Queer Advocacy from a Jesuit (Surprise!)

Yah hey!

Marquette University's bunch of homosex advocates dragged out a couple of confused fellows:

Rev. Grant S. Garinger , adjunct assistant professor of performing arts and assistant professor of broadcast and electronic communication, gave the second lecture of the series on Monday. Garinger's topic was homosexuality and scripture.

In his presentation, Garinger refuted three Old Testament excerpts that are commonly used to condemn homosexuality.

Garinger cited Leviticus 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination," and Leviticus 20:13, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives," as misunderstood when taken out of context.

Garringer said these passages were really part of a larger advisory against idolatrous orgies at pagan temples.

"This is about strong family values and reminding the Hebrew people that they were God's chosen people, different from the rest," he said.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the book of Genesis, Ch. 19 were also addressed in the lecture.

"The story of Sodom and Gomorrah should be used to combat rape, domination and humiliation, not as a club against homosexuality," he said.

Twenty students attended Garinger's lecture.

"I feel like I could have a more knowledgeable discussion about the book of Leviticus and Sodom and Gomorrah now," said Nicolet Berkman, a freshman in the College of Business Administration.

The first lecture in the series was given by Daniel Maguire, a theology professor currently on sabbatical, on Feb. 20. Maguire said his topic was, "the last respectable prejudice, the prejudice against LGTB (Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual)."

He said his position was that "same-sex sex, when marked by these three things — integrity, respect and justice — is as holy as heterosexual sex."

Maguire knows a LOT about heterosex, but it's been argued that he knows very little about "integrity" with respect to same.

This twerp Garinger (SJ) is mouthing heresy--nothing altogether new for Jesuits in the last 40 years or so, but he's arguably the first Jesuit heretic brought to you by the Weather Channel.

For a look at the history of Garinger's spew, we need go no further than Blosser, quoting a homosexual Catholic who writes in sorrowful retrospective:

No single book was as influential in my own coming out as the now ex-Father John McNeill's 1976 "classic" The Church and the Homosexual. That book is to Dignity what "The Communist Manifesto" was to Soviet Russia. Most of the book is devoted to offering alternative interpretations of the biblical passages condemning homosexuality, and to putting the anti-homosexual writings of the Church Fathers and scholastics into historical context in a way that renders them irrelevant and even offensive to modern readers. The first impression of a naive and sexually conflicted young reader such as myself was that McNeill had offered a plausible alternative to traditional teaching. It made me feel justified in deciding to come out of the closet. Were his arguments persuasive? Frankly, I didn't care, and I don't believe most of McNeill's readers do either. They were couched in the language of scholarship, and they sounded plausible. That was all that mattered.

McNeill, like most of the members of his camp, treated the debate over homosexuality as first and foremost a debate about the proper interpretation of texts, texts such as the Sodom story in the Bible and the relevant articles of the Summa. The implication was that once those were reinterpreted, or rendered irrelevant, the gay rights apologists had prevailed, and the door was open for practicing homosexuals to hold their heads up high in church. And there is a certain sense in which that has proved to be true. To the extent that the debate has focused on interpreting texts, the gay apologists have won for themselves a remarkable degree of legitimacy. But that is because, as anyone familiar with the history of Protestantism should be aware, the interpretation of texts is an interminable process. The efforts of people such as McNeill don't need to be persuasive. They only need to be useful.This is how it works. McNeill reinterprets the story of Sodom, claiming that it does not condemn homosexuality, but gang rape. Orthodox theologians respond, in a commendable but naive attempt to rebut him, naive because these theologians presume that McNeill believes his own arguments, and is writing as a scholar, not as a propagandist. McNeill ignores the arguments of his critics, dismissing their objections as based on homophobia, and repeats his original position. The orthodox respond again as if they were really dealing with a theologian. And back and forth for a few more rounds. Until finally McNeill or someone like him stands up and announces, "You know, this is getting us nowhere. We have our exegesis and our theology. You have yours. Why can't we just agree to disagree?" That sounds so reasonable, so ecumenical. And if the orthodox buy into it, they have lost, because the gay rights apologists have earned a place at the table from which they will never be dislodged. Getting at the truth about Sodom and Gomorrah, or correctly parsing the sexual ethics of St. Thomas, was never really the issue. Winning admittance to Holy Communion was the issue.

(The rest of the Blosser post is even more revealing of the true "ends" of the heretical and simply fatuous claims made by McNeill and his acolyte, Garinger.)

Meanwhile, Fr. Wild looks for another $90 bazillion in gifts and Abp. Dolan proclaims himself happy with the Catholic Herald.

I smell smoke. Perhaps a couple of nice violins for them, eh?

HT: Triumvirate, again!