The Church’s teaching about homosexual sex is closely related to its
teaching about the sinfulness of all sexual activity outside a loving,
procreative Church marriage.
The sexual act, the Church affirms, must have two core elements: a
“procreative” element, the willingness to be open to the creation of new life;
and a “unitive” element, the intent to affirm loving faithful union. In this, the
Church doesn’t single out homosexuals for condemnation. The sin of gay sex
is no more and no less sinful on those grounds that masturbation,
extramarital sex, marital sex with contraception, heterosexual oral sex,
indeed, marital sex without love.
In some ways, of course homosexual sex is less sinful. The
heterosexual who chooses in marriage to use contraception, or who
masturbates, is turning away from a viable alternative: a unitive, procreative
sexual life. The homosexual has no such option; he is denied, because of
something he cannot change, a sexual act which is both unitive and
procreative. If a homosexual man had sexual relations with a woman, he
could be procreative, but not unitive, because he couldn’t fully love her. And if
he had sex with another man, he could be unitive in his emotions, but,
because of his biology, not procreative. So the homosexual is trapped by the
Church’s teaching, excluded from a loving relationship for no fault of his own;
and doomed to a loveless life as a result.
The Church urges compassion for such people. But the Church’s real
compassion is reserved for another group of people who, like homosexuals,
are unable, through no fault of their own, to have unitive and procreative sex:
infertile heterosexuals. The Church expresses its compassion not by
excluding these couples from the sacrament of marriage, but by including
them. Sterile couples are allowed to marry in church and to have sex; so are
couples in which the wife is postmenopausal. It’s understood that such
people have no choice in the matter; they may indeed long to have unitive
and procreative sex; and to have children. They are just tragically unable as
the Church sees it, to experience the joy of a procreative married life.
Marriage, defined by the theologians is between a man and a woman.
When pressed further, they venture: well , sexual relations between two
infertile heterosexuals could, by miracle, yield a child. But if it’s a miracle
you’re counting on, why couldn’t it happen to two gay people? Who is to put a
limit on the power of God? Well, the Church counters, homosexuality isn’t
natural, it’s an “objective disorder.” But what is infertility if it isn’t a disorder?
The truth is, as the current doctrine now stands, the infertile are defined by
love and compassion, while homosexuals are defined by loneliness and sin.
The Church has no good case why this should be so.
No one should be singled out and stigmatized for something he cannot
change, especially if that something is already a source of pain and struggle.