Exposing the Exposé, Part 1
Author: Andrew Comiskey and Marco Casanova
June 14, 2021
Eve Tushnet recently wrote an
article in America Magazine titled
‘Conversion Therapy is Still Happeningin Catholic Spaces – and its effects on L.G.B.T. people can be devastating.’ Throughout,
her supposition seems to be that some people are fundamentally (naturally)
homosexual. In other words, homosexuality is an immutable aspect of the human nature
in certain persons, especially her interviewees. Any effort to grow beyond their
homosexual condition is impossible and therefore hurtful to them.
Tushnet’s anthropology (‘LGBT
people’) skews her effort. She misuses the language of ‘orientation,’ claiming
that some (mostly) Catholic organizations seek to ‘change people’s ‘sexual
orientation,’ and ‘create a heterosexual identity for someone who experiences
same-sex attraction.’ Tushnet is herself a ‘gay-identified’ Catholic. She
extends that mantle over each ‘victim’ of reparative therapy who she mines for
anecdotal evidence. She gets what she assumes. Examining brokenness that
undergirds same-sex desires and seeking restoration for core contributors
(family-of-origin fractures, sexual trauma, early peer rejection and isolation,
etc.) is futile. Why? These persons have a fixed, immutable same-sex
orientation. She concludes what she presumes: attempting to move beyond a
homosexual ‘orientation’ damages ‘gay’ people and anyone who encourages such
repair is abusive.
In challenging Eve’s faulty
starting point, we must look at the essence of human nature. Pope
Benedict XVI prophetically spells out the pivotal call to revere man’s nature.
He says: ‘Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot
manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not
create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will
is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself
for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other,
is true human freedom fulfilled.’[1]
We as human beings do not
determine our orientation. Humanity’s orientation is determined by the One who
created us. Our orientation is not ‘gay’ or ‘straight.’ Our orientation is determined
by the design written in our beings. Our bodies are the key to our orientation.
To claim that orientation is fixed by mere sexual appetites forfeits the design.
When we look at the nature of
the human person, we can then determine our destiny, direction, orientation. J.
Budziszewski writes: ‘A natural inclination is not whatever I desire…the point
of the adjective “natural” is precisely to call attention to design. It is
natural for me to be attracted to the opposite sex, even if I am attracted to
my own…it is natural for me to eat a varied diet, even if I prefer nothing but
donuts. It is natural for me to use my lungs to take in oxygen, even if I am
addicted to sniffing glue. The mere fact that I want something means little by
itself…what matters is not how we incline…what matters is how we naturally
incline – by the design, according to the Designer.’[2]
We cannot say that one who
experiences disordered desire (e.g., same-sex desires) is somehow disqualified
from these foundational starting points. To presume so mars human nature. We
mar our nature when we deem a ‘gay’ identity natural. The ‘gay’ identity manipulates
orientation as to accommodate a sexual desire not written in the logic of the
design. Wrong presuppositions skew reality. To do so binds our freedom, poisons
our Catholic ethos, and offends the Designer.
It also throws thoroughbred healers
under the bus, as Eve does in her article. We at DSM take issue with her
indictment of caregivers whom she sullies by ascribing questionable ‘anecdotes’
to them. Next week we shall examine how persons who change their narratives,
e.g., ‘I used to seek restoration for wounds related to my same-sex desires but
now I just want to be “gay”’ revise history and demonize the healers who once
helped them.
[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness
Benedict XVI: Reichstag Building, Berlin (22 September 2011), at The Holy See,
www.vatican.va.
[2] J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know (Dallas:
Spence Publishing Company, 2003).
BACK