GAYS AND THE CHURCH

If you are a member of The Church, then you would have realised of late all the hype around homosexuality, trying to tell others what their true stance on it is, dispelling the myths that have surrounded it as being a "sin" for quite some time now! Even if you aren't part of The Church, I am sure you have seen or heard something about this though.

One of the groups I am a member of on FaceBook is a Catholic one, and the other day I saw a status update from them about a talk on homosexuality and the Catholic Church. Unfortunetely, I don't reside in Sydney, so that was out.

A month or two ago, the local young-adult group had a talk given by another priest from across town on homosexuality and The Church, but could not go to that one either!

So, what to do? I mean, I am not one of the gay Catholic's who don't know the true teaching on it. I don't hold, nor have I ever held, the draconian belief that far too many hold as fact. I own a Catechism! Two in fact, the massive, hard-cover first edition and the smaller, black, soft-cover second edition! Not to mention I own two of the Compendium of The Catholic Church - one I bought, the other we all got in our welcome packs at WYD in Sydney last year!

I mean, picture this! Back when I was only in year nine, I would question things in Religious Education class to the point I would be sent out to the deputy's office (for those unaware, I attended a Catholic school). However, I never argued anything such as being gay shouldn't be a sin, as even at the age of fourteen or fifteen, I knew that the Church didn't see homosexuality as a sin! In the famous words of St. Augustine - "Don't hate the sinner, hate the sin" - and the Churches teaching is that being gay is not a sin in itself, but acting on the sexual desire is, but no more a sin that pre-marital sex, abortions, contraceptives etc;.

What I was trying to argue back in those religious classes what that being gay myself, God is love and therefore He does love me - though I was never after His love, for back then I was an out and open agnostic/atheist, at one stage even a self-confessed Satanist.

I would argue that there is nothing wrong with me liking other guys etc; and also that I had no understanding of Jesus condemning homosexuality - that was in the Old Testament, which again I argued that back then, God was pissed off, people were corrupt, so who's to say some disgruntled Jew didn't change the story, add his bit, along the way?

I knew no better back then and have only in the last 24 hours heard back from a Brother of The Church in the USA that there is actually some references to homosexuality in the New Testament, but I am still yet to be clear headed enough to read them.

Another thing he told me, which I did already know but never gave much thought to, was that Jesus came not to abolish the Old Covenant, but to improve on those laws and correct peoples wrong doing when taking the old laws too far etc; and as homosexuality wasn't a big thing anywhere he did his ministry, there was never much said about it from Him personally... more from St. Paul as I believe, which makes sense as he ministered in places where homosexuality was more rampant, and of course the Gentiles - Roman soldiers and such. Look at the Greeks and how sexual they are for instance! Gay cosmos! LOL. Look at their artwork - sculptures and stuff! One there is of this guy with a boner about the same girth as his body, and as long as the height of his body! Horny much? LOL. Go East to Turkey and different story with their Orthodoxy... especially furthur Eastern Turkey in to Muslim centers where five times a day you will see them on their prayer matt facing Mecca... in that case would they face East, being Russia/Asia, or south so they do actually face the Kabba in Mecca? Interesting... any Turkish who can answer, tell me, or any Muslim or anyone in the know that is!