{"id":27612,"date":"2011-04-29T22:18:01","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T22:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/theanchoress\/?p=27612"},"modified":"2015-03-13T17:39:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:39:30","slug":"gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

On Tuesday, the New York Times<\/a> reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on Congress\u2019 behalf. According to the Times, this isn\u2019t unusual. For opponents of same-sex marriage, it\u2019s hard to find good help these days:<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s abrupt reversal highlights the continuing potency of same-sex marriage as a complicated issue that has scrambled traditional political calculations in Washington. President Obama has often called the marriage act \u201cabhorrent,\u201d but his Justice Department defended it for more than a year before declaring it unconstitutional. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in February that the administration would no longer defend the act in court.<\/p>\n

Theodore B. Olson, a solicitor general under President George W. Bush, has joined gay rights groups and Democrats as a leading advocate for same-sex marriage. And several high-profile Republicans, including Mr. Bush\u2019s wife and his daughter Barbara, have said publicly that they support gay people\u2019s right to marry. But House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner, have vowed to defend the law in court. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Times<\/i> makes it clear that the firm withdrew \u201camid pressure from gay rights groups,\u201d but what strikes me is the form that pressure took. Gay rights groups warned that staying on the case \u201cwould hurt its ability to recruit and retain lawyers.\u201d In an op-ed piece published today<\/a>, Dale Carpenter argues that the firm\u2019s decision \u201ccannot be dismissed simply as a matter of political correctness or bullying by gays.\u201d Gay rights supporters have come to dominate the legal profession.<\/p>\n

Any doubt left about where most lawyers stood was eliminated in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas, which involved another sodomy law. Lambda Legal led the challenge, helped by Jenner & Block, a firm with extensive Supreme Court experience. Other big firms, groups like the American Bar Association and scholars filed supporting briefs. The cumulative effect of decades of work by gay-rights advocates was that the best firms and many of the best lawyers were unwilling to defend sodomy laws on constitutional, let alone policy, grounds. The court agreed, holding in Lawrence that such laws demeaned the very existence of gay people. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is, I think, a lesson here for the Church, or at least a challenge. Back in the days when most people felt a visceral revulsion to same-sex relations or same-sex partnerships \u2014 a revulsion that extended to gay people themselves \u2014 asserting her teaching authority on the subject of homosexuality was easy. She would have had a harder time telling people to brush after every meal.<\/p>\n

But now the Church has found herself with no popular prejudices to take advantage of. From what I can tell, this realization has brought no insight. If anything, it\u2019s caused her to regress, to adopt tactics guaranteed to alienate even further the people who need conversion.<\/p>\n

Consider the Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience.<\/a> This statement of purpose signed by 150 religious leaders, including Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and the president of the Bishops\u2019 Conference, makes a point of listing homosexuality and \u201cpolyamorous relationships\u201d side-by-side, not only as threats to traditional marriage, but also as conduct for which people are \u201cdisposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This rhetorical gambit looks awfully underhanded \u2014 or rather, it would, if it weren\u2019t so easy to pick apart. Now that society no longer attaches a stigma to same-sex relations, Christian authorities are doing their best to slap that stigma back on. First they equate homosexuality, which no longer seems exotic, with polyamory, which does. Then, for good measure, they equate the case for an inborn inclination toward homosexuality, which is widely accepted (if unproven) and that for an inborn inclination toward polyamory, which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been made. It\u2019s a little slicker than warning people they\u2019ll soon be forced to marry their cocker spaniels, but not much.<\/p>\n

National Catholic Reporter\u2019s<\/i> John Allen, Jr. defined Pope Benedict\u2019s vision as \u201caffirmative orthodoxy.\u201d In his view, Benedict wants to present the Christian message \u201cin terms of what it\u2019s for, rather than what it\u2019s against.\u201d Where gays and lesbians are concerned, this would mean selling a life of continence, telling them not so much why they shouldn\u2019t have sex, but telling them what they might gain from having none. It may be that some gay and lesbian outreach ministries do exactly this, but the positive approach seems not to have taken hold in the Church at large.<\/p>\n

As my readers should have guessed a long time ago, I am the furthest thing in the world from a PR whiz. On so sensitive a matter, the Church deserves far shrewder consultants than I. Still, I do have three tips that, at worst, can\u2019t hurt much.<\/p>\n

1. Get used to saying \u201cgay\u201d (and not just in the sense of \u201cretarded\u201d) and \u201clesbian.\u201d Those are the terms gays and lesbians themselves prefer; substituting either for \u201chomosexual\u201d looks like exactly what it is, an attempt to deflate. Any Catholic who wants to minister to gays is going to have to overcome the same ingrained suspicions facing a Republican who canvasses an African-American neighborhood. You can be dadgum sure no such candidate would address his would-be constituents as \u201cYou coloreds.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Try not to speak of gays and lesbians as though they make up a separate species. Like the Supreme Court justice said of pornography, this is a tonal thing \u2014 hard to define in the abstract, but easy to spot. To cite one very benign example, National Catholic Register\u2019s<\/i> Pat Archbold recently published an article<\/a> in which he names the six \u201cmost unexpected converts.\u201d Number one on the list is Oscar Wilde. Here\u2019s what he says:<\/p>\n

Wilde is known today for his wit and celebrated for a homosexual lifestyle. In fact, I\u2019d bet he\u2019s more well known for his flamboyancy than he is for his literary achievements which often had a strong moral lesson. The fact that Wilde was a deathbed convert to Catholicism is just about completely ignored. It doesn\u2019t really fit into the caricature of Wilde.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, granted, Mr. Archbold \u2014 from whom I once stole an idea \u2014 is writing for a readership he may judge unfamiliar with Wilde\u2019s life and work, and uninterested in learning. But the fact remains, that caricature of Wilde was exploded even before his death. It\u2019s not arcane knowledge that he developed an interest in Catholicism while a student at Trinity, or even that he spent one of his Oxford term breaks making a pilgrimage to Rome. Pope Leo XIII received him in a private audience. Wilde wrote some (pretty awful) poems about the experience. Back in London, Fr. Sebastian Bowden of the Brompton Oratory coaxed him to the very point of conversion before Wilde chickened out.<\/p>\n

There was nothing unlikely about Wilde\u2019s conversion. If anything, it was even money \u2014 unless you\u2019re one of those people for whom sexuality is the number-one defining characteristic. In that case, once you know a person is gay or a lesbian, that\u2019s all you need to know; anything that falls outside the mold looks miraculous. For any Catholic looking to win converts and influence people, that\u2019s an impression to avoid giving.<\/p>\n

3. Use the celibacy-as-jewel argument. It\u2019s dignifying and ennobling. Besides, everybody likes to feel like a pearl before swine.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on Congress\u2019 behalf. According to the Times, this isn\u2019t unusual. For opponents of same-sex marriage, it\u2019s hard to find good help these days: The firm\u2019s abrupt reversal highlights the continuing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1930,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[300,405,507,534],"class_list":["post-27612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-here-and-queer","tag-archbishop-timothy-dolan","tag-homosexuality","tag-pope-benedict","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\nGays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Anchoress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-29T22:18:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T17:39:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Conroy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ben Conroy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/\",\"name\":\"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-29T22:18:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-13T17:39:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/e93d9d563d1d9aba66b0928ec616e10e\"},\"description\":\"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/\",\"name\":\"The Anchoress\",\"description\":\"Elizabeth Scalia\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/e93d9d563d1d9aba66b0928ec616e10e\",\"name\":\"Ben Conroy\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/520948f92ed786f8bf11d6b4fab13b64?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/520948f92ed786f8bf11d6b4fab13b64?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ben Conroy\"},\"description\":\"Ben Conroy is a columnist with The Irish Catholic, an intern at The Iona Institute, a contributor to discussions and debates in the Irish media, and an aspiring fantasy author.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/author\/bconroy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World","description":"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World","og_description":"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/","og_site_name":"The Anchoress","article_published_time":"2011-04-29T22:18:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-13T17:39:30+00:00","author":"Ben Conroy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ben Conroy","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/","name":"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-04-29T22:18:01+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-13T17:39:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/e93d9d563d1d9aba66b0928ec616e10e"},"description":"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Atlanta-baed law firm King & Spalding renounced its commission to defend the Defense of Marriage Act","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/04\/29\/gays-and-lesbians-affirmative-orthodoxy-a-changing-world\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gays and Lesbians, Affirmative Orthodoxy, A Changing World"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/","name":"The Anchoress","description":"Elizabeth Scalia","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/e93d9d563d1d9aba66b0928ec616e10e","name":"Ben Conroy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/520948f92ed786f8bf11d6b4fab13b64?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/520948f92ed786f8bf11d6b4fab13b64?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ben Conroy"},"description":"Ben Conroy is a columnist with The Irish Catholic, an intern at The Iona Institute, a contributor to discussions and debates in the Irish media, and an aspiring fantasy author.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/author\/bconroy\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}