Barbarism and Righteousness
Constantine was the first Christian Emperor of Rome. He was also the first Emperor to ban gladiatorial games in 325AD. Given the long transition from the pagan to Christian, such games did not finally peter out until the 450s, with the last known gladiatorial games in Rome itself being in 404. Thus ended a tradition that is recorded as having started in 264BC, so lasting about seven centuries.
To Romans, the gladiatorial games were a mark of the triumph of their civilisation and the superiority of their culture. The public slaughter bespoke of their seriousness: of their status as a conquering, imperial people.
As the gladiatorial tradition of public slaughter was fading, a new form of public death as a mark of the seriousness of one’s civilisation was rising. In 385AD occurred the first execution for heresy. In 390AD, Emperor Valentinian II decreed death by burning for sodomy. In a series of decrees, Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the only legally permitted religion in the empire, and also codified the laws against heresy and sodomy.
In the Medieval period, Latin Christendom returned to the notion by burning by execuation. The Synod of Verona (1184) decreed death by burning for heresy, reaffirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and later authorities.
The last person burned alive on the orders of the Roman Inquisition for heresy appears to have been Giordano Bruno in 1600. The last person executed by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy was teacher Cayetano Ripoll who was garrotted in 1826. So public execution of heretics - as far as I am aware an innovation of Christian civilisation - lasted 1441 years. In England, the last person was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1612, the last execution for witchcraft was in 1686. Executing heretics proved, of course, how serious Christian civilisation was about Important Truth and the care of people’s souls.
Execution for sodomy lasted somewhat longer. The Spanish inquisition continued burning sodomites alive after if gave up burning witches in the early C17th. Capital punishment for sodomy was abolished in British law in 1861, having been part of the civil law since 1531 (prior to that it was a matter for ecclesiastical courts). Imprisonment for sodomy continued until much more recently.
Penal sanctions for homosexual acts proved how serious Christian civilisation was about the natural moral order. (Some Islamic countries still take the maximal view - the eight countries which still decree the death penalty for homosexual acts are all Islamic.) Indeed, in cases of homosexual rape it was not uncommon to also punish the victim, since they had participated (however involuntarily) in a violation of the natural order.
Even today, consent is explicitly not a defence for forbidden private sexual acts in jurisdictions such as Alabama. In the words of the Alabama statute, a person is guilty of sexual misconduct if: He or she engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another person under circumstances other than those covered by Sections 13A-6-63 and 13A-6-64. Consent is no defense to a prosecution under this subdivision. Deviate sexual misconduct is defined as: Any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. Now, this is probably in breach of the US Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v Texas, but is clearly based on Christian theology. In fact, by excluding married persons, it is more generous than Catholic sexual teaching, which requires all sexual acts to be “open to procreation” (i.e. vaginas are the only place intentional male ejaculation is to occur and it is to do so without any barrier between ejaculate and uterus).
Homosexual acts were classed as violations of the natural order. It is still Catholic teaching that to be homosexual is to be “objectively disordered”. As such, homosexual aspirations and experience literally are without value, they morally do not count. A classic example of such thinking is the claim that same-sex marriage violates traditional Western conceptions of marriage. Indeed it does: because for the best part of the last two millennia, for two males (in particular) to publicly announce they were having sex together was - depending on time and place - to make them liable to be publicly burnt, to be buried alive, to be hung, to be castrated or - in more “enlightened” times - to be imprisoned. While it has to be admitted that it is one way to get the most mileage out of all those barbecued sodomites, it is an argument which works only if you think of homosexuals as unpersons whose experience - no matter how horrific - does not count.
So Christian tradition includes burning folk alive for being actively sexually variant. Indeed, that sodomy warrants execution has been the declared position of Christian authority for most of the last 1600 years. If one is going to claim Christian tradition as an authority, then one is not in a position to cherry-pick which bits of Christian tradition are authoritative, which are representative of Christian outlook. Just as if one is going to, for example, cite Leviticus as an authority, one is not in a position to cherry pick which bit of Leviticus is authoritative.
The minute one does start cherry-picking, one is admitting that something else is the basis for the claimed authority (whatever provides the criteria for the cherry-picking).
Why is the only acceptable form of intended ejaculation unimpeded ejaculation into the vagina? Because the purpose of sex is reproduction. Any other function it has is subordinate to that.
This is a deeply stupid view. Let us suppose the average married couple is married for 25 years, has sex once a week and gets pregnant 3 times. That is once per 433 sex acts. So, something which occurs in a fraction of one percent of cases is the purpose of the act.
This is nonsense on stilts. Particularly given that sex is an act by intentional agents. Are we suggesting that married couples only have sex to have kids? Obviously not. Reproduction is the purpose of a tiny minority of sexual acts, even for penile-vaginal sex between married persons. People engage in sex for lots of reasons (the predominant one being pleasure tied closely with expressing intimacy), but reproduction is very rarely the purpose. It is certainly the most amazing possible consequence of the act, but patently not its primary purpose. To build a philosophy of sex on the basis of such a narrow, and rare, function is to be absurdly reductionist.
Once you have been so absurdly reductionist, much else follows. Including the complete moral illegitimacy of homosexuality, the “objectively disordered” nature of the homosexual condition. The Catholic Church is nothing if not logical in its thinking (hence the importance of examining the premises thereof). But it is important to understand that the theology of the Catholic Church that bars homosexuality equally bars oral sex and masturbation.
Of course, the position of the Catholic Church is that only males who do not engage in sexual activity - so do not, at least officially, have lovers, wives or families (nor, in particular, gay children or in-laws) - can make definitive judgements about the ethics of sex and family life. Lack of experience is not usually taken as a necessary defining characteristic for judgement. Having male celibates making such judgements is very much like having only blind folk design spectacles - while they may be intellectually across the issues, a certain persistent failure of perspective seems what to expect.
So, how well does this theology actually resonate with the wider public? Does it manifest a disconnection from everyday reality? In Oz, only 34% of Catholics think homosexuality is immoral.
As for behaviour, in the CDC’s recent major study of American sexual behaviour showed that “incorrect” sexual behaviour is rife - in fact, normal:
For males 15-44: 83% had had oral sex with a female, 34% anal sex with a female and 6% oral or anal sex with a male.
For females 15-24: 82% had had oral sex with a male, 30% anal sex with a male and 11% sex with a female.
How about it being human nature to be only sexually attracted to the opposite gender?
For males 15-44: 92% were only attracted to females, 4% mostly attracted to females, 1% to both, 1% mostly to males and 2% only to males.
For females 15-44: 86% were only attracted to males, 10% mostly attracted to males, 2% to both, 1% mostly to females and 1% only to females.
So only 92% of men and 86% of females are entirely “natural” in their sexual attraction. Something which is at least part of the sexual nature of 8% of men and 14% of women is hardly not part of human nature. Human sexual nature is simply variant.
The Catholic Church’s theology of sex is an exercise in reductionist fantasy: reductionist fantasy about the nature and purpose of sex and reductionist fantasy about human nature. It is not something that anyone who is actually interested in understanding the human condition should believe and it is certainly not a basis for public policy.
To Romans, the gladiatorial games were a mark of the triumph of their civilisation and the superiority of their culture. The public slaughter bespoke of their seriousness: of their status as a conquering, imperial people.
As the gladiatorial tradition of public slaughter was fading, a new form of public death as a mark of the seriousness of one’s civilisation was rising. In 385AD occurred the first execution for heresy. In 390AD, Emperor Valentinian II decreed death by burning for sodomy. In a series of decrees, Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the only legally permitted religion in the empire, and also codified the laws against heresy and sodomy.
In the Medieval period, Latin Christendom returned to the notion by burning by execuation. The Synod of Verona (1184) decreed death by burning for heresy, reaffirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and later authorities.
The last person burned alive on the orders of the Roman Inquisition for heresy appears to have been Giordano Bruno in 1600. The last person executed by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy was teacher Cayetano Ripoll who was garrotted in 1826. So public execution of heretics - as far as I am aware an innovation of Christian civilisation - lasted 1441 years. In England, the last person was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1612, the last execution for witchcraft was in 1686. Executing heretics proved, of course, how serious Christian civilisation was about Important Truth and the care of people’s souls.
Execution for sodomy lasted somewhat longer. The Spanish inquisition continued burning sodomites alive after if gave up burning witches in the early C17th. Capital punishment for sodomy was abolished in British law in 1861, having been part of the civil law since 1531 (prior to that it was a matter for ecclesiastical courts). Imprisonment for sodomy continued until much more recently.
Penal sanctions for homosexual acts proved how serious Christian civilisation was about the natural moral order. (Some Islamic countries still take the maximal view - the eight countries which still decree the death penalty for homosexual acts are all Islamic.) Indeed, in cases of homosexual rape it was not uncommon to also punish the victim, since they had participated (however involuntarily) in a violation of the natural order.
Even today, consent is explicitly not a defence for forbidden private sexual acts in jurisdictions such as Alabama. In the words of the Alabama statute, a person is guilty of sexual misconduct if: He or she engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another person under circumstances other than those covered by Sections 13A-6-63 and 13A-6-64. Consent is no defense to a prosecution under this subdivision. Deviate sexual misconduct is defined as: Any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. Now, this is probably in breach of the US Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v Texas, but is clearly based on Christian theology. In fact, by excluding married persons, it is more generous than Catholic sexual teaching, which requires all sexual acts to be “open to procreation” (i.e. vaginas are the only place intentional male ejaculation is to occur and it is to do so without any barrier between ejaculate and uterus).
Homosexual acts were classed as violations of the natural order. It is still Catholic teaching that to be homosexual is to be “objectively disordered”. As such, homosexual aspirations and experience literally are without value, they morally do not count. A classic example of such thinking is the claim that same-sex marriage violates traditional Western conceptions of marriage. Indeed it does: because for the best part of the last two millennia, for two males (in particular) to publicly announce they were having sex together was - depending on time and place - to make them liable to be publicly burnt, to be buried alive, to be hung, to be castrated or - in more “enlightened” times - to be imprisoned. While it has to be admitted that it is one way to get the most mileage out of all those barbecued sodomites, it is an argument which works only if you think of homosexuals as unpersons whose experience - no matter how horrific - does not count.
So Christian tradition includes burning folk alive for being actively sexually variant. Indeed, that sodomy warrants execution has been the declared position of Christian authority for most of the last 1600 years. If one is going to claim Christian tradition as an authority, then one is not in a position to cherry-pick which bits of Christian tradition are authoritative, which are representative of Christian outlook. Just as if one is going to, for example, cite Leviticus as an authority, one is not in a position to cherry pick which bit of Leviticus is authoritative.
The minute one does start cherry-picking, one is admitting that something else is the basis for the claimed authority (whatever provides the criteria for the cherry-picking).
Why is the only acceptable form of intended ejaculation unimpeded ejaculation into the vagina? Because the purpose of sex is reproduction. Any other function it has is subordinate to that.
This is a deeply stupid view. Let us suppose the average married couple is married for 25 years, has sex once a week and gets pregnant 3 times. That is once per 433 sex acts. So, something which occurs in a fraction of one percent of cases is the purpose of the act.
This is nonsense on stilts. Particularly given that sex is an act by intentional agents. Are we suggesting that married couples only have sex to have kids? Obviously not. Reproduction is the purpose of a tiny minority of sexual acts, even for penile-vaginal sex between married persons. People engage in sex for lots of reasons (the predominant one being pleasure tied closely with expressing intimacy), but reproduction is very rarely the purpose. It is certainly the most amazing possible consequence of the act, but patently not its primary purpose. To build a philosophy of sex on the basis of such a narrow, and rare, function is to be absurdly reductionist.
Once you have been so absurdly reductionist, much else follows. Including the complete moral illegitimacy of homosexuality, the “objectively disordered” nature of the homosexual condition. The Catholic Church is nothing if not logical in its thinking (hence the importance of examining the premises thereof). But it is important to understand that the theology of the Catholic Church that bars homosexuality equally bars oral sex and masturbation.
Of course, the position of the Catholic Church is that only males who do not engage in sexual activity - so do not, at least officially, have lovers, wives or families (nor, in particular, gay children or in-laws) - can make definitive judgements about the ethics of sex and family life. Lack of experience is not usually taken as a necessary defining characteristic for judgement. Having male celibates making such judgements is very much like having only blind folk design spectacles - while they may be intellectually across the issues, a certain persistent failure of perspective seems what to expect.
So, how well does this theology actually resonate with the wider public? Does it manifest a disconnection from everyday reality? In Oz, only 34% of Catholics think homosexuality is immoral.
As for behaviour, in the CDC’s recent major study of American sexual behaviour showed that “incorrect” sexual behaviour is rife - in fact, normal:
For males 15-44: 83% had had oral sex with a female, 34% anal sex with a female and 6% oral or anal sex with a male.
For females 15-24: 82% had had oral sex with a male, 30% anal sex with a male and 11% sex with a female.
How about it being human nature to be only sexually attracted to the opposite gender?
For males 15-44: 92% were only attracted to females, 4% mostly attracted to females, 1% to both, 1% mostly to males and 2% only to males.
For females 15-44: 86% were only attracted to males, 10% mostly attracted to males, 2% to both, 1% mostly to females and 1% only to females.
So only 92% of men and 86% of females are entirely “natural” in their sexual attraction. Something which is at least part of the sexual nature of 8% of men and 14% of women is hardly not part of human nature. Human sexual nature is simply variant.
The Catholic Church’s theology of sex is an exercise in reductionist fantasy: reductionist fantasy about the nature and purpose of sex and reductionist fantasy about human nature. It is not something that anyone who is actually interested in understanding the human condition should believe and it is certainly not a basis for public policy.