Order in Same-Sex Love

I’m speaking tomorrow morning on this topic, at Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture fall conference. This year’s theme is order and creation, so I decided to adapt the relevant chapter from Tenderness. I am bone-lazy and did not make a powerpoint, and then in the very first talk I went to at the conference, I realized how great powerpoints are for audiences when you have a lot of material and references to convey quickly. So I’m hoping I can direct people to this blog post as a substitute. If you want any of this in more detail, especially the theological explorations of Scripture and the implications for contemporary gay people, Tenderness is the place to find it.

Also, if you have questions or thoughts, my email is eve_tushnet@yahoo.com and I will answer you eventually!!

The starting point: A lot of Catholic rhetoric toward or about gay people uses the term “disordered.” This term is extremely easy to misunderstand.

# sounds medical/psychiatric, thus evokes the whole awful history of medical “cures” for homosexuality

But the biggest problem isn’t even the difficulty in parsing “disordered.” The biggest problem lies in how we imagine gay people’s desires becoming ordered. Many Catholics assume that the Church’s logic means that gay people’s desires become ordered by becoming heterosexual. “Have you tried not being gay?”

what if: WHAT IF our same-sex desires can become ordered not by switching the object of our affections, but by being expressed in harmony with our faith?

# the same depth and intensity, the same life-shaping devotion, now… chaste????

Scripture: God’s Word presents same-sex love as an image of God’s love for us, and ours for Him, primarily in three places: the covenant of David and Jonathan; the promises of Ruth to Naomi; and the kinship love of Jesus and John the Beloved Disciple. Each of these accounts combines emotional power and theological richness, helping us understand our place in salvation history, but lol I don’t have time to get into that, I just want to convince you that this is a) real love which b) speaks directly to the deepest aspirations of at least some gay people.

I Sam 18:1 – 4, 2 Sam 1:26

Ruth 1:16 – 7

John 19:26 – 7 and like, the whole Gospel of John; St Gertrude the Great’s vision of John describing how he lay against Jesus’ Breast and felt the beating of the Sacred Heart

History: For centuries, Christians have found ways to forge kinship bonds between people (mostly men) of the same sex. Best cite here for my purposes is Alan Bray, The Friend. Surprising (maybe?) resonance between these cultural/religious practices and the text of Scripture. Ruth’s promises as publicly-known forms of same-sex love.

# one form: exchange vows on church steps, hear Mass together and receive the Eucharist, exchange the Kiss of Peace.

These cultural forms were lost, for reasons that are too long to go into here, and also most of these people were married, so what makes me think that these practices are relevant to contemporary gay people? I’m glad you asked! Gay people with “a traditional sexual ethic” are discovering the guidance Scripture and history already provide for our longings. Individual Christians, mostly gay because we’re the ones who want it most urgently, are renewing covenant friendship and other forms of celibate partnership.

This renewal is awesome but, like all awesome things, creates new problems.

# The challenge for communities: If you’re offering good guidance in same-sex love, now your church looks a lot more gay. This is a good thing! But a lot of people are gonna feel some kind of way about it.

A vision: Dunstan Thompson. Who’s that guy?

A gay response to physical beauty, and to one man in particular, becomes ordered–and becomes more intense, more devoted, more trusting, and more beautiful. Book here!

# home, Heaven, friend, gratitude, escape and rescue; debts paid, “the Goliath of self-will” gone “up… in smoke,” and happiness at last; order as the overturning of worldly hierarchies, the poor wear crowns and “cats are kind to mice”

# “Statues”

# “The Halfway House” (XI)

This ordered life is not for everyone.

Never, to their surprise, for those who run

Away from love.