femen-bishopWhen one is surprised, they are seized by something unexpected. The origin of our word ‘surprise’ goes back to Middle English, when the word was used in reference to an unexpected attack on troops. I am ‘surprised’ in the truest sense of the word. I am speaking about the reality of homosexuality and the debate over the misnomer ‘gay-marriage.’


Homosexuality is nothing new. We have known about it for millennia. So what is it that I am surprised about? I am surprised that if someone happens to disagree with prevailing cultural opinions concerning the normalcy of homosexual urges/acts, then, well, all tolerance ends there. I am surprised that a debate as serious as one touching on the most basic of human/societal institutions is being driven by news speak, talking points and sentiment. The moment one makes an argument against the merit of homosexual acts they are instantly labeled as a ‘religious fanatic’ hanging on to mountains of biblical and revelatory myths—to use the rhetoric of the new atheists, they are ‘delusional.’


So, what are some arguments against homosexual acts? Prescinding from the sacred books, revelation, etc., allow me to give just one argument which rests solely on the light of human reason. The conclusion is this: the homosexual act is intrinsically disordered. Put in different terms, homosexuality violates the truth that human sexuality is intrinsically ordered. Honesty demands we concede that a man’s body marvelously ‘fits’ with a woman’s body. This ‘fitting’ of bodies is a wondrous thing that expresses the deepest form of human friendship. Friendship entails both affection for the other and physical closeness. Most friendships do not express affection and physical closeness genitally but some do. This genital culmination of affection and physical closeness by means of a male and female ‘body joining’ is what has from time immemorial been called marriage. The spectacular result it can yield is even grander: new human life.

Two people of the same sex may also experience real affection for each other, but the moment they attempt to express this affection genitally so as to have physical closeness, they have destroyed the friendship: their bodies do not ‘fit’ and their attempt to seize physical closeness genitally is necessarily a lie and will always lead to frustration. Nor can this disordered and unnatural genital attempt at physical closeness ever yield the begetting of new human life.

The heart of the matter is that the male genitalia do not contain their own explanation or reason-for-being apart from female genitalia and vice versa. It’s almost as if men and women were meant for each other. No matter how much someone may desire to express themselves genitally with a person of the same sex, they are acting against reason and against the very meaning of their bodies. This is the first and strongest argument against the movement to make normal that which is eminently not normal in reality. A man and a man or a woman and a woman do not ‘fit.’ They cannot join their bodies.

Please don’t accuse me of hating people with homosexual urges or hating those who choose to act upon them; I don’t. I happen to be one of those bogey men who still believes in a first cause—God!—from whom all things come out of nothing. This too—I would aver—is a perfectly rational position not based on fideism which, nevertheless, need not be defended here. I believe that God endows all people with an equal dignity. Homosexual urges and acts are intrinsically disordered and ought to be resisted because they do not square with reality as it is given.

I would further say that an urge is a non-moral thing and consequently one who experiences homosexual urges isn’t an immoral person and neither should they define themselves by their feelings. On the other hand, acting upon one’s feelings is a moral operation and one who engages in homosexual acts is to be considered morally bad and in need of reform. So if you are a person with homosexual urges, know that I love you, respect you as a human being and will treat you like I try to treat every human being: with kindness, justice and love. If you are a person who engages in homosexual behavior, know that I love you too, respect you as a human being and will treat you like I try to treat every human being: with kindness, justice and love. However, I will encourage you to reform your ways as reason tells me your actions will bring you and others profound unhappiness.