Gay, Catholic and Doing Fine

[drfuzzy]

@CL: Have you considered that your children may not come out to you at all, or even repress their sexuality, knowing what you will think of them?

If they are gay, I can see them having to choose between the church and their happiness.

Hi Rob. 

No, I haven't considered that. Because I plan on being a good, loving mother... and that will show by how I treat them. I won't raise my children to think that I'll stop loving them if they tell me they have an *involuntary* attraction towards particular type of people, regardless of what that is. Especially since that attraction isn't wrong in and of itself, considering it isn't freely chosen. And I certainly won't raise them to think I'll stop loving them if they do something I don't agree with. It would be like me asking you the same types of questions except if your kids became Christians, you know? I'm sure you would still be an excellent father to your kids and I'm sure you would still love them. 

Also I'm not sure what you mean by "what I think of them?" Like I said yesterday, we are supposed to feel about gay people the same way we feel about everybody else, and that is to love them. A person's sexuality shouldn't identify them or change the way we feel about them.      

Hmm, I don't see why following Church teaching and happiness have to be mutually exclusive. After all, we are commenting on a thread where a gay Catholic man is talking about how happy and fulfilling his life is...

Well, CL . . . I wish that my very religious mother had been more like you.  She told me to never darken her door again, never write, never call - (this was back in 1988) - because I'm gay. Most of what you have posted on the matter has seemed quite sane to me.  

With one exception: the acceptance of the Church's requirement that a homosexual person be celibate.  You keep defending that one.  Even though you know that being gay is not a choice.  So, as folks have said before, you're essentially saying that God made this person to be attracted to someone of the same sex, but that attraction is evil, therefore, this person can never have sex. And you apparently don't see any problem with this, because you're normal and properly married and it doesn't apply to you.  Spend one day in my shoes and I guarantee you that you'll be re-considering that position.  

It is possible that a gay male who is Catholic COULD be happy being celibate.  If he is, it's because he's basically asexual, not because of anything the church requires. It's possible that he, like me, is celibate by circumstance and not by choice.  Have the right guy come along and church or no church, he'll change his tune instantly.