From: bdboyle@erenj.com (Bryan D. Boyle)
Subject: Re: condemnation of homosexual acts is (un)necessary...
Organization: Exxon Research and Engineering Co., NJ
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 23:32:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.220732.8104@cs.tulane.edu> lang@cs.tulane.edu (Raymond Lang) writes:
>
>In article <C1Iz07.A9t@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, creps@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (Steve Creps) writes:
>> In article <C1I2BF.FyC@NCoast.ORG> aiden@NCoast.ORG (Steven Otlowski) writes:
>> >I fail to see the damage done by any relationship founded in love
>> >and mutual respect.
>> >
>> >Perhaps you should invest more than (a moment only :-) )  and search 
>> >that inner part of yourself where the Spirit speaks to the hearts of
>> >mankind.  
>> 
>>    This poster seems to be saying that homosexual acts are not sinful,
>> and that the Holy Spirit leads him and others to this belief.
>> 
>>    It's dangerous to attribute to the Holy Spirit that sinful acts are
>> in fact not sinful.  Especially when one is claiming that one knows
>> better than the Church which Jesus promised would have the Holy Spirit
>> to protect her from error.  If you are wrong it could very well be
>> blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
>
>Well, Steve, apparently you've identified "the Church" with
>"the Vatican."  Jesus promised his Holy Spirit to the whole church,
>not just the Pope and his inner circle in Rome.  The Catholic
>magisterium is comprised of the entire college of bishops, and they
>(to say nothing of the Church at large) can hardly be said to be
>of one mind on this matter.
>


Well, ray, I (and am sure many others) would like to know why you and
others of your mindset are so all-fired-up impatient with, and
intolerant of the Church, as identified as the Roman Catholic Church,
and it ban on homosexual gratification?  Do you possess some private
revelation that the rest of us have missed?  If so, please, share it
with us.  Or do you believe that popular attitudes and mores should 
determine theology and belief structures dealing with matters not of 
this world.  Please, develop your thesis more clearly, and with some
scholarship to back up your position, other than the warm-and-fuzzy
new-age thinking that one passes off as serious thought.  

Point of fact is that the Church (yes, that darn Roman Catholic Church
led by Pope John Paul II, a man of Polish extraction, who had to deal
with an officially-athiestic government pledged to destroy the Church)
teaches (under its magisterium, which you are obviously uncomfortable
with, since it tends to force one to put a stake in the ground and
define exact boundaries) that sexual activity is to be used to 1) create
children and 2) develop married love between publically-committed 
life-long partners of opposite sexes.  Not because sexual activity 
releases tensions, or feels good (that is a side benefit, I guess...).
THe two are inseperable, in the Church's teaching; one ideal must be
open to the other.  Homosexual cohabitation and intercourse is neither.
(that is, unless you have some startling revelation about biological 
porcesses to share from your wide range of experience there at
Tulane...) 

Since this is a logical position to take, and is shared by most of the 
mainstream religions of Christian, Judaic, or Mohammedian strucutre, 
to name a few, why should the Roman Catholic Church bend to the wishes
of a small minority of the population, albeit vocal and abusive, 
and condone what it has consistently condemned?  Truth is uncomfortable,
and, it seems especially so in this instance, else the clearest 
beacon of that revelation would not be under the secular pressure
that it is facing to compromise its standards to silence the whining of
a few for no consistent theological reason.

As one of our past Presidents once said: "If you can't stand the heat, 
get out of the kitchen..."  I'll go even further, if you don't like the
Church's stand on homosexual activity, then, in all good conscience, why
are you hanging around?


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