A Weed Solution?

The article I mentioned in last week’s post has made me think a lot.  This is my response to it, so if you haven’t read it, I recommend clicking here and reading the story of Josh Weed, a gay Mormon married to a straight woman. 

Weed is careful to describe his experience of homosexuality by his attraction to men.  He notes, “Sexual orientation is defined by attraction, not by experience. ”  The latter part is true.  Or at least I hope so—else I’ve lied every time I’ve said I’m gay.  And certainly same-sex attraction is a pretty good indicator of someone’s sexuality. However, I do not think that for myself or for most gays and lesbians, “attraction” completely covers what it means to be gay or lesbian.  For me, being gay means I get crushes on and fall in love with men the same way many of my straight friends fall in love with women.  Perhaps this distinction between same-sex attraction and same-sex love is why I’ve found general the only people who stick to the term “homosexual” are those who are somehow uncomfortable around it.  Those more familiar with us “homosexuals” realize it goes deeper than just sex, or just physical attraction. 

Thus, Weed, though he may feel same-sex attraction, is not gay in the same way I feel I am gay.  One can be guided by something he points out in this beautiful quote:

“When sex is done right, at its deepest level it is about intimacy.  It is about one human being connecting with another human being they love.  It is a beautiful physical manifestation of two people being connected in a truly vulnerable, intimate manner because they love each other profoundly.  It is bodies connecting and souls connecting.”    

First, I would like to note his lack of emphasis on physical attraction in this quote.  This lack of focusing on merely physical attraction is at the heart of the Catholic conception of love and marriage.   John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body (47:2), reminds us that according to Plato, eros is the internal desire for towards everything good, which lifts man up to the divine (Symposium 205d, 211).  However, it’s more than just that.  JP II teaches, “man becomes the image of God…in the moment of communion—“ the moment of sexual intercourse (10:3).  However, humans acting in lust “no longer seem to express the spirit which aims at personal communion.  They remain only an object of attraction” (TOB 32:1). 

If Weed’s homosexuality remains limited to mere same-sex attraction, to act on it would indeed be sinful lust.  He does not see man and cry out in the “first time joy and even exaltation” of Genesis 2:23 of finding his “second self” (TOB 9:4). 

I have not experienced Weed’s separation of love and attraction.  Indeed, if it is possible to separate the “mutual attraction” John Paul II writes about as intrinsic to conjugal love elsewhere in TOB, and sex, it seems to me to be inconsistent with how JP II understood his Theology of the Body (though, admittedly, so is applying the idea of the love JP II writes about to same-sex relations).   Regardless, in this case I shall assume Weed has a greater understanding of his own personal experience than I do.  However, though members of Church may be tempted to prescribe the Weed solution to all their gay friends, I assure you, to do so would be to disrespect their self-understanding, and indeed the nature of love our late Pope set down that has been dominating Catholic thoughts on sexuality of late.

In any case, I want to end on a different note.  Since the whole Chick-Fil-A debate has flared this week, I wish I could write a post on it.  However, since I have gone on long enough about LGBT stuff, I want to leave you this last piece of food for thought on the human effect of the debate over LGBT status.  Please focus less on the chicken, and more on the meat of what he has to say, especially this: 

“…When we rant about the pastor who preaches that gays should be thrown into a concentration camp, we scream out of fear. And our fears are justified -- in the last seven days, a lesbian in Nebraska was carved with a knife, a gay man in Oklahoma was firebombed, and a girl in Kentucky was kicked and beaten -- her jaw broken and her teeth knocked out -- while her assailants allegedly hurled anti-gay slurs at her.”

I urge you in any discussion of LGBT individuals’ religious or civil status to be mindful of the context your words are spoken in.  Even if the above situation is not what is meant to be conjured by your words, it understandably might be.