Rev. Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert were ordained by Bishop Barry Clarke in June, Camara as a priest and Boisvert as a deacon; both Camara and Boisvert are married – to men.
Anyone still labouring under the misapprehension that the Anglican Church of Canada is not being consumed by an obsession with homoerotic sex, need look no further for illumination than to the preoccupations of those whom it is ordaining. Here is an extract from “Holy Sex” by Deacon Boisvert:
Anyone who has ever publicly cruised other men, or participated in some of the more arcane rituals associated with S/M sex, for example, will understand the powerful, almost overwhelming pull of the masculine and the unspoken codes with which we surround and protect it. Masculinity represents many things for gay men: potency, dominion, authority, abandonment, protection. As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex. …. I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant.
Just what the doctor ordered for ailing Canadian Anglicanism: phallic worship.
Here, in his book “Sacred Space”, Boisvert describes his life’s most “spiritual moments” in – where else – gay bars and bath-houses:
Because I am a gay man, my first time in a gay bar, my first visit to the baths, and most poignantly, the first time I stepped into the Stonewall Inn in New York City have also been uplifting, spiritual moments in my life.
I am looking forward to the gradual transformation of Christ Church Cathedral into a “Sacred Space”; my bet is that it will be a gay bathhouse – once the baptismal font has been enlarged.
Boisvert used to be a Roman Catholic, an affiliation that proved unsympathetic to his yearning to worship penises. Unsurprisingly, he has received a warm welcome in the Anglican Church of Canada as it sinks inexorably into Boisvert’s murky world of cruising other men looking for a spot of “Holy Sex”.
From here (page 4):
To say that Donald Boisvert has come out as a gay man would be an understatement. You could almost say he wrote the book (or books).
His ordination as an Anglican deacon by Bishop Barry Clarke June 3 is another event in his distinguished and public career as a scholar and activist concerned particularly with sexuality and the relation between sexuality and religion.
In a note for The Montreal Anglican in 2009, on the occasion of his being received into the Anglican Church by Bishop Barry Clarke, he wrote:
“I was raised a Roman Catholic; I studied for the Catholic priesthood; and I am a scholar of Catholic religious culture. I have a great deal of affection for the Catholic Church, in large part because it marks my cultural heritage and it guided me through my youth, but also because it still has a great deal to offer. But I am gay, and I have more and more difficulty with the Vatican’s archaic teachings on human sexuality, including its position on women and their place within Catholicism.
More broadly, however, the Catholic Church remains a deeply entrenched patriarchal institution, with an authoritarian and rigid governing structure.
It is difficult to refrain from speculating on why Bishop Barry Clarke would ordain someone whose chief interests lie in the exploration of the ritualistic aspects of sadomasochism and the holiness of male genitals. Is the bishop a witless lunatic, a closet adorer of phalluses, a neophyte practitioner of wanton sex looking for instruction?
Who can say – perhaps he just picked up Boisvert in a bathhouse.
Note: I’ve updated this article since Robert Camara and Donald Boisvert, while married to other men, are not married to each other as I had previously stated.
Why can’t these clowns just say OK, I’m gay, now let’s move on to how knowing Christ will save us” But no! They have to go on and on and on about the wonders of gayness and stay away from the C word. Blaaah
I am not easily shocked, but this insanity, and perversion, shocks, sickens, and saddens me. I cannot fathom the depths to which these immoral men have taken a former church of Christ.
“Flee sexual immorality….. you were bought at a price..” 1 Corinthians 17&20
A “gentle” condemnation from the Word of God for these beasts, these wolves, who in their ignorance and boldness, have cast aside their sheep’s clothing.
I will not make any comment on the use of the sheep, or a shivalingus for their unholy sacraments, for it would give them ideas. As soon as I can recover from my shock, I will pray for these fellows, and for the church they have destroyed, and for the tears and pain they have given our Lord Christ Jesus, after the price He paid for them.
What is obvious to me is that some clergy see their homosexuality as their calling and their priesthood as a career choice.
What I want to hear from pastors/priests are words proclaiming Christ crucified and risen rather than words proclaiming “I’m gay…I’m gay…I’m gay… and how marvellous it is in His Sight”
David, I think you got a detail wrong. Robert Camara is not married to Donald Boisvert, he was only present at that ceremony. There were two clergy were priested, Robert Camara and a woman, Rhonda Waters. And a third ordination, as a Deacon, was Donald Boisvert. And Boisvert is the gay man, the activist, and married to someone named Gaston, (according to the Montreal Anglican newspaper).
Like you, I don’t agree with gay men being ordained as priests. They don’t represent Christ in any meaningful way. They represent something else. And, I notice, all the publicity goes to Boisvert, little goes to the two priests. All the sensations goes to the phoney, and the real priests are just quiet. The real clergy work quietly, without fanfare. The Holy Spirit works in hiddenness, away from the glare of the world’s publicity. So, I see the parable of the wheat and the tares being acted out here, good and evil growing side by side. And, the Anglican Bishops seem blithly unaware.
Dave,
Thank you, yes you are correct, they are both in a same-sex marriage, but not to one another.
There was a protest at the prospect of Robert Camara’s ordination, see here.
Rev. Paul Kennington, dean of Montreal and rector of Christ Church Cathedral is also a “partnered gay man”.
I’ve updated the article.
I hadn’t realized Robert Camara was in a gay relationship. So, two gay men, both elevated to clergy roles in the Diocese of Montreal!!!!!And they are both in a same-sex marriages!!!! Also, they are both enjoying a good middleclass careers, earning salaries, living off the Church,and enjoying a comfortable, middleclass life at home. Very sad and pathetic. Here in the Diocese of New Westminster, we also have a gay, partnered Dean at the Cathedral, and I understand four other gay, partnered clergy operating in parishes. Slowly and steadily, the Anglican Church of Canada is binding itself to Canadian culture, it’s values and beliefs, and is loosing it’s freedom to be independent, to be distinctinve, and to be Christian.
I hope you wouldn’t include same sex attracted men who have chosen to remain celibate in that.
I frankly find it very hard to believe that one guy said what he said (the part that you quoted him). That just seems so far out in left field as to be unbelievable. What source does that come from? Can it be verified or cross-referenced?
Jack,
They are quotes from two of his books: “Holy Sex” and “Sacred Space”.
Both excerpts can be found here in the article: Donald Boisvert, on “Rituals, Sexual and Otherwise”.
Boisvert writes, “Phallic worship… has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with rioutous freedom and wanton sex.”
Yes indeed. Transgressive, Sinful. It has always been and still is.
The kicker, though, is this ironic statement:
“I call gay sex “holy sex” because it is centred on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity.”
Gay sex does precisely the opposite of what Boisvert describes here. Gay sex isn’t centered on and certainly doesn’t celebrate male regenerative power. It is by its very nature barren and unproductive. If Boisvert was really celebrating this aspect of maleness he would be encouraging men to find wives, be fruitful, and multiply.
Sounds to me like this Biosvert character is just another homo-sex agenda driven fagot who is corrupting the Word of God into what he wants to hear, which is completely opposite to what God has said. How sad that our once Faithful Church has deteriorated to such a pathetic condition that we allow this person to pretend to be clergy.
I find the ordination of same-sex married clergy regretable. We haven’t fully resolved the SSB issue and now Montreal jumps the gun. I don’t feel comfortable with this and am sorry it happened.
But if they were just fornicators would it be OK?
Nope.
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This is sad. Homosexual attraction, like the urge to fornicate and to commit adultery is a result of our fallen nature. Those with that urge who control it are following God’s law, those who do not are breaking it.
Funny how the impulse to form monogamous lifelong unions is “an honourable estate” when straight people have the “urge.” Must be one of those irregular verbs. Straight people are breaking God’s law if they fornicate and commit and adultery – gay people are breaking it if they don’t.
I am not sure where to leave this question on your site, but perhaps this is as good a place as any.
Why would the congregants who have departed/are departing the ACofC parishes not join the Roman Catholic Church under the newly established Anglican Rite? I do understand that the Anglican Church is Reformationist, but in order to leave the Roman Catholic Church in the first place, 500 or so years ago, they went through a rather large change, not entirely of their own choosing. It would not be nearly so large a change now for the orthodox Anglicans to re-join the Roman Catholics, as it would be for them to remain with the ever more relativist ACofC. The new ANIC appears to hold many of the same views as the orthodox Roman Catholics, particulalry under the Anglican Rite. I realize that they tend to be more absolutely Bible-based, whereas the RCs generally dwell more on doctrinal interpretations of the Bible from throughout the ages, but their conclusions are often very similar, if not the same.
So why don’t those Anglicans leaving the ACofC go over to Rome, under the new Anglican Rite? I’m curious.
Not that I am suggesting for one moment that the RC church would have me, but here are some beliefs and practices of the RC church that would prevent me joining it:
The veneration of Mary.
Mary’s Immaculate Conception.
The RC church’s view that authority comes not from Sola Scriptura, but scripture and tradition as defined by the church.
The RC church’s view that one is saved by grace and the church’s sacraments rather than grace alone – Sola Gratia – and received by an individual’s faith in Jesus – Sola Fide.
The RC church’s contention that it is the one true church.
The doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra.
The doctrine of transubstantiation.
The doctrine of the existence of Purgatory.
The doctrine of Sacraments being the means of grace rather than an outward sign of grace.
Praying to the saints or petitioning them to intercede on our behalf.
As far as the Doctrine of Transubstantiation goes, wasn’t this simply replaced by Martin Luther’s version during the Reformation? There have been gaffes made both by the various RC councils, and by the likes of Martin Luther; neither has proven entirely infallible.
But then again, I did ask about all of this, and you did answer. Thanks.
Many Anglicans have indeed “Gone over to Rome” throughout the centuries, so I see it as a viable option for those fleeing the crumbling ACofC. I just wondered why the ANIC has been proposed here as the only real alternative.
The Roman Catholic Church upholds a Pro-life stance, and does not accept homosexual behaviour (though they certainly do accept the homosexual person). They are not relativist. Apart from so-called Catholic liberals (who are actually dissenters), this is another orthodox denomination that respects Christian Scripture and what many consider to be the most important values. The Catholic Church would maintain that is IS the Christian Church, having an unbroken espousing of Christ’s teachings since Jesus left the earth. Yes, there have been, and there still are, troubles and inconsistencies within the Catholic Church. Is there any church that does not have at least some of this, however? Any perfect church?
Having seen and experienced both sides, I think that Catholics and Protestants still mis-understand each other, sometimes willfully it would seem.
What I am saying here is that it truly does not seem like a very big leap to go from orthodox and scripturally- based Anglicanism outside of the ACofC, to Roman Catholicism in its non-liberal form.
Hm-m-m. O.K. Is Mary’s Immaculate Conception of Jesus not stated in the Bible?
The RC’s contention that it is the one true church certainly beats ACofC relativism. And after all, the initiation of the Anglican Church was really a political move, by a disgruntled king; nothing to hang one’s hat on when it comes to Truth.
I have read that the concept of the Pope being considered infallible is a myth – not really so, but hard to shake.
We have lobbyists intercede for us all the time. Why not saints?
Why, David, would an organization such as the Anglican Church have that much more truth and validity behind it, especially considering how and why it was founded?
Yes, Jesus was born without original sin, but the RC church also has the doctrine that Mary was born without original sin too. There is no Bible warrant for this and it wasn’t even formalised by the RC church until 1854. And let’s not even get into her supposed perpetual virginity.
When the Pope speaks ex cathedra (from the throne) he is supposedly kept from error – his pronouncements are infallible. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it has to be taken as true by Roman Catholics.
While not the most objectionable RC doctrine, it still isn’t one that has much Biblical warrant.
I don’t think it does, but the difference is, it doesn’t claim to. Although the ACoC has gone off the rails, the 39 articles – which define what Anglicanism is – contains the following which holds up Scripture as the final authority:
The RC Church bases its authority on Scripture plus interpretation of Scripture, through the Apostolic Succession. So, not really very different.
This article VI., by claiming the perfect validity of the Scripture (in whatever translation, with whatever errors may have crept in over the centuries) means that whosoever takes this verbatim has righteousness behind them. So, extrapolating, if the Anglican Church that upholds this article takes the Scriptures verbatim, it does maintain that it has the truth on its side. It is claiming an alliance with the one and only truth, just as the RC Church does. They both depend on Scripture; one takes it verbatim, and the other takes a long-considered account of Scripture, that has filtered through many thoughtful and faithful individuals over the centuries.
David, there are few times that the Pope speaks ex-cathedra, and what I mean about the “myth of infallibility” is that many people think it applies to whatever quote from the Pope the paparazzi can get into the daily papers. Few make this kind of distinction.
But if some people maintain the absolute authority of the Scriptures as they are presented at any given time and translation, what is so unusual about the supposed infallibility of the Pope when he speaks from the throne? Don’t we believe that Moses was given the Word of God from an inspired source, too? Same source, if memory serves me well. Why do we believe that God can send down the truth through his chosen messengers some of the time only?
I think you are nit-picking with the Mary issues. Never heard of Nuns and perpetual virginity? Or even the WWI generation when young men were scarce? Why is that so unbelievable? As I used to ask as a child, “Why didn’t Jesus have any brothers or sisters?”
It’s a little more than nit-picking. The immaculate conception raises serious theological problems.
Jesus got His humanity from Mary, His father being the Holy Spirit. If Mary alone was born without original sin, she did not share in the common lot of humanity, and therefore neither did Jesus.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of redemption (shared by other Churches as well) is that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, and it is because He was fully human and fully divine that He was able to provide redemption. However, if Jesus did not share in the common lot of humanity, it is, to say the least, debatable if He could provide complete redemption.
It is also worth while remembering that Pius IX, the pope who proposed and promulgated this doctrine, was a Canon Lawyer with no theological training and that he does not appear to have consulted anyone else about it before promulgation.
It is also worth noting that he did it in 1853, a full 17 years before the First Vatican Council determined that he had the power to do so and set out the necessary procedure. There is also a case to answer that there was sufficient coercion at the Council to make its decree invalid.
Furthermore, Infallibility has only been used twice: in 1853 and to promulgate the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven in 1950. The latter doctrine has no theological consequences (and some might say no importance) and at least Pius XII consulted widely before making his pronouncement. Infallibility has never been infallibly promulgated. Supporters would no doubt see this as an oversight; opponents may well see it as divine providence…
Thank you for this input, Gordon. I see that you have training in theology, and that you are Anglican. Might it be fair to say that your views on the role of Mary are probably not shared, then, by Roman Catholics? Mary has alsways had an important role in the Roman Catholic Church, but not to the point of worship. So perhaps there is a difference here in perspective.
Infallibility of the Pope does tend to have been vastly mis-interpreted by the public, and was never meant to communicate that the Pope will come out regularly with ad-hoc directives to which everyone must take off their thinking caps and bow.
Compare though, if you will, the rather large issues that are tearing apart Christianity today, and the theological arguments over Mary’s role and Papal infallibility (used almost never) seem like peanuts. There are truly bigger issues to think about if one is looking to make a leap from the ACofC, and land in a place of like minds. There have been dozens of Christian denominations and sects over the centuries, with many large and small differences between them. I would look for a new home with the least number of large differences. I think that orthodox Roman Catholicism can provide this.
Then again, there wouldn’t be an Anglican Church if there hadn’t been a Catholic Church.
Eastern Orthodoxy also venerates Mary.
Playing devil’s advocate I have to ask, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had set forth a decree in which he unequivocally affirmed traditional marriage; and his was – The – Last – Word – on the subject by the Church, (in 2003, as in any time before or after) by virtue of the solemnity and authority — the infallibility in effect — of his office, how loudly would anyone here have complained? What I’m suggesting is perhaps the premise of infallibility simply speaks to the needs and the nature of a well-run bureaucracy, which the Vatican certainly is: somebody needs to have the power to put a definitive end to the squabbling, lest it undermine the whole structure.
Why belong to any church, then? Why not just stay at home to read and follow Scripture? Why such grief and fuss over leaving a parish and a denomination if that church really had no meaning in and of itself, after all?
I spent time in the Roman Catholic Church as a child. We honoured Mary; we did not worship her in any sense.
And before anyone jumps in with the “idolatry” accusation, let me say that yes, Catholic churches very often have statues of the saints and the Holy Family, but because they are displayed in a church does not mean that anyone is worshipping these statues either. Do we worship paintings on the walls of our homes because they decorate, or uplift, or because the images therein symbolize greater issues? No. The statues are used in the same manner in a Catholic Church — no one idolizes them; they would think that anyone suggesting this is a bit crazy. Do we idolize statues in the public square? Most of us realize that these stand as memorials, not gods.
I think that Anonymous makes some valid points. Presently I feel that my personal religous beliefs have more in common with the Roman Catholics than with my own Anglican Church of Canada. Especially in regards to several very important issues.
Still, I feel that the set of beliefs that I do have are most in accordance with what we might call “traditional Anglican” beliefs. And I find that I am most in agreement with The Reformed Episcopal Church (which is one of the founding Churches of the Anglican Church in North America). Unfortunately for me their only Parish in Ontario is in Hamilton, which is quite a distance from where I live.
I hope you do get to make it out to S. George’s, even if just from time to time. They are a very friendly bunch with a reverent liturgy and a warm atmosphere and, unlike their single-issue hobbyhorse-riding counterparts in the Network, have always made me feel welcome on my visits. It’s my church of choice when in the Hammer since S. Luke’s lost Fr Hudson.
You would be welcome in the single-issue hobbyhorse-riding Network church I attend – we don’t have to agree for you to be welcome.
I am glad to know that your parish is not as toxic a place for families like mine as is your blog, but I do not need anyone’s “agreement.” The language you feel free to use about Dr Boisvert, however, suggests you have a ways to go before you reach the point even of welcoming. Indeed, I don’t think your disagreement is with me – we both, after all, seem to believe that marriage is the appropriate context for conjugal union between Christians – but a kind of schizophrenic disagreement with yourself, since you take exception to gay Christians who agree with you and fashion their family lives accordingly. (Gay people getting married = bad; gay people behaving promiscuously = bad. The gay person who desires to be saved sure isn’t getting any answers from you!)
What language was that? I mostly just quoted from his own writing.
As for your marriage argument, it only works if you regard a same-sex union as “marriage”; I don’t.
But Geoff, there is no such thing as a “gay person”. No-one is “born that way”. What a person does, and how they behave is a matter of choice. If a person chooses to engage in homosexual activities than that person is choosing to do something sinful. Really it is not much different than if a married person chooses to commit the sin of adultery.
It is too bad that so many people immediately jump to the position that as soon as you something like “homosexual bahaviour is a sin” that you are:
being hateful
being intolerant
being a bigot
being insesitive
being ignorant
being stupid
etc.
Frankly, the person who has chosen to commit homosexual acts will get some very good answers from a Church that remains true to the Holy Scriptures. Although it likely won’t be what they want to hear or be told. None-the-less, the answers will be honest and truthful, offered in the greatest of Christain virtues (that being charity), and will help the person to be saved.
And thus the endless loop of question begging begins: gay and lesbian unions are immoral because they are not marriages, and are not marriages because they are immoral. Far from negating the argument, this demonstrates it perfectly. If they aren’t marriages, then they are a separate category of relationships, which gets us right back to the question of how the church is to order and sanctify the domestic church in such cases. Your answer is “Definitely not through marriage!” So one way or another, you end up undercutting the exclusivity of status of marriage.
Of course in point of fact, the “definition” of marriage, as far as the Anglican Church is concerned, is found in its liturgies, and none of the features our rite lists are by definition heterosexual (S-G couples can, and do, offer mutual help and comfort, bring new life to the world, and so on). You are free to hold a private definition, but I am less concerned with whether the individual servant of God David chooses to accept our formularies than with what they themselves have to say: for my part, I “regard as marriages” what the book says on the tin.
AMP, I agree with you that it is our choices that matter, but you misconstrue the choice that gay Christians are faced with. The fact that we may not be predetermined to our sexual orientation by genetics does not make them a matter of choice. Not everything is either genetic or voluntary: plenty of things are neither. The choice the gay Christian has is thus the same as any other: whether to exercise their sexuality in aa life of hedonistic self-indulgence, or to submit to the characteristics the church deems necessary to a relationship of integrity. By your logic, that choice is clear for heterosexuals, while for gays one is just as good as the other.
I suspect no one “likes to be told” to abandon their family and home: the rich young man certainly didn’t. Before you judge gay Christians for demurring from the answers they get in “true” churches, consider what your opinion would be if you and your spouse, or your parents, were held to the same standard.
Gay and lesbian unions are immoral because they are fornication.
Thank you, Lisa, for the link about Camille Paglia. I have read of her here and there over the years, but the whole feminism focus in the past several decades was generally larded with nonsense, and so I read it only on a needs basis. Ms. Paglia’s work was often described in the context of feminism.
What I can say is that I admire her razor-sharp intelligence, and her willingness to go out on a limb for what she believes. She strikes me as a very intelligent and creative Bipolar, in fact. I am not sure that I believe what she believes, however. I applaud her ability to see beyond the norm, but her context still seems limited, too often, to the greater pop culture, though perhaps I just do not know her work well enough to judge. In addition, there seems to be a lot of ego in her work, rather than viewpoints that support something a bit more noble. I would veer more towards the work of Melanie Phillips, or what I imagine Elizabeth Wiltsee might have written had she not been ill. Ms. Paglia reminds me in many ways of the late Christopher Hitchens.
Machiavelli was said to have been brilliant too, but not to the benefit of humankind, and not with an eye to God.
Let me ask you, as you are the thinking type, how you square the contrary aspects here — a person whose work you very much admire, whose behaviour in private life arises from a state that you find immoral?
You would really need to read her work, Anonymous. Which I don’t see as limited in context to pop culture at all; or that she is a Bipolar or anything like Christopher Hitchens. Rather, it overwhelmingly affirms the greatness of Western civilization, and esteems the value of art and religious traditions.
How do I square my appreciation for her work with my own views on morality? I hope I am slow to presumption and sparing in passing judgement, for one thing. I think of her as the anomaly she is, for another. In another time, she might very well have lived in a convent and simply devoted herself to scholarship. For all her identification as lesbian — which seems to me to be one of regret rather than in any way careerist or opportunist as is in vogue now — that’s pretty much the life she has made for herself even so.
Lisa, I agree that I really don’t know the work of Camille Paglia well enough to comment in-depth. You yourself seem to be most thoughtful, however, and so if you confirm value in it, I will assume it is there. The mention of Bipolar Disorder was mainly because of the intensity, and certain other traits, that come across in the interviews of Ms. Paglia’s that I have read; it is a condition that confers advantages as well as disadvantages.
Most of today’s individuals who identify with the gay agenda are keen on tearing down western civilization and its traditions. She has my admiration if she is bucking that trend.
There are still celibates in the modern world, Lisa. Convents and religious communities continue to exist, though the numbers are certainly fewer. I had an excellent Sister/Scholar who taught me as an undergrad at a Catholic university. And celibacy as a private individual is always an option, religious vows or not. So couldn’t Ms. Paglia have chosen the celibate life, with an intense devotion to her scholarship, as one sort of solution here? Not perfect, but many of us make sacrifices in life, one way or another.
This reminds me of the anomaly that Groucho Marx described in saying, “I don’t care to belong to any club that would have me as a member,” only this is its antithesis — Ms. Paglia does want to belong to the club that would not have her as a member.
My apologies to everyone for getting off on this tangent.
I know Bipolar people and I don’t see that in Camille. I see an Italian, an up-state New Yorker, and a bit of an exaggerated personality; and somebody who’s had to fight a cabal to be heard.
I’m far more concerned about the general thrust of the culture toward producing what Robert Bly calls ‘half-adults’ than I am about the particulars of Ms Paglia’s private life. It’s by her work she would rather be known too. As to maintaining perspective, let’s remember, Admiral Horatio Nelson had a mistress ….
Lisa, permit me to play Devil’s Advocate as well, by saying that you have lost me on the Camille Paglia analogy. I thought the whole thrust of this recent discussion was that homosexual unions are immoral — and then suddenly we discount the private life of anyone practicing homosexuality if we agree with their academic work? Following that line of thought, why don’t we discount it for everyone whose career we admire? The logic falls apart here. You were so sure in your statement above …… What happened? Either it is right or it is wrong, period. It is as if we are selling a dispensation to Camille Paglia because she has produced academic work that appeals. I agree that no human being is perfect, but why even bother thinking about sin if we can just brush it off with, “Oh, well.” So if someone practicing homosexuality did not produce work that appealed, then the homosexuality would be wrong? How many other people does the work have to appeal to? Do you see where I am going here? What are the parameters of accepting homosexuality, or not accepting it? As I say, you had just stated unequivocally that you think it is immoral, so this is confusing.
Yes, I don’t approve of Paglia’s homosexuality. But her homosexuality is not the point of her academic work, which constitutes a major achievement, any more than Nelson’s adultery, which I also don’t condone, was the point of his Naval career.
Here’s a three hour interview with her. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Cami
Geoff,
You are generously making up arguments on my behalf and then triumphantly declaring they are circular.
If I misrepresent you then testify to the wrong. I reiterate my question: what _is_ the gay person who seeks the kingdom to do? I think we’re all quite well-rehearsed by this point on what you think they ought _not_ do.
Start here.
Ah. No advice for those in the reality-based community then? I’m sure you’re aware of the success rates of “reorientation.” If the options you offer are “Wrong Choice” and “Fictitious Choice” you can hardly be too censorious when gays choose the former.
Well, you did ask. Perhaps what you really meant was: “give me an answer you think I want to hear.”
I realize that this discussion could go on for a very long time without reaching any conclusions, but why is it that so many other human behaviours outside the norm are considered neurobiological problems, for which therapy is sought? O.K., I suppose someone could ask for a definition here of what “the norm” is to begin with; fair enough. Let’s say that Psychopathy and Bipolar I Disorder and Schizophrenia and Autism and ADHD and severe learning disabilities and mental retardation are considered outside the norm. Not that the people on whom these have been visited are any less as human beings, but that their neural wiring has a problem somewhere/somehow. They did not ask for or deserve this. However, in the western world at least, societies and families and individuals generally spend vast amounts of time and money and worry on trying to find either a full cure, or a therapy for these conditions.
So why do some people consider that homosexuality is to be taken as a given? I very rarely hear of research for a cure, or even of much work being done on viable therapies. Homosexuality can be taken as a sin, or perhaps as a neurobiological problem. Either way, why not attempt to remedy it? No cure or therapy has yet been found for many forms of cancer, or Autism, or Psychopathy. Doesn’t stop us continuing to look. And for the neurobiological conditions, there has been much ado lately over neuroplasticity, and the fact that the human brain is more maleable than once thought. Can the changing of homosexual behaviour not be approached in this way? What valid attempts have been made? Or is the gay agenda too strong for this, and is pushing one view of homosexuality only? There was a time that every case of cancer was fatal, but we have now made great strides, medically. Why can’t we attempt the same thing for homosexuality?
Perhaps this addresses part of your question, Anonymous.
Camille Paglia writes,
“After the American Psychiatric Association, responding to activist pressure, removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973, psychological inquiries into homosexuality slowly became verboten. To even ask about the origins of homosexuality was automatically dubbed homophobic by gay studies proponents in the ’80s and ’90s. Weirdly, despite the rigid social constructionist bias that permeated the entire left, gay activists in and out of academe now leapt on the slightest evidence that could suggest a biological cause of homosexuality. The very useful Freudian concept of “family romance” (typified by the Oedipus and Electra complexes) is almost completely gone. Yet the intricate family dynamic of every single gay person I’ve ever known seems to have played some kind of role in his or her developing sexual orientation.
The widespread desire to find a biological basis for homosexuality seems to me very misconceived. It will inevitably lead to claims that gays are developmentally defective at the prenatal level. I myself believe (as I argued in “No Law in the Arena” in “Vamps & Tramps”) that everyone is born with a potential for bisexual responsiveness and that exclusive homosexuality is an adaptation to specific social conditions. When a gay adult claims to have been gay since early childhood, what he or she is actually remembering is the sense of being different for some reason, which in boys often registers as shyness or super-sensitivity, leading to a failure to bond with bumptious peers. This disjunction, with all its painfully stifled longings, becomes overt homosexuality much later on. But retrospective psychohistory is out these days, and the only game in town is pin the tail on the oppressor.”
Thank you, Lisa. Camille Paglia considers herself a Lesbian, I believe. I know that she has served up some clever academic theories, but I am not terribly familiar with her work.
I do agree that the gay agenda tightly controls how we are supposed to think about homosexuality at any given time, and they punish those who do not tow the line with accusations of homophobia.
I consider Camille Paglia to be without peer as a thinker in the humanities today. And, yes, she identifies as lesbian, but not without qualification. She did so before it was fashionable; she also admits to feelings of lust (if not love) for men and says she doubts there is such a thing as exclusive homosexuality. “Given the intense hormonal surge of puberty, the total absence of adult heterosexual desire is neither normal nor natural. ”
I don’t agree with everything she says, but I admire her enormously. She really went against the grain with ‘Sexual Personae’, as I was reminded recently by Shulamith Firestone’s death. Sad to say, what she says is still going against the grain.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/camille-paglia–i-dont-get-along-with-lesbians-at-all-they-dont-like-me-and-i-dont-like-them-8076611.html
David, I have to say that I truly admire your wit and bravado. Not everyone has the guts to announce that the Emperor has no clothes. Personally, I would seek a parish/denomination in which the life of the unborn child is respected, and where marriage is recognized as a union between one man and one woman, unrelated ….and that this is paid more than lip service. No polygamy, no incest, nothing other than this. I could feel even more at home if they refrained from the anti-Israel nonsense I have heard at several Christian churches. And to wrap it up, I wouldn’t say no to an appreciation of fine arts in Christian worship — there is godliness in that, too. But I don’t want this to sound like a dreaded bucket list. What it seems to come down to is how one defines Christianity — what are the crucial elements? And what is the “nice to have?”
Indeed, it takes real guts to calumniate the families of new clergy from behind the veil of the intertubes -_-
Oh, I think they’re the ones hiding behind the institutional power of the Church caught up with the temporal and fleeting fashion of pop psychology and identity politics.
David, on the other hand, is but a singular voice using what slender means there is available to him to assert the business of the Church — as the Church itself ought — is the psycho-biologically sound and spiritually transcendent.
Yes, Bravo, David.
Here, here.
Geoff
You are making my head spin. Please help me understand your position.
Do you believe that homosexual sex is a sin? If you do, how can you condone a gay marriage that essentially incorporates sin?
I do not believe in “homosexual sex” so you will have to clarify what you mean by that. The only thing that makes sex “homosexual” is who is doing it. If an act is immoral, it is immoral, regardless of who is doing it. If it is not, it cannot suddenly become immoral when someone else does it. In my experience, “homosexual sex” is most often a euphemistic misnomer for rectal intercourse, to which I would answer that I am not inclined to defend the practice for gay or straight couples. Your question is a good one, though, but it applies to all marriages. Placing what is otherwise a sin into a context where it can be condoned (dare we even say celebrated?) is exactly what marriage does, and earlier prayer books were rather more frank about the “remedy against fornication” aspect.
I would say that if a child is involved, the “who is doing it” does become an issue, most certainly. I am sure there are other cases, too, in which the “who” or even the “why” are going to matter, in terms of what is or is not a sin. Just off the top of my head, I think most good people would find it just a little more reprehensible that a person in a position of trust had committed an unacceptable act against someone in their power, for instance, than if, say, a peer had done the same thing. Who does something, and why they do it, does indeed matter.
Really? Would you not think it pretty wide of the mark if someone tried to sell you on the idea that pædophilia was immoral only if one committed by someone of one gender, but not of another?
I agree. As Gore Vidal famously said, “there are no homosexuals, only homosexual acts.”
The rest is easy to sort out. Marriage is between one woman and one man. ALL other sexual liaisons constitute fornication or adultery.
So we’re back to gays being SOL. Marriage is both the only relationship which can tend to salvation, and also closed to gay people. In other words, we can just go to hell, literally and figuratively.
And Jesus wept for the hardness of their hearts …
You make this stuff up, right?
What about nuns? Monks? St. Paul? Jesus? John Stott? My great aunt Ada?
You don’t make any sense, Geoff. Let’s put in ‘sibling-partnered’ in place of ‘gay’ in what you just said and see how it reads:
“Marriage is both the only relationship which can tend to salvation, and also closed to sibling-partnered people.”
In the litany of absurdities peppering your comments prior to this one, that apothegm, pulled so effortlessly from your do-it-yourself guide to moral living, stands out as a particularly fine example of mindless gobbledegook.
If they`re so absurd, coming up with a response that isn`t question-begging, special pleading, or name calling should be a cinch, shouldn’t it?
I assume your reference to question-begging relates to your saying “And thus the endless loop of question begging begins: gay and lesbian unions are immoral because they are not marriages, and are not marriages because they are immoral.”
I didn’t say that, you did.
What I said was “As for your marriage argument, it only works if you regard a same-sex union as “marriage”; I don’t.”
You have employed your usual tactic of putting arguments in other people’s mouths and declaring them circular.
Same-sex relations are immoral because the Bible says they are immoral. Based on the Biblical view of marriage and thousands of years of understanding of marriage, to call same-sex unions “marriage” is to discard any sensible meaning of the word: you might as well call a boiled egg a chicken and berate me because I refuse to acknowledge that it clucks..
Sex between two men or two women is sinful whatever label you choose to attach to the relationship: even if you call it “marriage”, it cannot be a marriage.
While my remarks may have been pungent, pointed, imaginative, incisive, clever, witty, insightful and colourful, I don’t think I have resorted to calling you names.
And I notice that you have not addressed the profoundly silly:
If I lock someone up in a room it’s kidnapping; if a judge does it, it’s justice.
If a husband makes love to his wife it’s good. If a neighbour does, it’s adultery.
If a soldier kills an enemy it’s patriotic; if I shoot my boss (not that he’s my enemy – really), it’s murder.
On the matter of what is and is not marraige, from Mark Chapter 10:
“And the Pharises came to him, and asked him, Is it lawfull for a man to put away his wife? Tempting him.
And he answered, and saide vnto them, What did Moses command you?
And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of diuorcement, and to put her away.
And Iesus answered, and said vnto them, For the hardnesse of your heart, he wrote you this precept.
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male, and female.
For this cause shall a man leaue his father and mother, and cleaue to his wife,
And they twaine shalbe one flesh: so then they are no more twaine, but one flesh.
What therefore God hath ioyned together, let not man put asunder.
And in the house his disciples asked him againe of the same matter.
And he saith vnto them, Whosoeuer shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
And if a woman shall put away her husband, and bee married to another, she committeth adulterie.”
Seems pretty clear and direct to me. God is the one who creates marraiges, and He will make them a joining of a man to his wife. Therefore, no such thing as a “gay” or “same-sex” marraige.
Funny how the no poofters crowd are so keen to truncate the quote there. “Not all can accept this teaching …” Doesn’t sound like such a full stop after all does it?
Yes, and if you read a little further it is clear from the context that ‘not all can accept this teaching’ refers to Jesus’ teaching on divorce.
Friend, since you don’t care what the bible says, only how it can be twisted to serve a vile purpose, I suggest that you not jeer at the those who do. It adds hypocrisy to dishonesty.
And if we did not know that unnatural vice was wrong, horrible and disgusting, we would learn it from its apologists. Any evil cause can be “defended” by the tactics that you are using here. If someone has to engage in these kinds of tactics and deceit for their cause, it’s not a cause worth holding.
Geoff,
What are you talking about? The passage of Matthew 19:11-12 is actually
“But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
It has become quite obvious that you are the one who is being selective in what you are quoting, you are the one who is deliberately taking the Word of God out of context, you are the one who is purposefully twisting the Holy Bible into something you prefer (which it is not). Seems that you are one of those who are not able to receive it. My heart feels sorry for you, and I pray that you realize the error that you have made and that you will bring yourself to reconciliation with God.
Geoff
Please. Simple questions, simple answers.
Same-sex sexual relations is a sin. Sexual relations outside of marriage is a sin.
I am aware of two members of the same sex who live in a platonic relationship, even though they are attracted to each other physically. Is that a sinful relationship? is that a marriage?
Geoff – I’ve met quite a few of the Zacchaeus Fellowship folks. I’m sure they’d be surprised to discover that their life stories are ficitious.
Only if they’re so deep into the lie they believe it themselves.
Have you considered the possibility that they aren’t “so deep into the lie” and you are?
Geoff
Why get so angry? Your salvation doesn’t depend on what we think. It depends on what God thinks.
Man. Just found this thread. It is _awesome_. Can I post the whole thing to Facebook? Not that I would — wouldn’t be polite, and it says some very nasty things about many people I love and respect in my own church — but it would be amazing to watch.
A judge could send an inocent man to jail. A responsible citizen could lock up in a room a serial killer for life. Just saying.