GAY PROM DATE UNACCEPTABLE

Gay Prom Date Morally Unacceptable
by Charles W. Moore

It is a measure of how far through Alice's looking glass Canadian society has fallen that an Oshawa, Ontario, teenager is threatening to sue the Durham Catholic District School Board over its refusal to allow them to bring his 21-year-old boyfriend to its high school prom as a date.

Surely if freedom of religion means anything at all, a religious organization must have the right to impose standards of moral behavior consistent with its doctrinal principles at its institutional functions, and male/male romantic coupling is non-negotiably unacceptable according to Catholic moral teaching.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that "sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes," and that "Based on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (articles 2351, 2357, 2358)

The Biblical standard is clear for Christians of all denominations. Pertinent Scriptures include Genesis 19: 5, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Judges 19:22, Romans 1: 26-27, 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 and 1 Timothy 1: 10, all of which express absolute opposition to homosexual behavior.

A Catholic priest friend of mine observes: "As Christians, we can not deny that homosexual activity [not to mention its proselytization and propagation] transgresses both the Law and Tradition. Nor may we, through a conspiracy of silence, acquiesce in its imposition as a social normative. Such 'permissiveness' is but the ultimate formula for social dissolution. What sinners may wish to do in consort with each other is an entirely different matter, but when such activities are promoted as the equal of the Natural Order one enters the world of the absurd. The idea of Adam and Adam as a suitable equivalent for Adam and Eve as the social norm is just too ludicrous to take seriously as a valid thought, much less an ideal."

Reportedly, the homosexualist Oshawa teenager has argued that the school allowed a pregnant student to attend its prom last year. That is a whole different issue. Pregnancy outside of marriage is the consequence of sin, but it is not sinful itself, nor are male/female romantic relationships, which can potentially, but do not necessarily, lead to sinful (non-marital) sexual couplings, intrinsically sinful.

On the other hand, there is no moral legitimacy, actual or potential, in a homosexual relationship, which definitionally implies male/male sexual activity, since sexual relations are what makes the relationship homosexual. If there were no sex, it would simply be a platonic friendship.

J. Edward Troy, Catholic Bishop of Saint John, New Brunswick, wrote several years ago in an open letter to his then-MP on a related issue:

"Adultery (Mark 10: 6-9) and fornication (1 Corinthians 6: 18-20), heterosexual promiscuity (Ephesians 5: 3-5), as well as homosexual practices (Romans 1: 26-27) are considered sinful. Is the church to be accused of hate-mongering for seeking to deter people from adultery, fornication, or promiscuity? Unrealistic and unfashionable, perhaps! Mocked and laughed at, maybe! But certainly not guilty of trying to stir up hatred of adulterers, fornicators, or prostitutes! Nor does the church incite hatred against homosexuals when it holds homosexual activities to be sinful. It measures actions against the teaching of Holy Scripture but it does not condemn persons, the judgment of whom is left up to God."

And to those who might hurl epithets of hypocrisy at the Catholic Church predicated on recent high-profile sexual abuse scandals involving priests, that is also an entirely different issue, and a shameful one, but sinful abrogation of the Church's moral teaching, and indeed criminal behavior, on the part of individual religious leaders, in no way excuses or legitimizes the sins of others.

The Vatican has recently acknowledged that a major contributor to these sex abuses has been reluctance of bishops to apply the 1961 Vatican document which prohibits the admission of homosexuals to the diocesan priesthood and religious orders. The document states: "Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination," because priestly ministry would place such persons in "grave danger." Vatican officials are now reportedly pressing harder for enforcement so that people of permanent homosexual orientation are screened out as candidates for the priesthood. Allowing gay dates at Catholic school dances would be completely inconsistent with this reaffirmation of traditional Catholic moral standards.

It will be interesting to watch how this tawdry little soap opera about the gay prom date plays out, especially if it eventually goes to court. Religious freedom is hanging by a thin thread in Canada.