Increasingly over the years anyone who
does not agree that
homosexuality is not perfectly normal are met with denouncements as a
homophobe.  The homophobe tag is now thrown along quite freely
at anyone who dares to accept accept homosexuality or even worse saying
it is sinful.  Say anything negative about homosexuality and
you are instantly branded a homophobe.  This is an annoying
trend, but even worse is the trend to try to litigate if you do not
accept gay orthodoxy.  The misnamed Human Rights Council in
Canada has
been doing just that in regards to commits against homosexuality and
the same types of things are now happening in England.

I think though that we can take a page out
of the homosexual activists play book and defend ourselves against
charges of homophobia.  They are not going to accept natural
law arguments or arguments from scripture so lets use their own
arguments. 

Here is what you do.  If accused
of homophobia simply say that you were born with it and that you did
not choose to be a homophobe and that you find the term itself to be
hateful and judgmental.  If they bring up the fact that
their is no medical evidence of the genetic origin of homophobia, you
say that there is just as much evidence of it than for the genetic
origin of homosexuality.  If they say that twins aren’t always
both homophobes, you remind them the same is true in the cases of twins
and homosexuality.

Now there next line of attack might be
that even if you are born with a genetic preposition towards
homophobia, it does not mean you should act on it.  After all
there might be a genetic preposition towards alcoholism, but that does
not mean the person has to become an alcoholic.  You then
remind them that the same would be true if there was an actual genetic
preposition towards homosexuality.

You could say that even if homophobia has
no genetic origin that you identify yourself as being in opposition to
homosexual acts and that this opposition is just another lifestyle
choice in a pluralistic society.  Why should you give into
their demand for you to change when they should just be tolerant
instead.  Shouldn’t young people in our public schools who
oppose homosexual acts be allowed to express their view in a tolerant
environment instead of being told to shut up and to hide their views in
a closet? 

They might tell you that the
diagnosis of homosexuality as a psychological disorder is no longer
made by the American Psychiatric Association, you can tell them that
there is no diagnosis of homophobia either.   

Tell them not be be a hater or a
homophobepbobe.

Archbishop Chaput is such a wonderful
speaker and First Things posts
his January 11, 2008, presentation in New Orleans, Catholic
Identity in the American Public Arena.  I was going
to post snippets from it, but it is all too good to choose from.

1. George Orwell said that one of the
biggest dangers for modern democratic life is dishonest political
language. Dishonest language leads to dishonest politicswhich then
leads to bad public policy and bad law. So we need to speak and act in
a spirit of truth.

With the presidential election upon us
this year this point is quite appropriate.  “Dishonest
language leads to dishonest politics” is exactly right.  So
often language is used to obfuscate
instead of to communicate.  Whether it is “choice”,
“therapeutic cloning”, “death with dignity”, etc; words are used to
direct us from the reality of what they are talking about.

2. Catholic is a word that has real
meaning. We dont control or invent that meaning as individuals. We
inherit it from the gospel and the experience of the Church over the
centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call
ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe
and how we act. We cant truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act
as though were not.

3. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship
with the Church and with Jesus Christ thats similar to being a spouse.
If a man says he loves his wife, his wife will want to see the evidence
in his love and fidelity. The same applies to our relationship with
God. If we say were Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the
Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes. Otherwise
were just fooling ourselves, because God certainly wont be fooled.

Amen.

4. The Church is not a political
organism. She has no interest in partisanship because getting power or
running governments is not what shes about, and the more closely she
identifies herself with any single party, the fewer people she can
effectively reach.

5. Scripture and Catholic teaching, however, do have public
consequences because they guide us in how we should act in relation to
one another. Loving God requires that we also love the people He
created, which means we need to treat them with justice, charity, and
mercy. Being a Catholic involves solidarity with other people. The
Catholic faith has implications for social justiceand that means it
also has cultural, economic and political implications. The Catholic
faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action,
including political action, is a natural byproduct of the Churchs
moral message. We cant call ourselves Catholic, and then simply stand
by while immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed, or unborn
children get killed. The Catholic faith is always personal but never
private. If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public
decisions and behaviors, including our political choices.

This is the same point that Pope Benedict
makes in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

6. Each of us needs to follow our own
conscience. But conscience doesnt emerge from a vacuum. Its not a
matter or personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the
habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then its
probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of Gods truth
in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because
none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by
submitting it and shaping it to Gods will; and the way we find Gods
will is by conforming our lives to the counsel and guidance of the
Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as
Catholics with the teaching of the Church on a serious matter, its
probably not the Church thats wrong. The problem is much more likely
with us.

Preaching on what conscience actually is
is so important considering how “following your conscience” has become
synonymous with license.

7. But how do we make good political
choices when so many different issues are so important and complex? The
first principle of Christian social thought is: Dont deliberately kill
the innocent, and dont collude in allowing somebody else to do it. The
right to life is the foundation of every other human right. The reason
the abortion issue is so foundational is not because Catholics love
little babiesalthough we certainly dobut because revoking the
personhood of unborn children makes every other definition of
personhood and human rights politically contingent.

8. So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice
candidate? The answer is: I cant, and I wont. But I do know some
serious Catholicspeople whom I admirewho may. I think their reasoning
is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion
issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They dont
keep quiet about it; they dont give up; they keep lobbying their party
and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and
protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if
they vote for them despitenot because oftheir pro-choice views. And
they also need a proportionate reason to justify it.

9. What is a proportionate reason when it comes to abortion? Its the kind of reason we will
be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when
we meet them in the next lifewhich we certainly will. If
were confident that these victims will accept our motives, then we can
proceed.

10. The heart of truly faithful citizenship is this: Were better
citizens when were more faithful Catholics. The more authentically
Catholic we are in our lives, choices, actions and convictions, the
more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our
nation.

His reference to proportionate reason he
has used before, but it is still the purest definition there is.

Damian Thompson reports:

At least two Anglican women priests
have become Roman Catholics because they are fed up with being treated
like dirt in their own Church, according to Fr Michael Seed, the
Franciscan friar who is ecumenical adviser to Cardinal Murphy-OConnor.

Fr Seed a deeply inspiring priest who has received many Anglicans
into communion with Rome reveals this extraordinary detail in an
interview with the Independent, which has buried it away in a feature.
He received two women himself and has now told the Catholic Herald
that other female priests have come over to Rome as a result of
persecution.

This treatment is explained:

Christina Rees of Women and the Church
says: Every woman who is ordained as a priest in the Church of England
knows in one sense there is still a question mark hanging over her
orders in a way which does not hang over the order of her male
colleagues.

Anglican orders for women are just as
valid as Anglican orders for men.  So there is a strange but
unintentional equality within Anglican orders since for the most part
their male priests are not validly ordained in the first place.
There are exceptions since some Anglican
bishops have confused the issue by having Orthodox bishops with valid
orders participate in their ordinations, though of course this doesn’t
matter in the case of attempted ordination of women.

It is rather interesting that in this
environment of doubt that these women would decide to come into the
Catholic Church where there is no doubt on the issue except within
progressive elements who act as their own magisterium.   I bet
though that progressives will see these conversions of Anglican
priestesses the same way Democrats seek black conservatives.

John
Allen Jr. reports on Benedict XVIs appearance at Romes La
Sapienza this coming Thursday and a letter from 63 professors and
students, including the entire physics faculty, demanding that the
invitation be withdrawn.

 …Their charge? That
Benedict XVI is an enemy of science and
reason.

Specifically, the letter points to a speech given on March 15, 1990, by
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Parma, Italy, in which he addressed
the notorious Galileo case. On that occasion, Ratzinger quoted Austrian
philosopher Paul Feyerabend that the churchs verdict against Gaileo
was rational and just.

The physics professors described themselves as indignant as scientists
faithful to reason, and as teachers who dedicate our lives to the
advancement and diffusion of knowledge. These words offend and
humiliate us. In the name of the secularity of science, we hope that
this incongruous event can still be cancelled.

In media interviews, the professors have also cited Benedicts recent
encyclical, Spe Salvi, as hostile to modern science.

…The 18-year-old speech cited by the popes critics, for example,
offered a reflection by Ratzinger on what he saw as a change in the
secular intellectual climate, re-evaluating Galileo as part of a
growing awareness of the ambivalence of scientific progress —
especially under the shadow of the bomb. In that context, Benedict
quoted the judgment of Feyerabend, an agnostic and skeptic, on Galileo,
along with similar statements from Ernst Bloch and C.F. Von Weizsacker.

Here’s what Feyerabend wrote, as quoted by Ratzinger: “The church at
the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo
himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social
consequences of Galileos doctrine. Its verdict against Gaileo was
rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for
motives of political opportunism.

Ratzinger actually called the statement drastic” — upon reflection, a
fairly striking term from a figure who, at the time, headed the
historical successor to the Inquisition.

Ratzinger concluded the speech by saying, It would be absurd, on the
basis of these affirmations, to construct a hurried apologetics. The
faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality,
but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still
greater form of reason.

In a nutshell, therefore, Benedict is being faulted by the physics
professors for quoting somebody elses words, which his full text
suggests he does not completely share. (Readers who remember Regensburg
can be forgiven a sense of dj-vu.)

Mr. Allen nailed that one since once again
the Pope is taken to task
for quoting someone else with much less than full agreement.  
The part in Spe Salvi that they object to is:

Francis Bacon and those who
followed in the intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were
wrong to believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an
expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive.
Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more
human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is
steered by forces that lie outside it.

The objection to this is hard to fathom
unless they really do see science as replacing redemption.

The reason modern scientists chaff is the
same reason that Galileo did and both display the same arrogance.
 Galileo got in trouble for leaving the sphere of science and
entering the sphere of theology with his interpretation of scripture.
 He also left the sphere of science by teaching as fact what
would not be proven to way over a hundred years after his death.
 Many modern scientists so much of the same by entering the
sphere of theology and trying to define what is ethical and what is
not.  To demand the ability to experiment without moral
restraint is not science, but scientism.  The truth is that it
is the scientist who would define theological truths and not the Church wanting to define scientific truths.