Le Provocateur

Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: Viewpoint

Dear Editor, ? ? The latest broadside of letters to the March 25 Le Provocateur, the most recent escalation of the conflict over homosexuality and diversity generally within that paper's pages, compels me to write this. Given the (lack of) effect these letters usually have on men's opinions, I could just as well have left the issue be. But as Miss Caitlin Lahey says, in a vein similar to St. Thomas Aquinas' teaching that faith includes reflection, "We cannot allow ourselves to stop questioning." Lahey's affirming explication of our regime of diversity is correct to point us toward universal moral principles, but the relation of universally applicable morality to diversity itself is somewhat deficient. I agree that diversity, much of the time, is a good; in matters of culture and cuisine, none is "perfect, finalized" in the way that it must be imposed upon others. However, universal morality, as the "universal" implies, engenders only bland uniformity when taken by itself. In our desire to overcome irrational hatred, we often forget that the natural aversion between, for instance, cultures, is the only thing preserving their differences from lugubrious homogeneity. The German political philosopher Heinrich von Treitschke said it best: The rays of the Divine light are manifested, broken by countless facets among the separate peoples, each one exhibiting another picture and another idea of the whole. Every people has a right to believe that certain attributes of the Divine reason are exhibited in it to their fullest perfection. Our primary duty must always be to defend these "certain attributes." That is our good. The present diversity-mindedness Lahey defends presents diversity (within society as opposed to among societies), and not unity within a society itself, as the good we should pursue. In light of our Nation's history, it becomes obvious that diversity is the handmaiden of strife. Our greatest weaknesses, faults, and conflicts occurred along the fault lines of race, from slavery down to affirmative action. The same is true to a lesser extent among ethnicity and religion, greater sources of conflict in more heterogeneous regions such as the Balkans. Those strengths which have carried us through wars and these internal strifes, the common beliefs in freedom, equality (America is distinguished by its emphasis on freedom, whilst Europeans usually offer equality the better berth), and liberal democratic ideology, are unities. I have just described the positive effects of a healthy patriotism and devotions to all things local and particular insofar as they preserve culture, both ours and our neighbors'. In a response to Mr. John Guinan and Fr. Barry Bercier, several professors have, writing from the perspective of anthropology and the social sciences, urged a "more civil discourse" in the Assumption community over the definition of marriage, and insisted that homosexuality should not be called "intrinsically evil." A litany of locales where same-sex relationships have been sanctioned, presently and historically, follows, the argument being that there has been no moral consensus on the matter, and that societies have flourished with these unions (our own Commonwealth is listed as an example, though I would consider Massachusetts more a failed state than a success story). This approach is wrongheaded, because this is a matter of ethics and not of equally legitimate customs. No comparative cultures study, I hope, is necessary to condemn slavery and infanticide, commonly accepted in the Roman Empire and other "stable" (if not "humane", a conspicuously modern qualifier) societies. But the dozen professors who reject Guinan's assessment that the Catholic religion views homosexuality as "intrinsically evil," so turning to reason alone, I shall defer the argument to Aristotle, a pre-Christian concerned with cultivating virtue in men. In his Nicomachean Ethics, book VII (trans. Joe Sachs), he ranks "sex acts between males" among "animal-like" vices (although homosexuality in ancient Greece usually took the form of man-boy relationships, Aristotle clearly includes what we call homosexuality today in this vice, since he gives childhood abuse itself as a possible cause of this broader vice). Since our form implies our end, and what the human good is, sexuality removed from its procreative end is a vice; to live out this vice is to turn away from the good life. As the Catechism says, homosexuality is "intrinsically disordered." If we have a mind to instill virtue in our society, at the very least we should not continue to spread the belief that homosexuality is normal and healthy by recognizing same-sex unions. Perhaps my claims of authority were too mild. I am not merely citing reason- I am citing Aristotle. When the thinker St. Thomas Aquinas, referred to as the Philosopher speaks, he cannot (Dr. Peter Schultz) be laughed or boozed away.

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