No “ominous portent” intended M. Stankovich and one shouldn’t be inferred. Here was my question as I posed it upstream:

What is the reason for absolutizing a desire, for arguing that the same-sex passion is the one passion that must become a foundational precept of self-identity? The only answer that makes sense to me is that by changing anthropological theory in this way, the groundwork is being laid to remove the onus of sin from homosexual behavior. What other answer is there?

It’s a valid question that deserves an answer. As I said, the only answer I can come up with is that a theoretical groundwork is being laid to remove the onus of sin from homosexual behavior.

If this is wrong, then what is the answer?

Dn. Patrick, I accept the clarification although I thought I had that covered in the sentence: “Sin enters in when the passion begins to rule the body and the person gives himself over to it.” I have to admit though I wondered if I was clear enough when I wrote it.

In any case, if the thought to covet comes and is resisted and no covetousness takes place, no sin has taken place either. But yes, covetousness is itself sin, just as you say.

In the same mind, while I would wish that we could compassionately resolve SSA with “cleansing fire” to the satisfaction of all, I am content in my purpose of “re-articulation” that would help us expand our understanding of humanity “as it was in the beginning,” and distinguished from from the broken humanity we have become.

I suppose this is as close as Michael is going to get to admitting (a) that SSA needs healing, and (b) that he is purposefully ignoring both the need for healing and the availability of it.

Father Hans, I have to disagree with you: Some desires are themselves sinful; that’s what the word covet means. We sin when we desire wrong things, things not meant for us. For example, we sin when desire another man’s wife, whether we do anything outward to satisfy the desire or not. The reason is that desire is a mental act, a turning of the mind toward the thing desired. A man whose mind is turned toward another man’s wife in an erotic or romantic way ought to confess his desire as a sin and not pretend to himself that he is guiltless so long as he doesn’t hit on her.

Fr. Johannes,

I find your ominous portent, “What other answer is there?” particularly disheartening. Likewise, it is with great effort that I do not take this specter personally, but I will say again, if you are waiting for a moment of, “Aha! J’accuse!” I guarantee you will not live to see it in me.

Personally, I would love to agree with St. Gregory of Nyssa in his belief of apokatastasis, that God is so loving and merciful, and so forgiving beyond our comprehension, that He could not entertain any of his creation perish; and with a “cleansing fire,” in the end, everyone will be reconciled. Unfortunately, it did not sit well with the later Fathers – who outright condemned it as heresy – and it does not sit well with me. In the same mind, while I would wish that we could compassionately resolve SSA with “cleansing fire” to the satisfaction of all, I am content in my purpose of “re-articulation” that would help us expand our understanding of humanity “as it was in the beginning,” and distinguished from from the broken humanity we have become.

As Professor A.I. Osipov has noted: “It is natural for a Christian to know “the certainty of those things, wherein he has been instructed” (cf. Lk. 1:4). But, as the Apostle Peter writes, you should be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear (1 Pet. 3:15).”

Mr. Coin,

I entered this line of commentary as a scientist, offering a comment as to the appropriateness of terminology you had selected from the CDC, a medical & scientific pursuit, composed of a collection of some of the finest scientific researchers & physicians in our country. Their pursuit is medical science – and as would seem obvious from their name, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – their mission is to delineate, describe, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. As near as I can tell, they do not ascribe to be, nor identify themselves as philosophers or theologians, but simply and specifically scientists of the epidemiology of disease(s) associated, in this case, with “men who have sex with men,” and even the most cursory of searches would show, for example, the breadth of their interest in such matters as, for example, cigarette smoking and genetic resistance to certain first-line antibiotics. They are scientists and apply scientific terminology in a precise and traditional fashion.

Mr. Coin, I respect your thoughtful reflection on these matters very much. It has been my contention, here and elsewhere, that the application of labels and terminology are essential – as Fr. Johannes has written, words are “powerful” – and when applied inappropriately constitute error, but worse, may be harmful. Far too many, in my estimation, are dismissive without any reflection. This leads me to say that I have attempted in my own ponderous, verbose manner to explore these issues – if I may borrow your analogy, shining a light in a dark room – as related to a human being who is a symphonic biological-psychological-environmental-spiritual person by creation and ontology. I claim no authority, nor particular “insight,” but I have invested a tremendous amount of personal resource. I am not trying to “drum up business” or increase “hits” by referring to our site, but as an invitation to further explore this issue in a systematic manner.

Likewise, it is MSM that is contrary to the Theology and Tradition of the Church. SSA is not sinful.

No desire is sinful. Sin enters in when the passion begins to rule the body and the person gives himself over to it. A good part of the spiritual life is warring against the passions, and in that warfare, integration and wholeness — real self-awareness — emerges. This self-awareness becomes the logic, motivation, and rationale to continue within that discipline.

I have talked to scores of young men about how to overcome lust. My advice is always the same: fast, pray, no porn, resist masturbation, avoid compromising situations, and all the rest. Bring every inordinate desire to Christ. Don’t hide. Let Him look at it. Bring it into the light. Don’t be afraid to confess the desire, no matter what it might be. Follow this program and in the end you can learn to master it.

Then I tell them the purpose is deeper self-integration. They tell me that in the struggle, life takes on a different cast. For many the insights gained through struggle are tremendously liberating and, as I said above, become the rationale for continuing within the discipline. They feel stronger, and young men need to feel strong. They develop a deeper sense of purpose, and young men need purpose.

All in all what happens is this: When men attempt to master their sexual desires, the energy formerly devoted to fostering the pleasure achieved through lust (licentiousness) is redirected into different creative pursuits. The interior “logic” of the soul is vivified in a sense, and the natural creative prowess a man possesses (it can be anything: sports, study, work, etc. — it depends on the person) finds more productive and enduring expression. More on this some other time.

Your attempt to establish concrete categories based on types of desire is wrong-headed (call it a desire based anthropology). Orthodoxy has never defined the human person in this way. A man who experiences sexual desire for the same-sex is not a homosexual. He’s a person struggling with a passion just like any other person struggles with theirs.

Like Harry said above, the only quantitative measures are behavioral, when men actually act out sexually with other men. All the rest is theoretical, the construction of one abstraction upon another and to what end? To expand the definition of homosexual to men who don’t act out? Why? They won’t suffer the deleterious effects of those who do act out, either in their psyche or in their bodies.

What is the reason for absolutizing a desire, for arguing that the same-sex passion is the one passion that must become a foundational precept of self-identity? The only answer that makes sense to me is that by changing anthropological theory in this way, the groundwork is being laid to remove the onus of sin from homosexual behavior. What other answer is there?

The categories and labels that God has given us, and that He expects us to respect and maintain, are that of man and woman. These do matter greatly, and the Church has had quite a lot to say about what they mean and how they are to be respected and maintained, though in recent years even the Orthodox have lost a lot of this wisdom.

Well the folks who really care about disease control, and whose careers are measured against progress along those lines, active in public policy and medicine, have chosen MSM, WSW. Their agenda is that people should live, long and healthy, safe and sane, productive and creative. That, I understand completely and I’m with that agenda 100%. They are highly trained, it isn’t their first barbeque and they value merit. Sounds like they have a great deal in common with characteristics called for in bishops.

I’m ready to dump all labels like ‘homosexual, homosexuality, gay, SSA’ all that to the extent it puts people in boxes and it creates meaningless divisions in families, communities and countries.

If mental health people, pastoral councillors, friends and so forth discuss assessments of a person’s current inner array of feelings, attitudes, and feel the need to create pointers or handles for discussion well and good. But let’s not confuse ourselves, inner states are complex, inter-related and any label put on some collection of them is the smallest possible abstract, summary. As though having one single lamp on in a dark room and describing a little of what part of the sculpture it illuminates is visible as if it were the whole. Do that and any group of guys on a hunting trip are ‘gay’. Sure, from a point of view so strained it’s meaningless and a waste of life and time. 14 in 1,000 actually are MSM/WSW. Sadly by comparison their health generally isn’t good, and it isn’t because of the attitudes others take, its because of what they do, MSM moreso than the rest.

There’s deep anthropological wisdom in the scriptures. Sanitation, moderation, self awareness and assessment. Where it crowds what people want to do, it’s because the alternative is worse.

Michael, the issue is not whether SSA is “sinful”; it’s whether SSA is natural, healthy, approved by God, not a fault of our fallenness, and therefore not in need of healing. That’s the view you are advancing, and that’s why you labor so hard to dissociate SSA and SSSA, to the point of insisting absurdly that they are “mutually exclusive.”

Yet Scripture very early on tells us that God made the woman for the man, not just another man. And throughout Scripture we read that God blesses the union of man and woman and condemns the union of man and man. And if the union of man and man is sinful, then the desire for such a union is also sinful. Said desire may not constitute a sinful act, but it does, in and of itself, constitute a sinful condition in need of healing.

I hardly find it odd or “contrivance” that, for purposes of medical research, if you were purposed to gather prevalence data regarding, say, “Mexican men who experience major depression with psychotic features,” that you would first discriminate (e.g. men from women, Mexican men from all men, Mexican men with major depression from Mexican men, and Mexican men with depression and psychotic features from Mexican men with just major depression, etc.). It seems logical enough that discriminating to only the level of “Mexican men with depression” – a broader categorization – invites any of a number of selection biases and, ultimately, questionable if not erroneous conclusions.

Homosexuality (apples), as the broadest categorization, includes men who have SSA and are MSM, as well as men with SSA who do not have sex with men (which could include those with SSA who have never had same-sex activity, those who choose chastity, and also those who, for example, have SSA but by disability or physiological complication are incapable of sexual activity). The categorization MSM (oranges) includes any MSM (which also include MSM who deny SSA or homosexuality, as well as prison behavior and plain old “debauchery”), and thereby excludes anyone not having sex with men. MSM, which is perfectly appropriate for research regarding HIV/AIDS, HVC, and the like, is inappropriate for the research in behavioural medicine that I have described. Likewise, it is MSM that is contrary to the Theology and Tradition of the Church. SSA is not sinful.

And “selection bias” was Kinsey’s error, which I cite as – you are correct in pointing out – “thoroughly discredited.” I cite it as a caution that your conclusion will lead you to a similar error, which I am presuming you would rather not support.

You want two definitions for homosexual: quantitative measures of behavior (men who have sex with men) and everything else.

The trouble is, because the “everything else” is not quantitative, anyone can make up whatever category they want. Sure, a consensus of sorts could form around this or that definition I suppose, but it is still entirely subjective.

I’m not sure why you keep citing Kinsey either. The guy was a complete crank and has been thoroughly discredited.

Your thoughts regarding orientation & Oprah are extremely important. My fear is that, amidst 190+ comments, the significance deserves a new topic altogether. You are welcome to visit and comment on our site, where such a reflection has begun. Not that I’m holding my breath…

If you are speaking of “disease” (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention), and your broad categorization is intended to delineate, describe, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease associated with the activity(-ies) of “men who have sex with men,” I agree with both of you.

If you would assume the same categorization, “men who have sex with me,” in regard to homosexuality, you are following the error of Kinsey – and I have noted, Kinsey’s was significant statistical error. I would then maintain my position that you are incorrect to do so.

Which makes me wonder if all of this “orientation” talk is a construct that may one day go the way of phrenology or such some thing. It defines a person in terms of his desire, thereby objectifying the person and concretizing the desire. You wonder if the therapeutic track culture is on (the Oprahfication of everything) isn’t an inebriation that we have to shake off. Or maybe it’s a century long Freudian hangover.