Somewhere along the way the dividing line over gay issues picked up and moved. It’s no longer between red and blue states, or left and right wings, but between nature and nurture. Or, to be more precise, between those who believe what the popular culture feels about homosexuality and those who put their faith in the Bible and Church history.
The above paragraph is not a quote, but rather a correction for Ellen Goodman’s opening salvo in her Sullivanesque screed “A Vatican Retreat on Homosexuality.â€
In a brilliant display of cluelessness regarding Christianity (only outdone by Ruth Gledhill), Ms. Goodman attempts through an emotional appeal, to shift the argument away from holy Scripture and established Church polity. Instead, intentional or not, she argues that the Catholic Church is in need of an overhaul by not basing their decisions regarding homosexual seminarians solely on the nature versus nurture argument.
An argument, if followed to its radical extreme would make allowances for advocates of drunkeness, gluttony and sloth. After all, “Americans seem reluctant to condemn people simply for who they are.†So how could we possibly discriminate against whom actively and willingly advocate and/or submit to their genetic and or chemical predispositions to alcoholism, obesity and or laziness?
In a further attempt to shift the terms of the debate to the temporal Goodman throws down the scapegoat card ignoring the impact of a thirty year practice of U.S. Catholic seminaries admitting actively gay Jesuits – without at least mentioning the alarming parallel of sexual abuse cases along that same timeframe – and at least without identifying some other reason or cause for the abuse problem.
All this energy and hyperbole when in fact all that really recently happened was the Vatican extended its prohibition on sexually active priests and seminarians to include homosexuals.
All this beefing along the lines of “what about my needs†when Christian leadership is defined by the compassionate yet convicted, suffering, sacrificial servant – in spite of whatever sin nature afflicts us most; genetic or otherwise.
“… for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” – 1 Timothy 3:4-5
update: If you’re interested in what other Christian bloggers have to say about all this, I’ve compiled a short compendium entitled “Sex in the Seminary.”
Now see, this is why I have problems with women who have newborns and go back to work. 
I want to write an exposé article about these 
