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The “Problem” of Homosexuality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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W.E.B. Dubois, speaking of his experience of being a black man in North America in 1903, wrote:
Between me and the other world is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying it directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.
For Dubois, the greatest injustice that African-Americans faced was not the outright malevolence of the ignorant, but the general tendency of even the enlightened to assume that blacks, by virtue of their being physically different from the majority of those in the dominant ethos, posed some kind of problem that needed to be addressed. Even those who “accepted” Dubois and treated him respectfully caused him to wonder why he needed to be “accepted” in the first place, and why he could not assume the respect of others. Dubois realized that the oppression and injustice he experienced was deeply rooted in the very presumption that his physical distinctiveness outweighed the immense commonality he shared with others and called into question his status not only in this culture but in the human community.
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- Copyright © 1994 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The Souls of Black Folk. (New York 1989) p. 1–2.fGoogle Scholar
2 Some would argue that distinctions of race cannot be equated with distinctions of sexual orientation, insisting that the color of one's skin is truly “accidental”, while sexual activity is “essential” to one's humanity. As such sexual orientation falls under normative ethical categories, and can be judged as right or wrong in a way that race or ethnic origin cannot. Nevertheless, I would maintain that the experience of oppression and violence is similar and related, regardless of how one rationalizes or justifies this oppression. The fact remains that some persons are outcast, alienated and discriminated against by the dominant culture because one constitutive pan of their personhood does not meet the expectations of the dominant culture.
3 I generally will be using the terms homosexuality and homosexuals as well as the terms gay and gays and lesbians, because “homosexuality” is the language used in the documents and in most of the theoretical discourse. While I appreciate many gays' insistence on using alternative language, I think that homosexual is an inclusive term for both men and women and is most precise in the context of this discussion.
4 See further: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II 90—94; Jean, Porter,. The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics. (Louisville, especially pp. 34‐100Google Scholar, 172–180. Gula, Richard, What Are They Saying About Moral Norms?. (New York: 1981), pp. 34–53Google Scholar.
5 Mahoney, James, The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition. (oxford: 1987)Google Scholar.
6 This epistemology and criterion for truth is most clearly developed in the pragmatic tradition in North American thought and is articulated most fully in the work of C.S. Peirce. See further, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by Hartshorne, Charles and Weiss, Paul. (Cambridge: 1931)Google Scholar. Vol. 5.1–212; 5.358–410.
7 For a thorough historical treatment of homosexuality and homosexuals in the West see. Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. (Chicago: 1980), pp. 3���60Google Scholar, and particularly notice p. 9, footnote number 9. Also see, Countryman, L William, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications For Today. (Philadelphia: 1988) pp.118–119Google Scholar.
8 Countryman. Ibid. pp.110–123, and 30–32, 60–64. McNeill, John. The Church and the Homosexual. (Kansas City: 1976) pp. 37–107Google Scholar.
9 The foundations and implications of this distinction are still being fiercely debated, particularly between the essentialist and social constructionist models of sexual identity, and/or the minoritizing and universalizing schools of thought. For a thorough treatment see Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, The Epistemology of the Closet. (Berkeley: 1990), pp. 1–90Google Scholar.
10 Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Declaration Concerning Certain Questions in Sexual Ethics. 1975. On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. 1986.
11 Moore, Gareth O.P., in his article, “Are Homosexuals Sick?”(New Blackfriars. Vol. 70, No. 823, 15–19)CrossRefGoogle Scholar points cut that the basic Vatican position that homosexuality is a “condition” is neither a development nor improvement over previously held positions. By referring to homosexuality in “quasi‐medical” terminology they are still implying that homosexuality is somehow a “sickness” or “disease” that afflicts people. While this calls for a more pastoral and sympathetic approach to homosexual persons, it still stigmatizes and denigrates them as somehow inferior and defective, now not in a moral, but in an anthropological sense. Moore points out that this is both irrational (homosexuality does not have any of the qualities of what we would normally call a sickness or disease), and contrary to the tradition that only referred to homosexuality in a moral sense.
12 This is not to deny the reality of genuine bi‐sexuality; but it seems to me that bisexuality raises a separate set of issues which may qualify, but not substantially challenge, the point that I am trying to make I have chosen to limit this discussion therefore, to two basic types of sexual orientation.
13 While it may be true that some of the reaction against homosexual persons has been a reaction to homosexual acts which are thought to be detrimental to the common good, in other words, that there is an ethical rather than just prejudicial (i.e. irrational) basis for this oppression, this can in no way way explain or justify the type of exclusion and violence perpetrated against homosexual persons in the popular culture. Other sexual acts that violate ethical injunctions (masturbation or adultery for instance), do not have the same stigma attached, and do not justify the oppression of persons who perform these acts. (To my knowledge there are no Western cultures that systematically discriminate against masturbators, or even adulterers, although both would be clearly wrong given most forms of moral reasoning in regard to sexuality.)
14 I am referring here basically to the “hermeneutic of suspicion” and “hermeneutic of recovery” that have become common in feminist thought, and the hermeneutics of “preferential option for the poor” or the “theological‐liberative” hermeneutic employed by Leonardo Boff and other Latin American liberation theologians.
15 For the most profound articulation of the Roman Catholic understanding of sexuality and relationships see, The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium Et Spes), part II. chapter I.
16 See: Paul, Pope VI. Humanae Vitae. (New York) 1968)Google Scholar. Declaration Concerning Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics. The Code of Canon Law. (Canon Law Society of America 1983)Google Scholar. Canons 1055 — 1057.
17 “To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals of the Creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self‐giving which the gospel says is the essence of Christian living.” (emphasis mine) On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. (#7).
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