The "God hates shrimp" fallacy

Robert Stacy McCain (HT again to Dad29) preaches that ol' time Bible-thumping religion on homosexuality and gay "marriage" at Cynthia Yockey, who responded at her site "A Newly Conservative Lesbian" by reprinting a letter to Dr. Laura that has been floating around since 2000. Here's an excerpt:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them. ...
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? ...
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

McCain's rejoinder is here, but I've cut Miss Yockey off at (f) because the rest of the letter, which goes from (a) to (j) is essentially redundant ... all variations on the same point, what I call ... well the title of this post -- the "God hates shrimp" fallacy.

I don't particularly have any desire to specifically rebut Miss Yockey (who at least does come across on her site as a level-headed non-hateful person, i.e., not Amanda Marcotte, though they offer the identical argument), But the fallacy is so common that I guarantee you that there's not ten orthodox Catholic persons in the world who haven't heard it. There's even a would-be-parody-of-Fred-Phelps site called God Hates Shrimp, and some pro-gay types do parody protests like those pictured here at the right.

First of all ... in the discharge of my office as shepherd and teacher of all and by virtue of my supreme food authority, I declare, decree and define that the awesomeness of shrimp scampi as pictured atop and displayed throughout the ages must definitively be held by the whole Church. Hence if anyone, may God forbid, willfully deny or call into doubt that which I hath defined, let him be anathema.

But seriously, folks ...

It's hard to know the amount of seriousness with which "God hates shrimp" is offered. It is such a bad, BAD argument, that it is hard to believe that people knowledgeable about Christian belief (note: not at all the same thing as "devout Christians") could either be making it or be paying it any heed. Ignorant people rationalizing post hoc, prejudiced bigots arguing in bad faith, clowns incapable of turning off the snark ... those people I "get."

Yet this argument seems to be popular ... I've seen that "Note to Dr. Laura" at least twice in other forums, and I believe the "God Hates Shrimp" site people when they say at their photo captions that the two dominant reactions they get at Gay Pride parades are laughter (from those who "get it") and anger (from those who don't) -- both groups actually showing a different sort of ignorance, two riffs off the same chord of religious illiteracy. So at the risk of sounding like a square for taking too seriously something not meant seriously ...

It's often said, "scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist." I'd go farther -- contemporary atheism and fundamentalism are really two sides of the same coin as far as reading and use of the Bible are concerned. They both see the Bible as a set of proof texts to be simply applied afresh and anew every day as if directly written by God Himself yesterday, i.e., completely independently of either Tradition or any notion of any binding authority. But of course, that atheist-fundamentalist hermeneutic coin has nothing to do with how the Bible has ever been understood (or the OT by Jews, for that matter). From the first century to possibly as late as the mid-19th century, no matter what Fred Phelps says today, nobody had ever conceived the Bible as a set of free-standing proof-texts waiting to be applied aphoristically to the controversies of every day.

Or in a single phrase: Christian teaching on homosexuality has never rested on proof-texting Leviticus 18:22.

Notably, every single example of other Biblical prohibitions mentioned in the note cited in the letter to Dr. Laura is from elsewhere in the early books of the Old Testament. Which hints right away at the problem -- "Old."¹ The ritual and dietary laws of the "Old" Covenant, and even the details of the Hebrew civic code, have never been considered binding by Christians. They have been superceded by the "New" Covenant in Jesus Christ, as explained in the "New" Testament repeatedly, most extensively in Hebrews. That the Old Testament and New Testament interrelate on some schema like this, however it may shake out in the details -- this isn't esoteric knowledge. It's so central to any understanding of Christianity that the person who doesn't know it (and somebody who makes the God Hates Shrimp argument seriously, by definition, doesn't) is incompetent to make any arguments about Christianity.² Indeed, practically the very first controversy in the Church was over this exact matter -- how binding is Jewish ritual law on matters like diet and circumcision. And the Apostles, led by St. Paul, quickly decided that they were not binding.

To some extent, I have done nothing more than state the obvious -- even the most cursory knowledge of Christian practice or, heck, even two good eyes on a Friday during Lent today, will tell you that Christianity has never proscribed eating shrimp. And to be fair, "God Hates Shrimp" isn't really intended to make Christians stop consuming scampi; it's more intended as the first horn of a (supposed) dilemma, the first move in an intellectual two-step ("suspend your morals / do-si-do").³ The real point is the second horn of the "dilemma," the "do-si-do" -- something like "well, if the Leviticus prohibition on eating shrimp has been superseded, why not 'lying with a man as one does with a woman'?"

Offered in the right spirit, it's a legitimate question, to which the answer is "some parts of the Mosaic law are still parts of the New Convenant, others are not." For example, Our Lord said He didn't come to erase the law, but to fulfill it, which, whatever it means in the details, obviously means that some of the specifics will remain and some will not. To which, the secular rebuttal is entirely obvious: "how does one determine which Specific Detailed Prohibition X remains valid (homosexual acts) and which Specific Detailed Prohibition Y (shrimp, mixing cotton and silk) does not?" And to have an intelligent rejoinder, one must abandon fundamentalism because literal proof-texting has no way, even in principle, to answer this question. If one DOES think of Leviticus 18:22 as an eternal proof text of its own per-se free-standing authority, then Leviticus 11:10 also must be, and the God Hates Shrimp argument is correct (or the Ten Commandments would dissolve also).

But back to the main point -- it is plain and manifest that Christians have always followed some parts of the Mosaic code but not others, the serious question always being "which parts and how do we know." And this is where the New Testament comes in, and Tradition and a binding Magisterium do too. Unlike shrimp, the binding quality of the parts of the Mosaic code related to homosexual acts has been held by Christians and the Church since the 1st century, including in the New Testament itself.

Now, to be sure, homosexual acts are only even arguably mentioned about four times in the New Testament, and a condemnation of them is never actually the point being made. Indeed, I could even subscribe to much of this interesting, if ultimately unpersuasive, piece by gay apologist James Allison, the thrust of which is the perfectly sane and well-developed point that the start of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, the principal New Testament cite on the subject, isn't especially concerned with the morality of homosexuality as a topic. Rather, St. Paul uses it as an example of a wrong in the service of the broader point that's really what (that part of) the letter is about -- that there is neither Jew nor Greek in Christ, that sin has affected all equally. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger's 1986 letter on homosexuality uses similar lingo -- that Paul "is at a loss to find a clearer example" of sin.4 The other New Testament verses cited as proof texts (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10; Jude 1:7) are the same, only "more" so -- homosexual acts and/or persons who commit them are merely mentioned en passant in a laundry list of condemnations.

But in some ways, that's exactly the way to discern Tradition -- the That Which Does Not Have To Be Argued For, the Premise So Obvious That It Can Remain Unstated. The very fact that St. Paul and St. Jude don't argue for the immorality of homosexual acts because they don't have to -- the "dropped in" quality of the references, without elaboration or argument or detail, proves they could assume automatic assent to the statement "homosexual acts are condemned" and "those who commit them are damned." And keep in mind, the Apostles weren't shy about changing the details of ritual and practice, if they thought the New Covenant reversed anything in the Old. After all, they even moved the day of Sabbath's observance (one of the Ten Commandments).

Going through Church history, the Fathers and the Tradition, we see something similar. Until historically speaking, five minutes ago, whenever homosexual acts are referred to, it has always been in an unfavorable light or in a context where its condemnation was assumed. Natural-law philosophy has always been invoked against homosexual acts and never until about five minutes ago did any orthodox Christian of prominence argue for the morality of homosexual acts. Whatever may be said about the meaning of those facts; that is itself a fact, which is relevant in understanding Tradition. And in response to the rise of the modern gay movement, the Church's Magisterium has produced a rich battery of response, none of which ever states that homosexual actions are acceptable. It's possible, of course, for new developments to overcome traditions, but not on a subject where there is Scripture (however vague) and a constant Apostolic Tradition, both of which are all on one side of the matter.

There is no doubt that sexual sins, of all kinds and all other sins too, may have had greater prominence and wider practice in some times and places than others. But silence does not equal assent; indeed, in the case a prophetic institution, quite the opposite. To get a sense of this apparent paradox, ask yourself: how often and how vigorously does the Church today condemn cannibalism? It wouldn't seem like much, on the proof-text method. If you go to the Vatican English Web site now and search for the word "cannibalism," you find three references. One is in a laundry list of brutalities. The other two (actually one in English and one in Italian) are attacks on scientific research that uses humans or their parts in a way incompatible with human dignity, and in both cases, the author uses "cannibalism" as a rhetorical weapon against using (or "consuming") human beings this way. In other words -- exactly the senses and contexts of the New Testament's references to homosexuality.

So step back -- would anybody care to defend the proposition that the Church does not now condemn cannibalism? Or be prepared to defend a 28th century revisionist citing the Church's few current words on the topic (along with the relevant news reports and works of art on the practice) as showing that the question was open in the 20th and early 21st century? Or argue in advance that the Church's 27th century flurry of condemnation against the then-rising tide of cannibalism will be ungrounded in Tradition (much less Scripture, which has even less to say about cannibalism than it does about homosexuality)?

To ask these questions this way is to answer them.

Now ... if the New Testament or Tradition/Magisterium had been silent or even sometimes been divided on the matter -- then I would be willing to say "maybe Leviticus 18:22 should be seen as a dead letter" and God no more hates lying with a man as one does with a woman any more than He does shrimp.

But of course, that's not the world we live in.
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¹ It should I hope go without saying, as the later paragraphs should show, that I'm not engaged in Marcionism, but rather merely saying that the Old Testament, while also divinely inspired, needs to be read in light of the New (and of Tradition) since it reflects various covenants that have been superceded.
² Indeed, when Christians say "atheists and 'brights' think we are all by definition completely stupid illiterates," it's situations like this that we have in mind: thinking that such an obvious "gotcha" hasn't been noticed for 2,000 years and that the Bright pointing this out in a combox in AD 2009 has some kosmos-shattering argument. One could never make the argument without always already having in the head "Christian = stupid" as a controlling mental template, an "of-course" meme. Or to put it another way, the secularist reaction to the manifest undeniable fact that Christians have never had a problem with eating shrimp or pork or with mixing fabrics, etc., isn't "hmmm ... they must not think these passages aren't binding. I wonder why?" but "bwahahaha ... they don't even KNOW these passages exist. Illiterates!!"
³ Exodus 20:12 to Exodus 20:17 would have to go out the window also on this argument. But again, that assumes "OT is not binding" is being argued in a more rigorous, rational spirit than it really is, rather than just being drafted into the theological equivalent of a lawyer's brief on the specific matter of homosexuality. The prophet Nietzsche famously laughed at "moralistic little English fatheads who think they could have Christian morality without the Christian god.
4 "In Romans 1:18-32, still building on the moral traditions of his forebears, but in the new context of the confrontation between Christianity and the pagan society of his day, Paul uses homosexual behaviour as an example of the blindness which has overcome humankind. Instead of the original harmony between Creator and creatures, the acute distortion of idolatry has led to all kinds of moral excess. Paul is at a loss to find a clearer example of this disharmony than homosexual relations." In other words, homosexuality serves as an example in a broader point about man's rebellion from God and the effects of sin; it isn't "the point" per se. What Cardinal Ratzinger wrote is completely compatible with Allison's reading (though the latter man's "read" does not, cannot, take him where he wants to go).

"Queering" the church registry

One of Fort Worth's most prominent Baptist churches engaged in an anti-Solomon decision last week, deciding to cut the baby in half by not printing any family photos in its directory rather than printing those of homosexual couples. From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (HT to Mark):

FORT WORTH -- Broadway Baptist Church voted Sunday to publish a 125th anniversary directory without individual or family portraits after some members of the congregation opposed allowing gay couples' portraits to appear in the publication.
In a compromise recommended by the church's board of deacons, the directory will show members in candid snapshots of small and large groups. The group pictures will identify people by name, and every effort will be made to include all of the church's members.
Church leaders said this approach provides the photographs needed by members to identify each other and follows church bylaws to treat all members equally. It also avoids making any statement regarding Scriptural interpretations regarding homosexuality.

The headline writer said "Neither side wins on gay couples in directory." Which rather presupposes a lot, in my opinion -- namely that there are in fact "two sides." And I wonder (actually, I don't wonder) why the Star-Telegram writer laid the blame for the decision on the theological conservatives, saying the decision was made "after some members of the congregation opposed allowing gay couples' portraits to appear in the publication" rather than "after some gay couples demanded to have their portraits appear in the publication."

There's a couple of other things I'm curious about.

First of all, what has these gay couples' self-presentation been? The Star-Telegram report reads as if the three pairs in question already had been attending the church openly and "as a couple." On the assumption that this is correct (I grant a secular media outlet is unreliable on the point), then I think the gay couples have a legitimate request. And Broadway Baptist made its own bed long ago.

If one has been attending a church under a certain public persona and holding yourself out in a certain way, I find it hard to see why this public persona doesn't belong in the yearbook. You can't really object to a photo, as one person in this Star-Telegram story does, on "having to explain it to the kids" grounds. Not if those children are already seeing a same-sex couple at Sunday services, presumably holding hands or other PDAs of the kind considered acceptable for married-or-dating couples. And how would the so-called compromise -- candid snapshots that attempt to cover everyone -- fix that. Are the children not supposed to realize that Adam and Steve were together at all the church picnic photos too? And even if the two are in a portrait-type situation, as the gays wanted, couldn't a parent just as convincingly say to a curious girl [boy] "it's like when you and your sister [brother] had your photo taken together."

As it happens, I know two same-sex-attracted men who live together and go to the same parish. They are ex-lovers but are now Catholics, sleeping in separate bedrooms and committed to chastity, which they have broken once in more than a decade. Never would they either commit a PDA that might scandalize others nor (and here's where I'm guessing) would they insist on being a couple in the parish directory. They are both in it as individuals.

But second, in what meaningful sense is this decision, whatever one thinks of it in the sense of "agree-disagree" or "good-bad," not a "statement about Scriptural interpretations regarding homosexuality," which the Star-Telegram report says it was crafted not to be. Even a decision not to say something says something -- namely that this congregation can't say anything about the morality of homosexuality and therefore this very public matter is one of religious liberty. Or, to use the formulation of St. Augustine, who knew a thing or two about sexual immorality, that homosexuality is one of those "dubiis" in which there should be "libertas." Which is of course a substantive teaching -- that homosexuality is one of those "doubtful things" and is not one of those "necessariis" that call for "unitas." Which does, of course, marginalize and exclude those who believe sexual conduct is a "necessary thing" that requires "unity."

Thus this quarrel underlines something I'm confident I've said more than once. "What a group of people are disputing and why" is a far more telling fact about the world than "how that dispute is decided substantively."

The fact that any Baptist church is even debating whether to put pictures of openly-gay couples in its yearbook tells us how far the gay agenda has wormed its way into the body of Christ. That they decided not to may be a good or bad thing. But more revealing than even the fact of a debate is that the only way the church could "refuse" was not "just say no" but a "compromise" on having no family photos at all. And more revealing still is the fact that the church called in "New Testament experts."

"The New Testament experts [sic] made it clear that thoughtful, intelligent Christians disagree on what the Bible says about homosexuality," [Senior Pastor Brett Younger] said. "Many realized that Christians can hold different opinions on this without letting it divide the church."

Not really. Or rather, there is no disagreement among thoughtful intelligent Christians who hold that the Bible is normative and inspired about what it says on homosexuality. The only way a thoughtful, intelligent person can hold that the Bible does not condemn homosexual acts is by starting from the presupposed worldview (i.e., before any actual engagement with the text) that the Bible is not normative and is not inspired — that it is merely the product of men and thus can be superceded absolutely ("there is no binding magisterium" also has to be smuggled in somewhere or thus inferred).

Lest I come across as an anti-intellectual, let me say that there is nothing wrong with these two (or three) worldview premises for certain purposes, primarily scholarly ones. That the Bible is a historical text written by men is, in a certain sense, undeniable and for some historical, sociological or philological work, whether it's the inspired word of God binding for all time and what that means¹ is a question that can be set aside. But ... that does not in any way shape or form make such scholars "experts" in any normative sense or especially competent to testify on doctrine, either on faith or morals. Their expertise explicitly excludes them from such a self-presentation.

So the question becomes, can there be a religion that includes people who do believe the Bible inspired and binding and those who do not. One guess what I think, but the fact is that this Fort Worth congregation has no way to answer that question definitively, in no small part because of the congregationalist structure that is a Baptist pillar. Instead, they worship the One True god ... Diversity:

"This has been a difficult decision for our congregation," said Kathy Madeja, chairman of the deacon board. "Our members continue to have diverse opinions, but we are still a church family and we will continue to struggle with how to honor our diversity," she said. ... (CM: how about honoring God??)
"Broadway will continue as a congregation in which diversity is embraced," [Senior Pastor Brett Younger] said. (CM: how about embracing the Cross??)

And ultimately this is why Episcopalians are in a necessary internal schism over Bishop Gene Robinson. It's not the sin of sodomy per se, but the questions of biblical authority. Robinson's consecration and the defenses of it proved to conservatives that liberal "wetness" went all the way down, with no limits. The two groups do not worship the same god and thus do not belong in the same church, as St. Paul taught. Schism simply objectively was and the so-called acts of schism in the last few years by individual parishes and dioceses in the US and by the African and South American bishops are mere recognitions of that fact.

The Episcopalians may be in the infirmary right now (actually hospice care, I'd say), but this Fort Worth church shows that the rest of mainline Protestantism is starting to call in sick as well.
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¹ However that formulation shakes out in the details, about which there are legitimately held differences among Christians and Christian bodies.

Response to Michael Bayly

My last post on an 8-year-old "transgendered" boy in Colorado excited responses from a frequent visitor to my site Michael Bayly (StatCounter doesn't lie, dude), who is executive coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities.

His latest response was initially posted here and I'm bringing it out and up, because I want to respond in detail, an exercise I think worthy because so much of the basis for his scandalous counterwitness is so common. His words are in italics and block quotes, with my responses on each point following.

You seem to be conflating issues of gender and sexuality. Just because a child (or anyone, for that matter) identifies with the opposite gender doesn't mean they want to be sexually active.

It may not. My point is not about the particulars of what this child wants but his general competence to speak on sexual matters. I repeat my unanswered question ... if an 8-year-old is competent to decide “gender identification” (which, while not the same thing as sexual behavior, is inextricable from it) as you seem to think, Mr. Bayly, why is he not competent to decide whether to be sexually active. It doesn’t matter what said decision of this 8-year-old or any particular one may be. “Age of consent” laws rest on the assumption of incompetence and inagency, not an empirical matter of whether a competent agent actually wants to.

Further, what harm is done, exactly, by parents and schools here doing what they traditionally would have done, which is to chalk this boy's feelings up to a phase and wait till he grows out of it. If it is just a phase or an excessive imagination or curiosity, you've spared him years of humiliation and steered him away from a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e., he would **come** to see himself that way by everybody else indulging himself). And if it isn't a phase, if there really is such a thing as a "transgendered person" (which I doubt, but I'll stipulate for the moment) and he is an example of that ... he'll still be a "transgendered person" when he turns 18 or 21 or some such age when he can then act accordingly -- snip it off, cram hormones, wear dresses, change his name, etc. The only possible harm I can see is "repression" as an adolescent, though in this day and age I see that as a positive good.

I mean ... I hope you DO realize that (1) kids have phases that are mostly meaningless and (2) that a child should not get everything he wants and/or his wanting something is not a moral warrant. (Actually, I'm pretty confident you realize (1); not so much (2).)

So your mentioning of NAMBLA is misleading and, quite frankly, rather bizarre. Then again, perhaps it's an attempt to demonize and silence any opposing viewpoints. "Oh, you watched that film ["Ma Vie en Rose"] so you must be supportive or aligned in some way with NAMBLA!"

Given that I said I saw the film myself, I rather doubt that’s a reasonable reading.

What I do think does associate you with NAMBLA is your apparent assumption, correct me if you don’t hold it (though it certainly seemed to be your point in citing it) that “Ma Vie en Rose” tells us some great truth about the human person that our Courage group meetings could profit from. One might enjoy (parts of) "Ma Vie en Rose" as a kind of fairy-tale movie, but you brought it up in the context of this real-life Colorado case, which rather suggests you think it insightful. And yes, if a boy of 7 or 8 is a sexual agent competent to decide his/her/its/their “gender identity,” then NAMBLA is correct and our current taboo on "intergenerational love" (that's what it will be called, BTW ... and what DO you have against love, Mr. Bayly) is every bit as irrational as you think past taboos against "same-sex love" were.

Sorry, but that's a ridiculous and false assertion, and I for one won't be cowered by it.

Just to avoid a potential misunderstanding (and one that I'm sensitive to regarding men like us) I’m not saying that you diddle 7-year-old boys or have any desire to, or that your homosexual attractions per se either incline you that way or are evidence that you secretly may be doing so.

Nor am I saying that "diddling 7-year-old boys is good" is a thought you hold self-consciously. But I am saying, and I will stand by this, that "diddling 7-year-old boys is good" is the endgame logic of ideas that you DO consciously hold and practices like the Colorado parents and school-district's that you DO consciously defend (that's how cultural degradation advances ... like warming up the water in a lobster-pot).

And what am I closed-minded about exactly?

Three things I can think of quickly, that I'll phrase in the form of things you closed-mindedly deny ... that same-sex sex and all other sex outside marriage is wrong; that sexual desires do not definitively type the human person; that the Church has a real teaching office.

I fully support you in living a life of celibacy if that's how you feel called. Yet you can't say to me that you support me in building and sustaining a loving and committed relationship with another man. Why is that?

I rather doubt your "support" given some of the picketing you've done.

But to avoid the personal stuff ... the problem is in your usage “feel called.” No ... it’s what I **am** called to. I can pretty much assure you that I often DON’T “feel” called. And if I were married and Sophia Loren¹ were to come and whisper sweet nothings in my ear, at that moment, I wouldn't "feel called" to marital fidelity either. Feelings simply do not create moral warrants or obligations (this is another thing on which I don't know whether you are closed-minded or simply haven't thought it through).

Anyway, I don’t have any problem with anybody having a “loving, committed relationship,” properly understood. But if same-sex sex is always immoral (it all does eventually come back to that), then engaging in it is not “loving.” I well understand that same-sex sex feels good (there’s that verb again) and can be enjoyable. But “feels good” and “enjoy” are not the same things as “loving” though; and attempts to derive “loving” from those unquestionable facts are ... well, it’s "Katie, bar the door" time on just about anything (NAMBLA actually would be a minor issue).

I’ll even say the following. Any sin can be aggravated, and therefore “not aggravated” and thus (speaking strictly relatively) less bad. So, there are aggravated and not-so-aggravated ways of living the gay lifestyle. And perhaps over time, a legitimate friendship can grow and fucking can leave the picture. Suffice to say though that this is extremely rare and certainly not the desired eschaton of Dignity, et al.

Similarly, I'm fine for Courage to exist and help people. Yet you can't seem to say the same thing about Dignity. So who's really being closed-minded here?

I freely admit to being closed-minded about certain matters, including matters that the Church has definitively taught. Anyway, open-mindedness is not a virtue that anyone seriously holds; it's merely a holding strategy for debunking morals one thinks wrong.

As to my "questions and issues" not being compatible with scripture, tradition, and right reason, that's very much open to discussion and debate. Do we really know exactly what scripture is condemning with regard same-sex relations?

Yes.

In part because Tradition always read it that way, including in times when they were far closer to the social context than we could ever be. I must say I find it darkly humorous that people dismiss the Greek-speaking Church Fathers of the 2nd-4th centuries as having a poor or at best irrelevant understanding of the subtleties and cultural shadings of the text (which pro-gay apologists must say, if they are to dismiss their unanimous teaching on sodomy), but think Mel White or John Spong have a good one.

In part because Scripture has a broader, normative vision of what sexuality in general is, one that is not reducible to issues of Koine translation on the two or three New Testament proof texts on homosexuality². For example, and Pope John Paul begins "Theology of the Body" with these passages, the Church teaching reflects Our Lord's words on divorce and His citing of Genesis 2-3, and what it says about embodied sexual complementarity as part of our nature, created as good in the beginning. Homosexual acts do not, by their nature, meet that broad normative understanding.

Most reputable biblical scholars would say that its exploitive sex that, more often than not, is being condemned. And rightly so.

Dale somewhat beat me to the punch ... and given what counts as reputation-enhancing in the American academy, the more “reputed” a Biblical scholar is, the less likely I am to believe him. (Puts on Joe Piscopo-in-"Johnny Dangerously" voice) I read Bart Ehrman once. Once.

But what about loving and committed [homosexual] relationships? Where are they condemned?

Scripture also doesn’t mention 4-sided triangles or male pregnancy or nonviolent boxing because everyone simply understood that these things were as oxymoronic as gay “marriage.”

As for tradition, that's a living thing

No, not Tradition with a capital-T in the Catholic sense of that word, which always has to take account what went before and whether any new statements are compatible with what went before. What you’re describing is democracy, or, at best, a radically congregationalist, and thus un-Catholic, understanding of sensus fidelium.

I also should add that I find it darkly humorous that everyone who says "tradition is a living thing" becomes a fire-breathing proof-texting fundamentalist when one of their pet teachings is trampled on -- "you know, my conscience tells me that homosexual persons should be the object of violent malice in speech and action" (which actually is a proposition that would find more proof-text support in the writings of more Church authorities than "same-sex sex is good" would).

and accordingly should be informed and shaped by new insights and knowledge - including insights and knowledge related to human sexuality.

What “new insights and knowledge” might you be referring to? It cannot be the fact of homosexual acts, which were quite well known in the Hellenized Mediterranean world. Nor the fact that certain people may develop habits, which was just as well understood. Nor psychology, which is largely self-fulfilling prophecy about how people feel, not knowledge of how things are. And certainly not genetics, which has definitively refuted radical-biologism as the genesis of homosexuality (a deterministic cause might, strictly in principle, have provided the kind of serious “new knowledge” that would require doctrine to develop; but it isn’t true, as experience long ago told us and modern science merely confirms on a new basis).

No ... the only “new insights and knowledge” here is that a small group of people have chosen to define themselves according to a sinful act and accordingly warped their souls into moral blindness.

That's not happening in the Roman Catholic Church.

Actually, that’s not true. The Church’s pastoral understanding has developed a great deal on this subject, and for the better, in the last 40 years ... and that’s OK because pastoral practice has much more to do with the social particulars than moral truth does. A non-condemnatory support group like Courage (or Project Rachel to give an example of a pastoral response to a degraded cultural fact other than homosexuality) would have been unthinkable 50 or 100 years ago. Then, a man like myself probably would have been encouraged to “deal with it” by marrying. And more likely than not, damaged some woman and probably some children in the process. Now, the Church discourages marriage as cure-seeking.

Accordingly, to suggest that the Church's sexual theology is supported by "right reason" is a joke, and the vast majority of Catholics - gay or straight - know it.

I repeat what I said about “democracy.” The Church is not, and cannot be, a democracy (nor can even a secularized understanding of "reason" be either). So the fact you cite, true enough though it probably is, is of no moral weight whatever.

And frankly, in the current social environment of ill-formation, secularization, poor catechesis, dissent-worship, faithlessness, authority-phobia, a pornified public space and self-worshiping individualism -- it would be more surprising if most Catholics did think reason supports Church teaching. That doesn't make the teaching untrue. Or optional. Or not binding.
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¹ The photo is because I have to give the heterosexuals some reason to come here and there was too much text with no art otherwise.
² None of which BTW feature much "discussion" of the subject per se but usually only mention a condemnation en passant in service of some other point. Which indicates (1) that St. Paul can assume the reader's assent as one of his minor premises, and relatedly (2) that there was no issue of overturning the unanimous inherited Jewish tradition on the matter, as Scripture records that there was on diet and circumcision.