An edited comment.

Mr. and Mr. Cleaver.

Editor's note:  I wrote this response to a comment on another post and thought I'd try to edit it for some clarity.

Another idiosyncratic take on things.

I've been watching some of the PBS programming for Pride Month after the regular prime time schedule on gay issues. Late Sunday night parents of gays - members of PFLAG I guess, discussed their children 'coming out' - their children spoke about the experience as well, included were their stories of the reaction of the Church - it was deeply moving. It was very sad, but heartening the way the parents accepted and affirmed their kids. The documentary, Anyone and Everyone also dealt with the tragedy of kids kicked out by their parents, becoming homeless and so on. All terribly sad and deeply convicting.

I think I understand that the way for parents to accept their children as gay was realized in and through their ability to separate love from the idea of sexual intimacy. The separation of love is the answer - throw aside the sexual acts - and focus on the emotional need. Each of us deserve someone to love and be loved by, and a person should be allowed the freedom to build a life with whomever they choose, and so on. This appears to be the reason why ss-marriage has become acceptable - "it's about love, not what people do in their bedroom, not doctrine, not dogma" - the Mormon mom said that in the program. I understood that, I could second the emotion - I don't condemn these people nor do I condemn their kids. Far from it - I think they are caring and loving.

So we live and let live. 

Quite seriously, I definitely mean it when I say, 'who am I to judge' - not a question BTW. I can't control what other people do or what they believe and I accept people I know, as well as the people I watched Sunday night on television. I understand - without being able to agree, however.

I don't know how to say this, but within doctrine and dogma there is truth - truth which frees us - it isn't just a set of rules to control populations - it's deeper than that. It's the source of life and genuine love. Most cannot be convinced of that however.

Fr. Longenecker kind of, sort of addressed what I was trying say in this regard:

Therefore, in the present debate over same sex marriage Americans simply cannot comprehend that Catholics operate according to a different set of systems. We believe that same sex activities and same sex marriage are wrong, not primarily because we think such things are “yucky” and not because we “hate gays” or because we want to tell them they are all going to hell.

We believe these things are wrong for clear and articulate reasons. We believe they are wrong for reasons that we can explain and outline clearly. Furthermore, we can believe they are wrong while still accepting gay people, not judging them and allowing them into our lives. - The Swamp of Subjective Sentimentality

 It is not simply a matter of subjective sentimentalism however.

The thing is, there are people on the gay rights side who actually care deeply about dogma and doctrine - H. Clinton and Obama for instance, calling for religions to change their teaching - to accept this new 'doctrinal' development... or else. This after they admitted to having evolved in their own thinking of the issue.

The original moral problem in the 20th century has been how love and sexuality has been separated... or rather divorced. Artificial contraception deliberately separated sex from marriage: The children's rhyme, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage, ceased to be the ordinary way of life and love. And as my friend Mack pointed out in a comment on another post, there is no longer anything special about your sexuality or mine. Nevertheless, that's a pretty startling development - and doesn't change the fact homosexual acts are immoral.

Conscious revolution.

Personally, I sense a sort of barrenness about this lack of specialness regarding one's sexuality, an inherent impotence, or soullessness as it were - as if the difference between soul and body no longer exists. Not sure how to express that, but I think it is the same reason why genderlessness has come to the surface of social consciousness. When we separate love and sexuality, we do so, not only for our pleasure, we do so to placate our conscience on some level, making it easier to accept what normally would repel us. (Think the Mormon mom in the documentary I mentioned.) When we do that our understanding undergoes a sort of fractalization. An algorithmic technique of organizing familial structures, identities, genders, sexualities, and so on.  (Please excuse the creative license with terms.) 

For instance, the new "Gay Catholics" expend a lot of energy and thought on sublimating their sexual desire, attraction, and affections, attempting to invent new lifestyles/community/partnerships totally aloof from sexual/genital expression. Sounds great, in keeping with Catholic teaching, but something is off with that. I sense a sort of new Gnosticism - or as I sometimes like to call it, a fractilization of familial stereotypes in the process of conscious evolution...

I know how crazy and conspiratorial that sounds - but I'm just a crackpot blogger, don't forget.

If she marries a cat - will the kids be Other-kittens?

What?

Song for this post here.  (Just for Mack.)