GAY LIBERATION - This speech is ©1998 Dr. Fr. Larry Kaufmann CSsR. Fr. Larry addressed Catholic Tertiary Students in South Africa.

I believe there is no difference between an authentic, genuine homosexualorientation and an authentic, genuine heterosexual one. And both require adegree of affection and physical expression.

I know this will be difficult for many people to accept. It is askingpeople to come to terms with a kind of human sexuality which for themajority of them is alien to their own disposition and desires. It iscalling for a new consciousness not much different from the one that wasneeded to reject the practice of slavery or polygamy which the Bible tookfor granted with little questioning for hundred, even thousands, of years.

On this question of human sexuality, as on the question of war and violence,the Society of Friends, known as the Quakers, is decades ahead of most ofus. The Quaker Report of 1963 states: It is the nature and quality of a relationship that matters: one must notjudge it by its outward appearances but by its inner worth. Homosexualaffection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection, and therefore wecannot see that it is in some way morally worse.... The same criteria seemto apply to us whether a relationship is heterosexual or homosexual.

Some would argue that homosexuality is contrary to the teachings of theBible. I take that argument seriously and have done some investigation intothe insights of contemporary Scripture scholars on what the Bible actuallysays about homosexuality. The first thing to note is that the Bible saysvery little. The word 'homosexuality' itself is never used. Nowhere doesJesus himself mention the phenomenon in the Gospels. When it is discussedin the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), it is done so mainly in thecontext of being a practice associated with idolatry (the worship of falsegods).

The key texts (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) fall within the samesection on codes of holiness that permits polygamy; forbids the eating ofpork, rare meat or shell fish; bans the wearing of blended materials - allfor the same reason: an association with idolatry.
Some passages that are often quoted as condemning homosexuality are, infact, irrelevant. Genesis 19:1-19 (the story of Sodom) was a case ofostensibly heterosexual males, in defiance of the virtue of hospitality,planning to humiliate strangers by treating them "like women".

This act of"demasculinising" was also often carried out by the soldiers of victoriousarmies. Because women were considered a lower form of humanity than men,the best way to humiliate the defeated was to rape them as if they werewomen.

This sort of brutal behaviour has nothing to do with the question ofwhether genuine love expressed between consenting adults of the same sex islegitimate or not. Indeed, the Bible simply does not understand thedistinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity, whichthe Catechism of the Catholic Church itself accepts in the light of modernhuman sciences.

In the New Testament, when Paul mentions homosexual activity, he refers tothe practice of heterosexual men (as we would understand it today) havingintercourse, against their nature as heterosexual men, with other men in away that was common in pagan religious ritual. His primary concern, in thesame spirit as the teachings of the Old Testament, was to avoid any form ofidolatry on the part of Christians.

The question I would want to ask is: what is the idolatry of our time? Inwhat social attitudes and practices is idolatry manifesting itself today?

I believe we will find it in the Nazi idea of the superior Aryan race, or inthe apartheid idea of white superiority. We find it in the patriarchalmentality of male superiority, and, yes, in the homophobic mentality ofheterosexual superiority. This is idolatry. Worse than the idea of beingsuperior is the active discrimination against anyone who does not fallwithin one's own idea of the norm for being human.

And so you have a town councillor in Britain, a country that fought againstthe idea of Nazi superiority, stating as recently as 1986: "90% of queersshould be gassed." Or a member of the British House of Lords writing that"all buggers should be castrated and all lesbians put in state brothelswhere they will learn the proper use of their sex organs." Thatintolerance, and the homophobia behind it, is the modern idolatry.

It ispart of an idea that the norm for being human is to be white, male,intelligent, able-bodied, and ... heterosexual. Anything less than that isa biological mistake. Such a mentality undermines the fundamental humandignity of being created in God's image.

I believe the real ethical issues today around homosexuality are not about"same-sex unions" or homosexual behaviour, but about ignorance and fear ofthe subject, as well as about the prejudice and social discriminationsuffered by homosexual people. The real moral issue is a social one, and itis probably on the scale of that global shift of mentality required by theabolition of slavery 150 years ago. The moral issue is about accepting thefull humanity of gay people, and exploring the social and legalramifications of doing so.