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“Homosexuality… Good or Bad? ” In the documentary film “The Laramie Project,” many issues were brought up and discussed throughout its duration: socio-political ones such as laws against hate crimes as well as socio-ethical ones such as live-and-let-live philosophies. However, what may have truly caught my attention, and probably as well as others’, was the controversial socio-ethical topic of homosexuality. The story of the documentary film “The Laramie Project” revolves around Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming.
While at the Fireside Bar on the 6th of October 1998, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson approached Matthew and was offered a ride. Subsequently, McKinney and Henderson started robbing, hitting, and torturing him before tying him to a fence somewhere in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. After he was tied, McKinney and Henderson left him there before someone discovered him 18 hours later, who at first thought that Matthew was a scarecrow.
Matthew was then brought to the hospital where he remained in a coma for a little over three days before dying an hour past midnight on the 12th of October 1998 due to severe head damages and internal lacerations. This account, although tells a story of a brutal murder, is actually deeply rooted from Matthew Shepard’s sexual orientation. Taking the film into consideration, what it states about homosexuality is not exactly a blunt announcement.
Rather, the film tries to arrange fragments of the whole and attempts to make something coherent and significantly intelligible out of the pieces. The film shows the social injustices done on homosexuals as can be verified by Matthew Shepard’s murder. The film also explains that homosexuality is a sensitive topic that many could not fully grasp. The film also featured persons stipulating the need to have laws against anti-homosexual acts. Truly, people everywhere have long been debating about the disputatious subject on homosexuality.
Some also say that this condition is something natural, an inborn trait which is inerasable, just something as natural as having brown hair or blue eyes. Therefore, it is not a disorder per se at all; because of this, they also say that homosexual acts are as innate as being a person is. Some retort back and reason that homosexuality is never acceptable and is a vile and condemnable characteristic because it is unnatural and abnormal of us human beings and that it also violates our very essence in the world.
However, these are just people’s opinions and views. We need real insights on this matter and who else could give us a concrete and profound explanation regarding homosexuality but the omnipresent moral justice advocate, our Mother Church herself. According to Church doctrines, and I quote, “Although it remains to be determined if homosexuality is a genetic … stigma, homosexual acts are condemned by God and can never be approved by the Church (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Genesis 19:1-29, Romans 1:24-27 and CCC 2357).
If homosexuals are born with the condition, then they are called to live a life of Christian purity and chastity for the greater love of Christ. Such people can experience a life of trial, which all others must treat with compassion and sensitivity. ” The Church is telling the Catholic community that God created us for complementary union and procreation, which is why homosexuality is an unnatural behavior. The only way that homosexuals can be “saved,” so to speak, is by living a chaste life for “the greater love of Christ. However, the Church would also want to emphasize is that it is the homosexual acts which are unaccepted and condemned by God, not the homosexual individual. This clarification is important because these two things are not intrinsically intertwined with each other. This teaching also acknowledges the saying, “Hate the sin; love the sinner. ” Despite all of these heated discussion though, I still believe that homosexuality is not malevolent in itself. Homosexuality just means that one is attracted to the same sex. What is wrong with that? If that is a deep and sincere love, then so be it.
Isn’t that what matters? If it isn’t a deep and sincere love, then that is natural, even among heterosexual couples. Love, as defined in our Christian morality class, is the greatest of all theological virtues, in fact the greatest of all virtues, and is defined as “a selfless, unconditional, and voluntary kindness. ” Love is also the ability to accept another despite several imperfections and flaws. If each one accepts the other whole-heartedly, voluntarily, unconditionally, and selflessly, isn’t that tantamount, if not equal, to the love shared between individuals in a heterosexual couple?
If this is the case, why should homosexual unions be referred to as “unnatural disorders contrary to the human nature of procreation and complementary union” when it might just very well be the same? Saying that homosexuality is morally improper because procreation is absent is practically synonymous to saying that infertile heterosexual couples are committing morally inappropriate acts, which we all accept as not because love for one another is still present. That case is no different from those of homosexual couples.
Adoption is always an option for both homosexual couples and infertile heterosexual couples. As for the “complementary union” purpose of heterosexual couples, I think that homosexual couples do not need complementarity to be able to unite effectively; unconditional love for one another would already suffice them. For example, here in the Philippines, there are many groups which continue to advocate and support homosexual rights such as homosexual marriages. In the US, some areas have accepted the truthfulness of homosexual marriages and have already legalized them.
Of course, no marriage is perfect; it will always have imperfections. However, it is important to note not to attribute the imperfections with the sexual orientation of the persons involved. Religious people, however, even how much explanation I offer, will always state that homosexuality is a morally incorrect characteristic that needs to be cleansed from homosexuals. They will also accentuate the trend that children who are adopted by homosexual couples are less healthy and have a poorer overall well-being than their adopted-by-infertile-heterosexual-couples counterpart.
I say that homosexual marriage is morally correct if, first and foremost and probably most importantly, it is solely founded on love for one another. As for the issue of the difference between children adopted by homosexual couples from those who were adopted by infertile heterosexual couples, I say that there are other contributors and circumstances in which the children adopted by homosexual couples could be affected such as financial needs and the children’s initial behavior and personality as well. Nowadays, deliberation???or more appropriately dispute???among the Church and the homosexual groups in the world are still proceeding.
Much substantial information have yet to be presented to determine whether homosexuality is indeed a freedom of choice or is hardwired into the core of our being???our genes and whether homosexual marriages are wholly unallowable or not. Reiterating what I have stated, I see nothing wrong with two people who are truly committed to each other and who sincerely love each other, and that does not exclude homosexuals. As long as deep inside them, their intentions are true and free of deceit, their relationship is a respectable one.