C.S. Lewis: the homo. has to accept sexual abstinence just as the poor man has to forego otherwise lawful pleasures because he wd. be unjust to his wife and children if he took them.

Interesting Letter from C.S. Lewis

on Homosexuality

by Mark Shea

Elsewhere I have mentioned that Lewis (I think in his intro to The Screwtape Letters, but I may be wrong and it may be in Surprised by Joy) remarks that he refrained from offering moral counsel on homosexuality and gambling, since he never experienced temptation in these areas and resented officers who had never fought in combat telling troops on the front line how to run their lives.

It turns out that, when Sheldon Vanauken asked him about how to respond to homosexuals of his acquaintance in a private letter, Lewis wrote him back. He still is obviously leery of telling homosexuals themselves how to live, but he feels an obligation to give Vanauken something to work with.

The resulting letter is interesting for a number of reasons, but in particular what I like about it is his conviction that behind every disordered appetite is some kind of warped virtue and that the ticket is to search for the virtue and help foster it. He anticipates the entire gay marriage debate and dispatches much of the simplistic rhetoric swiftly while making some interesting points. I

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