There it is on a list of 60 or so clubs at my daughters’ high school. Amid the Chess Club, Karate Club, Astronomy Club, Powerlifting Club, and Robot Club is the Gay and Straight Alliance Club. With straight faces we have alliances like this at our high schools.
How can we do this? By muddleheaded thinking like that of Father Ed Koharchik, associate director of the University of Texas’ Catholic Center. In the February 10, 2009 edition of The Daily Texan he is quoted as saying, “Whether one is gay or straight, it’s morally neutral.”
Is that true? It is true to say whether you’re black or white is morally neutral. Whether you’re male or female is morally neutrally. Whether you’re a Longhorn from U.T. or an Aggie from Texas A&M is morally neutral …but just barely. However, truth and falsehood aren’t morally neutral. The 8th Commandment won’t let them be. And the 5th Commandment doesn’t allow being Pro-Life or Pro-Choice to be morally neutral either.
What about the 6th Commandment? Is sex with or without marriage morally neutral? Is sex between same sex couples morally neutral? What about sexual orientation? Is it morally neutral whether you are gay or straight? (To be consistent, why don’t we say gay and sad or straight and crooked?) It can only be morally neutral if lust is not sinful. If it is not morally neutral to want to tell lies or want to kill babies, than it can’t be morally neutral to want to sleep with someone you’re not married to whether male or female.
But is it morally neutral to be sexually attracted to the same sex? Well is it morally neutral for an adult to be sexually attracted to a child? How about for a human to be sexually attracted to an animal? We know these are not morally neutral. Our basis for knowing this is the 6th Commandment which forbids sex outside of the safety of marriage and the order of creation which confines sex to male and female humans. God says that the reason a male seeks out a female is because she was taken out of man. What was once one is now two and the two parts long to be back together. The reason humans don’t seek animals is because after surveying all the other creatures in Eden “no suitable helper was found” for the man.
Once you give up the order of creation and/or the 6th Commandment, the place you stop is purely arbitrary. Right now the UT Catholic Center is “founding a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender support group,” but having given up God’s order and God’s command they have no divine reason for not adding pedophile and bestiality.
St. Paul writes about the impossibility of joining conflicting moralities. “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols” (2 Cor. 6:14ff)?
Think it is too strong to group those who think sexual issues are morally neutral with idolaters? Well, does the true God teach sexual orientation is morally neutral? If He does, then I’m worshipping an idol. If He doesn’t, then Father Koharchik is.
Please be clear. We aren’t talking about whether someone with a homosexual orientation can be saved. Of course, they can be. When Jesus says in Matthew 15 that out of the heart come “evil thoughts” and “sexual immorality,” He doubtlessly includes homosexual thoughts and orientation. People with these are no less save-able than murderers, liars, thieves, and slanders are.
What we are talking about is causing a little one who believes in Jesus to sin. I have no doubt that there are kids at the UT Catholic Center support group and in the Gay and Straight Alliance who want to be forgiven and freed of the chains of their sins. By teaching them that their sin is morally neutral, they are being made to feel comfortable in them. You do this and you’re better off having a millstone hung around your neck and thrown in Lake Travis. N.B. Jesus doesn’t say this about the sinner, but about the teacher of sin.
