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July 13, 2005

The yuck factor

Last week I was watching this series on FX called "30 Days". I guess the point of the show is for people with opposite values or living styles to live together for 30 days and grow to understand each other. I bet you can already figure out where I am going with this.

So, the episode I was watching dealt with a conservative Christian (Protestant) going to live with a homosexual man in San Francisco. For the entire show, he seemed to be holding on to his values, but there was something interesting in his thinking.

A lot of his comments were either "That’s disgusting" or "Well the Bible says this..." The first part brought me back to my Catholic Morality Class last semester. In it we learned about something called the 'Yuck Factor'. The yuck factor is when you base your morality on whether you view something as disgusting, nasty, etc. This fails to work, however. Once upon a time abortion was viewed as disgusting and horrible, as well as contraception. Even the way people dress today was once considered evil. What is even more troubling is in Germany, where many cases of cannibalism are showing up. If people continue to base their morality based on the 'yuck factor', who knows, maybe one day we will be able to go to the Grocery Store and buy a pound of good ground round meat from humans. Rather scary morality when you think about it.

This is why morality must be based on objective moral truths found in the natural law. This is why the morality of most Christian denominations are so... lax. At one time, each condemned abortion and contraception. Then contraception was OK, but abortion was most certainly not OK. Then they couldn't be sure about specific cases on abortion, and before you knew it, abortion was a matter of personal choice for a woman. The same thing is now happening with homosexaulity in protestant denominations. The Catholic Church, however, never based its morality on this 'yuck factor', but on objective moral truths. (Objective meaning that no matter what anyone thinks, it is true.)

The Catholic Church's condemnation of abortion, contraception, homosexuality (keep in mind that in each case the Church does not condemn the sinner, but the sin), and countless other immoral things have been based on something deeper then whether or not people think something is nasty. Regardless of whether or not any of these are nasty or not, the objective truth is that they are wrong. This is why the moral teachings of the Church do not change, even if everyone around it disagrees with it.

The gift of human sexuality is one of the most beautiful things which God has given to mankind. To distort this gift is telling God that we know better then he knows. The male-female relationship, in all respects, is absolutely complementary. Anything else is not. Nature itself shows this complementary role. This is why homosexuality is not in accord with the natural moral law.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2357: Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 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. - Catechism of the Catholic Church

In the middle of writing this, I decided to read the Primate of Canada Cardinal Marc Ouellet's, the Arcbishop of Quebec, letter to the Canadaian Parliment. It is of course on the issue of homosexual marriage. It is a very good letter, and genius. Consider, of course, that it doesn't take much to impress me. This really did impress me though, because he explained why homosexual marriage is wrong, not based on theology but based solely on reason. For anyone with questions on why this is wrong, without getting into the whole theology problem of the issue, read this letter. Here is a quote from it:

"Furthermore, the argument of those promoting homosexual "marriage" in favor of equal rights is also based on a false notion of respect for human dignity. The equality and dignity of persons do not depend on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or marital status. Their dignity and equality are based on the simple fact that they are members of the human race. To respect their dignity, neither the State nor society is obliged to legally accept their "lifestyle" that has no reason to be publicly recognized as a social value." - Cardinal Marc Ouellet

Click here for the entire letter...

This why the Church teaches what it does. The Church has not changed her teachings on this for two thousand years for a reason. It is not because she is unenlightened, but because she is enlightened. That is just the begining of the problems which this guy faced. There is the whole issue of the Bible and Church authority.

As for the show, if you don't know the ending, you will have to wait for my next post which will deal with Sacred Scriptures to find out if he stayed faithful or not... Pax et Bonum.

God Bless!

Posted by cr3do1 at July 13, 2005 10:19 PM

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