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<\/a>My friend Julie read my post about marriage this morning<\/a> and forwarded me an article that Father Barnes had shared with her. She said she had found it helpful, and I did too.<\/a>
The article is \u201cDesigned for Sex\u201d by J.\u00a0 Bucziszewski, a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin. It takes my simplistic \u201c13-year-old\u201d argument about our bodies\u2019 design a significant step or two further. (Sidebar: I appreciate the comments today, pro and con, from people who took pains to think through and express their understanding of marriage, gender, and sexuality.)<\/p>\n
My point this morning was simply that when my father explained to me about homosexuality, when I was 13, my first reaction was, \u201cHow does that work? How do the bodies fit together?\u201d This led me to consider that perhaps there was something in the design<\/i> of our bodies that tells us how we should behave sexually, if, that is, we accept that God designed us.<\/p>\n
After offering anecdotal evidence that young people are becoming disenchanted with casual sex (\u201chooking up\u201d) in all of its permutations, that they are \u201cbeginning to sound like the children of third-generation Maoists,\u201d Professor Bucziszewski bluntly asserts, \u201cThe fact is that we aren\u2019t designed for hooking up.\u201d The professor speaks as a member of my (boomer) generation and wryly notes that, \u201cMy generation may have ordered the sexual revolution, theirs is paying the price.\u201d As the father of two daughters <\/a>of \u201ctheir\u201d generation, I raise my level of attention. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the next line that takes the argument further: \u201cOur hearts and bodies are designed to work together.\u201d That is, while casual sex may be convenient for our bodies, our hearts are engaged, sometimes in spite of ourselves, and casual sex is not convenient for our hearts. In this I hear echoes of Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation<\/a> (CL), about which I will write the day I am confident I can do it credit. Father Giussani\u2019s point, if I understand it correctly, is that the deepest desires of our heart are, yes, part of our design and therefore particularly valid. The deepest of all desires? For the infinite, the \u201cMystery,\u201d God. Which, with wonderful, albeit somewhat circular logic, proves that God exists.<\/p>\n
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