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My Gag Reflex Is Crazy, But

 I didn’t like the argument published at The Gospel Coalition (think Presbyterians and Calvinistic Baptists) some years back that we should judge the morality of homosexuality by a gag reflex. If that person had same-sex attraction, he wouldn’t gag. Personally, other than possibly being covered in my own waste, I am not grossed out by the very idea. It’s not a principled argument. I gag at mushrooms and peaches; other than saying that I won’t and can’t eat them, I would be a fool trying to argue that they are immoral because I can’t eat them.

I just have to say that I know something about disordered inclinations and I have plenty of failures with respect to my own principles. Therefore, homosexuality and other errors don’t induce in me a sort of patronizing pity, something unimaginable and tragic. I’m not a priest, thank God. But I do love the people, like a priest should, like Jesus the great High Priest does. A person doesn’t have to believe me, but my horse isn’t very high.

I do firmly believe that what natural law and the Church teaches is correct, because God is Truth itself. The goodness of God is the basis for the trust that becomes and is in substance, faith. Despite my colorful rejoinders toward liberal white women, if they agreed with holy Mother Church, I myself would have nothing to say. (And let’s be honest: almost no one will cancel you for telling any white people that they are wrong. And goodness knows I have waited for the day I could use race essentialism to my advantage.)

We need to use the language of “ordered/disordered” and design/purpose on the order of reason. For one, not everyone understands that Jesus is the one they should listen to. And the natural common good transcends many purported supernatural belief systems. A religious debate is easily ignored as irrelevant at best; reason, conscience, and universal principles, considerably less so. We don’t have to celebrate the fact that people in postmodern society don’t agree about hardly anything, but we don’t have to whine about it, either.

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