As if denying homosexuals the right to legal marriage weren't enough, the Catholic Church, who has already largely alienated the gay population, may now be considering limiting the priesthood to heterosexuals. Of course, it must be because being homosexual automatically makes you a pedophile. A nearly coherent argument against why marriage is restricted to heterosexuals is still not quite so clear to me.
So what all this means is, if you are gay, you can't have a valid relationship with another person of your sex or commit yourself to a life of chastity through the priesthood. According to the church, it is "objectively disordered" to act upon homosexual desires, yet if a homosexual, realizing that in order to be a good Catholic they must choose a life of celibacy, would like to choose the priesthood, it will no longer be an option.
Homosexuals are discriminated against by a large faction of the population (as proven by the 13 states that passed amendments banning gay marriage last November), refused a basic civil right, and now possibly refused the right to follow the church's teaching and their religious calling. To me, all the discrimination that is occurring against homosexuals is so blatantly reminiscent of other historical American (and human) blunders regarding race, religion, nationality and the like, that for once I can say I can understand how people can stand by and watch these tragedies occur. It's not that we are all just standing by; the problem is that trying to fix the problem is like yelling at a brick wall.
I proudly wore my "Gay, Fine by Me" shirt, yet it saddens me that these shirts are even necessary. Why should we have to proclaim that being homosexual is fine by us? Isn't this no different that wearing a shirt proclaiming "Black, Fine by Me‚" or "Jewish, Fine by Me?" We are all people, why is it that whenever we turn around there is another segment of our population being discriminated against? Why does someone's sexual orientation matter so much to us? I dream of a day when there is no marginalized sector of race, gender, nationality, religion or sexual orientation; but will that day ever come?
Claire SlossfreshmanMcGlinn Hall Sept. 28
