by Leo Daniele
Homophobia is a recently invented word resulting from the fusion of homosexuality + phobia. It means horror of homosexuality.
Those who empathize with that vice find such horror unwholesome. Many new words can be constructed in like fashion, such as the very up-to-date latrophobia, which expresses a horror of thieves and insecurity.
Let the reader imagine he overheard this conversation:
“We must do away with latrophobia ! Horror of thieves is an illness of our times! It is an old prejudice, just like homophobia! It is discrimination against a poor thief, a victim of society. Everything would be better if we banished from our minds this latrophobia that has everyone so concerned!”
These are crazy words! Thievery will always be evil. Therefore, latrophobia (rejection of thieves) is wholesome, and thus the whole paragraph above is nonsense. Anyone can see it.
And here I get right to the point I want to make in this article, which is to analyze the attempt to punish what is now called homophobia. If it is absurd to punish latrophobia, it is also an aberration to punish homophobia. Yet some people want to do just that.
It so happens that homosexual practice is and will always be an evil, and one that can and must be rejected. So, in a general way, what was said about latrophobia is also valid regarding homophobia.
Both thievery and homosexual practice deserve our rejection. We are not thereby equating homosexuality addicts with thieves; these are very different things. Nor are we creating any personal animosity with accusations or innuendos: we are firmly saying that both are worthy of uttermost rejection.
This is no prejudice. Prejudice is a conclusion that one reaches before due analysis. A real prejudice is to believe that homosexuality is blameless just because your neighbor is homosexual or just to follow fashion.
Obviously, we are not referring here to anyone in particular. But the Sacred Scriptures are not only clear but extremely severe regarding homosexuality.
In his epistle to the Romans (1:24-32), Saint Paul says:
“For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy ... Being ... foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”
Will the adversaries of homophobia have the courage to censure publicly the words of Saint Paul? And what about censuring the more than 2,000 years of Church history? If the Apostle lived in our times, would his words be considered a crime? Would he be called a “first degree homophobe?”
Would he be thrown in jail?
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