Catholic priest’s support of efforts to ‘cure’ gays draws condemnation
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:36 am
- 16 Comments
The opinion pages of the Star Tribune have become embroiled in a war of words over efforts to “cure” gays and lesbians of their homosexuality.
Last week, the Rev. James Livingston, a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis penned a column titled “Some people can make the gay go away” asserting that being gay is a “weakness” that can sometimes be cured through therapy and prayer. On Thursday, OutFront Minnesota offered a rebuttal: “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are not broken. We are not in need of repair.”
Livingston, who heads a support group for men and women with same-sex attractions, penned his column in response to a previous editorial by Ron Bates, “Growing up Catholic and gay in Minnesota.”
“For years and years, I would prostrate myself on the floor and ask God to change me. Maybe if I just pray more, fast more, do more ‘works of charity,’ the male attraction will go away,” wrote Bates. “After more than 30 years of trying to ‘burn’ the evil out of me, I finally came out at age fifty four.”
Livingston responded that non-heterosexual orientations are a product of dysfunctional upbringings:
The plain truth is that people with same-sex attractions experience them differently.
For some, those desires are deeply rooted and long-lasting, while others experience them as symptoms of something else: loneliness, lack of confidence or frustrated childhood bonding with same-sex parents or peers, just to begin the list.
In other words, some people really do find developmental and environmental roots to their same-sex attractions. And yes, some find release from them through therapy or through the mysterious grace of a spiritual awakening.
Livingston said that gay marriage should never be legalized.
“Traditional marriage is rooted in this ancient if inconvenient truth, and it can’t be scolded or legislated away by one misguided generation. History is not and never will be on the side of gay marriage,” Livingston wrote. “Minnesota citizens, you can support traditional marriage and be a friend to persons with same-sex attractions. It’s not an “either/or” issue.”
Rebecca Waggoner, anti-violence program director for OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, and the Rev. Oby Ballinger of OutFront’s Minnesota People of Faith Roundtable, disagreed with Livingston‘s take on the issue.
“Rev. Livingston is wrong: true friendship means valuing friends for who they are,” they wrote. “We cannot call ourselves friends to LGBT people if we work to deny their love, erase their identities, and exclude them from marriage.”
“In reality, many people of faith affirm the inherent human dignity of all people, including those with LGBT identities,” they continued. “They recognize that, instead of asking how we can change a child’s identity, we should ask how we can change our world so children will be supported as they are and be free to make the best choices for their own lives as they become adults.”
Livingston’s words also brought condemnation in the paper’s letters to the editor.
“Livingston’s commentary is an example of a problematic type of ‘soft bigotry’ that many exhibit toward the LGBT community,” wrote Patrick Finnegan of Minneapolis. “Although he purports to show compassion to people with same-sex attraction, it is predicated on the assumption that such attraction is a dysfunction to be suppressed and corrected.”
Chad O’Leary of St. Paul shared his story in the paper’s letters section:
Being told that I could “pray it away” set me up for what I could least afford: failure. I considered myself a failure in the eyes of God and, at the age of 14, sat with a bottle of aspirin by my bed considering ending it all.
After seven years of youth ministry within the Catholic Church, I know firsthand that there are teens on the brink of ending it all, who see themselves as disgusting anomalies for wanting to love someone of the same sex and build a family with that person. I think that perpetuating this self-loathing is the epitome of sin.
Ben Smith of Minneapolis wondered why Livingston’s column was ever published in the first place.
“While everyone is entitled to their opinion, the Star Tribune does not have to publish every illogical, ill-conceived, bigoted and fact-free bit of insane drivel that comes its way, whether it’s from a religious figure or not,” Smith wrote. “From its assertion that much same-sex attraction comes from ‘loneliness or lack of confidence’ to its ridiculous claim that gay identity is being forced onto young people who are then imprisoned by it, Livingston’s article is filled with nonsense with zero basis in reality.”
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter16 Comments
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 2:20 pm
Presumably, if you really could pray the gay away, priests would all be straight.
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 2:24 pm
This shameful distortion of Christ’s message used to hurt gay families is anything but Christian.
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 3:38 pm
I’m all for a constitutional amendment on gay marriage as long as we also ban divorce, infidelity, having children out of wedlock, abortion, intolerance that leads to violence, any and all sexual abuse of minors, abuse of power by politicians, religious leaders, and corporate executives; obesity, creating state and national budget crises, lifting tax exemptions on religious organizations, and the like. Who’s on board?
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 3:39 pm
I know a fixed ” gays” the first we had 2 dozen dinner meetings. Finally I broke through his air of civility.
He said gays support the westboro baptist church (the fruitcakes who happily demonstrate at funerasl of our dead service peole and murdered gays.
Then he said of a gay kid who was brutally murdered in Wy IN 1998 – “”his parents should have fixed him.”
Blaming the parents for their sons grisly murder
They fixed this “fixed gay all right – they turned him into a psychopath.
And a pathological liar about his sexuality.
BTW the catholic church pgm to fix gays is called regeneration. In the middle ages, it was the program to convert the Jews to catholocism, on pain of death.
Lets get a real look at the catholic church – just go to the website
HTTP://NOBELIEFS.COM/NAZIS.HTM The pix speak for themselves. It is not my website – I stumbled upon it.
BTW Hitler was born and baptised catholic in Lintz Austria in 1888. the church that claims to support life has yet to EXcommunciate the worst murderer in history.
They of course created the hatred of Jews which hitler leveraged in a poisoned European socitety to gain power. You know the rest.
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 5:56 pm
Rev. Livingston promotes the human sexuality of Gay folks as pathological, dangerous and in need of repair. It’s the Reverend that’s in need of an intervention on the science of sexuality and the harm of his stigma that promotes discrimination, persecution and hate – this leads to violence and suicides. Hardly in the spirit of Christ and equality.
Comment posted September 19, 2011 @ 6:02 pm
I wonder if Livingston has spoken out on the motes within his own institution’s eye?
A theologian speaks of his associations with right-wingers in the Catholic Church:
“Berger: I kept having to listen to inhuman views. For example, Hitler was praised for having interned and murdered homosexuals in concentration camps. The point came when I couldn’t remain silent any longer …”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,730520,00.html
Catholic Church Child Abuse Claims Sweep Across Europe
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/13/catholic-church-child-abu_n_497942.html
Church sex-abuse victims urge ICC prosecution
“An international group for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has asked the International Criminal Court to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three other senior Vatican officials for crimes against humanity.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/09/20119148947111778.html
Vatican Bank ‘allowed clergy to act as front for Mafia’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vatican-bank-allowed-clergy-to-act-as-front-for-mafia-2158692.html
Vatican Bank Faces Money Laundering Charges
http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-philadelphia/vatican-bank-faces-money-laundering-charges
Pingback posted September 19, 2011 @ 10:42 pm
[...] “Traditional marriage is rooted in this ancient if inconvenient truth, and it can’t be scolded or legislated away by one misguided generation. History is not and never will be on the side of gay marriage,” Livingston wrote. “Minnesota citizens, you can support traditional marriage and be a friend to persons with same-sex attractions. It’s not an “either/or” issue.” [more] [...]
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 3:50 am
During puberty, sexual identity and orientation definitely go through many shifts. It is perfectly correct to say that some people experience same-sex attractions during this time that are transitionary, and go away. Of course, many other people experience same-sex attractions that never go away.
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 7:04 am
The only thing that needs “fixing” is the narrow-mindedness of folks who won’t tolerate anyone who’s different. I didn’t know I was the word “gay” until I was mostly grown up. But everyone around me knew I was different (and I knew something was up, just didn’t know the name for it) from the time I was a really little kid. The only thing that needs “fixing” is telling kids they need “fixing”.
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 9:42 am
Funny how those most libertine about sexuality are so anti-choice about this. Presumably those in Fr. Livingston’s program choose to be there of their own free will. Why not be more pro-choice on this issue?
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 9:45 am
A clear answer:The letter of Saint Paul to the Romans 1: 18-32. ….In consequence, God delivered them up in their lusts to unclean practices; they engaged in the mutual degradation of their bodies, these men who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and whorshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…God therefore delivered them up to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and the men gave up natural intercourse with women and burned with lust for one another……..
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 10:01 am
An adult sexual attraction to a person of the same gender should not be characterized as orientation. Rather it is disorientation. Whether you look to the Bible, to developmental psychology or to Natural Law the inclination is inappropriate and to act on it is immoral. To Mike , yes and all those behaviors are hateful and sinful. Basic religious teaching: hate the sin, love the sinner. Same sex genital sexual activity is unnatural and sinful. Jay
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 12:20 pm
As the comments show, the true narrowmindedness is on the part of those who push the homosexual agenda. Fr. Livingston never said that all homosexuals can be freed from their orientation. He clearly stated, that some have a deep-seated orientation, and others experience same-sex attraction as a result of identifiable influences. It is the bigotted, reactionary wing of the homosexual community that screeches “foul” every time a contrary opinion is offered, or it is suggested that people can embrace them personally without endorsing their politics.
Comment posted September 20, 2011 @ 3:33 pm
Frank:
Just because someone is gay or lesbian it doesn’t follow that they lead a “libertine” life. Second, even if we assume for the sake of argument that gays and lesbians do lead libertarian lives, it’s bizarre to think that this implies support for efforts to demonize their sexuality. You don’t appear to be aware of how poorly reasoned your comment is.
As an aside, you might want to know that homosexual “deconversion” therapy has been rejected as valid by the largest and most important professional/academic psychological organization in America, the APA:
http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/therapeutic-response.pdf
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Dcn Juan:
So?
1) Many people don’t look to the Bible for moral understanding (nor should they in my view).
2) Regardless of what the Bible says, you inevitably bring your own culturally-informed moral values to any interpretation of the Bible. Do you support slavery? You should. The Bible does in several parts. If you don’t, this demonstrates that you’re using contemporary and even secular values to judge what you will and will not follow in the Bible.
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Jay Jarrell wrote,
“Whether you look to the Bible, to developmental psychology or to Natural Law the inclination is inappropriate and to act on it is immoral.”
Let’s toss out the Bible for the time being since we live in a secular Republic, not a theocracy.
With regard to developmental psychology–I assume you can cite literature from peer reviewed journals in support of your claim that homosexuality is “inappropriate” and “immoral” to act on? Good luck!
Lastly, do you have any understanding of natural law…AT ALL? On almost all questions of right and wrong there are diametrically opposed stances contained within natural law.
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Michael
Your charge of bigotry falls short on evidence. Criticism of viewpoints–Livingston’s in this case–does not constitute bigotry, it constitutes…criticism.
Comment posted September 21, 2011 @ 11:37 am
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/130108663.html
Luckily, there are people like the guy who wrote this. ^
Comment posted September 21, 2011 @ 8:08 pm
The viewpoint of Rev. Livingston contradicts – utterly contradicts – the established evidence of actual science.
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