Homosexuality, Gay Marriage, and Holiness — Transcript

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1. 0:00Oh, I think the world will tell you when it comes to homosexuality,
2. 0:03you only really got two options:
3. 0:04Option number one, you can hide in the closet out of fear,
4. 0:08that if anyone knew you felt that way, they would hate you and be bigoted against you
5. 0:12or if you don't want to live in a closet, and frankly who would, it's not a very comfortable living arrangement,
6. 0:17then come out of the closet, embrace your sexual attractions as your identity,
7. 0:20forget about God, the Church and the Bible and do whatever you want with your body.
8. 0:24So those are your options, gay pride or gay shame.
9. 0:27Now make your choice.
10. 0:27Now imagine you feel kind of stuck in the Middle here . OK, wait a minute,
11. 0:32yeah, I don't really want to reject God, but I mean, gay shame? Is that my only option?
12. 0:36Shame, I mean, why should I feel ashamed of an attraction I never chose?
13. 0:40It's not like I woke up it’s like, “Oh, it's Tuesday, I think I'll be attracted to this person today.”
14. 0:44No, you don't choose your attractions, just your behavior,
15. 0:46so why should you feel shame at something you never chose?
16. 0:49Will people hate you for having these feelings?
17. 0:52I'm sorry, yeah, sometimes they will.
18. 0:54You know, and unfortunately, these people are out there.
19. 0:57You see them on TV with their signs: “God hates gays,” and I’m like, "No, God hates your stupid sign, OK."
20. 1:03You know that's what he hates.
21. 1:04But the problem is fanatics like that make the world believe that if you believe in traditional marriage, you're a hateful homophobic bigot.
22. 1:12But is this the case? I don't think so.
23. 1:15In fact, not long ago, I went to a store to buy a frame of a painting that an artist had made for me,
24. 1:20of Pope John Paul II and I put the big painting down on the desk and the framer came out
25. 1:24and he took one look at it and he got kind of quiet and he said “Oh,
26. 1:30Pope John Paul II.” He said “I used to be a Catholic boy, but
27. 1:33the Church doesn't want me anymore.”
28. 1:34I said, "Well, what do you mean the Church doesn't want you?"
29. 1:36And he opened his heart up to me about homosexuality and I said, "No. The Church wants you,
30. 1:41this is your home. God loves you. I love you."
31. 1:43And he was like “What church do you go to?”
32. 1:45And I told him, "Oh, it's Saint Mary's.
33. 1:47You should come with me to Mass sometime with my family," and we had a wonderful conversation.
34. 1:50A couple weeks later, I came back and I saw him there: "Hey, how you doing?"
35. 1:53And he said, "You remembered my name?"
36. 1:55And I said, "Yeah, how you been?"
37. 1:56And we had a fantastic conversation. About ten minutes into it, his eyes started to turn a little red and moist
38. 2:02and he said, "Can I hug you?" I said, "Absolutely." He came up behind the counter around to me,
39. 2:07and just gave me this huge hug, this was just a beautiful moment.
40. 2:09And I think that he was so touched because he knew
41. 2:12I loved him and I loved him enough to tell him
42. 2:14the truth that your sexual attractions are not your identity.
43. 2:19that if I define myself by my sexual attractions, I don't know, my life is gonna get real confusing real fast.
44. 2:24Because if I'm attracted to a woman who is not my wife, is that my identity?
45. 2:29If I drive by a pornographic billboard and I think she's pretty, like, is that my identity?
46. 2:33No! The world is telling us that, like if you experience this feeling, that's who you are.
47. 2:38There's all these different identities you can have.
48. 2:40But the fact is the Catholic church doesn't think there's fifty-eight different types of people in the world.
49. 2:45Well, there’s gay persons and lesbian persons, bisexual persons, transgender persons, and so on.
50. 2:50Now, the Church is not gonna deny that some people have certain experiences, inclinations, and attractions,
51. 2:55but what the Church affirms is that a person is a rational being.
52. 2:59But what that means is there's really only three kinds of persons.
53. 3:03There's divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
54. 3:06there's angelic persons: the holy angels and the fallen angels (the demons),
55. 3:10and then there's human persons: made male and female in the image and likeness of God.
56. 3:15And so, if you're a human who has homosexual attractions, you know what kind of person you are?
57. 3:19You’re a son of God or you're a daughter of God. That is the deepest truth about your identity.
58. 3:25And you might think, "Well, that's nice and everything, but what does that mean on a day-to-day basis?
59. 3:30I basically either have to obey the Church and live a life of loneliness and desolation
60. 3:35or disregard the Church and face damnation? Are these my only two options: damnation or desolation?"
61. 3:41Well, thankfully, those aren’t the only two choices.
62. 3:43In fact, it might sound surprising, but the Church is not telling anybody that they can't love.
63. 3:48In fact, I would argue that the Catholic Church is just about one of the only institutions on earth
64. 3:53that's actually challenging us all to truly love.
65. 3:56But the fact is, I think, our idea of love often needs to be redeemed.
66. 4:00Look at what Pope John Paul II had to say about love.
67. 4:04"We must not forget that love for a human being must also contain certain elements of struggle.
68. 4:09Struggle for the beloved human being and his or her true good.”
69. 4:15The difficulty is the world tells us that sex equals love
70. 4:19and if you can’t have sex, then you're not really loving.
71. 4:22But the fact is sometimes abstinence is a tremendous expression of sacrificial love.
72. 4:27This is hard to see though, because our world is so hypersexualized.
73. 4:31I mean think about it. You turn on the TV: every product, every car, every piece of gum, this deodorant,
74. 4:36everything becomes sexualized and it's just gotten ridiculous.
75. 4:39I was at a store and I saw a magazine there. It was like a craftsmanship, wood working magazine for carpentry,
76. 4:45and it said on the cover that inside were the "Blueprints for Sexy Shutters,"
77. 4:50and I’m like, "Oh come on. I mean, is this what we've come to: sexy shutters?
78. 4:54And could you imagine if you were at home and one of your friends came over
79. 4:56and he came in your kitchen and he said, "Wow, you know, you have to really sexy shutters in your kitchen."
80. 5:02And you’d be like, "Wow, like you're a really weird friend."
81. 5:06But this is the culture that we live in. Products are sexualized, our friendships are over-sexualized.
82. 5:11If you're a guy and you really like hanging out with another guy and you really enjoy being in his company,
83. 5:16people are like, “Hey, ya kinda having a little bromance going over there?”
84. 5:19"No, we're not, this is a healthy masculine friendship."
85. 5:22And the same is happening in other places. Well, you know, girls hanging out with a lot of girls.
86. 5:26"Well, you know you seem to spend a lot of time with her. I mean, you really seem to be drawn to her.
87. 5:30Are you having like a girl crush over there?"
88. 5:32And what people don't understand is that you might not have heard this before,
89. 5:36but you're supposed to be attracted to members of the same sex.
90. 5:40You heard that correctly because God made them very good and there's so much about us that's attractive.
91. 5:45Your wit, your humor, your personality, even your beauty is supposed to be attractive
92. 5:51and not every attraction is sexual.
93. 5:54In fact, I knew a guy who lived a very actively promiscuous gay lifestyle
94. 5:58and after years of this, he said, "You know what I realized after all this time?"
95. 6:02He said, "I realized that wasn't really homosexual. He said I realized I was homo emotional.
96. 6:06I was longing for the attention, the approval, the affection, and the admiration of another man,
97. 6:11which I never received from my own father.
98. 6:14and the world has taught me to sexualize my problems."
99. 6:16Now I'm not saying from this, that nobody has sexual attractions for members of the same sex,
100. 6:22but simply that not all attractions are sexual.
101. 6:25And so for those people who do have sexual attractions, where does this leave them?
102. 6:28Some people think, "Well, what does this mean? You know, I can't, I can't love,
103. 6:31we can't get married, I mean what does the Church hate us? Is the Church bigoted against us?
104. 6:35I mean what about, you know, 'marriage equality?" Well, I think the problem with marriage equality
105. 6:40is that that slogan might fit well on a bumper sticker, but it really doesn't say anything, and here's why:
106. 6:45If I wanted to marry two women, are you in favor of marriage equality for us?
107. 6:50Most people would say, "Well no, Jason. I mean, if you can't make up your mind and that's not really a marriage."
108. 6:56OK, fair enough. Let’s say I pick one
109. 6:58and we wanna have a marriage that's open.
110. 7:00In other words, we'll marry each other, but we're open to having affairs with other people mutually, we’re agreed to this.
111. 7:05Do you think that's a marriage? Are you in favor of marriage equality?
112. 7:08Most people would say, "No, you gotta be faithful." OK, well let’s say I'll be faithful,
113. 7:12but we don't want it to be permanent.
114. 7:14Instead of, you know, entering into wedlock we're gonna have kind of a wed-lease,
115. 7:17kinda like a ten-year marriage license and if things are working out after ten years, we’ll get another one
116. 7:22and if they're not working out, well then, no hard feelings.
117. 7:25Most people say, "No, marriage also needs to be permanent."
118. 7:27OK. I saw a woman in the news recently who married herself. Is that a real marriage?
119. 7:32And for most of these cases do you hate these people? Are you bigoted against them?
120. 7:37No, because it’s not about hatred, it’s not about bigotry.
121. 7:40It's about one thing: What is marriage?
122. 7:43And in all these cases, I just presented to you, you'll notice the question is not, may they get married,
123. 7:49as if it's a question of permission. The question is, can that be a real marriage?
124. 7:53It's a question of possibility. So it's not about, you know, equality and fairness, it's about what is marriage?
125. 7:59And in order to answer this question, we can't simply be guided by our sentiments, and our emotions, and our heart.
126. 8:05We also use, need to use, our intellect.
127. 8:08Because if marriage means anything, then it means that some things aren't marriage.
128. 8:13And so the question is where did it come from? Is it simply a human institution ratified by the government?
129. 8:18Or is marriage from God the Father?
130. 8:20And if it is, then what the Church teaches is that when it’s talking about marriage,
131. 8:24it is not primarily talking about what two people do: they exchange vows and they stay together,
132. 8:28but primarily what marriage is, is what two people become:
133. 8:32A visible image of Christ’s love for his bride, the Church.
134. 8:36Earlier in the program, we had talked about how this love, when it's sexual, should reflect God's love.
135. 8:42It should be free, total, faithful, and fruitful.
136. 8:45Now, two people of the same sex could be faithful to one another.
137. 8:48They could enter into a relationship without being forced by another person.
138. 8:51But the question is, can their bodies totally give themselves to the other?
139. 8:56Can their sexual union, by nature, be fruitful?
140. 8:59And the answer is no. And this is not about hate speech or bigotry, it's just about biology.
141. 9:05Because marriage is not consummated by two people doing something sexual.
142. 9:09A marriage is consummated by the two becoming one flesh.
143. 9:12And some will argue, "Well, the Church just needs to be a lot more tolerant than it is."
144. 9:15But you were not created to be tolerated. You were created to be loved.
145. 9:19And if you love somebody, you can't lie to them.
146. 9:21You can’t pretend a false compassion to be more merciful than God is.
147. 9:25When you love someone, you have to speak the truth to them. And part of the truth of Christianity is the Cross,
148. 9:30and this, no doubt, is one: to pick up your cross and follow him.
149. 9:34It's difficult and this suffering comes in life—when our wills don't match up to the will of God.
150. 9:39And this happens in all of our lives. And at these critical moments, we are faced with this question:
151. 9:44Do I love God to the abandonment of my own will
152. 9:47or do I love my own will to the abandonment of God's will?
153. 9:50And at these points in life, what we need more than anything, is fellowship.
154. 9:55Because we can live without sex but we cannot live without intimacy.
155. 9:58Fellowship, friendship, people who love us enough to speak the truth to us and lead us closer to Christ.
156. 10:04And you know the Catholic Church has canonized people as saints who have been from all walks of life.
157. 10:09We've got kings who are saints, we’ve got slaves who became saints,
158. 10:13we have prostitutes, and virgin martyrs who became saints.
159. 10:16And I look forward to the day in the Catholic Church where there are canonized saints
160. 10:20who experienced homosexual attractions and chose to glorify God with their bodies.
161. 10:25No doubt this is difficult, but in those moments of your life, when you sometimes don't accept yourself,
162. 10:30and you don’t feel accepted by others, know that God is always the one who accepts you, that he loves you,
163. 10:36that he has a plan for your life,
164. 10:37and on behalf of anyone who has ever expressed any hatred or bigotry towards you,
165. 10:42I ask your forgiveness on behalf of the Church, for the times that we have failed to love you properly.
166. 10:46Because I'll tell you, I grew up in an all boys high school.
167. 10:50And, at the time, it was an extremely homophobic environment.
168. 10:53We were all so insecure, "You're gay." "No, you’re gay." "No, you're gay."
169. 10:56You know what we were being? There's actually a theological word for it, it comes from the Greek "idiotes"
170. 11:01and in English, it's "idiot". OK, that's what we were being.
171. 11:04And so as a result of this, I need to ask your forgiveness.
172. 11:07And I've outgrown that garbage, but unfortunately, some people haven’t.
173. 11:10And so we need your friendship in our life. And I hope you'll realize that you could use ours as well.
174. 11:16Because I'm sick and tired of the media telling us that we all hate each other because that's not true.
175. 11:20We love you and we need you in our lives as well, and the Church is your home.
176. 11:25You’re called to communion and let's do this thing together. No more of this "they" and "us", "we" and "them",
177. 11:30all it is "us"—the family of God with all our different crosses stumbling together, through life,
178. 11:35trusting in the Father who has a plan for each one of us.