IN regard to Fr Mark Percival (CL 6/3/05) on ‘the much vexed question of human sexual orientation and gender identity that is so fundamental to all humankind’, it is safe to say there are no other two realities in the universe with as many points of mutual complementarity than the two human sexes.
Nature’s design is powerfully affirmed by the fact that this complementarity, and it alone, ushers in new life.
There is no alternative sexuality in nature that can stand beside the one nature intends and play the same vital role in the propagation of human life which fulfils a deeply felt human need in individuals.
Nor can an alternative sexuality claim to have the same authenticity and command the same respect.
The use of our sexuality has an imprinting effect. If you get your satisfaction from a given source, when the need arises again you are most likely to return to that source.
This feature serves the purpose of stabilising monogamous sexual arrangements, which in turn gives a stable base for the rearing of balanced children.
That a person can become devotedly sexually attached to another of the same sex does not establish the validity of that relationship.
A person suffering from an addiction can become devotedly attached to their substance. And the effort to change this attachment has difficult and deep emotional and psychological consequences. Such efforts command our respect and support.
St Paul writes of the ancient pagan cultures: “Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males É’ (Romans 1: 26,27).
By what is known of Rome’s degenerate ways from other historical sources we can understand what Paul means.
The point is that on looking around can anyone say that our times are less promiscuous? Especially relevant is Sydney’s Gay Mardi Gras. Can any honest person really doubt in today’s promiscuous culture that the majority have simply found what was for them a ‘new exciting, or simply more satisfying way’ of doing sex.
Most of us would know of one or more people who appear to be born with a heavy dose of the opposite sex in their make up.
A male with this characteristic is attracted to males and males are attracted to the female in him. But such attraction is not homosexuality, which essentially means same-sex attraction. Most people taking part in the Mardi Gras are not of the genre of the former, but many wish to claim its cover.
The dominant philosophy of these times is ‘secularism’, which has no spirituality or objective morality. In this philosophy, one only has this life and must get as much out of it as possible. This leads to pleasure seeking, which in turn leads to sexual exploration.
The inherent sexual confusion of homosexuality, with its overt, aggressive, cultural expression, spreads sexual confusion, especially in the young. Culturally, it is a raging bushfire, pretending to be a celebratory bonfire.
The Acceptance group are Catholic people who give full support to the lifestyles of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, and are trying to take the Church with them. In contradiction to St Paul, they believe there is no chosen sexual orientation.
Yet I personally know of at least two cases, and it is well known that prostitutes, chilled out with their unfulfilling sexuality with males, form lesbian relationships looking for love and tenderness.
John Thornton (CL 13/3/05) should be informed that the insensitive, moral advice that a person should be ‘whipped until the devil departed’, was not restricted to gays and lesbians.
Finally, it must be said that Sarah Champness (CL 20/2/05) does not simply make ‘assertions’, but cites a number of committed, professional, learned and experienced persons.
J.K. CREEVEY
Keperra, Qld
