Christian words to a homosexual Page: 7 of 11
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God's love as real as you can in your mind and
heart and will. If sometimes you are in despair
over your condition, God still loves you. If you
have accepted your condition, God loves you. If
after determining to avoid some act or feel un-
happy about some promiscuous contact, God
loves you. If you are lonely because you can
find nobody whom you can love with all your-
self, God loves you. Thus the homosexual need
never lose hope. He and she are always loved by
the perfect cosmic Lover, the Love which, in
Dante's words, "moves the sun and the other
stars."
But is not homosexual love a sin, especially
when it leads to physical contacts between per-
sons of the same sex? For a long time people
have said so; but nowadays an increasing num-
ber would talk in different fashion. They would
say that like so much in human life "it all de-
pends." Certainly the homosexual condition is
not sinful; it is just the way some people happen
to be and for which they have no responsibility.
Certainly loving another person, homosexually,
is not sinful; we are all meant to love other
people, even to love them intensely and pas-
sionately under certain circumstances. But how
about the physical contacts? Here Christian
opinion differs. Probably most Christians and
most Christian "moral theologians"-those who
have made expert study of the principles of
Christian behavior-have said that they are. Yet
we find in almost every Christian church today,
not least in the Anglican Communion, moral
theologians and others who would disagree.
12They would say that when there is deep and real
love between persons of the same sex, who in-
tend to be faithful to each other, so far as this
is possible, who wish to share their whole lives,
and who try to live in genuine mutuality, such
physical contacts as may occur are not sinful at
all-they are not only to be expected but for
those who are homosexuals they are natural and
normal. Those who talk in this way are not
advocating easy permissiveness; they are trying
to come to terms with facts. And they base
their view on the Christian insistence that God
is Love, that men are created to be lovers, and
that for those who can love only in a homo-
sexual way this kind of loving, with its almost
inevitable yearning for and joy in such contacts,
it cannot be wicked and wrong to allow them.
Since there is this difference of opinion,
among equally informed and responsible ex-
perts in Christian morality, it is incumbent
upon us to accept the disagreement as a fact
and to recognize the good faith and intention
of those who differ from the position which
any one of us might prefer. For the homosex-
ual this means that he can feel a sense of sup-
port on the part of those who take the second
line. Furthermore, the various churches which
have made official statements on the matter are
tending nowadays to support the second line,
although not always with enthusiasm and some-
times with a troubled conscience.
If you are a homosexual, what you want is
real love. That love is marked by such quali-
ties as tenderness, the desire for faithful sharing
13
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Pittenger, Rev. Dr. W. Norman. Christian words to a homosexual, book, Date Unknown; Cincinnati, Ohio. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1787730/m1/7/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.