genetic, hormonal,
developmental, social, and cultural influences
on sexual orientation, no findings have
emerged that permit scientists to conclude
that sexual orientation is determined by any
particular factor or factors. Many think that
nature and nurture both play complex roles;
most people experience little or no sense of
choice about their sexual orientation.

http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/orientation.aspx

[Hawthorne]

12:28 PM on 10/03/2010

Science has yet to find a species that does display some homosexual behavior. I guess all those animals are making a lifestyle choice, too. It's a ridiculous argument that people choose to be gay. The biological evidence is actually overwhelming, but people who don't want it to be so stick their head in the sand.

[Hawthorne]

12:30 PM on 10/03/2010

I meant "doesn't display" of course.

[Trismegistus22]

11:33 PM on 10/04/2010

Good correction; because you were trashing the penguins!!!