Scouting For Homosexuals?

Help me out here — I’m a Scout leader who’s been suddenly plunged into some heated discussions on morality. Have you had any experience with the Boy Scouts?

You bet — they had a huge influence on me as I was growing up, and my sons have been very involved. I try to volunteer with them a bit when I’m not writing for Envoy! What’s up?

Well, you must have heard of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision — a guy who was a professed homosexual sued because the Scouts wouldn’t let him be a Scoutmaster . . .

Yes, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear that case soon, probably at the end of June or in early July. Meanwhile, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of benefits and protection for homosexual “marriages.” Eventually this case will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court as well. Now let me guess . . . You’ve been getting into some heated arguments on the BSA case?

You got it — and people are really emotional! Why is it so difficult to engage in rational discussion with opponents on this issue of homosexual rights?

Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), has a letter called “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” (hereafter referred to as “PC”) in which he notes a tactic of the homosexual rights movement: If you criticize the movement in any way, that’s tantamount to unjust discrimination (PC 10). You’re suddenly committing a crime as devious as racism or sexism. This tactic unfairly prevents rational argument. If you disagree, you’re automatically an oppressor of homosexual persons.

Is there any way to break through this problem?

Rational discussion is possible if you observe a few ground rules at the outset. Early on in the discussion, affirm that homosexuals are persons — in fact, don’t use the term “homosexuals” at all. Use “persons of homosexual orientation.” You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes, casting a whole new tone on the conversation.

Gotcha. I know lots of people who basically have their heads in the right place, but who come across venomously. What next?

You must make one absolutely central distinction early on in the discussion: There’s a fundamental difference between race and gender on the one hand, and different sexual orientations on the other hand. Being a person of color is not a disorder. Being female is not a disorder. But the desire to use one’s sexuality in an unnatural way is a disorder, just as kleptomania is a disorder.

Do we want to give kleptomaniacs special rights? After all, they’re “victimized” by a disorder not of their own choosing. This parallel helps us to see that there’s a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, denying a group of people their basic rights because of their skin color or gender and, on the other hand, denying practicing homosexuals a special set of rights.

Does that mean that homosexual persons have no rights?

No, and that brings us right to a second key distinction, made in another key CDF document, “Concerning Legislative Propo-sals on Non-Discrimination Against Homo-sexual Persons” (hereafter referred to as LP). As human persons, homosexual persons have rights just as anyone else does: the right to work, the right to housing, the right not to be treated in a way that offends their personal dignity. But these rights aren’t absolute; they can be legitimately limited in the case of objectively disordered external conduct — conduct to which they have no right (see LP 11, 12). Just like the kleptomaniac!

What are examples of such limitations?

It’s not unjust to take sexual orientation into account (note that it must be externally manifest in some way) in such instances as placement of children for adoption or foster care, employment of teachers or athletic coaches, military recruitment, and in the current test case, choice of troop leaders in the Boy Scouts of America. A kleptomaniac, analogously, has the same rights as any other citizen, but has no right to steal. Until the disorder is brought under control, such a person can fairly be refused all sorts of activities in society.

The terrible killing of the young man in Colorado would be an example of truly unjust discrimination. To curb such abuses, don’t we have to grant special rights to homosexual persons?

To grant a special set of rights would cause — already does cause — exactly the opposite effect. Crimes violating the legitimate rights of homosexuals are intolerable. “But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational eruptions increase” (LP 7; PC 10). 

So the problem with homosexual marriage is that it gives a stamp of approval to behavior to which no one has a right?

That’s precisely the point. Various benefits go with marriage, and those benefits encourage stable marriages. Homosexual couples want those benefits, but if society were to grant them, it would be condoning and rewarding behavior contrary to natural law. Likewise, being a BSA troop leader is a great privilege. To grant it to a person of who is a self-professed homosexual (and here we are presuming that this person engages in homosexual activity) is to reward behavior contrary to the natural law. 

You refer to the natural law. Many other opponents of homosexual “rights” seem to base their arguments on the Bible. Then, proponents of such legislation start quoting other Bible verses about God’s love and being non-judgmental.

It’s great to appeal to divine Revelation, but if you do, you’ll rightly be criticized for forcing your religion on someone — something which is disallowed in a political order such as ours that prizes religious liberty. We’re free to practice any religion or no religion, but we can’t violate the natural law, that moral law known by reason. It’s the same law that tells us to treat one another justly. Obviously, there remains the common objection that “natural law” is itself a religious idea, and that the notion of homosexual orientation as an objective psychological disorder is also simply a religious judgment, not a scientifically demonstrable fact. But we have dealt with that argument in earlier issues of Envoy (for quick access to a whole range of articles on this subject, go to www.envoy magazine.com, click on the “articles” link, and type in “natural law”).

Can even the natural law, though, be “forced” on anyone? Everyone says, “You can’t legislate morality.” I just saw a bumper sticker that read: “Get your laws off my body.”

First, something that’s built into you — human nature — isn’t something forced on you from the outside. Second, our nation’s founding documents appeal to the natural law as the cornerstone of our political order. (The Founding Fathers used such telling phrases as “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”) 

Third, all good civil laws are based on the natural law. Bad laws are based on a different moral system — such as moral relativism.

Either way, we legislate morality. There’s no such thing as not legislating morality. The only question is which morality ought to be legislated. 

The New Jersey Supreme Court is not being neutral. It’s legislating a very specific moral code — sheer relativism. But our country is founded on the idea that the natural law ought to be the basis of our civil laws. We want lots of diversity in the U.S., but we must have a fundamental unity on the principles of the natural law. When our coins say “In God We Trust,” that’s not about a particular religion — it’s about “Nature’s God,” the God of the natural law, the God who put his “manufacturer’s instructions” inside us.

What exactly is the natural law argument against homosexual behavior?

A much longer analysis is needed to provide such argumentation (see the very first issue of Envoy, pp. 38-43). In a nutshell, there are two aspects to the argument. The first is biological: The human generative faculties are not built to handle homosexual types of acts (oral and rectal sex), and such acts cause serious disease. 

This gives us a big hint, written on our biological nature, of the second aspect: Our generative faculties have a built-in meaning within them. These faculties are to be used to express permanent love and to create children — in short, bonding and babies. In homosexual acts, the sexual faculties are used in a way that denies both. It may seem as if the bonding part could take place, but that happens rarely, as the sexual activity is largely recreational. Heterosexual acts can be merely recreational too, but that happens in spite of, not because of, the nature of heterosexual union. 

We could add a lot to this argument, but the main point is that the argument can be made on the basis of reason. You aren’t forcing a religion on someone when you take a stance against homosexual marriage. Of course, Christianity and other religions offer excellent additional arguments based on divine Revelation.

The natural law argument is good, but it doesn’t offer much comfort to someone struggling with homosexuality.

To know that there really is something called moral truth can be a great comfort. But you’re right — more is needed. Fr. John Harvey has founded a great organization called Courage as a support network for homosexual persons trying to live chastely (call 212-268-1010). Some such persons can repair their orientation, fully or to some degree. A fine book by Gerard Van den Aardweg, Battle for Normality (Ignatius Press, $11.95), offers a “self-help” method, and the National Association for Reparative Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is an organization committed to helping individuals find competent professional help (call 818-789-4440). 

Also, it’s important to realize that everyone has difficult struggles in life. We can make a basic distinction between the raw material each of us brings to the moral life and the moral life itself, in which we make good or bad choices. All of us are disordered in some way and to some degree in our “raw material.” These constitute objective disorders, one of which is the homosexual inclination (see PC 3).

We all have the capacity to do as we ought, particularly with the grace of Christ. “What is at all costs to be avoided is the unfounded and demeaning assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and therefore inculpable” (PC 11). A tough message, but ultimately a very freeing message.

Any comments on homosexual adoption? There seem to be some similarities between this and the BSA situation. In both cases, some person of overtly homosexual orientation is given care of children and young people.

Becoming masculine/feminine is a subtle accomplishment, not an automatic given. If society does not take care to create the right structures for human growth, distortion can easily take place. For example, how does a boy learn to be masculine? Certainly with male models, like the troop leader, and in particular the father. But part of the father-as-model is the way the father relates to his spouse; the boy must learn that aspect of masculinity, an aspect not available with two parents who are male.

Do we know this for sure?

It’s true that we don’t have enough data in on how children develop in a homosexual household. But we have an age-old tradition of raising children in the context of heterosexual marriage. Aren’t we experimenting with our children when we think we can “see what will happen” in a homosexual environment? Such experimentation runs contrary to the personalist principle and suggests a fundamental selfishness on the part of homosexual couples adopting children (which is not to deny their unselfishness on many other levels). None of this is to say that heterosexuals are perfect models of unselfishness.

So, it looks as if the Boy Scouts may be setting out, unwillingly, on a program of human experimentation.

Good way to put it. Your word “unwillingly” is especially poignant: The Scouts are under the tyranny of the State, what John Paul II calls the “thinly disguised totalitarianism” to which democracies are so vulnerable. Under the guise of neutrality, open-mindedness and tolerance, the State (through the judicial branch) is forcing an esteemed organization to fit into a very narrow view of morality. This foolish action of the state is intolerant, close-minded, and not neutral in the least! Let’s hope and pray that the Supreme Court will not rubber-stamp such coercion. 

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Mark Lowery, Ph.D., is an associate professor of moral theology at the University of Dallas. His e-mail address is lowery@acad.udallas.edu