Mercator.net has an interesting article titled Schools withhold sad facts about gay life which is an interview with Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons is a psychiatrist and Director of Comprehensive Counseling Services in W. Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Dr. Fitzgibbons contributed to Homosexuality and Hope, published by the Catholic Medical Association of the United States. This pamphlet was recently pulled from The Curé of Ars church in Merrick after some complaints. Mainly from those who hold to the dogma that people are just born with Same Sex Attraction and you just can’t do anything about it including one (no surprise ) former Jesuit priest and now human sexuality specialist Dr. Daniel Araoz.
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From the article:
“The inability to maintain commitment and promiscuity contribute to sadness, anger and mistrust leading to hopelessness and suicidal ideation.”
I believe someone else noted that the Netherlands goes to great lengths to remove the stigma and shame of homosexual acts, and they STILL get high suicide numbers. Suggesting that depression and suicide among homosexuals is not caused by an uptight (so to speak) society. I said the same thing at The Dawn Patrol about abortion–some things bring a sense of shame because there is objectively something to be ashamed about.
First of all, I was there and I saw the pamphlets. There were many others there as well which also appeared to be appropriate.
Available at the CMA website: http://www.cathmed.org/
Homosexuality & Hope Pamphlet
Statement of the Catholic Medical Association
$1.50
Special discount pricing available
Newsday is one of the most anti-Catholic newspapers in the country, if not the most. Please see the report of the Catholic League on their website website:
http://www.catholicleague.org/newsday/newsday.htm
Also please see the Courage apostolate website:
http://couragerc.net/
“Courage, an apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church, ministers to those with same-sex attractions and their loved ones. We have been endorsed by the Pontifical Council for the Family and our beloved John Paul II said of this ministry, “COURAGE is doing the work of God!” We also have an outreach called Encourage which ministers to relatives and friends of persons with same-sex attractions.
From our website you will learn about homosexuality and chastity. By developing an interior life of chastity, which is the universal call to all Christians, one can move beyond the confines of the homosexual identity to a more complete one in Christ.”
From their past history, I’d say the entire “complaint” was started/promoted by Newsday itself.
Good link.
You can’t hide the truth. All the sympathetic support in all the world can’t change the realities that lead to all this depression and suicide, drug use and alcoholism.
No point in trying to tell someone – it will invariably be their response that it is YOUR fault for being “close minded.”
Don’t you just love the name-calling though? These people cannot defend their actions or beliefs so they immediately resort to calling you a “neadrethal” or “fundamentalist”.
Sorry if my belief in what the Bible (and every other religion for that matter) says about homosexuality comes across as gullible to you, Fr. Lisp, but your materialistic worldview hardly compensates for its lack of spiritual understanding…
One of the biggest areas of apologetics that need major work right now is the honing our technique of charitably defending the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. We, after all, believe in actual dialogue and not tactical reneging in order to preserve our “cool” image. We believe in things like proselytizing and conversion — they don’t.
I should know — having worked with gay rights groups — they talk about “mobilizing”, holding demonstrations, and “getting the word out” but they never put two cents into touching people’s hearts or into saving souls.
For them, it is not even a matter of biology or psychology, nature or nurture; it is a matter of raw power: if enough people believe as we do, then it will be legal.
Never mind the issue of wrong versus right. The only question is legality.
Which is weird because it already IS legal because most all of the states have struck down their laws against sodomy. What the gay lobby wants now is for everyone to agree with them that “two gay guys = marriage”. This is something that is profoundly untrue and not only that, but widely and vehemently believed to be untrue in cultures around the world.
So, after legalization of sodomy and forcing Earth to capitulate to their twisted views on marriage, where will they go next? Clearly this is not a political lobby that understands concepts like restraint and self-control.
The ultimate irony is these movements perceive themselves as “advanced”, “modern”, and “progressive” (as did most 20th century dictators) when what they are promoting is not a new idea but a LACK of an idea: the inherent sanctity of matrimony.
Think about how easy it is to understand what they want. I mean, it is not rocket science, advanced philosophy, or even rudimentary ethics. These are ideas that babies can understand. These are ideas children can come up with.
YET history records no such movement. Ever.
Why? Is it because no other culture until now has been smart enough to embrace this idea? Is it because no other culture has been evil enough to embrace this idea? Or is it because all cultures that have embraced this idea have been wiped clean off the face of this Earth with not so much as a speck of dust to signify their “civilization”.
According to the book, there would be no homosexuality if we stopped playing sports requiring hand-eye coordination. Right….
This sounds like the sort of study that serious people take seriously….
I saw George Bush admit that gayness could be a given at birth, not the product of nurture.
I think stable gay couples, such as two couples I know who had civil union ceremonies this years, are better preserved against depression and suicide than people who are indoctrinated to hate their own sexuality and told they must never seek to build a full-blooded loving relationship. People who live on a diet of sexual promiscuity are also less well protected against depression — but one reason that promiscuity is so rampant among gays is that the churches, society and the family have always told gays that they are incapable of anything better. Even the present Pope speaks of gays in stable relationships as “weak and deviant love” — at least admitting that it is love and not just lust.