Compassion and homosexual activism

Many of us have friends who have homosexual inclinations, or we have had such friends at some time in the past. Part of the success of the agenda of homosexual activists lies in making use of this fact after blocking off the possibility of real compassion consistent with traditional and Christian ethics. Those who have homosexual friends are made to feel that they are betraying those friends and are not showing love and compassion for them if they say that homosexual behavior is a sin or if they take such behavior or feelings into account in any way in public interactions (aka "discrimination").

Real, Christian compassion for people with same-sex attraction involves the assertion that such attraction is objectively disordered, which leads one to see the attraction as a tragedy and a burden in the first instance. Indulging and acting on it, on the traditional understanding, is a sin, but it is, of course, a sin that can be both resisted and, when committed, forgiven. All these theological and moral ideas lie at the heart of Christian compassion for people with homosexual feelings.

But the concept of compassion for people with same-sex attraction has been co-opted, even within the Christian world, by those who believe, even when they don't argue, that the only way to be compassionate is, in fact, not to be compassionate. Here's what I mean: If you don't think that same-sex attraction is objectively disordered, there is no point in feeling sorry for a person who suffers from it. In fact, you don't think of him as "suffering" from it at all. And if he is unhappy, you certainly aren't permitted to view his same-sex attraction as being in itself a cause of even part of his unhappiness. Hence the only way a liberal can feel sorry for a person with same-sex attraction is to assume that he is a victim--in other words, to heap blame upon traditional sexual morality and to drum up dislike and anger toward those who accept that morality. And that really isn't compassion. It's treacly liberal victimology and sentimentalism, but it isn't compassion.

It behooves me at this point not to beat around the bush. (Everyone knows how prone I am to beat around the bush.) As hinted at above, if you believe and say openly that same-sex desires are objectively disordered, you will be likely to support the legitimacy of discrimination on that basis in various cases. You will probably support the legitimacy of discrimination even on the basis of the desires without the actions in a number of easily-identified situations, particularly those where the sexes are segregated intentionally, and also those where one wants to be able to rely on one's employees to uphold a certain moral standard. In the latter case, one might justifiably reason that a person with strong same-sex desires is particularly likely to act on those desires and thus compromise the particular moral atmosphere of one's organization. This would be all the more likely if the person thought that his desires were definitely normal and just happened not to be acting on them at the moment. And, of course, if one believes that homosexual acts are sinful, one might very well not want references to such acts to be brought into one's business, and there would be many situations in which one would discriminate on the basis of active homosexual behavior in business relations.

But we've been taught that it is downright mean, even wicked, to refuse someone a job, and still more to refuse him (and his "partner") an apartment, on the basis of such a consideration, and being mean, of course, is the opposite of being compassionate.

I'm afraid there is nothing for it but for Christians to get their thoughts clear on this matter and to stop promoting the liberal lies that pass for compassion. Doing so is helping no one, least of all homosexuals themselves.