Confronting the problem of homosexual identity...

Do Homosexuals Exist? 

Or, Where Do We Go From Here?

by Fr. Hugh Barbour

In March of this year over a million Frenchmen demonstrated on the streets of Paris against the legal institutionalization of gay marriage. As far as the media were concerned, this event was practically confidential. It is hard to imagine a similar scene taking place in the United States, but if it did, it would be met with the same willful rejection by the rulers of this world who simply treat as nonexistent anything that opposes the social program they impose on the willing masses, unless perhaps it might be useful as another source of potential terrorists.

The practically universal triumph of the juridical recognition of gay marriage in the countries of the world that used to be Christendom requires those of us who accept the morality of the Bible to reassess the matter of homosexuality. This reassessment must be radical and practical. Things have come to such a pass that unless we are content to concede, we must utterly reform our notions and our customs. There is no other way to move forward.

I propose a number of reforms, both of our ideas and our practice, which will enable us to confront the problem of homosexual identity. First, the overcoming of the unhelpful dichotomy of heterosexual and homosexual. Second, the promotion of committed friendship as an essential aspect of Christian moral life. Third, a revision and broadening of the aesthetic of the human body in the light of the classical tradition. For the most part I will be speaking in terms of male relationships, but everything I say can apply, mutatis mutandis, to women as well.

Do homosexuals exist? And if so, why? The answer to these questions is not self-evident. In order to understand this, let’s take a look at a question deeply connected with the first: Does God exist? And how do we know? Saint Paul put it this way in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans:


Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man . . . Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient.

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